layman and the lawyer, a standpoint that served his purpose admirably well. At the same time it cannot escape remark that in a period of the wildest fanaticism his utterances from a Puritan point of view are singularly lukewarm and lacking in that violence of rant which was so much emulated and admired.
It seems probable that Hopkins[1] at first found the legal profession singularly unremunerative, or else he had no opportunity of displaying his particular skill, since he is spoken of as “a lawyer of but little note” at Ipswich, whence with the idea, no doubt, of bettering his prospects he removed to the small town of Manningtree[2] in Essex. It was here, as he has himself told us, that an accident diverted his attention in another direction and that he saw a fine career awaiting the man who, taking advantage of the terrible disorders of the time, could employ for his own benefit the malevolence and rancour which are invariably most dangerous when bloodshed and anarchy threaten the stability of religion and society in some unfortunate land.
It does not seem probable that Hopkins had made any great preparations when he so rashly and so wrongfully embarked upon a concern which should only be undertaken under the stern pressure of actual duty. It is a business from which many men, and these not the least brave, have shrunk, inasmuch as all those whose terrible duty it is to investigate these matters, whether as in the past in the Episcopal or Inquisitorial Courts, or whether in judicial and scholarly
