the parties. Coke having previously ob served to the court that he knew with whom he had to deal, — that he had " to deal to day with a man of wit, — turned himself toward Sir Walter, and said, ' Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived.' "Raleigh. You speak indiscreetly, bar barously, and uncivilly. "Coke. I want words sufficiently to ex press thy viperous treason. "Raleigh. I think you want words in deed; for you have spoken one thing half-adozen times. "Coke. Thou art an odious fellow; thy name is hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride. "Raleigh. It will go near to prove a measuring cast between you and me, Mr. Attorney. "Coke. Well, I will now make it appear to the world that there never lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou. Thou art a monster; thou hast an English face, but a Spanish heart. Thou viper! for I thou thee, thou traitor! Have I angered you?" "Raleigh," observes DTsraeli, replied, — what his dauntless conduct proved, — "I am in no case to be angry." But Raleigh was not the only great man who was thus abused by Coke. The Earl of Sussex was subjected to similar treatment at his hands. So also was no less a man than the illustrious Lord Bacon himself. That the vituperation which Coke heaped on Bacon must have been of the worst and coarsest kind may be inferred from the fact that Bacon left among his memoranda one in the following terms : " Of the abuse re ceived of Mr. Attorney-General publicly in the Court of Exchequer." Smollett, the celebrated novelist, was also subjected to the virulent vituperation of one Mr. Hume Campbell, who acted as counsel
for the plaintiff in a suit in which Smollett was the defendant. Smarting under the in sults he had received, the novelist wrote a scathing letter to Campbell, from which, we make a few extracts : — "The business of a counsellor is, I apprehend, to investigate the truth in behalf of his client; but surely he has no privilege to blacken and asperse the character of the other party, without any regard to veracity or decorum. That you assumed this unwarrantable privilege in comment ing upon your brief, I believe you will not preteml to deny. . . . The petulance, license, and buffoon ery of some lawyers in the exercise of their func tions is a reproach upon decency and a scandal to the nation; and it is surprising that the judge, who represents his Majesty's person, should suffer such insults upon the dignity of the place. . . . You will take upon you to divert the audience at the expense of a witness, by impertinent allu sions to some parts of his private character and affairs; but if he pretends to retort the joke, you insult, abuse, and bellow against him as an im pudent fellow who fails in his respect to the court. . . . Sir, a witness has as good title as you have to the protection of the court, and ought to have more; because evidence is absolutely necessary for the investigation of truth, whereas the aim of a lawyer is often to involve it in doubt and obscurity." Great as is the extent to which the brow beating system is still carried on in our courts of law, we are not so bad in this respect as our ancestors were. No counsel, we believe, even if he had the disposition, would be suffered to apostrophize any party to a trial in the terms in which Coke ad dressed Sir Walter Raleigh. It is but jus tice, also, to a very considerable portion of the profession to say, that they not only dis claim in words the browbeating practice, but that they also discountenance it in their con duct of a cause; and we have no doubt that in the course of time it will be abandoned altogether.
