unwilling to grant him and offered to let him hold his Place still he doing what Business he could in his Chamber but he said he could not with a good Conscience continue in it since he was no longer able to discharge the Duty belonging to it But yet such was the General Satisfaction which all the Kingdom received by his Excellent Administration of Justice that the King though he could not well deny his Request yet he deferred the Granting of it as long as was possible Nor could the Lord Chancellor be prevailed with to move the King to hasten his Discharge though the Cheif Iustice often pressed him to it At last having wearied himself and all his Friends with his importunate desires and growing sensibly weaker in Body he did upon the 21 th day of February 28. Car. 2. Anno Dom. 1675 6. go before a Master of the Chancery with a little Parchment Deed drawn by Himself and Written all with his own hand and there Sealed and delivered it and acknowledged it to be Enrolled and afterwards he brought the Original Deed to the Lord Chancellor and did formally surrender his Office in these words Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos praesens Scriptura pervenerit Matheus Hale miles Capitalis Iusticiarius Domini Regis ad placita-coram ipso Rege tenenda assignatas Saluâ—em in Domino Sempiternam Noveritis me praefatum Matheum Hale militem jam senem factum Variis Corporis mei Senilis morbis infirmitatibus dire Laborantem adhuc Detentum Hâc Chartâ mea Resignare sursum reddere Serenissimo Domino Nostro Carolo Secundo Dei Gratià Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Regi Fidei Defensori c. Predictum Officium Capitalis Iusticiarii ad placâ—ta coram ipso Rege tenenda humillime petens quod hoc Scriptum irrotaletur de Recordo In cujus rei Testimonium huic chartae meae Resignationis Sigillum meum apposui Dat vicesimo primo Die Februarii Anno Regnidict Dom. Regis nunc Vicesimo Octavo He made this Instrument as he told the L. Chancellor for two Endâ— the one was to shew the World his own free Concurrence to his Removal Another was to obviate an Objection heretofore made that a Cheif Iustice being placed by Writ was not removable at pleasure as Iudges by Patent were Which opinion as he said was once held by his Predecessor the Lord Cheif Iustice Keyling and though he himself were always of another opinion yet he thought it reasonable to prevent such a Scruple He had the day before surrendered to the King in Person who parted from him with great Grace wishing him most heartily the return of his Health and assuring him that he would still look upon him as one of his Iudges and have recourse to his Advice when his Health would permit and in the mean time would continue his Pension during his Life The Good man thought this Bounty too great and an ill Precedent for the King and therefore Writ a Letter to the Lord Treasurer earnestly desiring that his Pension might be only during Pleasure but the King would grant it for Life and make it payable Quarterly And yet for a whole Month together he would not suffer his Servant to Sue out his Patent for his Pension and when the first Payment was received he ordered a great part of it to Charitable Uses and said he intended most of it should be so Employed as long as it was paid him At last he happened to Die upon the Quarter day which was Christmas day and though this might have given some occasion to a dispute whither the Pension for that Quarter were recoverable yet the King was pleased to decide that Matter against himself and ordered the Pension to be paid to his Executors As soon as he was discharged from his great Place he returned home with as much Chearfulness as his want of Health could admit of being now eased of a Burthen he had been of late groaning under and so made more capable of Enjoying that which he had much wished for according to his Elegant Translation of or rather Paraphrase upon those excellent Lines in Seneca's Thyestes Act. 2. Stet quicunque volet potens Aulae culmine lubrico Me dulcis Saturet quies Obscuro positus loco Leni perfruar otio Nullis nota Quiritibus Aetas per tacitum fluat Sic cum Transierint mei Nullo cum Strepitu dies Plebeius moriar Senex Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nimis omnibus Ignotus moritur sibi Let him that will ascend the tâ—ttering Seat Of courtly Grandeur and become as great As are his mounting Wishes As for me Let sweet repose and rest my Portion be Give me some mean obscure Recess a Sphere Out of the Road of Business or the fear Of falling lower where I sweetly may My self and dear retirement still enjoy Let not my Life or Name be known unto The Grandees of the Time to'st too and fro By Censures or Applause but let my Age Slide gently by not overthwart the Stage Of publick Action unheard unseen And unconcern'd as if I near had been And thus while I shall pass my silent days In shady privacy free from the Noise And bustles of the mad World then shall I A good old Innocent Plebeian Die. Death is a mere Surprise a very Snare To him that makes it his Lifes greatest Care To be a publick Pageant known to all But unacquainted with himself doth fall Having now attained to that Privacy which he had no less seriously than piously wished for he called all his Servants that had belonged to his Office together and told them he had now laid down his Place and so their Imployments were determined upon that he advised them to see for themselves and gave to some of them very considerable Presents and to every one of them a Token and so dismissed all those that were not his Domesticks He was discharged the fifteenth of February 1675 6 And lived till the Christmas following but all the while was in so ill a State of Health that there was no hopes of his Recovery he continued still to retire often both for his Devotions and Studies and as long as he could go went constantly to his Closseâ— and when his Infirmities encreased on him so that he was not able to go thither himself he made his Servants carry him thither in a Chair At last as the Winter came on he saw with great Joy his deliverance approaching for besides his being weary of the World and his longings for the Blessedness of another State his Pains encreased so on him that no Patience inferiour to his could have born them without a great uneasiness of mind yet he expressed to the last such submission to the will of God and so equal a Temper under them that it was visible then what mighty Effects his Philosophy and Christianity had on him in supporting him under such a heavy Load He could not
THE Life and Death OF Sir Kt. SOMETIME LORD CHIEF IUSTICE OF His Majesties Court OF KINGS BENCH Written by GILBERT BURNETT D.D. LONDON Printed for William Shrowsbery at the Bible in Duke-Lane 1681. THE PREFACE NO part of History is more instructive and delighting than the Lives of great and worthy Men The shortness of them invites many Readers and there are such little and yet remarkable passages in them too inconsiderable to be put in a general History of the Age in which they lived that all people are very desirous to know them This makes Plutarch's Lives be more generally Read than any of all the Books which the ancient Greeks or Romans Writ But the lives of Hero's and Princes are commonly filled with the account of the great things done by them which do rather belong to a general than a particular History and do rather amuse the Reader 's fancy with a splendid shew of greatness than offer him what is really so useful to himself And indeed the Lives of Princes are either Writ with so much flattery by those who intended to merit by it at their own hands or others concerned in them Or with so much spite by those who being ill used by them have revenged themselves on their Memory that there is not much to be built on them And though the ill nature of many makes what is Satyrically writ to be generally more read and believed than when the flattery is visible and course yet certainly Resentment may make the Writer corrupt the truth of History as much as Interest And since all Men have their blind sides and commit Errors he that will industriously lay these together leaving out or but slightly touching what should be set against them to ballance them may make a very good Man appear in very bad Colours So upon the whole matter there is not that reason to expect either much truth or great instruction from what is written concerning Hero's or Princes for few have been able to imitate the patterns Suetonius set the World in writing the Lives of the Roman Emperours with the same freedom that they had led them But the Lives of private Men though they seldom entertain the Reader with such a variety of passages as the other do Yet certainly they offer him things that are more imitable and do present Wisdom and Virtue to him not only in a fair Idea which is often look't on as a piece of the Invention or Fancy of the Writer but in such plain and familiar instances as do both direct him better and perswade him more And there are not such temptations to biass those who writ them so that we may generally depend more on the truth of such relations as are given in them In the age in which we live Religion and Virtue have been proposed and defended with such advantages with that great force of reason and those perswasions that they can hardly be matched in former times yet after all this there are but few much wrought on by them which perhaps flows from this among other reasons that there are not so many excellent Patterns set out as might both in a shorter and more effectual manner recommend that to the World which discourses do but coldly The wit and stile of the Writer being more considered than the argument which they handle and therefore the proposing Virtue and Religion in such a Model may perhaps operate more than the perspective of it can do and for the History of Learning nothing does so preserve and improve it as the writing the Lives of those who have been eminent in it There is no Book the ancients have left us which might have informed us more than Diogenes Laertius his Lives of the Philosophers if he had had the art of writing equal to that great Subject which he undertook for if he had given the World such an account of them as Gassendus has done of Peiresk how great a stock of knowledge might we have had which by his unskilfulness is in a great measure lost Since we must now depend only on him because we have no other or better Author that has written on that Argument For many Ages there were no Lives writ but by Monks through whose writings there runs such an incurable humour of telling incredible and inimitable passages that little in them can be believed or proposed as a pattern Sulpitius Severus and Jerom shewed too much credulity in the Lives they writ and raised Martin and Hilarion beyond what can be reasonably believed after them Socrates Theodoret Sozomen and Palladius took a pleasure to tell uncouth stories of the Monks of Thebais and Nitria and those who came after them scorned to fall short of them but raised their Saints above those of former Ages so that one would have thought that undecent way of writing could rise no higher and this humour infected even those who had otherwise a good sense of things and a just apprehension of Mankind as may appear in Matthew Paris who though he was a Writer of great Iudgement and fidelity yet he has corrupted his History with much of that Alloy But when emulation and envy rose among the several Orders or Houses then they improved in that art of making Romances instead of writing Lives to that pitch that the World became generally much scandalized with them The Franciscans and Dominicans tried who could say the most extravagant things of the Founders or other Saints of their Orders and the Benedictines who thought themselves possest of the belief of the World as well as of its wealth endeavoured all that was possible still to keep up the dignity of their Order by outlying the others all they could and whereas here or there a Miracle a Vision or Trance might have occurred in the Livâ—s of former Saints now every page was full of those wonderfull things Nor has the humour of writing in such a manner been quite laid down in this Age though more awakned and better enlightned as appears in the Life of Philip Nerius and a great many more And the Jesuits at Antwerp are now taking care to load the World with a vast and voluminous Collection of all those Lives that has already swelled to eleven Volumes in Folio in a small Print and yet being digested according to the Kalender they have yet but ended the Month of April The Life of Monsieur Renty is writ in another manner where there are so many excellent passages that he is justly to be reckoned amongst the greatest patterns that France has afforded in this age But while some have nourished Infidelity and a scorn of all sacred things by writing of those good Men in such a strain as makes not only what is so related to be disbelieved but creates a distrust of the authentical writings of our most holy faith others have fallen into another extream in writing Lives too â—ejunely swelling them up with trifling accounts of the Childhood and Education and the
the immoral and irreligious Principles and Practices that had so long vexed his Righteous Soul And therefore began a great design against Atheisme the first part of which is only Printed of the Origination of Mankind designed to prove the Creation of the World and the truth of the Mosaical History The Second part was of the Nature of the Soul and of a future State The Third part was concerning the Attributes of God both from the abstracted Idea's of him and the Light of Nature the Evidence of Providence the notions of Morality and the voice of Conscience And the Fourth part was concerning the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures with Answers to the Objections against them On writing these he spent Seven years He Wrote them with so much Consideration that one who perused the Original under his own hand which was the first draught of it told me he did not remember of any considerable Alteration perhaps not of twenty words in the whole Work The way of his Writing them only on the Evenings of the Lords Day when he was in Town and not much oftner when he was in the Country made that they are not so contracted as it is very likely he would have writ them if he had been more at leisure to have brought his thoughts into a narrower Compass and fewer words But making some Allowance for the largeness of the Stile that Volum that is Printed is generally acknowledged to be one of the perfectest pieces both of Learning and Reasoning that has been Writ on that Subject And he who read a great part of the other Volumes told me they were all of a piece with the first When he had finished this Work he sent it by an unknown hand to Bishop Wilkins to desire his Judgment of it But he that brought it would give no other Account of the Authour but that he was not a Clergy man The Bishop and his worthy Friend Dr. Tillotson read a great deal of it with much pleasure but could not imagine who could be the Author and how a Man that was Master of so much Reason and so great a variety of Knowledge should be so unknown to them that they could not find him out by those Characters which are so little Common At last Dr. Tillotson guessed it must be the Lord Cheif Baron to which the other presently agreed wondring he had been so long in finding it out So they went immediately to him and the Bishop thanking him for the Entertainment he had received from his Works he blushed extreamly not without some displeasure apprehending that the Person he had trusted had discovered him But the Bishop soon cleared that and told him he had discovered himself for the learning of that Book was so various that none but he could be the Author of it And that Bishop having a freedom in delivering his opinion of things and Persons which perhaps few ever managed both with so much plainness and Prudence told him there was nothing could be better said on these Arguments if he could bring it into a less Compass but if he had not leisure for that he thought it much better to have it come out though a little too large than that the World should be deprived of the good which it must needs do But our Iudge had never the opportunities of revising it so a little before his Death he sent the first part of it to the Press In the beginning of it he gives an Essay of his Excellent way of Methodizing things in which he was so great a Master that whatever he undertook he would presently cast into so perfect a Scheme that he could never afterwards Correct it He runs out Copiously upon the Argument of the Impossibility of an Eternal Succession of Time to shew that Time and Eternity are inconsistent one with another And that therefore all Duration that was past and defined by Time could not be from Eternity and he shews the difference between successive Eternity already past and one to come So that though the latter is possible the former is not so for all the parts of the former have actually been and therefore being defined by Time cannot be Eternal whereas the other are still future to all Eternity so that this reasoning cannot be turned to prove the possibility of Eternal Successions that have been as well as Eternal Successions that shall be This he follows with a Strength I never met with in any that Managed it before him He brings next all those Moral Arguments to prove that the World had a beginning agreeing to the Account Moses gives of it as that no History rises higher than near the time of the Deluge and that the first Foundation of Kingdoms the Invention of Arts the Beginnings of all Religions the gradual Plantation of the World and Increase of Mankind and the Consent of Nations do agree with it In managing these as he shews profound Skill both in Historical and Philosophical Learning so he gives a Noble Discovery of his great Candor and Probity that he would not Impose on the Reader with a false shew of reasoning by Arguments that he knew had Flawes in them and therefore upon every one of these he adds such Allays as in a great measure lessened and took off their force with as much Exactness of Judgment and strictness of Censure as if he had been set to Plead for the other Side And indeed Sums up the whole Evidence for Religion as impartially as ever he did in a Tryal for Life or Death to the Iury which how Equally and Judiciously he always did the whole Nation well knows After that he Examines the Ancient Opinions of the Philosophers and inlarges with a great variety of curious Reflections in answering that only Argument that has any appearance of Strength for the Casual production of Man from the origination of Insects out of putrified Matter as is commonly supposed and he concluded the Book shewing how Rational and Philosophical the Account which Moses gives of it is There is in it all a sagacity and quickness of Thought mixed with great and curious Learning that I confess I never met together in any other Book on that Subject Among other Conjectures one he gives concerning the Deluge is that he did not think the Face of the Earth and the Waters were altogether the same before the Universal Deluge and after But possibly the Face of the Earth was more even than now it is The Seas possibly more dilated and extended and not so deep as now And a little after possibly the Seas have undermined much of the appearing Continent of Earth This I the rather take notice of because it hath been since his Death made out in a most Ingenious and most Elegantly Writ Book by Mr. Burnet of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge who has given such an Essay towards the proving the possibility of an universal Deluge and from thence has Collected with great Sagacity what Paradise
Gentleman happened to be retain'd to argue a point in Law where he was on the contrary side he would very often mend the Objections when he came to repeat them and always Commend the Gentleman if there were room for it and one good word of his was of more advantage to a young Man than all the favour of the Court could be Having thus far pursued his History and Character in the publick and Exemplary parts of his Life without interrupting the thread of the Relation with what was private and Domestick I shall conclude with a short account of these He was twice Married his first Wife was Anne Daughter of Sir Henry Moore of Faly in Berkshire Grandchild to Sir Francis Moore Serjeant at Law by her he had Ten Children the four first Died young the other six lived to be all Married And he out lived them all except his eldest Daughter and his youngest Son who are yet alive His eldest Son Robert Married Frances the Daughter of Sir Francis Chock of Avington in Berkshire and they both dying in a little time one after another left five Children two Sons Matthew and Gabriel and three Daughters Anne Mary and Frances and by the Iudges advice they both made him their Executor so he took his Grandchildren into his own Care and among them he left his Estate His second Son Matthew Married Anne the Daughter of Mr. Matthew Simmonds of Hilsley in Glocestershire who dyed soon after and left one Son behind him named Matthew His third Son Thomas Married Rebekah the Daughter of Christian Le Brune a Dutch Merchant and Died without Issue His fourth Son Edward Married Mary the Daughter of Edmund Goodyere Esq of Heythorp in Oxfordshire and still lives he has two Sons and three Daughters His eldest Daughter Mary was Married to Edward Alderly Son of Edward Alderly of Innishannon in the County of Cork in Ireland who dying left her with two Sons and three Daughters she is since Married to Edward Stephens Son to Edward Stephens Esq of Cherington in Glocestershire His youngest Daughter Elizabeth was Married to Edward Webb Esq Barrister at Law she Died leaving two Children a Son and a Daughter His second Wife was Anne the Daughter of Mr. Ioseph Bishop of Ealy in Berkshire by whom he had no Children He gives her a great Character in his Will as a most dutiful faithful and loving Wife and therefore trusted the breeding of his Grand-Children to her Care and left her one of his Executors to whom he joyned Sir Robert Ienkinson and Mr. Gibbon So much may suffice of those descended from him In after times it is not to be doubted but it will be reckoned no small Honour to derive from him And this has made me more particular in reckoning up his Issue I shall next give an account of the Issues of his Mind his Books that are either Printed or remain in Manuscript for the last of these by his Will he has forbid the Printing of any of them after his Death except such as he should give order for in his Life But he seems to have changed his mind afterwards and to have left it to the descretion of his Executors which of them might be Printed for though he does not express that yet he ordered by a Codicill that if any Book of his Writing as well touching the Common Law as other Subjects should be Printed then what should be given for the Consideration of the Copy should be divided into Ten shares of which he appointed Seven to go among his Servants and Three to those who had Copied them out and were to look after the Impression The reason as I have understood it that made him so unwilling to have any of his Works Printed after his Death was That he apprehended in the Licensing them which was necessary before any Book could be lawfully Printed by a Law then in force but since his Death determined some things might have been struck out or altered which he had observed not without some Indignation had been done to a part of the Reports of one whom he had much Esteemed This in matters of Law he said might prove to be of such mischievous Consequence that he thereupon resolved none of his Writings should be at the Mercy of Licensers And therefore because he was not sure that they should be Published without Expurgations or Interpolations he forbid the Printing any of them in which he afterwards made some Alteration at least he gave occasion by his Codicill to infer that he altered his mind This I have the more fully explained that his last Will may be no way misunderstood and that his worthy Executors and his Hopeful Grand-Children may not conclude themselves to be under an Indispensible obligation of depriving the publick of his excellent Writings A Catalogue of all his Books that are Printed and are to be Sold by William Shrowsbury at the Sign of the Bible in Duke-lane 1. THe primitive Origination of Mankind considered and examined according to the light of Nature Fol. 2. Contemplations Moral and Divine part 1. Octavo 3. Contemplations Moral and Divine part 2. Octavo 4. Difficiles Nugae or Observations touching the Torricellian Experiment and the various solutions of the same especially touching the Weight and Elasticity of the Air. Octavo 5. An Essay touching the Gravitation or Non-Gravitation of fluid Bodies and the Reasons thereof Octavo 6. Observations touching the principles of natural Motions and especially touching Rarefaction and Condensation together with a Reply to certain Remarks touching the Gravitation of Fluids Octavo 7. The Life and Death of Pomponius Atticus written by his Contemporary and Acquaintance Cornelius Nepos translated out of his Fragments together with Observations Political and Moral thereupon Octavo 8. Pleas of the Crown or a methodical Summary of the principal matters relating to that Subject Octavo Manuscripts of his not yet Published 1. COncerning the secondary Origination of Mankind Fol. 2. Concerning Religion 5 Vol. in Fol. viz. 1. De Deo Vox Metaphysica pars 1. 2. 2. Pars 3. Vox Naturae Providentiae Ethicae Conscientiae 3. Liber sextus septimus Octavus 4. Pars 9. Concerning the H. Scriptures their Evidence and Authority 5. Concerning the Truth of the H. Scripture and the Evidences thereof 3. Of Policy in matters of Religion Fol. 4. De Anima to Mr. B. Fol. 5. De Anima Transactions between him and Mr. B. Fol. 6. Tentamina de ortu natura immortalitate Animae Fol. 7. Magnetismus Magneticus Fol. 8. Magnetismus Physicus Fol. 9. Magnetismus Divinus 10. De generatione Animalium Vegetabilium Fol. Lat. 11. Of the Law of Nature Fol. 12. A Letter of advice to his Grand-Children Quarto 13. Placita Coronae 7 Vol. Fol. 14. Preparatory Notes concerning the Right of the Crown Fol 15. Incepta de Iuribus Coronae Fol. 16. De Prerogativa Regis Fol. 17. Preparatory Notes touching Parliamentary proceedings 2 Vol. Quarto 18. Of the