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SHAFTESBURY, EARL OF. 



SHAFTESBURY, EARL OF. 



136 



study of theology and law, and soon became distinguished in both 

 those sciences. He was gifted with so wonderful a memory, that he 

 could repeat a whole volume after reading it twice over. He is con- 

 sidered the first Mohammedan doctor who discoursed of jurisprudence, 

 and methodised that science. To his attainments in all branches of 

 theology Shftfei added many other literary accomplishments. Ho was 

 an excellent poet, and used to deliver lectures on the works of the 

 ancient Arabian poets, explaining the difficult passages, and astonishing 

 his auditory with the extent of his erudition. His contemporary Ibn 

 Hanbal used to say of him, that he was " as the sun to the world, and 

 as health to the body." His assiduity was such, that he used to divide 

 the night into three parts, one for study, another for prayer, and the 

 third for sleep. Shdfei died in Egypt, A.H. 204 (A.D. 819). He left 

 several works, which are held in great esteem by the Mohammedans. 

 The principal is his treatise on the ' Ossul,' or fundamental principles 

 of Isliiin; his 'Sunun' and his ' Masnad,' two other works on the same 

 subject, have found numerous commentators. The Shdfeites spread 

 formerly about Mawara-1-nahar, or Transoxiana ; they are now met 

 with in every Mohammedan country, but chiefly in Arabia and in 

 India. 



SHAFTESBURY, ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, FIRST EARL 

 OF, was the son of Sir John Cooper, of Rockborne in Hampshire, 

 who was created a baronet in 1622, and of his wife Anne, only daughter 

 and heiress of Sir Anthony Ashley, of Wimborne St Giles's, in Dorset- 

 shire, who had been secretary-at-war to Queen Elizabeth. He was 

 born at Wimborne St. Giles's, 22nd July 1621, and inherited the 

 estates both of his father and of his maternal grandfather, the latter 

 especially being of great extent. His father died in 1631. 



Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (or Cowper, as the name is sometimes 

 written) was entered of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1636; and in 1638 

 he became a student of law at Lincoln's Inn. While yet however only 

 in his nineteenth year, having already excited great expectations by 

 his talents, he was called into public life by being returned as one of 

 the members for Tewkesbury to the parliament which met in April 

 1640. He did not sit in the next the Long Parliament, which met 

 in NWember that year; but he continued to adhere to the royal 

 interest till he was deprived, in 1643, of the government of Weymouth, 

 upon which says Clarendon, " he gave himself up, body and soul, to the 

 service of the parliament, with an implacable animosity against the 

 royal interest." The next year, having raised a force in Dorsetshire 

 under a parliamentary commission, he stormed the town of Wareham, 

 and reduced all the surrounding country. But he appears to have 

 been afterwards suspected of still retaining a secret attachment to the 

 royal cause. Nevertheless he was called upon to sit as one of the 

 members for Wiltshire in the first (Barebone's) parliament assembled 

 by Cromwell after his dissolution of the Long Parliament, 28th April 

 1653 ; and by this parliament or convention he was repeatedly 

 appointed one of the Protector's council of state, in which capacity 

 however it is affirmed that he gave a strenuous opposition to Crom- 

 well's designs. He represented the town of Poole in the next parlia- 

 ment, which met 3rd September 1654 : and he was also a member of 

 Oliver's last parliament, which assembled 17th September 1656, and 

 of that convened by Richard, 27th January 1659. 



Notes of many of his speeches during this part of his life are pre- 

 served by Burton ; and he is said, by Anthony Wood, to be the person 

 by whom a very long and remarkable one was delivered in March, 

 1659, which was published soon after in a pamphlet under the title of 

 ' A seasonable Speech made by a worthy Member of Parliament in the 

 House of Commons concerning the other House.' It handles the 

 memory of the deceased Protector with great severity. 



After the deposition of Richard Cromwell, Sir Anthony, although 

 he did not enter into any direct correspondence with the king, 

 incurred the suspicion of the council of state, and was for a time in 

 some danger. He continued however to pursue his object with equal 

 perseverance and address, and his vigilance and activity in watching 

 and taking advantage of every turn in the progress of events were 

 undoubtedly of great service in helping to bring about the Restoration. 

 In the Convention Parliament, which met 20th April 1660, Sir 

 Anthony was one of the select committee appointed to draw up the 

 invitation to the king ; and he was also one of the commissioners sent 

 over to Breda. Monk indeed, the apparent author of the Restoration, 

 appeared to have been almost wholly in the hands of Sir Anthony, 

 and to have acted under his direction. 



As soon as Charles had come over, Sir Anthony, besides being 

 appointed governor of the Isle of Wight, colonel of a regiment of 

 horse, and lord-lieutenant of the county of Dorset, was made chancel- 

 lor of the exchequer and a privy councillor ; and the following year 

 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Ashley of Wimborne St. Giles. 

 In the patent it was acknowledged that the Restoration was chiefly 

 owing to him, and that the nation had been delivered from the evils 

 in which it was involved w by his wisdom and counsels, in concert 

 with General Monk." Hr also sat as one of the commissioners of 

 oyer and termiuer on the trial of the regicides, in October 1670, a 

 display of zeal which, all things considered, was thought not to argue 

 much delicacy of feeling. 



As chancellor of the exchequer, serving under his relation and inti- 

 mate friend the Earl of Southampton, lord treasurer, who was in bad 

 health, Lord Ashley is said to have had almost the entire management 



of the treasury in his own hands. But both in council and in parlia- 

 ment, so long as Clarendon retained his influence, he was found acting 

 with what we may call the opposition section of the ministry. He 

 did what he could to resist the Uniformity Bill, and the other similar 

 measures directed against the dissenters (actuated, as Clarendon 

 affirms, by his indifference to all religion) ; and he also opposed the 

 French connection, the sale of Dunkirk, and the war with the Dutch. 

 Clarendon, to whom Ashley appeared to have uo principle, admits 

 that he epoke " with great sharpness of wit, and had a cadence in his 

 words and pronunciation that drew attention." On the death of 

 Southampton, in May 1667, Ashley, retaining his office of chancellor 

 of the exchequer, was appointed one of the commissioners for execut- 

 ing the office of lord treasurer. A treaty of commerce was concluded 

 with Spain in the same month, the instructions for which were drawn 

 up by Ashley ; and the peace with Holland and the fall of Clarendon 

 followed in August of the same year. 



But when Charles's natural inclinations, and the influence of the 

 Duke of York, brought about a renewal of the old connection with 

 France, Ashley, after very little hesitation, yielded to the current ; 

 and his name is one of those immortalised under tho comprehensive 

 designation of the Cabal Ministry, which, in 1670, concluded the new 

 French treaty, began the establishment of a system of arbitrary 

 domestic government, and, within two years, involved the country 

 again in a war with Holland. Ashley however is not accused of having 

 received any of the French gold with which some of his associates 

 were bribed on this occasion, and he appears to have resisted, though 

 ineffectually, some of the worst proceedings of the government, par- 

 ticularly the shutting up of the exchequer in January 1672, of which 

 he has been charged by some writers with being the adviser. It was 

 by his advice that Charles published the celebrated declaration for 

 suspending the execution of the penal laws against the Nonconformists 

 and Recusants, in March 1672 ; but Ashley seems to have regarded 

 this act as no illegal stretch of authority : he afterwards maintained, 

 in a warm argument on the subject with Locke, who enjoyed much of 

 his intimacy and confidence, not only that the king's supremacy 

 entitled him to do many things in ecclesiastical which he could not do 

 in civil matters, but further, ll that a government could not be sup- 

 posed, whether monarchical or of any other sort, without a standing 

 supreme executive power, fully enabled to mitigate or wholly to 

 suspend the execution of any penal law in the intervals of the legislative 

 power." To attempt to cure the occasional inconveniences of particular 

 laws by means of a legislative power always in being, he contended 

 was, " when considered, no other than a perfect tyranny." 



In April 1672 Ashley was created Earl of Shaftesbury; and in 

 November following, on the resignation of Sir Orlando Bridgman, who 

 is said to have refused to put the great seal to the declai-atiou of 

 indulgence, he was raised to the place of lord chancellor. His conduct 

 in this office has been represented in very opposite lights; but it 

 appears that, without much knowledge of law, his natural sagacity 

 enabled him to do substantial justice in most cases that came before 

 him, and to acquit himself to the satisfaction both of the public and 

 the profession. Roger North, in his ' Examen,' asserts that he began 

 by trampling on all the forms of his court, and cutting and slashing 

 after his own fancy ; but the bar, he adds, " soon found his humour, 

 and let him have his caprice, and after, upon notice, moved him to 

 discharge his orders ; and thereupon, having the advantage, upon the 

 opening, to be heard at large, they showed him his face, and that what 

 he did was against common justice and sense; and this speculum 

 of his own ignorance and presumption, coming to be laid before him 

 every motionday, did so intricate and embarrass his understanding, 

 that in a short time, like any haggard hawk that is not let sleep, he 

 was entirely reclaimed." So that, as Roger expresses it, in the Life of 

 his brother, the Lord Keeper Guilford, he came, as is said of the 

 month of March, " in like a lion and out like a lamb." It is asserted 

 however that none of his decrees were reversed. The tribute which 

 Dry den pays to both his integrity and his ability as a judge in the 

 otherwise severe character he has drawn of him in his ' Absalom and 

 Achitophel/ is well known : 



" In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin 

 With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean ; 

 Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, 

 Swift of despatch, and easy of access." 



Shaftesbury retained the seals till November 1673, when he was dis- 

 missed from office, no doubt by the influence of the Duke of York 

 and the Romish party in the cabinet, whose confidence or good-will he 

 had never been able to conciliate, although the ready and cordial 

 manner in which he had lent his support to some of the most un- 

 popular measures of the court had at the same time gone far to 

 deprive him of the favour of the public. Among the most remarkable 

 parts of his political conduct while chancellor are his compliance with 

 the king's command to issue writs for supplying vacancies in the 

 House of Commons during the prorogation of parliament ; his 

 strenuous advocacy of the war with Holland, to which in his speech 

 delivered at the opening of the session in February 1673, he applied 

 the famous expression of Cato, ' Delenda est Carthago,' calling further 

 upon his hearers to remember that the states of Holland were 

 England's eternal enemy both by interest and inclination; and hia 



