TRIAL OF PEACH AM. clxxiii 



liberty, and preserving the judicial mind free, almost, from 

 the possibility of influence, we may, without caution, 

 feel disposed to censure the profession of the law at that 

 day for practices so different from our own. Passing out 

 of darkness into light, we may for a moment be dazzled, 

 and forget the ignorance from which we have emerged ; 

 an evil attendant upon the progress of learning, which 

 did not escape the observation of Bacon, by whom we are 

 admonished, that &quot; if knowledge, as it advances, is taken 

 without its true corrective, it ever hath some nature of 

 venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which 

 is ventosity or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture 

 whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity; of 

 which the apostle saith, If I spake with the tongues of 

 men and angels, and had not charity, it were but as a 

 tinkling cymbal.&quot; (a) 



For having thus acted in obedience to the King s com 

 mands, by a compliance with error sanctioned by the prac 

 tice of the profession, Bacon has, without due consideration 

 been censured by a most upright, intelligent judge of 

 modern times, who has thus indirectly accused the bar as 

 venal, and the bench as perjured. (7; ) 



To this excellent man posterity has been more just: we 

 do not brand Judge Foster with the imputation of cruelty, 

 for having passed the barbarous and disgraceful sentence 

 upon persons convicted of high treason, which was not 

 abolished till the reign of George the Fourth ; nor do we 

 censure the judges in and before the time of Elizabeth for 

 not having resisted the infliction of torture, sanctioned by 

 the law, which was founded upon the erroneous principle 

 that men will speak truth, when under the influence of a 



() Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 101. 

 6 See note Z Z at the end. 



