LORD KEEPER. CXC1X 



noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking; 

 his language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, 

 was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, 

 more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, 

 less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his 

 speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could 

 not cough or look aside from him without loss. He com 

 manded where he spoke, and had his judges- angry and 

 pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more 

 in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was 

 lest he should make an end.&quot; 



As a Patron, he considered preferment a sacred trust, to 

 preserve and promote high feeling, encourage merit, and 

 counteract the tendency of learning to dispose men to 

 leisure and privateness. (a) 



In his advice to Villiers, as to the patrimony of the 

 church, he says, &quot; You will be often solicited, and perhaps 

 importuned to prefer scholars to church livings : you may 

 further your friends in that way, cseteris paribus ; other 

 wise remember, I pray, that these are not places merely of 

 favour ; the charge of souls lies upon them, the greatest 

 account whereof will be required at their own hands; but 

 they will share deeply in their faults who are the instru 

 ments of their preferment.&quot; (b) 



A few weeks after he was appointed Lord Keeper, he 

 thus writes to a clergyman of Trinity College, Cambridge : 

 &quot; After my hearty commendations, I having heard of you, 



(a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 19. 



(6) See vol. vi. p. 410. Sir E. Coke said, &quot; As for the many benefices in 

 his own patronage, he freely gave them to the worthy men, being wont to 

 say, in his law language, that he would have church livings pass by livery 

 and seisin, not bargain and sale.&quot; Chancellor Wrottesley said, &quot; Two things 

 my servants shall not gain by, my livings and my decrees : the one are 

 God s, the other the King s.&quot; 



