BUCKINGHAM S INTERFERENCE. CCXXX111 



conviction that &quot;a popular judge is a deformed thing: 

 and plaudits are fitter for players than magistrates. Do 

 good to the people, love them, and give them justice, but 

 let it be nihil inde expectantes : looking for nothing, 

 neither praise nor profit/ (a) 



Notwithstanding Bacon s warning to Buckingham, that Bucking- 

 he ought not, as a statesman, to interfere, either by word 

 or letter, in any cause depending, or like to be depending 

 in any court of justice, (b) the temptations to Buckingham 

 were, it seems, too powerful to induce him to attend to this 

 admonition, in resistance of a custom so long established 

 and so deeply seated, that the applications were, as a 

 matter of course, made to statesmen and to judges, by the 

 most respectable members of the community, and by the 

 two universities, (c) 



Early in March Sir Francis was appointed Lord Keeper, 

 and, on the 4th of April, Buckingham thus wrote: &quot;My 

 honourable Lord, Whereas the late Lord Chancellor 

 thought it fit to dismiss out of the Chancery a cause 

 touching Henry Skipwith to the common law, where he 

 desireth it should be decided ; these are to intreat your 

 lordship in the gentleman s favour, that if the adverse 

 party shall attempt to bring it now back again into your 

 lordship s court, you would not retain it there, but let it 

 rest in the place where now it is, that without more vexa 

 tion unto him in posting him from one to another, he may 

 have a final hearing and determination thereof. And so I 

 rest your Lordship s ever at command, G. BUCKINGHAM. 



&quot; My Lord, this is a business wherein I spake to my 

 Lord Chancellor, whereupon he dismissed the suit.&quot;(W) 



() Speech to the Judges before the circuit, vol. vii. p. 258. 

 (6) See ante, p. clxxvi. 



(c) See note Z Z at the end. 



(d) This is the first of many letters which the Marquis of Buckingham 



