CCXXXV1 LIFE OF BACON. 



delivering his judgment, said, &quot; The fountain of wisdom, 

 hath set this glorious work of the world in the order 

 and beauty wherein it stands, and hath appointed princes, 

 magistrates, and judges, to hear the causes of the people. 

 It is fitting, therefore, to protect them from the slanders 

 of wicked men, that shall speak evil of magistrates and 

 men in authority, blaspheming them. And therefore, 

 since Wraynham hath blasphemed and spoken evil, and 

 slandered a chief magistrate, it remaineth, that in honour 

 to God, and in duty to the king and kingdom, he should 

 receive severe punishment.&quot; (a) 



Common Pleas, and Exchequer, the Secretary of State, and other states 

 men ; of the Bishops of Ely and London, and the Archbishop of Canter 

 bury. 



() See in Hooker the following noble passage : &quot; Since the time that 

 God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon the world, heaven and 

 earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labour hath been to do his 

 will. He made a law for the rain ; he gave his decree unto the sea, that 

 the waters should not pass his commandment. Now, if nature should 

 intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were for a while, the 

 observation of her own laws : if those principal and mother elements of the 

 world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the 

 qualities which now they have ; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected 

 over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should 

 forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves 

 any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which 

 now, as a giant, doth run his unwearied course, should as it were, through 

 a languishing faintness, begin to stand, and to rest himself; if the moon 

 should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year 

 blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe 

 out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of 

 heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the 

 withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief; what 

 would become of man himself, whom these things do now all serve ? See 

 we not plainly, that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the 

 stay of the whole world ? 



&quot; Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the 

 bosom of God ; her voice the harmony of the world : all things in heaven 

 and earth do her homage ; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest 



