CC LIFE OF BACON. 



patient (k) in hearing, in inquiry, and in insult ;(7) quick 

 in apprehension, slow in anger. His determination to 

 censure is always painful to him, like Csesar when he 

 threatened Metellus with instant death, Adolescens, 

 durius est mihi hoc dicere quam facere. (w) He does 

 not affect the reputation of dispatch, (n) nor forget that 



If any sue to be made a judge, for my own part I should suspect him : 

 but if, either directly or indirectly, he should bargain for a place of judica 

 ture, let him be rejected with shame; venderejure potest, emerat Hie print. 

 See ante, p. clxxvi. 



(k) It being no grace to a judge, first to find that which he might have 

 heard in due time from the bar ; or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off 

 evidence or counsel too short ; or to prevent information by questions, though 

 pertinent: an overspeaking judge being no well-tuned cymbal. Bacon. 



(/) Small streams are agitated by the wind: deep streams move on. 

 Scarcely any part of a judge s conduct demands more judgment than the 

 proper mode of acting when insulted, when the generality of men are off 

 their guard. 



If any adverse party crossed him, he would patiently reply, &quot; If another 

 punish me, I will not punish myself.&quot; Lloyd s Life of Sir Edw. Coke. 



He is calm amidst every storm. He is the steady rock amidst unruly 

 waves. 



(m) He behaved himself with that regard to the prisoners which became 

 both the gravity of the judge, and the pity that was due to men whose lives 

 lay at stake, so that nothing of jeering or unreasonable severity ever fell 

 from him. He also examined the witnesses in the softest manner, taking 

 care that they should be put under no confusion, which might disorder 

 their memory ; and he summed all the evidence so equally when he 

 charged the jury, that the criminals themselves never complained of him. 

 When it came to him to give sentence, he did it with that composedness 

 and decency, and his speeches to the prisoners directing them to prepare 

 for death, were so weighty, so free of all affectation, and so serious and 

 devout, that many loved to go to the trials when he sate judge, to be edified 

 by his speeches and behaviour in them, and used to say, they heard very 

 few such sermons. Hale. 



The sentence of condemnation he pronounceth with all gravity. Tis 

 best when steeped in the judge s tears. Fuller. 



(n) He did not affect the reputation of quickness and dispatch, by a hasty and 

 captious hearing of counsel. He would bear with the meanest, and give every 



