NOTE C C. 



hasty digest ion ; which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of 

 diseases : therefore measure not dispatch /&amp;gt;(/ the times of sitting, but by the advance 

 ment of the business : and as, in races, it is not the large stride, or high lift, that 

 makes the speed ; so, in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of 

 it too much at once, procureth dispatch. It is the care of some only to come off 

 speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because they may 

 seem men of dispatch : but it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another 

 by cutting off; and business so handled at several sittings, or meetings, goeth 

 commonly backward and forward in an unsteady manner. J knew a wise man, 

 that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, Stay a little, 

 that we may make an end the sooner. 



On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing ; for time is the measure of 

 business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where 

 there is small dispatch.&quot; 



So, too, upon taking his seat as Chancellor, he said, in his address to the bar : 

 &quot; For the third general head of his Majesty s precepts concerning speedy jus 

 tice, it rests much upon myself, and much upon others : yet so, as my procura 

 tion may give some remedy and order to it. For myself, I am resolved that my 

 decree shall come speedily, if not instantly, after the heaiing, and my signed 

 decree speedily upon my decree pronounced. For it hath been a manner much 

 used of late in my last lord s time, of whom I learn much to imitate, and some 

 what to avoid ; that upon the solemn and full hearing of a cause nothing is pro 

 nounced in court, but breviates are required to be made ; which I do not dislike 

 in itself in causes perplexed. For I confess I have somewhat of the cunctative ; 

 and I am of opinion, that whosoever is not wiser upon advice than upon the 

 sudden, the same man was no wiser at fifty than he was at thirty. And it was 

 my father s ordinary word, You must give me time. But yet I find when 

 such breviates were taken, the cause was sometimes forgotten a term or two, 

 and then set down for a new hearing, three or four terms after. And in the 

 mean time the subject s pulse beats swift, though the chancery pace be slow. Of 

 which kind of intermission I see no use, and therefore I will promise regularly 

 to pronounce my decree within few days after my hearing ; and to sign my 

 decree at the least in the vacation after the pronouncing. For fresh justice is 

 the sweetest. And to the end that there be no delay of justice, nor any other 

 means-making or labouring, but the labouring of the counsel at the bar. 



Again, because justice is a sacred thing, and the end for which I am called to 

 this place, and therefore is my way to heaven ; and if it be shorter, it is never a 

 whit the worse, I shall, by the grace of God, as far as God will give me strength, 

 add the afternoon to the forenoon, and some fourth night of the vacation to the 

 term, for the expediting and clearing of the causes of the court ; only the depth of 

 the three long vacations I would reserve in some measure free from business of 

 estate, and for studies, arts and sciences, to which in my own nature I am most 

 inclined. 



There is another point of true expedition, which resteth much in myself, and 

 that is in my manner of giving orders. For I have seen an affectation of dis 

 patch turn utterly to delay at length : for the manner of it is to take the tale out 

 of the counsellor at the bar his mouth, and to give a cursory order, nothing tend 

 ing or conducing to the end of the business. It makes me remember what 1 

 heard one say of a judge that sat in chancery ; that he would make forty orders 

 in a morning out of the way, and it was out of the way indeed ; for it was 

 nothing to the end of the business : and this is that which makes sixty, eighty, 

 an hundred orders in a cause, to and fro, begetting one another ; and like Pene 

 lope s web, doing and undoing. But I mean not to purchase the praise of 

 expeditive in that kind ; but as one that have a feeling of my duty, and of the 

 case of others. My endeavour shall be to hear patiently, and to cast my order 

 into such a mould as may soonest bring the subject to the end of his journey. 



As for delays that may concern others, first the great abuse is, that if the 

 plaintiff have got an injunction to stay suits at the common law, then he will 

 spin out his cause at length. But by the grace of God I will make injunctions 

 but an hard pillow to sleep on ; for if I find that he prosecutes not with effect, 



