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of fining juries and who once exclaimed, “What sin have I 
committed that I should sit on a bench with two judges who 
boast in open court of their ignorance of the canon law?” 
William Scroggs (-1683) , chief justice of the King’s Bench for 
a time under Charles li, who was ignorant, arrogant, and 
brutal, and whose conduct of the trial of those engaged in the 
Popish plot was outrageous; George Jeffreys (1648-1689), 
chief justice for a time under Charles II and lord chancellor 
under James II, the worst judge who ever disgraced West- 
minster Hall, drunken, partial, brutal, who executed 330 as 
traitors and transported 800 more in the “bloody assize” and 
burned Elizabeth Ganut alive; Lloyd Kenyon (1732-1802), 
Mansfield’s successor on the King’s Bench, offensive in 
manners, but honest and independent as a judge; and John 
Selden (1584-1654), lawyer and man of letters, who gave a 
library of 8,000 volumes to the Bodleian library. 
Period of Maturity. The Period of Maturity in England 
was not as rich in names as the Period of Equity, yet there 
were many lawyers of eminence in this period, and some re- 
formers who were imbued with the spirit of the Period of 
Equity. We shall refer first to those worthy of somewhat 
extended treatment, and then more briefly to a few others. 
Bentham (1748-1832). Jeremy Bentham, who has been 
called the father of legislative reform, and who has had many 
followers who have taken the name of Benthamites, was the 
son of a London attorney, studied at Queen’s College, Oxford, 
and Lincoln’s Inn, and then devoted most of the rest of his 
life to writing and reform. He published a Fragment on 
Government in 1776 during an attack on Blackstone’s theories 
in the first volume of his Commentaries, and an Introduction 
to Principles of Morals and Legislation in 1789. This was 
followed by Panoptican, a model prison. In 1792 he came into 
a fortune on the death of his father. He advised the leaders 
of the French Revolution. In 1814 he retired to his country 
estate, where he devoted himself to the poor laws, recasting 
of the law of evidence, and amplification of judicial procedure. 
He criticized Blackstone, but praised Mansfield. Bentham 
ought to have lived in the Period of Equity or the Period of 
Socialization, and Blackstone in the Period of Maturity. 
Romilly (1757-1818). Samuel Romilly was one of the fol- 
lowers of Bentham. He was born in London, and was the 
