brisk gentleman, by making a jade of his patience. And really forms are better understood and learned by writing than by reading; for that exercise allows time: which consideration hath made clerkship so recommendable to beginners, that most enter the profession of the law that way. It was not moroseness, but reason, that inclined his lordship to deal so much as he did with the year-books; and however, at present, that sort of reading is obsolete and despised, I guess there will not be found a truly learned, judicious, common lawyer without it.

on the

After a good foundation out of books, his lord- Attendance ship, together with his farther studies, joined an courts. attendance on the courts of justice. For an observation of the practice, gave a great life and spirit to what had been gained by reading. His design, with the community of his profession, was to enter his claim to business at the King's Bench bar, which inclined him to make his preparatory attendance there; but yet he thought fit, as he had been also advised, to attend, as a student, most at the Common Pleas: For there all suits are drawn forth upon the ancient and genuine process of the common law; and, as the Lord Nottingham, in one of his speeches, expresseth, the law is there at home. The time of that court is not taken up with factious contentions, as at the King's Bench, where more news than law is stirring. And his

Reports of cases and

law French.

lordship, wherever he was in the way of learning any thing, never failed to have his note-book, pen and ink ready: and in that he wrote as a reporter, and afterwards, generally that very day, he posted his gatherings into a fair book; for then he could supply, out of his memory, what was imperfectly taken, and recover things that had not been noted, and dispose all into some tolerable order for a young reporter's note book is so disorderly wrote, or rather scratched, that none but himself, nor he, after a few days, can make any thing of it.

I do not find that he had opinion enough of his early reports, taken while he was a student, to preserve them either fair or foul; for none such are come to my hand. But just upon his coming to the bar, he attended at the Common Pleas whilst Hales was a judge there. And some cases are found at the beginning of his reports, taken there. And I perceive by that book, that one year's reports to Hil. 1657-8, are of the Common Pleas, and from thence they run all as of the King's Bench. By this time he found his strength at that exercise, and began to be very careful of his reports. He was also an attendant (as well as exerciser) at the ordinary moots in the Middle Temple and at New Inn; whereof the former is the superior, and governs the exercises; and took notes. In those days the moots were carefully

performed, and it is hard to give a good reason (bad ones are prompt enough) why they are not so now. And he contrived to stay in London to be present at famous pleadings, as particularly that of Sir Heneage Finch, and some others. The ready use of the law French came easily to him, because he well understood the vernacular; and he had acquired such a dexterity in writing it with the ordinary abbreviations, that he seldom wrote hastily in any other dialect: for, to say truth, barbarous as it is thought to be, it is concise, aptly abbreviated, and significative. And I believe his aptness, when in haste, or writing to himself only, to write in law French, proceeded from his long use and practice of noting at the bar; which had created in him both an ease and a dexterity in it.* When he had time and place to write at his ease, he usually wrote English, and accordingly drew up his reports.

His lordship, long before he was called to the Applied to court-keepbar, undertook the practice of court-keeping. His ing. grandfather thought he preferred him mainly, when he made him steward of his courts. And the young lawyer procured of other neighbours and relations, to have the charge of their manors; and so made the employment considerable to him. He did not, as many others of late, take a share of

* Until nearly the Revolution, the law reports were taken down, and published in French.

the profits, and make some attorney a kind of substitute to do all the business; but kept all his courts himself, and wrote all his court rolls, and made out his copies with his own hands; for he pretended to no clerk then. His grandfather had a venerable old steward, careful by nature, and faithful to his lord, employing all his thoughts and time to manage for supply of his house, and upholding his rents: in short, one of a race of human kind, heretofore frequent, but now utterly extinct; and there is scarce any of the breed left, that is, affectionate as well as faithful, and diligent for love rather than for self-interest. This old gentleman, with his boot-hose and beard, used to accompany his young master to his court-keeping; and observing him reason the country people out of their pence for essoins, &c. he commended him, saying, "if he could be contented to be a great while getting a little, he would be a little while getting a great deal," wherein he was no false prophet. I have heard his lordship say, "he thought this court-keeping business" (which he used to recommend to others) "did him a great deal of service; for it showed him the humours of the country people, and accustomed him to talk readily with them, and to meet with their subtilties." They seldom came forward without some formed stratagem to be too hard for Mr. Steward. Some would insist to know their fine, which he would

not tell till they were admitted, and then he insisted for his fees; no, they would know the fine, and some cunning fellow would jog and advise them to pay the fees, and not dispute that. And abundance more of their contrivances he used to speak of.

and in

He was most put to it in cases of infancy, and Copyhold uses declared in deeds that did not appear. As fancy. for the former, if none came for the infant to be admitted, he seized, not as for a forfeiture, but quousque, &c. and made a warrant to the bailiff, quod respondeat domino de proficuis: which did not, as he said, make the lord accountable, who in that respect had a prerogative, as, upon a reversal of an outlawry, no money goes out of the king's coffers; but if any friend would pay the fine, he admitted the infant, and him guardian. As to latent uses, which often happen in wills (and sometimes referring to deeds of settlement,) for long terms of years, he would not admit at all, and no action lay because he had the lord's order: For though he might fine to the value, it did not answer, because at that rate, men might enfranchise the copyhold, in spite of the lord's teeth. He hath said that the greatest trouble he had in those affairs, was to satisfy some greedy lords, or rather ladies of manors, in setting the fines, and in being, in some measure, an executioner of their cruelty upon poor men. And in