on making ready to pronounce the awful words which consigned a fellow-creature to a horrible death, was wont to draw up the flat, square, dark cap, that sometimes hung at the nape of his neck or the upper part of his shoulder. Having covered the whiteness of his coif, and partially concealed his forehead and brows with the sable cloth, he proceeded to utter the dread sentence with solemn composure and firmness. At present the black cap is assumed to strike terror into the hearts of the vulgar; formerly it was pulled over the eyes, to hide the emotion of the judge.

Shorn of their original size, the coif and the coif-cap may still be seen in the wigs worn by sergeants at the present day. The black blot which marks the crown of a sergeant's wig is generally spoken of as his coif, but this designation is erroneous. The black blot is the coif-cap; and those who wish to see the veritable coif must take a near view of the wig, when they will see that between the black silk and the horsehair there lies a circular piece of white lawn, which is the vestige of that pure raiment so reverentially mentioned by Fortescue. On the general adoption of wigs, the sergeants, like the rest of the bar, followed in the wake of fashion: but at first they wore their old coifs and caps over their false hair. Finding this plan cumbersome, they gradually diminished the size of the ancient covering, until the coif and cap became the absurd thing which resembles a bald place covered with court-plaster quite as much as the rest of the wig resembles human hair.

Whilst the common law judges of the seventeenth century, before the introduction of wigs, wore the undiminished coif and coif-cap, the Lord Chancellor, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, wore a hat. Lord Keeper Williams, the last clerical holder of the seals, used to wear in the Court of Chancery a round, conical

hat. Bradshaw, sitting as president of the commissioners who tried Charles I., wore a hat instead of the coif and cap which he donned at other times as a serjeant of law. Kennett tells us that "Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, the President, was afraid of some tumult upon such new and unprecedented insolence as that of sitting judge upon his king; and therefore, beside other defence, he had a thick big-crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off blows." It is scarcely credible that Bradshaw resorted to such means for securing his own safety, for in the case of a tumult, a hat, however strong, would have been an insignificant protection against popular fury. If conspirators had resolved to take his life, they would have tried to effect their purpose by shooting or stabbing him, not by knocking him on the head. A steel-plated hat would have been but a' poor guard against a bludgeon, and a still poorer defence against poignard or pistol. It is far more probable that in laying aside the ordinary head-dress of an English common law judge, and in assuming a high-crowned hat, the usual covering of a Speaker, Bradshaw endeavored to mark the exceptional character of the proceeding, and to remind the public that he acted under parliamentary sanction. Whatever the wearer's object, England was satisfied that he had a notable purpose, and persisted in regarding the act as significant of cowardice or of insolence, of anxiety to keep within the lines of parliamentary privilege or of readiness to set all law at defiance. At the time and long, after Bradshaw's death, that hat caused an abundance of discussion; it was a problem which men tried in vain to solve, an enigma that puzzled clever heads, a riddle that was interpreted as an insult, a caution, a protest, a menace, a doubt. Oxford honored it with a Latin inscription, and a place amongst the curiosities of the university, and its memory is preserved to Englishmen of the present day in the familiar lines

"Where England's monarch once uncovered sat,
And Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat."

Judges were by no means unanimous with regard to the adoption of wigs, some of them obstinately refusing to disfigure themselves with false tresses, and others displaying a foppish delight in the new decoration. Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676, to the last steadily refused to decorate himself with artificial locks. The likeness of the Chief Justice that forms the frontispiece to Burnet's memoir of the lawyer, represents him in his judicial robes, wearing his SS collar, and having on his head a cap-not the coif-cap, but one of the close-fitting skull-caps worn by judges in the seventeenth century. · Such skull-caps, it has been observed in a prior page of this work, were worn by barristers under their wigs, and country gentlemen at home, during the last century. Into such caps readers have seen Sir Francis North put his fees. The portrait of Sir Cresswell Levinz (who returned to the bar on dismissal from the bench in 1686) shows that he wore a full-bottomed wig whilst he was a judge; whereas Sir Thomas Street, who remained a judge till the close of James II.'s reign, wore his own hair and a coif-cap.

When Shaftesbury sat in court as Lord High Chancellor of England he wore a hat, which Roger North is charitable enough to think might have been a black hat. "His lordship," says the 'Examen,' "regarded censure so little, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit as became a judge of his station; for he sat upon the bench in an ash-colored gown silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now, I cannot positively say, though I saw him, was so."

Even so late as Queen Anne's reign, which witnessed the introduction of three-cornered hats, a Lord Keeper

wore his own hair in court instead of a wig, until hē received the sovereign's order to adopt the venerable disguise of a full-bottomed wig. Lady Sarah Cowper recorded of her father, 1705:-"The queen after this was persuaded to trust a Whigg ministry, and in the year 1705, Octr., she made my father Ld. Keeper of the Great Seal, in the 41st year of his age-'tis said the youngest Lord Keeper that ever had been. He looked very young, and wearing his own hair made him appear yet more so, which the queen observing, obliged him to cut it off, telling him the world would say she had given the seals to a boy."

The young Lord Keeper of course obeyed; and when he appeared for the first time at court in a wig, his aspect was so grave and reverend that the queen had to look at him twice before she recognized him. More than half a century later, George II. experienced a similar difficulty, when Lord Hardwicke, after the close of his long period of official service, showed himself at court in a plain suit of black velvet, with a bag and sword. Familar with the appearance of the Chancellor dressed in full-bottomed wig and robes, the king failed to detect his old friend and servant in the elderly gentleman who, in the garb of a private person of quality, advanced and rendered due obeisance. "Sir, it is Lord Hardwicke," whispered a lord in waiting who stood near His Majesty's person, and saw the cause of the cold reception given to the ex-Chancellor. But unfortunately the king was not more familiar with the ex-Chancellor's title than his appearance, and in a disastrous endeavor to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, "How long has your lordship been in town?" The peer's surprise and chagrin were great until the monarch, having received. further instruction from the courtly prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy laughter.

"Had Lord Hardwicke," says Campbell, "worn such a uniform as that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field Marshal's), he could not have been mistaken for a common man."

The judges who at the first introduction of wigs refused to adopt them were prone to express their dissatisfaction with those coxcombical contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of antiwig justices, declined to obey the growing fashion. Chief Justice Hale, a notable sloven, conspicuous amonst common law judges for the meanness of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of legal practitioners-attorneys who wore swords, and young Templars who adorned themselves with periwigs. Bishop Burnet says of Hale: "He was a great encourager of all young persons that he saw followed their books diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that came near him; and in a smiling, pleasant way he would admonish them, if he saw anything amiss in them; particularly if they went too fine in their clothes, he would tell them it did not become their profession. He was not pleased to see students wear long periwigs, or attorneys go with swords, so that such men as would not be persuaded to part with those vanities, when they went to him laid them aside and went as plain as they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise expect." In England, however, barristers almost universally wore wigs at the close of the seventeenth century; but north of the Tweed advocates wore cocked hats and powdered hair so late as the middle of the eighteenth century. When Alexander Wedderburn joined the Scotch bar in 1754, wigs had not come into vogue with the members of his profession.