not much oftener when he was in the country, made, that they are not so contracted, as it is very likely he would have writ then, if he had been more at leisure to have brought his thoughts into a narrower compass, and fewer words.

But making some allowance for the largeness of the stile, that volume that is printed, is generally acknowledged to be one of the perfectest pieces, both of learning and reasoning, that has been writ on that subject: and he who read a great part of the other volumes, told me, they were all of a piece with the first.

When he had finished this work, he sent it by an unknown hand to bishop Wilkins, to desire his judgment of it; but he that brought it, would give no other account of the author, but that he was not a clergyman. The bishop, and his worthy friend Dr. Tillotson, read a great deal of it with much pleasure, but could not imagine who could be the author; and how a man that was master of so much reason, and so great a variety of knowledge, should be so unknown to them, that they could not find him out, by those characters, which are so little common. At last Dr. Tillotson guessed it must be the lord chief baron; to which the other presently agreed, wondering he had been so long in finding it out. So they went immediately to him, and the bishop thanking him for the entertainment he had received from his works, he blushed extremely, not without some displeasure, apprehending that the person he had trusted had discovered him. But the bishop soon cleared that, and told him, he had discovered himself; for the learning of that book was so various, that none but he could be the author of it. And that bishop having a freedom in delivering his opinion of things and persons, which perhaps few ever managed,

VOL. VI.

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both with so much plainness and prudence, told him, there was nothing could be better said on these arguments, if he could bring it into a less compass; but if he had not leisure for that, he thought it much better to have it come out, though a little too large, than that the world should be deprived of the good which it must needs do. But our judge had never the opportunities of revising it; so, a little before his death, he sent the first part of it to the press.

In the beginning of it, he gives an essay of his excellent way of methodizing things; in which he was so great a master, that whatever he undertook, he would presently cast into so perfect a scheme, that he could never afterwards correct it. He runs out copiously upon the argument of the impossibility of an eternal succession of time, to shew that time and eternity are inconsistent one with another; and that therefore all duration that was past, and defined by time, could not be from eternity; and he shews the difference between successive eternity already past, and one to come; so that though the latter is possible, the former is not so; for all the parts of the former have actually been; and therefore being defined by time, cannot be eternal; whereas the other are still future to all eternity; so that this reasoning cannot be turned to prove the possibility of eternal successions that have been, as well as eternal successions that shall be. This he follows with a strength I never met with in any that managed it before him.

He brings next all those moral arguments, to prove, that the world had a beginning, agreeing to the account Moses gives of it; as that no history rises higher, than near the time of the deluge; and that the first foundation of kingdoms, the invention of arts, the beginnings of all religions, the

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gradual plantation of the world, and increase of mankind, and the consent of nations do agree with it. In managing these, as he shews profound skill both in historical and philosophical learning; so he gives a noble discovery of his great candour and probity, that he would not impose on the reader with a false shew of reasoning by arguments, that he knew had flaws in them; and therefore upon every one of these, he adds such allays, as in a great measure lessened and took off their force, with as much exactness of judgment, and strictness of censure, as if he had been set to plead for the other side: and indeed sums up the whole evidence for religion, as impartially as ever he did in a trial for life or death to the jury; which how equally and judicially he always did, the whole nation

well knows.

After that, he examines the ancient opinions of the philosophers, and enlarges with a great variety of curious reflections in answering that only argument, that has any appearance of strength for the casual production of man, from the origination of insects out of putrified matter, as is commonly supposed; and he concluded the book, shewing how rational and philosophical the account which Moses gives of it is. There is in it all a sagacity and quickness of thought, mixed with great and curious learning, that I confess I never met together in any other book on that subject. Among other conjectures, one he gives concerning the deluge, is, that " he did not think the face of the earth, and the waters, were altogether the same before the universal deluge, and after: but possibly the face of the earth was more even than now it is the seas possibly more dilated and extended, and not so deep as now." And a little after,. " possibly the seas have undermined much of the appearing continent of earth."

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earth." This I the rather take notice of, because it hath been, since his death, made out in a most ingenious, and most elegantly written book, by Mr. Burnet, of Christ's College, in Cambridge, who has given such an essay towards the proving the possibility of an universal deluge; and from thence has collected, with great sagacity, what Paradise was before it, as has not been offered by any philosopher

before him.

While the judge was thus employing his time, the lord chief justice Keyling dying, he was on the 18th of May, 1671, promoted to be lord chief justice of England. He had made the pleas of the crown one of his chief studies, and by much search, and long observation, had composed that great work concerning them, formerly mentioned; he that holds the high office of justiciary in that court, being the chief trustee and assertor of the liberties of his country. All people applauded this choice, and thought their liberties could not be better deposited, than in the hands of one, that as he understood them well, so he had all the justice and courage, that so sacred a trust required. One thing was much observed and commended in him, that when there was a great inequality in the ability and learning of the councillors that were to plead one against another; he thought it became him, as the judge, to supply that; so he would enforce what the weaker council managed but indifferently, and not suffer the more learned to carry the business by the advantage they had over the others, in their quickness and skill in law, and readiness in pleading, till all things were cleared, in which the merits and strength of the ill-defended cause lay. He was not satisfied barely to give his judgment in causes; but did, especially in all intricate ones, give such an account of the reasons that prevailed with

him, that the council did not only acquiesce in his authority, but were so convinced by his reasons, that I have heard many profess that he brought them often to change their opinions; so that his giving of judgment was really a learned lecture upon that point of law and which was yet more, the parties themselves, though interest does too commonly corrupt the judgment, were generally satisfied with the justice of his decisions, even when they were made against them. His impartial justice, and great diligence, drew the chief practice after him, into whatsoever court he came. Since, though the courts of the Common Pleas, the Exchequer, and the King's Bench, are appointed for the trial of causes of different natures, yet it is easy to bring most causes into any of them, as the council or attornies please; so as he had drawn the business much after him, both into the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer, it now followed him into the King's Bench; and many causes that were depending in the Exchequer, and not determined, were let fall there, and brought again before him in the court, to which he was now removed. And here did he spend the rest of his publick life and employment.

But about four years and a half after this advancement, he who had hitherto enjoyed a firm and vigorous health, to which his great temperance, and the equality of his mind, did not a little conduce, was on a sudden brought very low by an inflammation in his midriff, which in two days time broke the constitution of his health to such a degree, that he never recovered it. He became so asthmatical, that with great difficulty he could fetch his breath, that determined in a dropsy, of which he afterwards died. He understood physic so well, that considering his age, he concluded his distemper must carry him off in a little time, and therefore he resolved

to