A Book About Lawyers. John Cordy Jeaffreson

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      [4] To readers who have no sense of humor and irony, the essay 'Of Love' unquestionably gives countenance to the theory that Francis Bacon was cold and passionless in all that concerned woman. Of the many strange constructions put upon this essay, not the least amusing and perverse is that which would make it a piece of adroit flattery to Elizabeth, who never permitted love "to check with business," though she is represented to have used it as a diversion in idle moments. If Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia' had been published a quarter of a century after 1518 (the date of its appearance), a similar construction would have been put on the passage, which urges that lovers should not be bound by an indissoluble tie of wedlock, until mutual inspection has satisfied each of the contracting parties that the other does not labor under any grave personal defect. If it were possible to regard the passage containing this proposal as an interpolation in the original romance, it might then be regarded as an attempt to palliate Henry VIII.'s conduct to Anne of Cleves.

[5] When due allowance has been made for the difference between the usages of the sixteenth century and the present time, decency was signally violated by this marriage, which followed so soon upon Mrs. Coke's death, and still sooner upon the death of Lady Hatton's famous grandfather, at whose funeral the lawyer made the first overtures for her hand. Mrs. Coke died June 27, 1598, and was buried at Huntingfield, co. Suffolk, July 24, 1598. Lord Burleigh expired on August 4, of the same year. Coke's first marriage was not unhappy; and on the death of his wife by that union, he wrote in his note-book:—"Most beloved and most excellent wife, she well and happily lived, and, as a true handmaid of the Lord, fell asleep in the Lord, and now lives and reigns in heaven." In after years he often wished most cordially that he could say as much for his second wife.

[6] Strafford's Letters and Despatches, I. 5.

[7] Lady Hatton never used her second husband's name either before or after his knighthood. A good case, touching the customary right of a married lady to bear the name, and take her title from the rank of a former husband, is that of Sir Dudley North, Charles II.'s notorious sheriff of London. The son of an English peer, he married Lady Gunning, the widow of a wealthy civic knight, and daughter of Sir Robert Cann, "a morose old merchant of Bristol"—the same magistrate whom Judge Jeffreys, in terms not less just than emphatic, upbraided for his connection with, or to speak moderately, his connivance at, the Bristol kidnappers. It might be thought that the merchant's daughter, on her marriage with a peer's son, would be well content to relinquish the title of Lady Gunning; but Roger North tells us that his brother Dudley accepted knighthood, in order that he might avoid giving offence to the city, and also, in order that his wife might be called Lady North, and not Lady Gunning.—Vide Life of the Hon. Sir Dudley North. After Sir Thomas Wilde (subsequently Lord Truro), married Augusta Emma d'Este, the daughter of the duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray, that lady, of whose legitimacy Sir Thomas had vainly endeavored to convince the House of Lords, retained her maiden surname. In society she was generally known as the Princess d'Este, and the bilious satirists of the Inns of Court used to speak of Sir Thomas as 'the Prince.' It was said that one of Wilde's familiar associates, soon after the lawyer's marriage, called at his house and asked if the Princess d'Este was at home. "No, sir," replied the servant, "the Princess d'Este is not at home, but the Prince is!" That this malicious story obtained a wide currency is not wonderful; that it is a truthful anecdote the writer of this book would not like to pledge his credit. The case of Sir John Campbell and Lady Strathedon, was a notable instance of a lawyer and his wife bearing different names. Raised to the peerage, with the title of Baroness Stratheden, the first Lord Abinger's eldest daughter was indebted to her husband for an honor that made him her social inferior. Many readers will remember a droll story of a misapprehension caused by her ladyship's title. During an official journey, Sir John Campbell and Baroness Stratheden slept at lodgings which he had frequently occupied as a circuiteer. On the morning after his arrival, the landlady obtained a special interview with Campbell, and in the baroness's absence thus addressed him, with mingled indignation and respectfulness:—"Sir John Campbell, I am a lone widow, and live by my good name. It is not in my humble place to be too curious about the ladies brought to my lodgings by counsellors and judges. It is not in me to make remarks if a counsellor's lady changes the color of her eyes, and her complexion every assizes. But, Sir John, a gentleman ought not to bring a lady to a lone widow's lodgings, unless so long as he 'okkipies' the apartments he makes all honorable professions that the lady is his wife, and as such gives her the use of his name."

CHAPTER VIII.

       Table of Contents

      REJECTED ADDRESSES.

      No lawyer of the Second Charles's time surpassed Francis North in love of money, or was more firmly resolved not to marry, without due and substantial consideration.

      His first proposal was for the daughter of a Gray's Inn money-lender. Usury was not a less contemptible vocation in the seventeenth century than it is at the present time; and most young barristers of gentle descent and fair prospects would have preferred any lot to the degradation of marriage with the child of the most fortunate usurer in Charles II.'s London. But the Hon. Francis North was placed comfortably beneath the prejudices of his order and time of life. He was of noble birth, but quite ready to marry into a plebeian family; he was young, but loved money more than aught else. So his hearing was quickened and his blood beat merrily when, one fine morning, "there came to him a recommendation of a lady, who was an only daughter of an old usurer in Gray's Inn, supposed to be a good fortune in present, for her father was rich; but, after his death, to become worth, nobody could tell what." One would like to know how that 'recommendation of a lady' reached the lawyer's chambers; above all, who sent it?

      "His lordship," continues Roger North, "got a sight of the lady, and did not dislike her; thereupon he made the old man a visit, and a proposal of himself to marry his daughter." By all means let this ingenuous, high-spirited Templar have a fair judgment. He would not have sold himself to just any woman. He required a maximum of wealth СКАЧАТЬ