Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/246

 comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and keep clean, delighting in good cloaths, well worne, and being wont to say, that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls ' (Worthies, Norfolk, 251. For a list of portraits, see Biog. Hist. i. 383, and, p. 193; , ii. 483. The history of the Coke family will be found in  Commoners, i. 3, and Peerage, 'Leicester.' Lord Coke's fourth son, Henry, was the great-great-grandfather of the first earl of Leicester).

To the last Coke was an object of suspicion. In 1631 the king, knowing that he was infirm, had given orders that on his death his papers should be secured, lest anything prejudicing the prerogative might be published, 'for he is held too great an oracle among the people, and they may be misled by anything that carries such an authority as all things do which he either speaks or writes' (S. P. D. clxxxiii. 490). Under a warrant issued in July 1634 (ib. cclxxii. 165), Sir Francis Windebank came to Coke's house to seize his papers, and 'he took,' says Roger Coke, 'Sir Edward Coke's comment upon Littleton, and the history of his life before it, written with his own hand, his comment upon Magna Charta, &c., the Pleas of the Crown and Jurisdiction of Courts, and his 11th and 12th Reports in manuscript, and I think 51 other manuscripts, with the last will of Sir Edward, wherein he had for several years been making provisions for his younger grandchildren. The books and papers were kept till seven years after, when one of Sir Edward's sons in 1641 moved the House of Commons that they might be delivered to Sir Robert Coke, heir of Sir Edward, which the king was pleased to grant, and such as could be found were delivered; but Sir Edward's will was never heard of more to this day' (Detection, i. 309). From his chambers in the Temple were also taken many books and papers, including a book of 'Notes of arguments at the bar when I was solicitor, attorney, and before' (S. P. D. cclxxviii. 351. As to his manuscripts, see infra).

Of Coke as a lawyer it is difficult to speak without attaching either too great or too little weight to his vast reputation. In avoiding the indiscriminate laudation with which he has been injured there is a danger of falling into the still more unbecoming error of speaking without due respect of a great man who has exercised a really profound influence on English law.

Coke's chief works are his 'Reports' and his 'Institutes.' The former, which enjoy the distinction of being cited as 'The Reports,' partly overlap those of Dyer and Plowden, and extend to the period when their author presided over the king's bench. While they were being published, it has been noted, no other reports appeared; 'as it became all the rest of the lawyers to be silent whilst their oracle was speaking' (5 Mod. Rep. viii). They are much ampler than previous reports. They set out the pleadings, not only for the proper understanding of the cases, but as models for the student. A knowledge of the art of good pleading was in Coke's eye the necessary foundation of all thorough knowledge of the common law; 'and for this cause,' he says, 'this word placitum is derived a placendo, quia bene placitare super omnia placet.' Earlier cases are collected with laborious care; the arguments are stated; and the reasons of the judgment are thrown into the form of general propositions of law. The report of each case, in short, forms a brief treatise on the points of law raised therein. The arrangement is not chronological, but more or less according to subjects; and covering, as the reports do, a period of nearly forty years, they present a fairly complete account of English law in the time of Elizabeth and James. They are not reports in the strict sense. As appears from the prefaces, Coke prepared the cases not simply for citation, but so that they might serve an educational purpose. To a great extent, though how great it is impossible to say, they contain his own statement of the law, and not a mere record of the arguments, and of the judgment of the court. For instance, to Anderson's report of Shelley's case (And. 71), there is appended a note: 'Le Atturney Master Cooke ad ore fait report en print de cest case ove arguments et les agreements del Chanceler et auters juges mes rien de ce fuit parle en le court ne la monstre' (but see WALLACE'S Reporters, 130). And, to quote another contemporary, we have Bacon's criticism: ' Great judges,' he says, 'are unfit persons to be reporters, for they have either too little leisure or too much authority, as may appear well by those two books, whereof that of my Lord Dier is but a kind of notebook, and those of my Lord Cokes hold too much de proprio' (, v. 86); and see Bacon's praise of the reports (ib. p. 65). Not only does he interpolate, but he is often inaccurate. Sometimes, as in Gage's case (5 Rep. 45 b; see 1 Salk. 53, and Will. 569), he gives a wrong account of the actual decision; and still more often the authorities which he cites do not bear out his propositions of law. On Southwell's case see Jones on 'Bailments.' And see Stephen's 'History of Criminal Law,' ii. 205. This last is a fault which is common