Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/717

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE AGES 703 Jeffreys (as great a lawyer as Nottingham), restored the first ruling, and reestablished the rule against perpetuities. Sir Matthew Hale is not such an engaging figure. He was rather a Puritan, and for thirty-six years never missed attendance at church on Sunday. He was Lord Chief Baron after the Restoration, and then Lord Chief Justice. In mere learning he was without a rival. Lord Nottingham has gen- erously spoken of Hale's " indefatigable industry, invincible patience, exemplary integrity, and contempt for worldly things," and Nottingham adds, in his stately way : " He was so absolutely a master of the science of law, and even of the most abstruse and hidden parts of it, that one may truly say of his knowledge in the law what Saint Augustine said of Saint Jerome's knowledge of the divinity — " Quod Hiero- nymus nescivit, nullus mortalium unquam scivit." Hale's preface to Rolle's Abridgment contains the most helpful words ever addressed to students of law. The criticism, however, was urged against him that he dispatched business too quickly. And it is almost incredible that he believed in witchcraft with the utmost ignorant superstition, and tried and caused to be executed two poor old women, whom a foolish jury under his direction convicted of diabolical pos- session.^ It was but a few years later that another woman was tried for witchcraft before Judge Powell, a merry and witty old gentleman. Her offence was that she was able to fly. " Can you fly ? " asked the j udge. The crazy woman replied that she could. " Well, then," he said, " you may, for there is no law against flying." And so ended the trial. A character of those times was the learned Prynne, an able lawyer, a great antiquarian authority. He assaulted everything, from long hair and actresses to bishops. First he lost his ears, then he was disbarred and condemned to the pillory. Again he lost what little of his ears had been left from the first shaving. He attacked the Quakers, then he suffered imprisonment under CromweU; next he advocated the proceeding against the regicides, even against those who were dead, and at last rounded out his career as keeper of the records in the Tower. Equal to Prynne in fearless constancy »6 State Trials 647.