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 The English Law Courts. from the Courts of Common Pleas, King's Bench, and Exchequer, were transferred to the Court of Appeal. The jurisdiction of the Queen's Bench Division is partly first instance and partly appellate. The judges sit in chambers, both to hear appeal from the masters, and to de termine cases themselves, turning on points of practice and procedure; appeals from their decisions in these cases are taken direct to the Court of Appeal. Single judges also try, with or without juries, any causes that for merly belonged to the jurisdiction of the Courts of Common Pleas, Exchequer, or King's Bench, subject to an appeal to the Court of Appeal. We shall notice the functions of the Queen's Bench judges in connection with the assizes in a later paper. Two or more judges of the Queen's Bench Division also sit as MR. JUSTICE divisional courts to hear appeals from county courts, and to determine crown and revenue cases. We proceed now to give a series of sketches of some of the more prominent common-law judges.

SIR EDWARD COKE. Sir Edward Coke was the only son of Robert Coke, a barrister and a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and he was born at Mileham, in the County of Norfolk, in 1 5 5 1. He was educated at the grammar school of Norwich, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cam-

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bridge, and after enrolling himself and read ing, both at Clifford's Inn and at the Inner Temple, he was called to the baron the 20th of April, 1578. His first brief was held, and held successfully, at the ensuing term, in defense of a clergyman of his native county, a Mr. Denny, against whom an ac tion had been brought by Lord Cromwell for scandalum magnatum (4 Rep. 14). He rose at the bar with a rapidity which would nowadays be difficult of attain ment, even by a Coke. The year after his call he was chosen by his benchers, reader at Lyons' Inn. In 1582 he married his first wife, Miss Paston, who brought him a fortune of £30,OOO. In 1585 he became Recorder of Coventry; in 1586 he was made Record er of Norwich; and in 1 591 the corpor ation of London elected him Recorder of the metropolis. In 1 592 he was raised HAWKINS. to the solicitor-gen eralship by Lord Burleigh, and as reader at the Inner Temple delivered his famous lectures on " The Statute of Uses." In 1 593 Coke's political career commenced. He was returned to Parliament as member for Norfolk, to use his own language, "nullo contradicente, sine ambitu, seu aliqua requisitione' ex parte mea," and held the speakership during the few weeks that the Parliament lasted. In 1594 Coke was made Attorney-General. In 1598 his first wife died, and within six months afterwards Coke married the widow of Sir William Hatton, for whose hand Francis