In 1560, being then nine years of age, he was sent to the grammar school at Norwich, where it is said by the editors of the Biographia Britannica, he displayed great diligence and. application.

After remaining at this school seven years, he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge. This was in 1567. He was, matriculated as a pensioner of the college, but it does not appear from the University books, that he ever took a degree.

He remained at the University four years. There is no account of his studies to be found at Cambridge; there exist no traditions concerning his sayings and doings. Being intended for the profession of the law, it is supposed he paid more attention to the study of Norman French and to the year books, than to mathematics or classic lore.

Young Coke now began to read such books as would serve him in his future professional pursuits. Among the books at Holkham Hall, there are many law authorities containing his autographs and notes, dated at a very early period of his life. He must have possessed in his early youth, the power of intense application, in a remarkable degree. The books which he studied so steadily and so perseveringly, were of a nature which almost defy the mental digestion of a modern student.

There were then no law books written with the elegance of Blackstone's Commentaries, or Fearne's Contingent Remainders. Every law authority was composed in the barbarous law French of the age, and Coke had to struggle to obtain knowledge from such authors as Fleta, Britton, Hengham and Littleton; from the year books, and the reports of Plowden and Dyer.

In his twenty-first year, Coke was removed from Cambridge to Clifford's Inn, in London, and in the following year, 1572, entered himself a student of the Inner Temple. As a student he was speedily noticed for a very close application to his studies; and more publicly by a very clear statement to the benchers, of the Cook's case, which had caused among these lawyers no little embarrassment. They very much admired the way in which Coke had unraveled the story.

He was admitted to the bar in his twenty-seventh year, when

he had been a member of the Middle Temple only six years, which at his age was thought to be a very extraordinary circumstance; the students then being accustomed to remain eight or nine years.

The rules prevailing among the benchers were rather strict. Long beards were prohibited. The treasurers of all the inns of court conferred together in full parliament, on this important matter, and deereed, in 1st and 2d Philip and Mary, "That no fellow of this house should wear his beard above three weeks growth." Gambling was prohibited. "None of the society shall within this house exercise the play of shoffe-grotte, or slyp-grotte, upon pain of six shillings and eight pence." The use of wine and tobacco was also prohibited.

The inns of court were frequented by a great multitude; many gentlemen's sons attending who had no intention of practicing the law as a profession.

In Trinity term, 1578, Coke, who was then in his twentyeighth year, pleaded his first cause. His practice speedily became considerable, and soon after, he received the appointment of reader of Lyon's Inn.

The estates left him by his father had increased in his hands, and his practice having become lucrative, he added to them by various purchases. These became so numerous that they finally attracted the attention of the government. There is a tradition in the Coke family, that when he was in treaty for the family estate of Castle Acre Priory, in Norfolk, James I. told him that he had already as much land as it was proper a subject should possess. To this Sir Edward replied, "Then, please your Majesty, I will add only one acre more to the estate."

Thirty years Coke spent at the bar; first as a barrister, then solicitor-general to Queen Elizabeth, and lastly as attorneygeneral. These were the happiest years of his life. The court had not then entangled him; parliamentary affairs and family broils had not yet rendered him notoriously uncomfortable and ridiculous.

Coke had for his contemporaries at the bar, some of the ablest lawyers whom England has produced; men alike distinguished for their learning and their probity. Among the foremost of

these were Plowden, Bacon, Egerton, Croke and Yelverton. There were, besides these, Hobart and Tanfield, Heath and Dodderidge.

In 1582, Sir Edward Coke married his first wife, Bridget Paston, daughter and co-heiress of John Paston, Esq., of Huntingfield Hall, in Suffolk, with whom he received then and at her father's death, a fortune very large for those days, amounting to thirty thousand pounds. Coke thus became connected with several of the first families of the kingdom. By this wife he had ten children.

At this period he was rapidly rising in his profession. Incessantly and happily employed, he returned from his chambers in the Temple to an elegant and well regulated house. Thus engaged, his name is not connected with the state prosecutions of those days; for he had not yet become a political character.

From 1585 to 1610, he held various offices; recorder of Coventry, and afterward of Norwich-bencher of the Inner Templerecorder of London-solicitor-general. Also reader or law lecturer to the Inner Temple. In this capacity he had delivered five lectures on the statute of uses to a large and learned audience, when the plague broke out in the Temple, He then left London for his house at Huntingfield, in Suffolk, on which occasion, to do him honor, nine benchers of the Temple and forty other templers accompanied him on his journey as far as Romford.

In 1592, Coke entered political life, being that year elected as the representative of Norfolk in the House of Commous.

In his political career he was devotedly loyal to the Queenwas what was called a high prerogative lawyer. But during the reign of King James, he appeared as a patriot and a reformer, which has occasioned charges of political inconsistency. This apparent inconsistency is by his friends accounted for by the difference in the characters of the reigning sovereigns, and by the advance of the commons in their demands in behalf of liberty.

The first parliament in which Coke appeared, was speedily prorogued, and it did not meet again for four years. Its duration was then short, and it met again in 1601.

In the parliament which met at Westminster, on the 19th of February, 1593, he was unanimously elected speaker. This honorable body was commanded by the Queen not to interfere with matters of Church or State. This injunction was by her communicated to the speaker, in person, and by him loyally delivered to the assembled parliament.

Sir Edward held the speakership but for one session; it being then not usual to hold it longer.

Almost immediately after the dissolution of the parliament of 1592, Sir Edward Coke was appointed the Queen's attorneygeneral; and he held that office during the rest of her reign.

In the year 1598, he lost his first wife, which may be regarded as the commencement of a series of misfortunes.

He soon again turned his thoughts to matrimony, prosecuting a successful treaty with Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the beautiful, young and wealthy widow of Sir William Hatton, the daughter of Thomas Cecil, first earl of Exeter, and granddaughter of the great Burleigh. This rash and ill-considered union commenced, continued, and terminated most disastrously. Both parties were ill-tempered, talented and haughty, with too much obstinacy to give way to each other. Moreover, the ordinances of the church were not duly observed, in the solemnization of the marriage. For this they were prosecuted in the Archbishop's court.

In 1606, Coke became Lord Chief-Justice of the Court of Com mon Pleas, and soon after was removed to the King's Bench.

Sr ce cannot be here given to the causes and progress of the rivalry between Coke and Bacon. This contributed to his embarrassments. Coke managed, however, to surpass Bacon in the favor of the Queen.

On the 22d of May, 1603, Coke received the honor of knighthood, from the hands of King James I.

In the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, which took place soon after, Coke appeared to little advantage. Such was his zeal in the service of his royal master, that he indulged in coarse language, brutal observations and a savage temper.

Nor was he less guilty of religious bigotry. His zeal for the established religion far outran his sense of justice.

The last important trial, in which he appeared as pleader, was the trial of the conspiracy case, growing out of the celebrated gunpowder plot.

Soon afterward, Coke somewhat redeemed himself from the reputation of being a mere courtier, by the bold and courageous stand which he took in favor of the rights and liberties of the judiciary, against certain prerogatives claimed in the royal behalf. It was in this contest that he acquired the reputation of being a reformer, and an advocate of liberty.

In 1614, Coke was elected high steward of the University of Cambridge. The next year he participated in a new series of state trials, of which there were so many during the reign of King James. These were the Overbury murder trials. About this time also he came in conflict with Bacon, in regard to the King's prerogative in interfering with the proceedings of the courts; the prerogative being sustained by Bacon and denied by Coke. Whether this resistance upon his part was based upon principle or is to be attributed to the natural obstinacy of his character, we are not called upon to decide. It is but fair to credit him with valuable service in the cause of liberty.

His opposition was so strong, that he was finally summoned to the King's council chamber, and after being reproved for his obstinacy, he was sentenced to be sequestered the council chamber until his Majesty's pleasure be farther known-was forbidden to ride his summer circuit as justice of assize, and it was ordered, that during the vacation, while he had time to live privately, and dispose himself at home, he take into consideration and review his book of reports, "wherein, as his Majesty is informed, be many extravagant and exorbitant opinions, set down and published for positive and good law." This sentence must be looked upon as the most honorable incident in the life of Sir Edward Coke.

On the 16th of November, 1616, not have made such changes in his reports as were satisfactory, Coke was, for this and for his obstinacy generally, dismissed from the Court of King's Bench. Six years afterward, he was even sent to the tower. When Lord Arundel was sent by the King to the prisoner