270

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

CHAP.

II.

Lord

Guild-

ford.

The moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax were•timidly and feebly seconded by Francis North, Lord Guild-ford, who had lately been made Keeper of the Great Seal.The character of Guildford has been drawn at full length byhis brother Roger North, a most intolerant Tory, a mostaffected and pedantic writer, but a vigilant observer of allthose minute circumstances which .throw light on the dispo-sitions of men. It is remarkable that the biographer, thoughhe was under the influence of the strongest fraternal partiality,and though he was evidently anxious to produce a flatteringlikeness, was yet unable to portray the Lord Keeper otherwisethan as the most ignoble of mankind. Yet the intellect ofGuildford was clear, his industry great, his proficiency inletters and science respectable, and his legal learning morethan respectable. His faults were selfishness, cowardice, andmeanness. He was not insensible to the power of femalebeauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither winenor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine,even, in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet generosity.Though of noble descent, he rose in his profession by payingignominious homage to all who possessed influence in thecourts. He became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, andas such was party to some of the foulest judicial murdersrecorded in our history. He had sense enough to perceivefrom the first that Oates and Bedloe were impostors: but theParliament and the country were greatly excited; the govern-ment had yielded to the pressure; and North was not a manto risk a good place for the sake of justice and humanity.Accordingly, while he was in secret drawing up a refutationof the whole romance of the Popish plot, he declared inpublic that the truth of the story was as plain as the sun inheaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat ofjudgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were ar-raigned before him for their lives. He had at length reached