A fitter tool for its melancholy work prerogative never found than in Attorney-General Coke, who, for his punishment, lived to destroy the foul abuses he had been paid to nourish. The liberty of the subject is identified with the name of the individual who, as much as any of his time, sought to crush it. The perversions of criminal law to which this man condescended, as prosecutor for the Crown, are familiar to the readers of history. His cruel arrogance and atrocious bearing toward the unfortunate (we do not speak of the guilty) can never be forgotten. Lord Campbell tells us that Coke, in his age, "made noble amends" for the licentious and unscrupulous dealings of his earlier life. We can not admit the term; for repentance to be noble, the motive must be pure. The gain to society by the stand made by Coke, in the name of the people, against the encroachments of the Crown is not to be overestimated; but respect does not attach to the soiled instrument by which our blessings were secured. A singular instance of the brutality of the Attorney-General, and of his overstrained duty to the Crown, occurred at the trial of the unfortunate and gallant Essex. Well may the present biographer exclaim, "This was a humiliating day for our _order_!" Essex had striven hard to obtain for Bacon the office then held by his accuser. The insurrection in the city might sooner be pardoned than that offense, which, indeed, received no mercy. For once, Bacon and Coke ceased to be rivals, but only that they might be co-partners in inexpiable guilt. Divines may preach even to the infidel of the inherent rottenness of our fallen nature, when they can point to Bacon, the pride of humanity, the wonder of the civilized world, imploring to be counsel _against_ his best friend and benefactor, and leaving no base means untried to bring that high and chivalrous spirit to the scaffold. Prerogative never boasted so rare a sacrifice; the might of kings never extorted so signal an acknowledgment.