must mention three obscure judges who
received their appointments under Stuart kings. Before long I shall
speak of their law and its application, and now only introduce them to
you as a measure preliminary to a more intimate acquaintance
hereafter.

1. The first is Sir William Jones, by far the least ignoble of the
three. He was descended from one of the Barons who wrung the Great
Charter from the hands of King John in 1618 [Transcriber's Note: for
'1618' read '1215'; see Errata], and in 1628 dwelt in the same house
which sheltered the more venerable head of his Welsh ancestor. In 1628
he was made judge by Charles I. He broke down the laws of the realm to
enable the king to make forced loans on his subjects, and by his
special mandate (Lettre de Cachet) to imprison whom he would, as long
as it pleased him, and without showing any reason for the commitment
or the detention! Yes, he supported the king in his attempt to shut up
members of parliament for words spoken in debate in the house of
commons itself; to levy duties on imports, and a tax of ship-money on
the land. He was summoned before parliament for his offences against
public justice, and finally deprived of office, though ungratefully,
by the king himself.[15]

[Footnote 15: Account of him in Preface to his Reports, (1675); 3 St.
Tr. 162, 293, 844, 1181; 2 Parl. Hist. 869; 1 Rushworth, 661, _et
al._; Whitlocke, 14, _et al._]

2. Thomas Twysden was counsel for George Coney in 1655, a London
merchant who refused to pay an illegal tax levied on him by
Cromwell--who followed in the tyrannical footsteps of the king he
slew. Twysden was thrown into the Tower for defending his client--as
Mr. Sloane, at Sandusky, has just been punished by the honorable court
of the United States for a similar offence,--but after a few days made
a confession of his "error," defending the just laws of the land,
promised to offend no more, and was set at liberty, ignominiously
leaving his client to defend himself and be defeated. This Twysden was
made judge by Charles II. The reporters recording his decisions put
down "_Twysden in furore_," thinly veiling the judicial wrath in
modest Latin. He was specially cruel against Quakers and other
dissenters, treating George Fox, Margarett Fell, and John Bunyan with
brutal violence.[16]

[Footnote 16: 6 St. Tr. 634; 1 Campbell Justices, 442.]

3. Sir John Kelyng is another obscure judge of those times. In the
civil war he was a violent cavali