also a native of Abingdon; he admitted prisoners to some
rights, protected defendants in suits, and had the irons stricken off
the accused when brought into court, for in those days of the cruel rule
of Judge Jeffreys the defendant was always considered guilty until
adjudged innocent. Holt originated the aphorism that "slaves cannot
breathe in England:" this was in the famous Somerset case, where a slave
was sold and the vendor sued for his money, laying the issues at
Mary-le-Bow in London, and describing the negro as "there sold and
delivered." The chief-justice said that the action was not maintainable,
as the status of slavery did not exist in England. If, however, the
claim had been laid in Virginia, he said he would have been obliged to
allow it; so that the decision was practically on technical grounds.
Lord Campbell sums up Holt's merits as a judge by saying that he was not
a statesman like Clarendon, or a philosopher like Bacon, or an orator
like Mansfield, yet his name is held in equal veneration with theirs,
and some think him the most venerated judge that ever was chief-justice.
There is a really good story told of him by Lord Campbell. In his
younger days Holt was travelling in Oxfordshire, and stopped at an inn
where the landlady's daughter had an illness inducing fits. She appealed
to him, and he promised to work a cure: which he did by writing some
Greek words on a piece of parchment and telling her to let her daughter
wear the charm around her neck. Partly from the fact that the malady had
spent itself, and possibly also from the effect of her imagination, the
girl entirely recovered. Years rolled on and he became the lord
chief-justice, when one day a withered old woman was brought before the
assizes for being a witch, and it was proven that she pretended to cure
all manner of cattle diseases, and with a charm that she kept carefully
wrapped in a bundle of rags. The woman told how the charm many years
before had cured her daughter, and when it was unfolded and handed to
the judge he remembered the circumstance, recognized his talisman, and
ordered her release.

CAVERSHAM AND READING ABBEY.

[Illustration: THE THAMES AT CLIFTON-HAMPDEN.]

As we continue the journey down the Thames the shores on either hand
seem cultivated like gardens, with trim hedgerows dividing them, pretty
villages, cottages gay with flowers and evergreens, spires rising among
the trees; and the bewitching scene reminds us of Ral