I., p. 239 _seq._, Chap.
VII.

CHAPTER II.

"Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure,
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure."
_Don Juan_, xiii., 16.

Rivals in love, rivals in law, rivals for place, Coke and Bacon, while
nominally friends, were implacable enemies, but they sought their ends
by different methods. When James I. had ascended the throne, Bacon
began at once to seek his favour; but Coke took no trouble whatever
for that purpose, and he was not even introduced to the royal presence
until several weeks after the accession. Bacon, then a K.C., held no
office during the first four years of the new reign; but his literary
fame and his skilful advocacy at the Bar excited the jealousy of Coke.
On one occasion, Coke grossly insulted him in the Court of Exchequer,
whereupon Bacon said: "Mr. Attorney, I respect you but I fear you not;
and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of
it." Coke angrily replied: "I think scorn to stand upon terms of
greatness towards you, who are less than little--less than the least."

Lord Campbell says that Sir Edward Coke's arrogance to the whole Bar,
and to all who approached him, now became almost insufferable, and
that "his demeanour was particularly offensive to his rival"--Bacon.
As to prisoners, "his brutal conduct ... brought permanent disgrace
upon himself and upon the English Bar." When Sir Walter Raleigh was
being tried for his life, but had not yet been found guilty, Coke said
to him: "Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived.
I want words sufficient to express thy viprous treasons." When Sir
Everard Digby confessed that he deserved the vilest death, but humbly
begged for mercy and some moderation of justice, Coke told him that he
ought "rather to admire the great moderation and mercy of the King, in
that, for so exorbitant a crime, no new torture answerable thereto was
devised to be inflicted upon him," and that, as to his wife and
children, he ought to desire the fulfilment of the words of the Psalm:
"Let his wife be a widow and his children vagabonds: let his posterity
be destroyed, and in the next generation let his name be quite put
out." According to Lord Campbell, Coke's "arrogance of demeanour to
all mankind is unparalleled."

Towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth, Coke, as Attorney-General,
had had another task well suited to his taste, tha