sions as things that were bought and sold. In many cases this
impression was not erroneous. Judges were forbidden to accept gifts from
actual suitors, or to take payments _for_ judgments after their
delivery; but on the judgment-seat they were often influenced by
recollections of the conduct of suitors who _had been_ munificent before
the commencement of proceedings, and most probably would be equally
munificent six months after delivery of a judgment favorable to their
claims. Humorous anecdotes heightened the significance of patent facts.
Throughout a shire it would be told how this suitor won a judgment by a
sumptuous feast; how that suitor bought the justice's favor with a flask
of rare wine, a horse of excellent breed, a hound of superior sagacity.

In the fifteenth century the judge whose probity did not succumb to an
excellent dinner was deemed a miracle of virtue. "A lady," writes Fuller
of Chief Justice Markham, who was dismissed from his place in 1470,
"would traverse a suit of law against the will of her husband, who was
contented to buy his quiet by giving her her will therein, though
otherwise persuaded in his judgment the cause would go against her. This
lady, dwelling in the shire town, invited the judge to dinner, and
(though thrifty enough herself) treated him with sumptuous
entertainment. Dinner being done, and the cause being called, the judge
gave it against her. And when, in passion, she vowed never to invite the
judge again, 'Nay, wife,' said he, 'vow never to invite a _just judge_
any more.'" It may be safely affirmed that no English lady of our time
ever tried to bribe Sir Alexander Cockburn or Sir Frederick Pollock with
a dinner _a la Russe_.

By his eulogy of Chief Justice Dyer, who died March 24, 1582, Whetstone
gives proof that in Elizabethan England purity was the exception rather
than the rule with judges:--

"And when he spake he was in speeche reposde;
His eyes did search the simple suitor's harte;
To put by bribes his hands were ever closde,
His processe juste, he tooke the poore man's parte.
He ruld by lawe and listened not to arte,
Those foes to truthe--loove, hate, and private gain,
Which most corrupt, his conscience could not staine."

There is no reason to suppose that the custom of giving and receiving
presents was more general or extravagant in the time of Elizabeth than
in previous ages; but the fuller records of her splendid reign give
greater pro