his career, and he was blessed with none at the close of
it. Spenser yielded him no delight, Shakespeare no seduction. The study
of law began at three in the morning, and, with short intervals of rest,
ceased at nine in the evening, at which hour the indefatigable student
at last took repose. Fortified by such discipline, and brim full of law,
Coke was called to the bar in the year 1578, being then twenty-seven
years of age, and he rose in his profession as rapidly as he had all
along resolved to rise.

In pursuance of his design Coke married well in 1582; the lady was
young, beautiful, and accomplished; virtues thrown, as it were, into the
bargain, since the lawyer had been well satisfied with the ample fortune
by which they were accompanied. Before he was thirty years old the
desperate money-seeker had made himself master of manor upon manor, and
laid the foundation of the enormous possessions which at length alarmed
the Crown, lest they should prove too magnificent for a subject. In 1585
he was elected Recorder of Coventry, in 1586 of Norwich, and in 1592 of
London itself. In the last-named year he was also appointed Reader in
the Inner Temple by the Benchers, and in 1592, being in his forty-first
year, by the influence of Burleigh, he was made Solicitor-General to the
Queen. The solicitorship secured the Speakership of the House of
Commons, according to custom. Coke in his address to the Queen upon his
appointment compared himself to a star in the heavens, "which is but
_opacum corpus_ until it receiveth light from the sun." Her Majesty in
answer graciously condescended to accept the metaphor, for she informed
her humble Speaker that liberty of speech was granted him, "but you must
know what privilege you have; not to speak every one what he listeth, or
what cometh in his brain to utter, but your privilege is ay or no;
wherefore, Mr. Speaker, Her Majesty's pleasure is, that if you perceive
any idle heads which will meddle with reforming the church and
transforming the commonwealth, and do exhibit bills to such purpose, you
receive them not until they be viewed and considered by those who it is
fitter should consider of such things, and can better judge of them."
The times were sweetly Arcadian. Elizabeth should be painted a
shepherdess, and her faithful Parliament a meek and timid flock about
her.

The obsequiousness of Coke to his Royal mistress was in perfect keeping
with his character. Nothing exceeds his abjec