of acknowledging their authority.' Cromwell had
breadth enough to demand no such declaration from Sir Matthew, and so
the latter took his place on the bench. Nor is it necessary to say how
he adorned it. In agreement with his political views, he declined
taking any part in trials for offences against the State; but in cases
of ordinary felonies, no one could act with more vigour and decision.
During the trial of a Republican soldier, who had waylaid and murdered
a Royalist, the colonel of the soldier came into court to arrest
judgment, on the plea that his man had done only his duty, for that
the person whom he had killed had been disobeying the Protector's
orders at the time; and to threaten the judge with the vengeance of
the supreme authority, if he urged matters to an extremity against
him. Sir Matthew listened coolly to his threats and his reasonings,
and then, pronouncing sentence of death against the felon, agreeably
to the finding of the jury, he ordered him out to instant execution,
lest the course of justice should be interrupted by any interference
on the part of Government. On another occasion, in which he had to
preside in a trial in which the Protector was deeply concerned, he
found that the jury had been returned, not by the sheriff or his
lawful officer, but by order of the Protector himself. He immediately
dismissed them, and, refusing to go on with the trial, broke up the
court. Cromwell, says Burnet, was highly displeased with him on this
occasion, and on his return from the circuit in which it had
occurred, told him in great anger that 'he was not fit to be a judge.'
'Very true,' replied Sir Matthew, whose ideas of the requirements of
the office were of the most exalted character,--'Very true;' and so
the matter dropped.

'It is absolutely necessary,' argued Sir Matthew, 'to have justice
kept up at all times,' whatever flaws may exist in the title of the
men in whom the supreme authority may chance to be vested. Never yet
was there a simpler proposition; but there is sublimity in its
breadth. It involves the true doctrine of subjection to the
magistrate, as enforced by St. Paul. The New Testament furnishes us
with no disquisitions on political justice: it does not say whether
the title of Domitian to the supreme authority was a good title or no,
or whether he should have been succeeded by Caligula, and Caligula by
Claudius, or no; or whether or no the fact that Claudius was poisoned
by the mother of