r, but in the
perpetration of the offence of bribery all the immediate parties obtain
what they desire, and are satisfied.

The purification of the bench from judicial bribery has been gradual in
most of the European countries. In France it received an impulse in the
16th century from the high-minded chancellor, Michel de L'Hopital. In
England judicial corruption has been a crime of remarkable rarity. Indeed,
with the exception of a statute of 1384 (repealed by the Statute Law
Revision Act 1881) there has been no legislation relating to judicial
bribery. The earliest recorded case was that of Sir William Thorpe, who in
1351 was fined and removed from office for accepting bribes. Other
celebrated cases were those of Michael de la Pole, chancellor of England,
in 1387; Lord Chancellor Bacon in 1621; Lionel Cranfield, earl of
Middlesex, in 1624; and Sir Thomas Parker, 1st earl of Macclesfield, in
1725. In Scotland for some years after the Revolution the bench was not
without a suspicion of interested partiality; but since the beginning of
the 19th century, at least, there has been in all parts of the empire a
perfect reliance on its purity. The same may be said of the higher class of
ministerial officers. There is no doubt that in the period from the
Revolution to the end of Queen Anne's reign, when a speaker of the House of
Commons was expelled for bribery, and the great Marlborough could not clear
his character from pecuniary dishonesty, there was much corruption in the
highest official quarters. The level of the offence of official bribery has
gradually descended, until it has become an extremely rare thing for the
humbler officers connected with the revenue to be charged with it. It has
had a more lingering existence with those who, because their power is more
of a constitutional than an official character, have been deemed less
responsible to the public. During Walpole's administration there is no
doubt that members of parliament were paid in cash for votes; and the
memorable saying, that every man has his price, has been preserved as a
characteristic indication of his method of government. One of the forms in
which administrative corruption is most difficult of eradication is the
appointment to office. It is sometimes maintained that the purity which
characterizes the administration of justice is here unattainable, because
in giving a judgment there is but one form in which it can be justly given,
but when an office ha