" A stronger character, a keener conscience, would have faced the
question, not only whether he was not setting the most ruinous of
precedents, but whether any man could be so sure of himself as to go on
dealing justly with gifts in his hands. But Bacon, who never dared to
face the question, what James was, what Buckingham was, let himself be
spellbound by custom. He knew in the abstract that judges ought to have
nothing to do with gifts, and had said so impressively in his charges to
them. Yet he went on self-complacent, secure, almost innocent, building
up a great tradition of corruption in the very heart of English justice,
till the challenge of Parliament, which began in him its terrible and
relentless, but most unequal, prosecution of justice against ministers
who had betrayed the commonwealth in serving the Crown, woke him from
his dream, and made him see, as others saw it, the guilt of a great
judge who, under whatever extenuating pretext, allowed the suspicion to
arise that he might sell justice. "In the midst of a state of as great
affliction as mortal man can endure," he wrote to the Lords of the
Parliament, in making his submission, "I shall begin with the professing
gladness in some things.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252