Note 494 — Chapter XVII

It has been justly remarked that the Greek orators were careful to impress upon their audience that, in bringing a charge against any one, they were actuated by the strongest personal motives. Æschines, in his oration against Ctesiphon, expresses his intense personal spite against Demosthenes. Christianity has taught us a different lesson, and happily the authority of that lesson is acknowledged, and its spirit generally exemplified by the English bar, and in the British Senate.

With regard to Prynne, let me add that, though his prejudices might warp his judgment, he shewed himself throughout his whole life to be an honest man. Of his learning, there cannot be two opinions. His great work on Parliamentary writs, in four volumes, is pronounced by a competent judge to be so admirable, that "it is impossible to speak of it in terms of too high commendation."—Parry's Parliaments and Councils, Preface, 21. See also Spilsbury's Lincoln's Inn, 283.