JOHN SOMERS was born at Worcester, in an ancient house called the White Ladies, which, as its name seems to import, had formerly been part of a monastery or convent. The exact date of his birth cannot be ascertained, as the parish registers at Worcester, during the civil wars between Charles I. and his Parliament, were either lost, or so inaccurately kept as not to furnish any authentic information. It appears probable, however, from several concurring accounts, that he was born about the year 1650. Dean Swift, who was at first the flatterer, and afterwards the virulent calumniator, of Somers, says that he was sprung from the dregs of the people, and attributes the reserve of his character to his consciousness of his low and base origin. It is, perhaps, scarcely worth while to refute so wretched a calumny; but as a matter of fact it should be stated that the family of Somers was respectable, though not wealthy, and had for several generations been possessed of an estate at Clifton, in the parish of Severnstoke in Gloucestershire. Admiral Sir George Somers*-who was deputy governor of Virginia,,and in 1610 was shipwrecked on the Bermudas, and afterwards died there, leaving his name to that cluster of islands—is said by Horace Walpole to have been a member of the same family. The father of Somers was an attorney in respectable practice at Worcester; in the civil wars he became a zealous Parliamentarian, and commanded a troop in Cromwell's army. The indecent outrages commonly practised in the churches by Cromwell's troopers, are reported in most of the histories of those unsettled times; and it is related of old Mr. Somers, that when attending divine service in the church of Severnstoke, he was so exasperated at the royalist doctrines delivered by the clergy

It appears from the Commons' Journals, that a Sir George Somers was, in 1605, a Member of Parliament for Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire: this was no doubt the same person.

† Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.

man, that he fired a pistol above his head, the ball lodging in the soundingboard of the pulpit. Soon after the battle of Worcester, he resigned his commission and returned to the practice of his profession; but at the Restoration, he thought it prudent to procure a general pardon of all offences which he might have committed while serving in the republican army. He died in January 1681-2; and his monument, upon which is engraved a Latin inscription written by his son, is still to be seen in the church at Severnstoke.

Of the early education of Somers we have only a meagre and unsatisfactory account. The house called the White Ladies, in which he was born, was occupied by a Mr. Blurton, an eminent clothier of Worcester, who had married his father's sister. This lady having no son of her own, adopted young Somers from his birth, and brought him up in her own house, which he always considered as his home till he went to the university. He appears to have spent some years in the College-school at Worcester, which before his time* had attained a high character for classical education under the superintendence of Dr. Bright, a clergyman of great learning and eminence. At this school, Dr. Samuel Butler, the author of 'Hudibras,' and Chief Justice Vaughant, also received the first rudiments of their education. At a subsequent period, we find him at a private school at Walsall, in Staffordshire. He is described by a schoolfellow as being then a weakly boy, wearing a black cap, and never so much as looking out when the other boys were at play. He seems, indeed, to have been a remarkably reserved and sober-blooded boy. At a somewhat later period, Sir Francis Winnington

* Mr. Cooksey, and several other biographers of Somers, represent him as having been himself a pupil of Dr. Bright, and even as having boarded in his house; regardless of the anachronism, that Dr. Bright died in 1626, and that Somers was born in 1650.

+ See his Life, prefixed to his Reports. Seward's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 114.

B

says of him, that, by the exactness of his knowledge and behaviour, he discouraged his father, and all the young men that knew him. They were afraid to be in his company. In what manner his time was occupied from the period of his leaving school until he went to the university in 1675, is unknown. It has been suggested that he was employed for several years in his father's office, who designed him for his own department of the profession of the law. There is no positive evidence of this circumstance, though the conjecture is by no means improbable. It cannot, however, be doubted, that during this important period of his life he acquired those habits of regular and well-directed industry which were afterwards invaluable to him; and, by the diligent study of history and constitutional law, laid the foundation for that mass of learning and accomplishments which eventually rendered him the ornament of his profession, and of the age in which he lived. About this time he formed several connexions, which had great influence upon his subsequent success in life. The estates of the Earl of Shrewsbury were managed by Somers's father; and as that young nobleman had no convenient residence of his own in Worcestershire, he spent much of his time at Worcester, and formed an intimate friendship and familiarity with Somers. About the same time he was also fortunate enough to be favourably noticed by Sir Francis Winnington, then a distinguished practitioner at the English bar, who is stated to have been under obligations to his father for his active services in promoting his election as a member of parliament for the city of Worcester. Winnington is described by Burnet as a lawyer, who had risen from small beginnings, and from as small a proportion of learning in his profession, in which he was rather bold and ready, than able.' It is natural to suppose that such a man, feeling his own deficiencies, would readily perceive with what advantage he might employ the talents and industry of such a young man as Somers in assisting him both in Westminster-hall and in parliament. It was probably with this intention that Sir Francis Winnington advised him to go to the university, and to prosecute his studies with a view to being called to the bar.

Seward's Anecdotes, vol. II. p. 114.] Burnet's Own Times, vol. 1. p. 440.

In 1674, Somers was entered as a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, being then about twenty-three years of age. The particulars of his progress through the university are not recorded; but here, as at school, his contemporaries could perceive few indications of those splendid talents which afterwards raised him to such extraordinary eminence. His college exercises, some of which are still extant, are said to have been in no respect remarkable; and he quitted the university without acquiring any academical honours beyond taking his bachelor's degree. It is probable that he came to London, from time to time, for the purpose of keeping his terms for the bar, while his permanent residence was at Oxford. The following anecdote is related in a memoir published soon after his death.

Mr. Somers's father,' says this anonymous biographer, used to frequent the terms in London, and, in his way from Worcester, was wont to leave his horse at the George at Acton, where he often made mention of the hopeful son he had at the Temple. Cobbet, who kept the inn, hearing him enlarge so much in praise of his son, to compliment the old gentleman, cried, "Why won't you let us see him, sir?" The father, to oblige his merry landlord, desired the young gentleman to accompany him so far on his way home; and being come to the George, took the landlord aside, and said, "I have brought him, Cobbet, but you must not talk to him as you do to me; he will not suffer such fellows as you in his company."

Mr. Somers was called to the bar in 1676*, by the Society of the Middle Temple, but he continued his residence at the university for several years afterwards, and did not remove to London until the year 1682, when, upon his father's death, he succeeded to the paternal estate at Severnstoke, which was worth about 3001. per annum. During this period, he had the advantage of being introduced, by the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Francis Winnington, to the Earl of Essex, Sir William Jones, Algernon Sidney, and several other distinguished opponents of the arbitrary measures of the court. It has been observed, with much reason, that if it

From the books at the Middle Temple, it appears that Somers was admitted to commons May 24th, 1669; called to the bar May 6th, 1676; and to the bench May 10th, 1689, (the day after his ap pointment as solicitor-general.)

had not been for Mr. Somers's political connexions with Lord Shaftesbury, Sir William Jones, and other great leaders of the opposition to the court of king Charles II., he very probably had never attained those honours which he deserved and became so well *. At this time he published several treatises, which sufficiently displayed to the world his familiar and accurate knowledge of constitutional history. His first acknowledged work was the report of an election case, and is entitled The memorable Case of Denzil Onslow, Esq., tried at the Assizes in Surrey, July 20th, 1681, touching his election at Hasle mere, in Surrey. His next peformance was 'A Brief History of the Succession, collected out of the Records and the most authentic Historians.' This work was written at the time when the proposal to bring in a bill to exclude James Duke of York, afterwards James II., from the succession to the crown of England, occupied universal attention, and excited the most lively interest. Somers's political friends, the Earls of Essex and Shaftesbury in the House of Lords, and Sir Francis Winnington and Sir William Jones in the Lower House, warmly supported the bill of exclusion, in opposition to the scheme proposed by the more moderate party, and approved by the king, for a statutory limitation and restriction of the exercise of the regal functions in case the crown should descend to the Duke of York. The object of Somers's tract was to exhibit the principles upon which the parliament of England has authority to alter, restrain, and qualify the right of succession to the crown; and he places the historical arguments in support of this proposition in a forcible and convincing light. Indeed, though it might be difficult to justify such a proposition by abstract reasoning upon the theory of the British constitution, it has been so repeatedly acted upon in several periods of our history, that even in the time of Charles II. the practice had, as Somers justly contended, to all intents and purposes, sanctioned and established the principle. An excellent tract, upon the same subject, entitled 'A just and modest Vindication of the two last Parliaments,' appeared shortly after the breaking up of the Oxford parliament in March, 1681, which has been

2 Ralph, 784-5. Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 481.

partly ascribed to Somers: Burnet says that it was originally penned by Algernon Sidney, but that a new draught was made by Somers, which was corrected by Sir William Jones *,'

Upon occasion of the attempt of the court party in 1681,-by the illegal examination of witnesses, by the king's counsel, in open court,-to induce a grand jury to find a true bill for high treason against the Earl of Shaftesbury, the failure of which exasperated the projectors of it beyond measure, Mr. Somers wrote his celebrated tract, entitled 'The Security of Englishmen's Lives, or the Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England explained. This work was attributed by some to Sir William Jones. Bishop Burnet says, 'It passed as writ by Lord Essex, though I understood afterwards it was writ by Somers, who was much esteemed and often visited by Lord Essex, and who trusted himself to him, and who writ the best papers that came out in that time.' In later times, this work has been universally ascribed to Somers; and the fact of this treatise, as well as the 'Just and Modest Vindication,' being composed by him, seems confirmed by Lord Hardwicke's assertion, that he had seen the rough draughts of both of them in Lord Somers's handwriting amongst the manuscripts which were destroyed by fire at Lincoln's Inn in 1752.

With reference to Somers's conductin the publication of these excellent constitutional treatises upon the passing politics of the day, Mr. Dunning, in his Letter on Libels, General Warrants, &c.,' makes the following just observation: 'Few men,' says he, 'know much of the nature of polity; and of them, all do not sufficiently attend to the conduct of administration to observe when slight innovations are made in the laws or in their administration and of those who do, very few indeed have that degree of understanding which enables them to judge soundly of the consequences of such alterations with respect to their liberties in general. Again, of these, very few-not more than one, perhaps-has activity, resolution, and public spirit enough to publish his thoughts, as Mr. Somers did, concerning what was going forward, in order to alarm (like a good citizen) the rest of his fellow-subjects.'

During his residence at Oxford Somers was not inattentive to polite literature;

Burnet's Own Times.

he published a translation of some of Ovid's Epistles into English verse, which, while it shows that he could never have attained so distinguished a place among poets, as he afterwards filled among lawyers and statesmen, is yet by no means a contemptible performance. His translations from Ovid, and a version of Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades, are the only published proofs of his classical studies at Oxford.

In the year 1682 he removed to London, and immediately commenced an assiduous attendance upon the courts of law, which at that time was considered as the highway of the legal profession. In 1683 he appeared as junior counsel to Sir Francis Winnington, in the defence to an important political prosecution, instituted against Pilkington and Shute, with several other persons, for a riot at the election of sheriffs for the city of London; and it is worthy of being remarked, that Mr. Holt, afterwards lord chief justice, was associated with him in that defence *. One of his biographers states, that, in the reign of James II., his practice produced 7007. a year. In those days this would have been a very large income for a common lawyer of five years' standing. It may reasonably be doubted whether this account of the extent of his practice at the bar is not considerably exaggerated; his name does not once appear in the Reports of that period, excepting in the case of Pilkington and Shute above alluded to; and it is clear, from the objection afterwards made to his being retained on the trial of the Seven Bishops, that he was not then distinguished by any great degree of professional eminence, though his merits as a political writer must have been generally known and appreciated. Such, however, was the character for research and industry which he had attained within a very few years from the commencement of his professional career, that, on the trial of the Seven Bishops in 1688, he was introduced as counsel into that momentous cause, at the express and peremptory recommendation of Pollexfen, one of the greatest lawyers of that day.

The transaction from which this celebrated trial arose is so generally and familiarly known, that it will be sufficient to remind the reader of the general outline of the circumstances. In April, 1687, James II. promulgated a Declaration

⚫ How. St, Tri, vol. ix. p. 241,

for religious indulgence and toleration in England.' The real object of this declaration, though it professed to be directed to the attainment of general liberty of conscience, was to enable the king to introduce Roman catholics into offices of influence and importance in the state, from which they had been excluded by the rigorous statutes of Elizabeth and James I. For this purpose he declared that he had suspended all penal and sanguinary laws in matters of religion. It was obvious that, by this declaration, the king, in fact, assumed the power of absolutely dispensing with acts of parliament by his own authority; for the suspension of laws at the will of the crown, without any limitation of time, differs in no material respect from the actual repeal or abrogation of them. The king ordered the declaration to be publicly read in all churches on two several Sundays, during the time of divine service. The archbishop of Canterbury and six bishops presented a petition to the king, praying, in firm but respectful language, that the clergy might be excused from the performance of this obnoxious duty. The king and the partisans of the court were highly exasperated; the bishops were summoned before the privy council, and upon their refusal to make an apology or submission, an ex officio information was filed in the court of king's bench, charging them with publishing a seditious libel against the king and the government by the presentation of the petition. The rank of the defendants, the personal interest of the king in the question at issue, the general expectation excited by this conflict amongst all classes of the people, and, above all, the event of the prosecution, which was one of the principal means of driving James from his throne and kingdom, and of introducing the revolution, render the trial of the Seven Bishops one of the most important judicial proceedings that ever occurred in Westminster-hall. It was no trifling testimony, therefore, to the high estimation in which Somers was held by experienced judges of professional merit, that he should be expressly selected by the counsel for the defendants to bear a part in the defence. We are told that upon the first suggestion of Somers's name, objection was made amongst the bishops to him as too young and obscure a man; but old Pollexfen insisted upon him, and would not be himself retained without the