The arms of Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Harbottle Grimstone gleam in the chapel windows. Swift's detestation, Bishop Burnet, the historian and friend of William of Orange, was preacher here for nine years, and here delivered his celebrated sermon, "Save me from the lion's mouth: thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn." Burnet was appointed by Sir Harbottle, who was Master of the Rolls; and in his "Own Times" he has inserted a warm eulogy of Sir Harbottle as a worthy and pious man. Atterbury, the Jacobite Bishop of Rochester, was also preacher here; nor can we forget that amiable man and great theologian, Bishop Butler, the author of the "Analogy of Religion." Butler, the son of a Dissenting tradesman at Wantage, was for a long time lost in a small country living, a loss to the Church which Archbishop Blackburne lamented to Queen Caroline. "Why, I thought he had been dead!" exclaimed the queen. "No, madam," replied the archbishop; "he is only buried." In 1718 Butler was appointed preacher at the Rolls by Sir Joseph. Jekyll. This excellent man afterwards became Bishop of Bristol, and died Bishop of Durham.
WOLSEY IN CHANCERY LANE
A few anecdotes about past dignitaries at the Rolls. Of Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Charles I., Lord Clarendon, in his "History of the Rebellion," tells a story too good to be passed by. This Sir Julius, having by right of office the power of appointing the six clerks, designed one of the profitable posts for his son, Robert Cæsar. One of the clerks dying before Sir Julius could appoint his son, the imperious treasurer, Sir Richard Weston, promised his place to a dependant of his, who gave him for it £6,000 down. The vexation of old Sir Julius at this arbitrary step so moved his friends, that King Charles was induced to promise Robert Cæsar the next post in the clerks' office that should fall vacant, and the Lord Treasurer was bound by this promise. One day the Earl of Tullibardine, passionately pressing the treasurer about his business, was told by Sir Richard that he had quite forgotten the matter, but begged for a memorandum, that he might remind the king that very afternoon. The earl then wrote on a small bit of paper the words, "Remember Cæsar!" and Sir Richard, without reading it, placed it carefully in a little pocket, where he said he kept all the memorials first to be transacted. Many days passed, and the ambitious treasurer forgot all about Cæsar. At length one night, changing his clothes, his servant brought him the notes and papers from his pocket, which he looked over according to his custom. Among these he found the little billet with merely the words "Remember Cæsar!" and on the sight of this the arrogant yet timid courtier was utterly confounded. Turning pale, he sent for his bosom friends, showed them the paper, and held a solemn deliberation over it. It was decided that it must have been dropped into his hand by some secret friend, as he was on his way to the priory lodgings. Every one agreed that some conspiracy was planned against his life by his many and mighty enemies, and that Cæsar's fate might soon be his unless great precautions were taken. The friends therefore persuaded him to be at once indisposed, and not venture forth in that neighbourhood, nor to admit to an audience any but persons of undoubted affection. At night the gates were shut and barred early, and the porter solemnly enjoined not to open them to any one, or to venture on even a moment's sleep. Some servants were sent to watch with him, and the friends sat up all night to await the event. "Such houses," says Clarendon, who did not like the treasurer, "are always in the morning haunted by early suitors;" but it was very late before any one could now get admittance into the house, the porter having tasted some of the arrears of sleep which he owed to himself for his night watching, which he accounted for to his acquaintance by whispering to them "that his lord should have been killed that night, which had kept all the house from going to bed." Shortly afterwards, however, the Earl of Tullibardine asking the treasurer whether he had remembered Cæsar, the treasurer quickly recollected the ground of his perturbation, could not forbear imparting it to his friends, and so the whole jest came to be discovered.
IZAAK WALTON'S HOUSE
In 1614, £6 12s. 6d. was claimed by Sir Julius Cæsar for paving the part of Chancery Lane over against the Rolls Gate.
Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls in the reign of George I., was an ancestor of that witty Jekyll, the friend and adviser of George IV. Sir Joseph was very active in introducing a Bill for increasing the duty on gin, in consequence of which he became so odious to the mob that they one day hustled and trampled on him in a riot in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Hogarth, who painted his "Gin Lane" to express his alarm and disgust at the growing intemperance of the London poor, has in one of his extraordinary pictures represented a low fellow writing J.J. under a gibbet.