in Law, is a high offence, where a person in a judicial place takes any fee, gift, reward, or brokerage, for doing his office, but of the king only. But, taken largely, it signifies the receiving or offering any undue reward to or by any person concerned in the administration of public justice, whether judge, officer, &c. to act contrary to his duty; and sometimes it signifies the taking or giving a reward for a public office.

In the east it is the custom never to petition any superior for justice, not excepting their kings, without a present. This is calculated for the genius of despotic countries; where the true principles of government are never understood, and it is imagined that there is no obligation due from the superior to the inferior, no relative duty owing from the governor to the governed. The Roman law, though it contained many severe injunctions against bribery, as well for selling a man's vote in the senate or other public assembly, as for the bartering of common justice; yet, by a strange indulgence in one instance, it tacitly encouraged this practice; allowing the magistrate to receive small presents, provided they did not on the whole exceed 100 crowns a-year; not conferring the infatuating nature and gigantic progress of this vice, when once admitted. Plato, therefore, in his ideal republic, orders those who take presents for doing their duty to be punished in the severest manner: and by the laws of Athens, he that offered a bribe was also prosecuted, as well as he that received a bribe. In England this offence of taking bribes is punished, in inferior officers, with fine and imprisonment; and in those that offer a bribe, though not taken, the same. But in judges, especially the superior ones, it has been always looked upon as so heinous an offence, that the chief justice Thorpe was hanged for it in the reign of Edward III. By a statute 11 Henry IV. all judges and officers of the king convicted of bribery, shall forfeit treble the bribe, be punished at the king's will, and be discharged from his service for ever. And some notable examples have been made in parliament, of persons in the highest stations, and otherwise very eminent and able, but contaminated with this forbidden vice. Thus in the reign of King James I. the earl of M. lord treasurer of England, being impeached by the commons, for refusing to hear petitions referred to him by the king, till he had received bribes, &c. was, by sentence of the lords, deprived of all his offices, and disabled to hold any for the future, or to fit in parliament; he was also fined 50,000l., and imprisoned during the king's pleasure. In the 11th year of King George I. the lord chancellor M——— had a somewhat milder punishment: he was impeached by the commons, with great zeal, for bribery, in selling the places of matters in chancery for exorbitant sums, and other corrupt practices, tending to the great loss and ruin of the tutors of that court; and the charge being made good against him, being before divested of his office, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 30,000l., and imprisoned till it was paid. It is said that one of the peers, if not two, who voted against him, had been possessed of the office of chancellor, and sold the places of matters in chancery whenever vacant.