consulted as to their movements, and regarded as their future leader.

After keeping all his terms, and doing all his exercises, he was regularly called to the bar on the 22d day of November, 1668 — having been on the books of the society five years and six months- the requisite period of probation having been previously, by a general regulation, reduced from seven to the present period of five years.

Although he does not ever appear to have been chosen "reader" or 66 treasurer" of the society, yet in the year 1678, on being elected recorder of London, he was made a bencher, and he continued to be so till he took the coif, when he necessarily left it for Serjeants' Inn.

During his early career he was involved in difficulties, which could only have been overcome by uncommon energy. Pressed by creditors, and at a loss to provide for the day that was passing over him, he had burdened himself with the expenses of a family. But this arose out of a speculation, which, in the first instance, was very prudent. Being a handsome young fellow, and capable of making himself acceptable to modest women, notwithstanding the bad company which he kept, he resolved to repair his fortunes by marrying an heiress; and he fixed upon the daughter of a country gentleman of large possessions, who, on account of his agreeable qualities, had invited him to his house. The daughter, still very young, was cautiously guarded, and almost always confined to her chamber; but Jeffreys contrived to make a confidant and friend of a poor relation of hers, who was the daughter of a country parson, and lived with her as a companion. Through this agency he had established a correspondence with the heiress, and an interest in her affections, so that on his last

visit she had agreed, if her father's consent could not be obtained, to elope with him. What was his disappointment, soon after his return to his dismal chamber in the Inner Temple, which he had hoped soon to exchange for a sumptuous manor-house, to receive a letter from the companion, informing him that his correspondence with the heiress had been discovered by the old father, who was in such a rage, that locking up her cousin, he had instantly turned herself out of doors, and that having taken shelter in the house of an acquaintance in Holborn, she was there in a state of great destitution and distraction, afraid to return to her father, or to inform him of what had happened." The conduct of Jeffreys on this occasion may be truly considered the brightest passage in his history. He went to her, found her in tears, and considering that he had been the means of ruining her prospects in life, (to say nothing of her being much handsomer than her rich cousin,) he offered her his hand. She consented. Her father, notwithstanding the character and circumstances of his proposed son-in-law, out of regard to his daughter's reputation, sanctioned their union, and to the surprise of all parties, gave her a fortune of three hundred pounds.

She made an excellent wife, and I do not find any complaint of his having used her ill till near the time of her death, a few years after, when he had cast his affections upon the lady who became the second Mrs. Jeffreys. Meanwhile he left her at her father's, occasionally visiting her; and he continued to carry on his former pursuits, and to strengthen his connections in London, with a view to his success at the bar, on which he resolutely calculated with unabated confidence.

He was not disappointed. Never had a young lawyer risen so rapidly into practice. But he cut out a new line for him

self. Instead of attending in Westminster Hall to take notes in law French of the long-winded arguments of serjeants and eminent counsel, where he would have had little chance of employment, he did not go near any of the superior courts for some years, but confined himself to the Old Bailey, the London Sessions, and Hicks's Hall. There he was soon "the cock of the walk."

Some of his pot companions were now of great use to him in bringing him briefs, and recommending him to business. All this pushing would have been of little avail if he had not fully equalled expectation by the forensic abilities which he displayed. He had a very sweet and powerful voice, having something in its tone which immediately fixed the attention, so that his audience always were compelled to listen to him, irrespective of what he said. "He was of bold aspect, and cared not for the countenance of any man." He was extremely voluble, but always perspicuous and forcible, making use of idiomatic, and familiar, and colloquial, and sometimes of coarse language. He never spared any assertion that was likely to serve his client. He could get up a point of law so as to argue it with great ability, and with the justices, as well as with juries, his influence was unbounded. He was particularly famous for his talent in cross-examination, indulging in ribaldry and banter to a degree which would not now be permitted. The audience being ever ready to take part with the persecuted witness, the laugh was sometimes turned against. him. It is related that, about this time, beginning to crossexamine a witness in a leathern doublet, who had made out a complete case against his client, he bawled forth 66 You fellow in the leathern doublet, pray what have you for swearing?" The man looked steadily at him, and "Truly, sir,"

said he, "if you have no more for lying than I have for swearing, you might wear a leathern doublet as well as I.” This blunt reply got to the west end of the town, and was remembered among the courtiers against Jeffreys when he grew to be a great man.

;

While a trial was going on, he was devotedly earnest in it but when it was over, he would recklessly get drunk, as if he never were to have another to conduct. Coming so much in contact with the aldermen, he ingratiated himself with them very much, and he was particularly patronized by a namesake (though no relation) of his own Jeffreys, alderman of Bread Street Ward, who was very wealthy, a great smoker, (an accomplishment in which the lawyer could rival him, as well as in drinking,) and who had immense influence with the livery.

Pushed by him, or rising rapidly by his own buoyancy, our hero, before he had been two years and a half at the bar, and while only twenty-three years of age, was elected common serjeant of the city of London an office which has

raised a Denman as well as a Jeffreys to be chief justice of England. This first step of his elevation he obtained on the 17th of March, 1671.

But his ambition was only inflamed by this promotion, which disqualified him for a considerable part of his bar practice, and he resolved entirely to change the field of his operations, making a dash at Westminster Hall. He knew well that he could not be employed to draw declarations and pleas, or to argue demurrers or special verdicts; but he hoped his talent for examining witnesses and for speaking might avail him. At any rate, this was the only road to high distinction in his profession, and he spurned the idea of spend

ing his life in trying petty larcenies, and dining with the city companies.

Hard drinking was again his grand resource. He could now afford to invite the great city attorneys to his house as well as carouse with them at taverns, and they were pleased with the attentions of a rising barrister as well as charmed with the pleasantry of the most jovial of companions. He likewise began to cultivate fashionable society, and to consider how he might contrive to get an introduction at court. "He put himself into all companies, for which he was qualified by using himself to drink hard." Now was the time when men got forward in life by showing their hatred of puritanism, their devotion to church and king, and an affectation of vice, even if actually free from it.

Yet such was the versatility of Jeffreys, that for the nonce he could appear sanctimonious, and even puritanical. Thus he deceived the religious, the moral, the immaculate Sir Matthew Hale, then chief justice of the King's Bench. Roger North, in drawing the character of this extraordinary man, says, "Although he was very grave in his own person, he loved the most bizarre and irregular wits in the practice of the law before him most extravagantly. So Sir George Jeffreys gained as great an ascendant in practice over him as ever counsel had over a judge."

As a King's Bench practitioner, Jeffreys was first employed at Nisi Prius in actions for assaults and defamation; but before long the city attorneys gave him briefs in commercial causes tried at Guildhall, and though in banc he could not well stand up against regularly-bred lawyers, like Sir Francis North, Sir William Jones, Sir Creswell Levinz, and Heneage Finch, the son of the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, he was