306 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[SEPT. 



Life of Judye Jeffreys^ by Humphry 

 W. Woolrych; 1827 'Of Jeffreys, the 

 prevailing impression derived not from 

 any precise acquaintance with his history, 

 but hereditarily, or from allusions and 

 current phrases scattered hither and thi- 

 ther in half the books we meet with is 

 that of a man, who exercised the office of 

 judge with a cruel severity ; and the dis- 

 tinct instance and proof of cruelty, is his 

 execution of the extraordinary commis- 

 sion with which he was invested for 

 punishing the adherents of Monmouth in 

 the West proverbially spoken of as his 

 compaign against the rebels. The im- 

 pression, as far as it goes, is unquestion- 

 ably a correct one ; nor will any part of 

 his career belie it. As a pleader, a judge, 

 a chancellor, an ecclesiastical commis- 

 sioner, he was a " bold, bad man," with 

 the fewest relieving points, in any thing 

 approaching the amiable and humane, of 

 any man's character perhaps upon record. 

 Throughout his whole course there was 

 the same insolence and brutality, with the 

 accompanying characteristics which in- 

 deed never fail them ofsneakingness and 

 servility, where he was boldly fronted, 

 and where the great or influential stood 

 before him. He has found in Mr. Wool- 

 rych a biographer, with all the disposition 

 in the world to white-wash him, could he 

 discover the brightening materials; but 

 all are of too dark a hue ; and he is too 

 honest to fabricate, and too frank to sup- 

 press; but hope seems never to desert 

 him, and he is ready to catch at shadows 

 on the chance of finding 1 a palliative. 



Jeffreys was the son of a Welsh gentle- 

 man of respectability, with a considerable 

 family, and was destined by his parent for 

 trade. He was sent to Shrewsbury school ; 

 and from thence to St. Paul's, and finally 

 to Westminster, under the vigorous birch 

 of Dr. Busby. Quitting school, his de- 

 sires from what cause does not appear, 

 nor is it very material a dream of his is 

 suggested were turned towards the law, 

 but were resisted by the father. Seeing 

 the restless and turbulent temper of the 

 boy, the old gentleman predicted he would 

 die in his shoes and stockings meaning, 

 he would get into difficulties and be 

 hanged. Luckily for young Jeffreys, his 

 grandmother took a fancy to him, and 

 enabled him to indulge his early inclina- 

 tions; and he was accordingly entered 

 of the Inner Temple, at fifteen. He was 

 a forward youth, and quickly got into 

 society, and made himself agreeable by 

 his pranks, his impudence, and eating and 

 drinking powers. Accident threw him 

 chiefly among the grumblers of the day 

 among the Presbyterians, who had often 

 very good reason for grumbling he was 

 welcomed as a clever, ready lad, likely one 

 day or other to prove useful invited, 

 and assisted, when his purse ran low, 

 during bis noviciate. The commence- 



ment of his public career was equally ac- 

 cidental and precocious. At the King- 

 stone Assizes, during the plague in 1666 

 T where, though there was no dearth of 

 causes and criminals, there was actually a 

 dearth of lawyers young Jeffreys, then 

 only eighteen, was allowed to plead, 

 two years before he was regularly called 

 to the bar. 



Once dubbed a barrister, he began to 

 frequent Hickes's Hall, Guildhall, and the 

 inferior courts, and was quickly pushed 

 by his friends, or pushed himself by his 

 forwardness, mixed with a good deal of 

 cunning and adroitness, into considerable 

 business. Circumstances thus bringing 

 him into contact with the citizens, he 

 laboured zealously to make an interest in 

 the corporation, and so successfully, that 

 he obtained the appointment of common 

 sergeant at twenty-three. In the pursuit 

 of an heiress, about this time, the daughter 

 of one of the city noblesse, he was, how- 

 ever, less successful. He had employed 

 the agency of a poor relation of the lady's, 

 who, by her officiousness in the business, 

 lost the favour of the family ; and Jeffreys 

 to console her and himself perhaps for 

 their respective disappointments actually 

 married her. This act is marked by the 

 biographer as an instance of generosity 

 or, at worst, of a careless yielding to his 

 fancy, unbiassed by the impulse of avarice. 

 Of course his motives for this act are be- 

 yond our reach ; they may have been 

 good, bad, or indifferent, but cannot surely 

 unless something were really known 

 about them be fairly the subject of pane- 

 gyric. 



The party who brought Jeffreys in, were 

 of course his friends the Presbyterians ; 

 but about this time, by what means does 

 not appear, he became the associate of a 

 very different set, particularly of the 

 younger Chiffinch, the king's closet-keep- 

 er, and purveyor of his pleasures, and 

 through him apparently was introduced 

 to the Duchess of Portsmouth. By these 

 honourable approaches he came within 

 the purlieus of the court, and paved his 

 way to the recordership of the city the 

 object of his ambition in the appoint- 

 ment of which that being then with the 

 government his old friends could be of 

 little service. The city, too, was now on 

 good terms with the court, and Jeffreys 

 made no scruple of ratting, without the 

 ceremony of any gradations. In 1677, he 

 was knighted on what occasion is a mys- 

 tery ; but missed the recordership on the 

 removal of Howell. The next year, 1678, 

 however, on the promotion of Sir Win. 

 Dolben, he attained to the honour of being 

 the " mouthpiece " of the city ; and about 

 the same time, within three months of the 

 death of his first wife, he married the 

 daughter herself a widow of an alder- 

 man, who had passed the chair. The lady 

 was brought to bed somewhat prema- 



