Litchfield enquirer. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1829-current, 1849-03-01
III i SGGL L A n Y.
From Maucoulay's History Of Eng7and
CHARACTER OF JEFF2ETS.

The great seal was left in Guiford' 5
custody; but a marked indignity was at
the same time offered to him. 1t was
determined that another lawyer of more
vigor and audacity should be called to
assist in the administration. The per
son selected was Sir George Jeffrcys,
Chief Justice of the Court of Kings
Bench. The depravity of this man had
passed into IL proyerb Both the great
English partie have attacked his memo
ry with cmulous violence; for the Wings
considered him as their most barbarous
enemy, and the Tories found it coaysn-
lent to throw on him the blame ofaall
the crimes which had sulIied their tri-
umph. A diligent and candid inquiry
will show that some frightful Stories
which have been told concerning him
are false or exaggerated yet the dispas-
sionate historian will be able to make
very little deduction from the vast mass
Of infamy with which the memory of the
wicfed judge has been loaded.
He was man Of quick and vigorous
parts, but constitutlopally prone to in
science and to angry passions. When
just emerging from toyhood, he had ris-
en- into practice at the Old Bailey bar,
bar where advocates have always used a
license of tongue unknown in Westminis-
ter Hall Here, during wany years, his
chief business was to examine and cross
examine tn. most hardened miscreants of
great capital. Daily conflicts with
prostitutes and thieves called out and ex
ercised his powers SO cffectually that he
became the most consummate bully ever
known in his profession. All tenderness
for the feelings of others, all self-respect,
all sense of the becoming, rere oblitcra-
ted from his mind. He acquired Il bound
less command of the rhetoric in which
the vulgar express hatred and contempt.
The profuson Of maledictions and vitu
pc alive epi,hcts which composed his vo-
cabulary could hardly have been rivalled
in the fish market or the bear garden.
His countenanco and his voice must al
ways have been unamable; but these
natural Neutrality-suspicious. such he seems
to have thought them-he had improved
to such degree that there were few
who, in his paroxysrns of rage, could Sc:
or hear him without emotion. Impu-
dence and ferocity sat upon his brow.
The glare of his eyes had a fascination
for the unhappy victenn on whom they
were fixed yet his brow and eye were
said 10 be less terrible tLan the savage
lines of his mouth His yell of fury, as
was said by one who had often heard it,
sounded like the thunder of tie Judge
ment day. These qualifications he car
ried, while still young man, from the
bar to the bench. He early became CO M
mon sergeant, and then recorder of Lon
don. As Judge at the city sessions he
exhibited the same propensitics which
afterwards, in higher post, gained for
him an unenviable Immortality. Area
DIV might be remarked in him the MIST
odious vice which is incident to human
nature, a delight in misery merely as
misery. There was ticndish cxulation
in the way in which he pronounced sen.
tence on offenders. Their weeping and
imploring seemed to titilIate him volup-
tuouslv; and he loved to scare them into
fits by dilating with luxuriant ampl.iica-
ton on all the details of what they were
to suffer. Thus, when he had an oppor-
tunity cf ordering an unlucky advcntu
ress to be whipped at the carts tail,
Hangman,' he would cxclaim, Il charge
you to pay particular attention to this
lady. Scourgc her soundly, man +! Scourge
her till TIE blood runs down It's Christ
mas; a cold day for madam to strip in
See that you warm her shoulders thor
oaghly' He was hardly less facetious
when he passed judgement or Ludowck
Muggleton, the drunken tailor who fan
cied himself prophet. '1mpudent
roguer roared Jeffreys, thou shalt have
an easy, easy, easy punishment? One
part of this easy punishment was the
pillory, in which the wretched fanatic
was almost killed with brickbats.
By this time the nature of Jeffreys had
been hardened 10 that temper which ty-
rants require in their worst implements
He had hitherto looked for profession
al advancement TO the corporation Of
London. He had therefore profess
sed himself Roundhead, and had al
ways appeared to be in higher state of
exhilaration when he explained to popish
priests that they were to be cut down
alive, and WIRE to see their own bodies
burned, than when he passed ordinary
sentence of death. But, as soon as he
had got all the city could give, he made
haste to sell his forehead of brass and
his tongue of venom to the court. Cliff
finch, who was accustomed to act as
broker in infamous contracts of more
than one kind. lent his aid. He had con-
Quoted mary amorous and many politi-
calintrigucs, but, he assuredly never rem
dered more scandalous service to his
masters when he introduced Jef-eys TO
Whitehall. The renegade soon found
patron in the. obdurnte and reyengeful