arles II.'s London. Lord Nottingham's
sumptuous hospitalities were the more creditable, because he voluntarily
relinquished his claim to L4000 per annum, which the royal bounty had
assigned him as a fund to be expended in official entertainments.
Similar praise cannot be awarded to Lord Guildford; but justice compels
the admission that, notwithstanding his love of money, he maintained the
_prestige_ of his place, so far as a hospitable table and profuse
domestic expenditure could support it.

Contrasting strongly with the lawyers of this period, who copied in
miniature the impressive state of Clarendon's princely establishments,
were the jovial, catch-singing, three-bottle lawyers--who preferred
drunkenness to pomp; an oaken table, surrounded by jolly fellows, to
ante-rooms crowded with obsequious courtiers; a hunting song with a
brave chorus to the less stormy diversion of polite conversation. Of
these free-living lawyers, George Jeffreys was a conspicuous leader. Not
averse to display, and not incapable of shining in refined society, this
notorious man loved good cheer and jolly companions beyond all other
sources of excitement; and during his tenure of the seals, he was never
more happy than when he was presiding over a company of sharp-witted
men-about-town whom he had invited to indulge in wild talk and choice
wine at his mansion that overlooked the lawns, the water, and the trees
of St. James's Park. On such occasions his lordship's most valued boon
companion was Mountfort, the comedian, whom he had taken from the stage
and made a permanent officer of the Duke Street household. Whether the
actor was required to discharge any graver functions in the Chancellor's
establishment is unknown; but we have Sir John Reresby's testimony that
the clever mimic and brilliant libertine was employed to amuse his
lordship's guests by ridiculing the personal and mental peculiarities of
the judges and most eminent barristers. "I dined," records Sir John,
"with the Lord Chancellor, where the Lord Mayor of London was a guest,
and some other gentlemen. His lordship having, according to custom,
drunk deep at dinner, called for one Mountfort, a gentleman of his, who
had been a comedian, an excellent mimic; and to divert the company, as
he was pleased to term it, he made him plead before him in a feigned
cause, during which he aped the judges, and all the great lawyers of the
age, in tone of voice and in action and gesture of body, to the