for
it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking, and occasions of
quarrelling in the kingdom. If you pledge one health you oblige
yourself to pledge another, and a third, and so onwards; and if you
pledge as many as will be drunk, you must be debauched and drunk. If
they will needs know the reason of your refusal, it is a fair answer,
'that your grandfather that brought you up, from whom, under God, you
have the estate you enjoy or expect, left this in command with you, that
you should never begin or pledge a health.'"

Jeffrey's _protege_, John Trevor, liked good wine himself, but emulated
the virtuous Hale in the pains which he took to place the treacherous
drink beyond the reach of others--whenever they showed a desire to drink
it at his expense. After his expulsion from the House of Commons, Sir
John Trevor was sitting alone over a choice bottle of claret, when his
needy kinsman, Roderic Lloyd, was announced. "You rascal," exclaimed the
Master of the Rolls, springing to his feet, and attacking his footman
with furious language, "you have brought my cousin, Roderic Lloyd,
Esquire, Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, up my back
stairs. You scoundrel, hear ye, I order you to take him this instant
down my _back stairs_, and bring him up my _front stairs_." Sir John
made such a point of showing his visitor this mark of respect, that the
young barrister was forced to descend and enter the room by the state
staircase; but he saw no reason to think himself honored by his cousin's
punctilious courtesy, when on entering the room a second time he looked
in vain for the claret bottle.

On another occasion Sir John Trevor's official residence afforded
shelter to the same poor relation when the latter was in great mental
trouble. "Roderic," saith the chronicler, "was returning rather elevated
from his club one night, and ran against the pump in Chancery Lane.
Conceiving somebody had struck him, he drew and made a lunge at the
pump. The sword entered the spout, and the pump, being crazy, fell
down. Roderic concluded he had killed his man, left, his sword in the
pump, and retreated to his old friend's house at the Rolls. There he was
concealed by the servants for the night. In the morning his Honor,
having heard the story, came himself to deliver him from his
consternation and confinement in the coal-hole."

Amongst the eighteenth century lawyers there was considerable difference
of taste and opinion