V
The Jackal
Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is
the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate
statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow
in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a
perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration.
The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other
learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was
Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative
practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the
drier parts of the legal race.
A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver
had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on
which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their
favourite, specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself
towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's
Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen,
bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its
way at the sun from among a rank garden-full of flaring companions.
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