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adorning their station, she had the anguish and humiliation to see others degrading it by their political fury, or by the more indecent gratification of their particular animosities. Influenced by such unworthy feelings of party or of private hostility, the judges, in those days, were too prone to consider it a branch of their official duty to discountenance any symptoms of independence in their court; and though at times they may have succeeded, yet, at others, indignant and exemplary was the retaliation to which such a departure from their dignity exposed them: for it was not unusual that the persons who made these experiments upon the spirit of the bar, and whose politics and connections had raised them to a place of nominal superiority, were, in public consideration, and in every intellectual respect, the inferiors of the men that they undertook to chide. It sometimes happened, too, that the parties, whose powers might be less unequal, had been old parliamentary antagonists; and when the imputed crimes of the oppositionist came to be visited upon the advocate, it is not surprising that he should have retorted with pride, and acrimony, and contempt. Hence arose in the Irish Courts those scenes of personal contention, which the different character of the bench in later times precludes, and which (whatever side gain the victory) must be ever deprecated as ruinous to the client, and disgraceful to that spot, within whose precincts faction and passion should never be permitted to intrude.

But though the solemnity of judicial proceedings in Ireland might have been often disturbed by the preceding causes, they have been more frequently enlivened by others of a less unamiable description. Notwithstanding the existence there of that religious and political bigotry which tends to check every cheerful impulse, and, in their place, to substitute general distrust and gloom, these baneful effects have been powerfully counteracted by the more

bing them with pikes. It was supposed that his administration of the Criminal Law, in 1798, had created enmity to him. Lord Kilwarden, who supported the Union, was an cloquent speaker, in the Senate as well as at the bar, and a very eminent lawyer.-M.

FORENSIC JOCULARITY.

67

prevailing influence of the national character. The honest kindly affections of nature, though impeded, have still kept on their In spite of all the sufferings and convulsions of the last century, the social vivacity of the Irish was proverbial. It subsisted, as it still subsists, in an eminent degree, in their private intercourse; it may be also seen constantly breaking forth in their public discussions. At the bar, where the occasions of jocularity so frequently occur, it is, as might be expected, most strikingly displayed. The Irish judges have not disdained to resign themselves to the favourite propensity of their country. The humorous sally or classical allusion, which would have pleased at the table, has not been frowned upon from the bench; their habits of social intimacy with the bar, and their own tastes as scholars and companions, have rather prepared them to tolerate, and even join in those lively irregularities which the more severe decorum of Westminster Hall might condemn. This urbanity and indulgence still remains; and scarcely a term passes over without many additions, either from the bar or the bench, to the large fund of Irish forensic humour.*

A more frequent and less dignified description of mirth, of which so much may be observed in the legal proceedings of Ireland, is that which originates in the particular character of the lower orders of that country. They abound in sagacity and repartee qualities to which, when appearing as unwilling witnesses, or when struggling under the difficulties of a cross-examination, they seldom fail to fly to shelter. Their answers, on such occasions, are singularly adroit and evasive,† and the advocate is conseqently obliged to adopt every artifice of humour and ridicule, as more effectual than seriousness or menace, to extract the truth and expose their equivocations. The necessity of employing

* It is worth noting that the jokes which now amuse judges, counsel, clients, and witnesses, in Courts of Law, are notoriously poor ones. Real forensic fun and wit appear to have disappeared. This holds good on both sides of the Atlantic.-M.

+ See Mr. Curran's cross-examination of O'Brien, inserted hereafter.-C.

such methods of confounding the knavish ingenuity of a witness, perpetually occasions the most striking contrasts between the solemnity of the subjects, and the levity of the language in which they are investigated. It is particularly in the Irish criminal courts that scenes of this complicated interest most constantly occur. In the front appear the counsel and the evidence in a dramatic contest, at which the auditors cannot refrain from bursts of laughter, and at a little distance behind, the prisoner under trial, gazing upon them with agonized attention, and catching at a presage of his fate in the alternating dexterity or fortune of the combatants.

This intrusion of levity into proceedings that should be marked by pomp and dignity may be indecent, but it is inevitable. Without this latitude of examination, no right would be secure, and, when exerted, no gravity can resist its influence; even the felon's visage is often roused from its expression of torpid despair by the sallies that accompany the disclosure of his crimes. As long, therefore, as the Irish populace retain their present character of vivacity and acuteness, the Irish advocate must cultivate and display his powers of humour, often, perhaps, to a greater extent than his own better taste would desire; and the courts, aware of the necessity of such an instrument for eliciting the truth, will not consider it incumbent on them to interfere with its use.

EARLY REPUTATION.

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CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Curran's early success at the bar-His contest with Judge Robinson-His defence of a Roman Catholic priest-His duel with Mr. St. Leger-Receives the dying benediction of the priest-Lord Avonmore's friendship-His character of Lord Avonmore-Monks of St. Patrick, and list of the original members-Anecdotes of Lord Avonmore-Mr. Curran's entrance into Parliament.

MR. CURRAN has been frequently alluded to as one of the many examples in the history of the bar, of the highest talents remaining for a long time unknown and unrewarded. This, however, was not the fact: so general was the reputation of his abilities, and so numerous his personal friends, that he became employed immediately, and to an extent that is very unusual with those, who, like him, have solely depended upon their own exertions and upon accidental support.*

The failure of Mr. Curran's first attempt at speaking has been mentioned: a more singular instance of that nervousness which so frequently accompanies the highest capacity, occurred to him upon his debut in the courts. The first brief that he held was in the Court of Chancery; he had only to read a short sentence from his instructions, but he did it so precipitately and inaudibly, that the chancellor, Lord Lifford, requested of him to repeat the words, and to raise his voice: upon this his agitation became so extreme that he was unable to articulate a syllable; the brief dropped from his hands, and a friend who sat beside him was obliged to take it up and read the necessary passage.t

* The fact of his early practice appears from his own fee-book, in which the receipts commence from the day after he was called to the bar. The first year produced eightytwo guineas, the second between one and two hundred, and so on, in a regularly increas ing proportion.-C.

+ Lord Erskine, on his debut at the English bar, is said to have been equally nervous,

This diffidence, however, totally vanished whenever he had to repel what he conceived an unwarrantable attack. It was by giving proofs of the proud and indignant spirit with which he could chastise aggression, that he first distinguished himself at the bar: * of this his contest with Judge Robinson is recorded as a very early and memorable instance. Mr. Curran having observed in some case before that judge, "That he had never met the law as laid down by his lordship, in any book in his library," "That may be, sir," said the judge, in an acrid, contemptuous tone; "but I suspect that your library is very small." His lordship, who, like too many of that time, was a party zealot, was known to be the author of several anonymous political pamphlets, which were chiefly conspicuous for their despotic principles and excessive violence. The young barrister, roused by the sneer at his circumstances, replied that true it was that his library might be small, but he thanked heaven that, among his books, there were none of the wretched productions of the frantic pamphleteers of the day. "I find it more instructive, my lord, to study good works than to compose bad ones; my books may be few, but the title-pages give me the writers' names: my shelf is not disgraced by any of such rank absurdity that their very authors are ashamed to own them."

He was here interrupted by the judge, who said, "Sir, you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." "Dignity!" exclaimed Mr. Curran; "my lord, upon that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority, with which you are perhaps not unacquainted. A poor

until (to use his own words) "I thought I felt my hungry little ones pulling my gown, and that gave me courage to speak."-M.

His first occasion of displaying that high spirit which was afterwards so prominent in his character, was at the election of Tallagh, where he was engaged as counsel, a few months after his admission to the bar. One of the candidates, presuming upon his own rank, and upon the young advocate's unostentatious appearance, indulged in some rude language towards him; but was instantly silenced by a burst of impetuous and eloquent invectiv, which it at that time required an insult to awaken -C.

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