raise plaudits for Daly and Higgins, and to groan Magee".*

A few evenings after, an immense troop of "Liberty Boys" in the Higgins' interest proceeded to Crow Street Theatre, marshalled by a limb of the law named Lindsay.†

"The general order is, knock down every man who groans for the Sham Squire or the Dasher; and you have the guards at your back to take every man into custody who resists you. On Tuesday night this party, highly whiskeyfied, forced their way to the front row of the gallery, struck and insulted several of the audience there, and wounded the delicacy of the rest of the house by riotous vociferation and obscenity. Last night several people were knocked down by them; and some of the very persons who were seduced from the Liberty to the theatre, on their refusal to join in the purpose, were charged to the custody of constables for disrespectful language to the said Lindsay, and others were pursued as far as Anglesea Street, for the same cause".‡

On Magee's trial, the prosecuting counsel produced the manuscript of an attack upon the Sham Squire in Magee's handwriting. Magee, who was at first somewhat surprised at the unexpected production of his autograph, soon discovered by what means these papers got out of his hands. Brennan,§ who had been a writer for the Post until 1788, when he joined the Freeman, conveyed to the Sham Squire several of Magee's private papers, to which, when retained in the office of the Post at a salary of £100 a year, he had easy access. Brennan certainly *Dublin Evening Post, No. 1787-1788.

Ibid., No. 1785. Ibid., No. 1788. § Ibid., No. 1794. Brennan figures in the book of Secret Service Money Expenditure as a recipient, though not to a large extent.

swore to Magee's handwriting on the trial. On the evening that the Post advanced the above statement, "Brennan came to Magee's house concealed in a sedan chair, and armed with a large oak bludgeon, and after rapping at the door and being answered by a maid servant, he inquired for Mr. Magee with the design of assassinating him, had he been in the way; but being told he was not at home, Brennan rushed into the shop, and with the bludgeon, broke open and utterly demolished several locked glass cases, together with the sashwork and glass of these interior glazed doors, as well as the windows facing the street. Brennan, in making his escape, was observed by a man' named M'Namara, who attempted to seize him; but Brennan knocked him down by three blows of the bludgeon, and then kicked him unmercifully".

Brennan was committed to Newgate by Alderman Carleton; but next day was set at liberty on the bail of two of Daly's officials. This rather intemperate gentleman, however, had not been an hour at large when he proceeded to Magee's house in College Green, armed with a sword, but happily did not succeed in finding the object of his search.‡

A word about the "Liberty boys" who, as Magee records, came forward as the paid partizans of Higgins, opens another suggestive glimpse of the state of society in Dublin at the period of which we write. Between these men and the butchers of Ormond Market, both noted for turbulent prowess, a feud long subsisted. On this stronghold the Liberty boys frequently made descents; a formidable battle raged, often for days, during which time the bridges across the Liffey from Essex Bridge * Dublin Evening Post, No. 1796. † Ibid., No. 1726. Ibid., 1792.

to "Bloody Bridge" were taken and retaken. Upwards of a thousand men were usually engaged; business was paralyzed; traffic suspended; every shop closed; the executive looked on inert; Lord Mayor Emerson was appealed to, but with a nervous shrug declined to interfere. The butchers, armed with huge knives and cleavers, did awful havoc; the quays were strewed with the maimed and mangled. But the professional slaughterers were not always victorious. On one of the many occasions when these battles raged, the butchers, who displayed a banner inscribed "Guild of the B. V. Mary", were repulsed by the Liberty boys near Francis Street, and driven down Michael's Hill with loss. The Liberty boys drank to the dregs their bloody cup of victory. Exasperated by the "houghing" with which the butchers had disabled for life many of their opponents, the "Liberty boys" rushed into the stalls and slaughter-houses, captured the butchers, hooked them up by the chin in lieu of their meat, and then left the unfortunate men wriggling "alone in their glory." The Liberty boys were mostly weavers, the representatives of French artizans who, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, emigrated to Ireland. The late Mr. Brophy, state dentist in Dublin, to whom the students of local history are indebted for many curious traditional data, told us that in the life-time of his mother a French patois was spoken in the Liberty quite as much as English.

*

* Dublin, in these days, possessed a Huguenot church and burial ground. A curious manuscript memoir, in the autograph of one of the Huguenot ministers, may be seen in a closet attached to Marsh's Library, Dublin. Among the influential French who emigrated to Ireland on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, may be mentioned Le Poer Trenche (ancestor of Lord Clancarty), the LaTouches, Saurins, Vignolles, LaBartes, DuBedats, Montmorencys, Perrins, etc.

The author of Ireland Sixty Years Ago furnishes stirring details of the encounters to which we refer; but he failed to suggest, as we have ventured to do, the origin of the feud.

"No army, however mighty", said the first Napoleon, addressing St. Cyr, "could resist the songs of Paris". The Ormond boys, impelled by a similar policy, followed up their knife stabs with not less pointed lines. In one song the following elegant distich occurred:

And we won't leave a weaver alive on the Coombe,
But we'll rip up his tripe bag and burn his loom.
Ri rigidi di do dee.

One of the last battles between the "Liberty" and Ormond boys took place on May 11, 1790.

*

Meanwhile it became every day more apparent that the Sham Squire was a dangerous man to touch. On July 23rd we learn that Mr. James Wright, of Mary's Abbey, was arrested for publishing a caricature likeness of Justice Higgins. A copy of this picture, representing the Sham Squire standing under a gallows, is now in the possession of Dr. W of Dublin. Underneath is written "Belphegor, or the Devil turned Esquire”, with the following citation from Psalms: "Yet do I remember the time past: I muse upon my works, yea, I exercise myself in the works of wickedness". Nailed to the gibbet is an open copy of the "Infernal Journal", containing articles headed "A Panegyric on the Marquis of Misery"-" Prize Swearing""Dr. Dove"-" A Defence of Informers", (a prophetic hit)" Sangrado"-" Theatre Royal: Ways and Means; to conclude with the Marker's Ghost"New Books: Houltoniana, or mode of Rearing

66

* Dublin Evening Post, No. 1792.

Carrier Pigeons"*" Bludgeoneer's Pocket Companion"--" Marquis de la Fiat".

The appearance of Higgins, as presented in this print, is blotched, bloated, and repulsive, not unsuggestive of the portraits of Jemmy O'Brien. A cable knotted into a pendent bow, appears beneath his chin. Surmounting the picture, as it also did the bench where Higgins sometimes administered the justice he had outraged, is "Fiat justitia".

With a sort of barbed harpoon Magee goaded "the Sham" and his friends. In addition to the Post, he attacked him in Magee's Weekly Packet. The number for Saturday, October 17, 1789, contains another caricature likeness of the Sham Squire, in a woodcut, entitled "The Sham in Lavender". He is made to say "I'm no Sham-I'm a Protestant Justice-I'll_Newgate the Dog". At his feet his colleague, Brennan, is recognized in the shape of a cur dog. Behind him stands Mrs. Lewellyn in the short petticoats, high-heeled shoes, large hat, and voluminous ringlets of the day. Under his feet is a letter, addressed "Mrs. Lewellyn, Cell, Newgate-Free-Carhampton"; while the viceroy, Lord Buckingham, complacently presiding, is made to address Higgins as "Frank".

Verses, painfuly personal, accompanied the picture, of which the following will suffice as a sample: "He that put you in lavender must wish you well, You've got by nature, Sham, a fatal smell;

A dread effluvia, which some comic bard

To the burning of bones on the strand once compared".

Conceived in a more legitimate vein of sarcasm was another piece:

In these days a good deal of lottery stock jobbing took place through the agency of carrier pigeons.