of Prussia gave the law to all, and suffered no interference of the Court of Rome but under the sanction of their authority. In this country the limit to the power of the Crown does not admit of the same control. It is impossible to put the Catholics and Protestants of Great Britain and Ireland on the same footing with Catholics, Protestants and Greeks in Russian or Prussian Poland, or in Silesia and other countries where both religions have, in separate districts, distinct establishments. There is no resemblance between the state of religion in Great Britain and Ireland and the state of religion in the Russian and Prussian or Austrian dominions, or in the Netherlands, or now in France. The example of these countries is therefore no example to us. 'In Ireland the Catholic clergy are independent of the laity of their own Church to a degree which never existed in any country, except perhaps the Pope's temporal dominions; and I believe that even there the clergy are not so wholly independent of the laity as the Catholic clergy of Ireland are independent of the Catholic laity. And even in the patrimony of St. Peter, the clergy are dependent on the Government of the country, though that Government is in the hands of ecclesiastics. The Court of Rome is jealous of its temporal power over its immediate subjects, and distinguishes its temporal from its spiritual power, and is not disposed to allow its priests, as such, to interfere with its temporal authority.' CHAP. LVI. Lord Redesdale, from his judicial character and acknowledged legal ability, was regarded as a high authority on appeal cases before the Lords, and the leading authority on the law of peerages. Yet in the opinion of an excellent lawyer,' he sometimes carried his rigid scruples against obsolete claims to an unreasonable excess. When pro- Judgment nouncing judgment in the Banbury Peerage case, he said, of Lord "This is a question not merely between the Crown and in the the claimant; it affects every Earl whose patent is of Peerage William M. Townsend, Esq., Recorder of Macclesfield. Banbury Case. LVI. CHAP. subsequent date to the patent of William, Earl of Banbury. When the petition of Nicolas, the ancestor of the claimant, came under the consideration of the House in 1661, the Committee of Privileges, to which it was referred, instead of reporting whether the claimant was legitimate or illegitimate, came to the extraordinary resolution that he was legitimate in the eye of the law. It may safely be inferred that the expression could only be introduced to show that the law and the fact were at variance. Now what was the law which the Committee followed on this occasion? Not the law of England, for it would have led them to a different conclusion; but a certain law laid down by Lord Coke in his "Commentary on the Institutes." I have a great respect for the memory of Lord Coke, but I am ready to Lord Coke. accede to an observation made by some of his contemporaries, that he was too fond of making the law, instead of declaring the law, and of telling untruths to support his opinions. Indeed, an obstinate persistence in any opinion he had embraced was a leading defect in his character. His dispute with Lord Ellesmere furnishes us with a strong instance of his forcing the construction of terms, and making false definitions when it suited his purpose to do so." Detracts from the merits of Of course it is impossible for a Judge to please both sides, for his object being to do justice, the balance must incline, and the defeated litigant is dissatisfied. When Sir Egerton Sir Egerton Brydges' claim to the barony of Sudely was Brydges' account of Lord Redesdale. rejected, and the judgment of rejection was pronounced 1 Sir Harris Nicolas's Report of the Banbury Peerage Case. The Irish 'Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur.' was equally caricatured. 'He was a sallow man with a round face (vide Cleopatra),' and blunt features, of the middle height, thickly and heavily built, and had a heavy, drawling, tedious manner of speech.' CHAP. LVI. ance of Redesdale. The personal appearance of the noble Lord is much Personal more truthfully described by the angry Baronet than his appearmental capacity. He was strongly built, and had a round Lord face, but it was pleasant to look upon, bright with goodhumoured intelligence, and certainly the reverse of a fat, foolish face, like Sterne's scullion, which the description and allusion seem to imply. He lived to a ripe age, and when the dread summons came, he died calmly at his seat, Batsford Park, in Gloucestershire, on January 16, 1830, Death in in his eighty-second year. 1830. distin of the Lord Redesdale was succeeded in his honours and estates His son, a by his only son, John Thomas, the present Baron Redesguished dale, born in Ireland during the Chancellorship of his Member father, September 9, 1805. His Lordship is Chairman of House Committees of the House of Lords, and performs his im- of Lords. portant duties ably and efficiently. He appears to have inherited many of the strong and deep-rooted convictions of his father, which he maintains with ability and consistency. 2 of Lord The most appropriate monument to the memory of this Decisions great Lord Chancellor is the two volumes of his Judg- Redesdale, ments,' reported by Messrs. Scholes and Lefroy of the reported by Messrs. Irish Bar. Here the sound legal views of the Chancellor Scholes may be read with great advantage, and the judgments and Lefroy. have the benefit of being, in many instances, revised by his Sir Egerton Brydges, one of the most accomplished writers of his day, is supposed by Mr. Townsend, from whose Eminent Judges, vol. ii. p. 189, I take this criticism, to refer to Antony and Cleopatra, act iii. scene 3, where the Egyptian Queen, enquiring of her rival Octavia, wife of Antony, asks:Bearest thou her face in mind; is't long or round? Messenger. Round even to faultiness. Cleopatra. For the most part they are foolish that are so.' 2 Thomas Lefroy, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of Ireland-'clarum et venerabile nomen.' I had the honour of his acquaintance in after life, and received some letters from him not long before his death. LVI. CHAP. Lordship. He was most solicitous to establish the Equitable Jurisprudence of Ireland, while suitable to this country, as closely resembling that of England as it might be, and with this object he assisted the reporters of his Court in every way he could. These volumes comprise the judgments of Lord Redesdale in all reported cases from Easter Term, 1802, when he sat for the first time as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, until March, 1806, when he ceased to hold the Great Seal. His great knowledge of the principles of equity marked all his judgments relating to questions properly cognisable in the Court of Chancery, as distinguished from a Court of Law, and are highly important. Cases of this class are Bateman v. Williams. His decisions on suits founded on the Irish Equity and the Tenantry Act, 19 & 20 Geo. III. c. 30, are also valuable. In one of these cases-Griffin v. Griffin-the Law of Trusts came to be considered, and his Lordship's elaborate judgment, which occupies twenty-six pages of the Reports, discusses and reviews the cases in a very exhaustive manner. Suits for specific execution were also disposed of in masterly style. His judgments in Lyndsay v. Lynch,3 Davis v. Hone,' Harnet v. Yielding, and Crofton v. Ormby, show how lucidly he treated all such cases. Some of his decisions were appealed from, and some reheard, but the result was to affirm his decrees. 1 Scho. and Lef. p. 201. Costigan v. Hastler, 2 Scho. and Lef. p. 165. Hamilton v. Royse, p. 315. 2 Bowles v. Stewart, 1 Scho. and Lef. p. 299. Jackson v. Saunders, ibid. 443. Griffin v. Griffin, ibid. 352. CHAPTER LVII. LIFE OF RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE PONSONBY, LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND. LVII. The family of Pon sonby. THIS eminent lawyer was descended from the ancient CHAP. family which derives its origin from Picardy, in France.1 The Ponsonbys shared in the spoils with which William the Conqueror rewarded those valiant knights whose prowess and knightly deeds won for him the fair realm of England. They settled in Cumberland, and the lordship of Ponsonby gave them their family name. The migra tion to Ireland dates many centuries later, and few could have foretold the stern Colonel of a cavalry corps, serving under Cromwell, would rear up a race who ardently loved Ireland and the Irish. Yet it was so. Colonel Sir John Sir John Ponsonby, Knight, was one of the Commissioners for taking Ponsonby. depositions of Protestants in Ireland, and Sheriff of Wicklow and Kildare, in 1654. His descendant, William Ponsonby, was created Baron of Besborough in 1721, and it is the life of his great grandson I am about to trace. The subject of this memoir was born on March 5, 1755. Birth. He was third son of the Right Honourable John Ponsonby (son of the Earl of Besborough and of Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of William, third Duke of Devonshire).. The family of Ponsonby, from its great alliances and the ability of many of its members, grew into a power in Ireland. The Right Honourable John Ponsonby, father Right of the future Chancellor, himself a very eminent lawyer, Ponsonby. was a Member of the Privy Council, Member of Parliament, and no less than six times Lord Justice, commissioned to administer the Government of Ireland during the Lord Lieutenant's absence. Ryan's Worthies of Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 468, 523. Hon. John |