D.

LORD CLONMEL.

AMONG the many searchingly critical notices of. Lord Chief Justice Clonmel, contributed by Grattan, Barrington, Rowan, Cloncurry, Cox, Magee, and others, no allusion has been made to the circumstances in which his wealth may be said to have originated. We are informed by a very respectable solicitor, Mr. H-, that in looking over one of Lord Clonmel's rentals he was struck by the following note, written by his lordship's agent, in reference to the property "Boolnaduff": "Lord Clonmel, when Mr. Scott, held this in trust for a Roman Catholic, who, owing to the operation of the Popery laws, was incapacitated from keeping it in his own hands. When reminded of the trust, Mr. Scott refused to acknowledge it, and thus the property fell into the Clonmel family."

In Walker's Hibernian Magazine for July, 1797, we read, p. 97: "Edward Byrne, Esq., of Mullinahack, to Miss Roe, stepdaughter to the Earl of Clonmel, and niece to Lord Viscount Llandaff."*

Hereby hangs a tale. Miss Roe was understood to have a large fortune, and when Mr. Byrne applied to Lord Clonmel for it, his lordship shuffled, saying: "Miss Roe is a lapsed Papist, and I avail myself of the laws which I administer, to withhold what you desire." Mr.

*Lord Clonmel married first, in 1768, Catharine, the only daughter of Thomas Mathew, of Thomastown; secondly, Margaret, only daughter of Patrick Lawless, of Dublin. - Archdall's Lodge's Irish Peerage, vol. vii., p. 243. The late Apostle of Temperance, Father Theobald Mathew, was a native of Thomastown, and a member of the family into which Lord Clonmel intermarried.

Byrne filed a bill, in which he recited the evasive reply of Lord Clonmel. The chief justice never answered the bill, and otherwise treated Mr. Byrne's remonstrances with contempt. These facts, which have never been in print, transpire in the legal documents held by Mr. H

Too often the treachery manifested by the rich in positions of trust, at the calamitous period in question, contrasted curiously with the tried fidelity observed by some needy persons in a similar capacity. Moore, in his Memoirs of Captain Rock, mentions the case of a poor Protestant barber, who, though his own property did not exceed a few pounds in value, actually held in fee the estates of most of the Catholic gentry of the county. He adds that this estimable man was never known to betray his trust.

The proximity of the residences.of Lord Clonmel and Sir Jonah Barrington has been noticed at p. 88. It may amuse those familiar with the locality to tell an anecdote of the projecting bowwindow, long since built up, which overhangs the side of Sir Jonah's former residence, No. 14 Harcourt Street, corner of Montague Street. Lord Clonmel occupied the house at the opposite corner, and Lady Clonmel affected to be very much annoyed at this window overlooking their house and movements. Here Lady Barrington, arrayed in imposing silks and satins, would daily take up position, and placidly survey a portion of the world as it wagged. Sir Jonah was remonstrated with, but he declined to close the obnoxious window. Lady Clonmel then took the difficulty in hand, and with the stinging sarcasm peculiarly her own, said: "Lady Barrington is so accustomed to looking out of a shop window

for the display of her silks and satins, that I suppose she cannot afford to dispense with this."

The large bow-window was immediately built up, and has not since been reopened. Lady Barrington was the daughter of Mr. Grogan, a silkmercer of Dublin. Lady Clonmel was a Miss Lawless, related to the Cloncurry family, who rose to opulence as woollen-drapers, in High Street. The Lawlesses held their heads high, and more than once got a Roland for an Oliver. The first Lord Cloncurry having gone to see the pantomime of Don Quixote, laughed immoderately at the scene where Sancho is tossed in a blanket. On the following morning the Sham Squire's journal contained the following epigram:

"Cloncurry, Cloncurry,

Why in such a hurry,

To laugh at the comical Squire ?

For though he 's tossed high,

You cannot deny

That blankets have tossed yourself higher."

The Diary of John Scott, Lord Clonmel, has been privately printed by his family. It shows, while recording many weaknesses, that he was a man of rare shrewdness, and gifted with a considerable amount of political foresight. A few excerpts from this generally inaccessible volume will interest the reader:

"Lord! what plagues have false friends proved to me. The idea of friendship and the very word should be expunged from the heart and mind of a politician. Look at Lord Pery." (Page 211.)

"In last month I became a viscount; and from want of circumspection, in trying a cause against a printer (Magee), I have been grossly abused for several months. I have endeavored to make that abuse useful towards my earldom." * (September 20th, 1789, p. 348.)

On October 19th, 1789, he says that unless he adopts the discipline of Pery and others, "I am actually disgraced, despised, and undone as a public man. Let me begin to be diligent to-day. No other learning but law and parliamentary reading can be useful to me; let these be my study." (Page 349.)

On the 21st January, 1790, he writes: "Let me therefore from this moment adopt a war discipline, and resolve seriously to set about learning. my profession, and acting my part superlatively throughout." (Page 351.)

Among his good resolutions, recorded on 10th February, were: "To establish a complete reform from snuff, sleep, swearing, sloth, gross eating, malt liquor, and indolence."

The Diary finds him constantly engaged in a battle with his own weaknesses, which unhappily in the end generally win the victory. At p. 362, towards the close of the book, we read: " By neglect of yourself you are now a helpless, ignorant, unpopular, accused individual; forsaken by the government, persecuted by parliament, hated by the bar, unaided by the bench, betrayed and deserted by your oldest friends. Reform, and all will be well. Guard against treachery in others and passions in yourself." At p. 441, we learn: "My three puisne judges are actually combined against me; and that ungrateful monster, Lord Carleton, has made a foolish quarrel with me."

Few men possessed a more accurate perception of what was right to be done; and his beau ideal of a perfect chief justice is a model of judicial excellence which a Mansfield or a Bushe might read with profit: but poor Lord Clonmel signally failed to realize it. Day after day, as we have

said, finds this most extraordinary man toiling in vain to correct his besetting. weaknesses. Sir Jonah Barrington's description of Lord Clonmel perpetually telling, and acting, extravagantly comic stories, is corroborated by the chief's own Diary. "I have made," he writes, "many enemies by the treachery of men and women who have taken advantage of my levity* and unguardedness in mimicry, and saying sharp things of and to others; and have injured myself by idleness, eating, drinking, and sleeping too much. From this day, then, let me assume a stately, grave, dignified deportment and demeanor. No buffoonery, no mimicry, no ridicule.” This is one of the closing entries in the very remarkable Diary of John Scott, Lord Chief Justice Clonmel. As a constitutional judge he holds no place. In opposition to the highest legal authorities of England, he held that one witness was quite sufficient to convict in case of treason.

E.

THE IRISH YEOMANRY IN 1798.

THE fidelity of Dempsey, the yeoman, to Lord Edward's cause is the more remarkable, when we remember that he belonged to a body which was notorious for its implacability to suspected persons. The personal narratives of Hay, Cloney, Teeling, O'Kelly, and the historic researches of

*It cannot be said of Lord Clonmel, as of Jerry Keller, an Irish barrister, that some men have risen by their gravity while he sank by his levity.