men of Rosemary Lane chapel is a sham; for confirmation of which we refer the inquirer to any of the reverend gentlemen of said chapel."* How far this may be in accordance with the truth it is not easy to determine.

Mr. Higgins was not without some redeeming qualities. He regularly attended divine service in the Protestant church of Saint Andrew, and he occasionally dispensed sums in charity. But for all this he received little thanks and less credit. In a trenchant poem levelled at Higgins, numbering some fifty lines, and alleged to be from the pen of Hussey Burgh, we find:

mm

"The cunning culprit understands the times,
Stakes private bounty against public crimes,
And conscious of the means he took to rise,
He buys a credit with the spoils of vice." †

The Sham Squire's duties were onerous and various. He not only presided, as we are told, with the subsequent Lord Norbury, at Kilmainham, but often occupied the bench of the Lord Mayor's Court, and there investigated and confirmed the claims of persons to the rights and privileges of freemen. §

Mr. Higgins had, ere long, nearly the entire of the newspaper press of Dublin in his influence; || to quote Magee's words, they were all "bowing down to Baal," or as Magee's poet described the circumstance:

mtt "Now, hireling scribes, exert the venal pen, And in concerto shield this best of men."

And again:

"Nay, e'en Shamado is himself on fire,

And humdrum Houlton tunes his wooden lyre;

But virtue their resentment cannot dread,

And truth, though trampled on, will raise her head.”**

* Dublin Evening Post, No. 1782.

t Ibid., No. 1794.

Ibid., No. 1779. § Ibid., No. 1789.
Ibid., No. 1796.

** Ibid., No. 1743.

Ibid., No. 1796.

Dr. Houlton, the Sham Squire's sub-editor, whose name frequently appears in the local squibs of the day, is noticed in Boaden's Life of Mrs. Jordan as "a weak man with an Edinburgh degree in physic, who wrote for a morning paper, and contributed a prologue so absurd that it has been banished from the play."* From Raymond's Life of Dermody we learn that Houlton humanely befriended the unfortunate poet. The doctor lost nothing by his connection with Higgins. The same work informs us that he received "a medical appointment under the Irish government," and that his house in Dublin was as showy as his style, having been put through a process of decoration by Daly's head scene painter.t The Literary Calendar of Living Authors, published in 1816, mentions that Dr. Houlton was a native of England, "practised in Ireland with some success," brought out sundry musical pieces on the Dublin stage, wrote poems for the newspapers and songs for Vauxhall; and, through the friendly patronage of Hook, brought out at the Drury Lane theatre, in the year 1800, his opera called Wilmore Castle, which having been damned, he retorted in a pamphlet entitled A Review of the Musical Drama of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, tending to develop a system of private influence injurious to the public. 8vo. 1801.

The doctor, as a poetaster, was useful on the Sham Squire's newspaper, which freely employed satirical poetry in assailing the reputation of individuals.

In 1789 the bill furnished by Higgins to the

* Boaden's Life of Mrs. Jordan, vol. ii., p. 62.

↑ Raymond's Life of Dermody, vol. i., p. 26, et seq.

Treasury amounted to £2,000; but the viceroy, we are told, cut it down to £1,000. *

* Dublin Evening Post, No. 1761. This payment may have been on account of proclamations inserted as advertisements; but the Duke of Wellington's correspondence, when Irish secre tary, makes no disguise that all money paid on such grounds was for purposes of corruption. This arrangement was partially relinquished from the death of Pitt; but in 1809, on the restoration of the old Tory regime, we find a Dublin journalist petitioning for a renewal. Sir A. Wellesley, addressing Sir Charles Saxton, the under secretary, alluded to "the measures which I had in contemplation in respect to newspapers in Ireland. It is quite impossible to leave them entirely to themselves; and we have probably carried our reforms in respect to publishing proclamations as far as they will go, excepting only that we might strike off from the list of those permitted to publish proclamations in the newspapers, both in town and country, which have the least extensive circulation, and which depend, I believe, entirely upon the money received on account of proclamations. I am one of those, however, who think that it will be very dangerous to allow the press in Ireland to take care of itself, particularly as it has so long been in leading strings. I would, therefore, recommend that in proportion as you will diminish the profits of the better kind of newspapers, on account of proclamations, you shall increase the sum they are allowed to charge on account of advertisements and other publications. It is absolutely necessary, however, to keep the charge within the sum of ten thousand pounds per annum, voted by parliament, which probably may easily be done when some newspapers will cease to publish proclamations, and the whole will receive a reduced sum on that account, even though an increase should be made on account of advertisements to the accounts of some. It will also be very necessary that the account of this money should be of a description always to be produced before parlia ment.-Ever yours, etc., ARTHUR WELLESLEY."

CHAPTER III.

Lord Clonmel and the Fiats.- Richard Daly.-Persecution of Magee. A Strong Bar.- Caldbeck, Duigenan, and Egan.— The Volunteers to the Rescue. - Hamilton Rowan.-An Artist arrested for Caricaturing the Sham Squire. - More Squibs.-The Gambling Hell.-Inefficiency of the Police. Magisterial Delinquencies Exposed. - Watchmen and Watches.-Mr. Gonne's Chronometer.-Juggling Judges. -Outrages in the face of day.-Ladies unable to walk the streets.- Sedan Chairs. - Unholy Compacts.

MAGEE continued in his efforts to take down the Sham Squire's pride and swagger. Squib after squib exploded:

"There lives a Squire near Stephen's Green,

Crockledum he, crockledum ho,

And in Newgate once was seen,

Bolted down quite low.

And though he now is a just-ass, *

There was a day when he heard mass,
Being converted by a lass,

There to cross and go.

On stocking-making he can jaw,

Clockety heel, tippety toe;

Now an attorney is at law,

Six and eightpence, hot

These squibs Mr. Higgins regarded as so many "infernal machines," and he resolved to show his own power, and to be revenged at the same time. Lord Chief Justice Clonmel was known to entertain a strong prejudice against the press, especially such newspapers as adversely criticized the administration. In the authorized report of the parliamentary debates on April 8th, 1784, his views on the subject are forcibly but curtly conveyed,

* Until 1793, Catholics were excluded from the magisterial bench. ↑ Dublin Evening Post, No. 1796.

viz.: "The prime sergeant expressed his thorough detestation of newspapers and public assassins of character."* We have already seen that Lord Clonmel, after his elevation to the bench and peerage, maintained friendly relations with Higgins, in memory of auld lang syne. His lordship's house, observes a correspondent, stood on the west side of Harcourt Street, near the corner of Montague Street. He possessed also very extensive pleasure grounds on the east side of Harcourt Street, stretching behind the entire south side of Stephen's Green. A subterraneous passage undert Harcourt Street opened communication with those grounds, which joined the garden at the rear of Francis Higgins's mansion in Stephen's Green; and there is a tradition to the effect that some of the chief's inquisitive neighbors often used to see him making his way through the pleasure grounds for the purpose of conferring with the Sham Squire. ‡

Higgins is said to have directed Lord Clonmel's attention to Magee's lampoons, in many of which the chief himself figured subordinately. His lordship expressed indignation at liberties so unwarrantable, and seems to have encouraged the Sham Squire to follow up a plan of legal retribution, which the active brain of Higgins had been for some time concocting.

In the various onslaughts which Magee made upon the Sham Squire, some passing prods were bestowed on Richard Daly, the lessee of Crow Street theatre, on Charles Brennan, a writer for the Freeman's Journal, as well as on a certain member of the female sex, with all of whom Hig*Irish Parl. Debates, vol. iii., p. 155.

† MS. Letter of Dr. T-, 20th August, 1859. Tradition communicated by MS

Esq.