the living, I shall touch with as light a pen as possible. It was indeed to him a fountain of perpe. tual bitterness, overflowing the fairest prospects of his life, and mingling itself with the sweetest cup of his prosperity. He often repeated the circumstances often sadly lamented to me the consequences of that union; but far be it from me to feed the malignant appetite of an heartless curiosity with the melancholy detail which friendship must lament, and a generous enmity would mourn in silence. This was the unfortunate period of his life, upon which political antipathy and private envy gloated with a vile envenomed gratification. -Facts were exaggerated-falsehoods were invented and exposed malignity took refuge in the universality of the libel which it first framed and then circulated. But no matter what was the cause of this calamity, he was its victim and a more equitable tribunal than that of this world has already weighed his infirmities against his virtues.

In the year 1775, with, as he said himself, no living possession but a pregnant wife, he was called to the bar of Ireland. To that enlightened body, as at that day constituted, the “future men' of this country may be allowed to turn with an ex

cusable and, in some sort, a national satisfaction. There were to be found her nobles, her aristocracy, her genius, her learning, and her patriotism, all concentrated within that little circle. No insolent pretension in the high, frowned down the intellectual splendour of the humble-education compensated the want of birth-industry supplied the inferiority of fortune-and the law, which in its suitors knew no distinction but of justice, in its professors acknowledged none except that of merit. In other countries, where this glorious profession is degraded into a trade-where cunning supplies the place of intellect, and an handicraft mechanism is the substitute for mind-where, in Curran's peculiar phrase, "men begin to measure their depth by their darkness, and to fancy themselves profound because they feel they are perplexed"—no idea can be formed of that illustrious body-of the learning that informed, the genius that inspired, and the fire that warmed it; of the wit that relieved its wisdom, and the wisdom that dignified its wit; of the generous emulation that cherished while it contended; of the spotless honour that shone no less in the hereditary spirit of the highly born, than in the native integrity of the more humble aspirant; but, above all, of that lofty and unbending patriotism that at

once won the confidence and enforced the imitation of the country. It is not to be questioned that to the bar of that day the people of Ireland looked up in every emergency with the most perfect reliance upon their talent and their integrity. It was then the nursery of the parliament and the peerage. There was scarcely a noble family in the land that did not enrol its elect in that body, by the study of law and the exercise of eloquence to prepare them for the field of legislative exertion; and there not unfrequently there arose a genius from the very lowest of the people, who won his way to the distinctions of the senate, and wrested from pedigree the highest honours and offices of the constitution. It was a glorious spectacle to behold the hope of the peerage entering such an intellectual arena with the peasant's offspring; all difference merged in that of mind, and merit alone deciding the superiority. On such contests, and they were continual, the eye of every rank in the community was turned: the highest did not feel their birth debased by the victories of intellect; and the humblest expected, seldom in vain, to be ennobled in their turn. Many a personage sported the ermine on a back that had been coatless; and the garter might have glittered on a leg that, in its native bog, had been unencumbered

by a stocking. Amongst those who were most. distinguished when Mr. Curran came to the bar, and with whom afterwards, as Chief Justice, he not unfrequently came in collision, was Mr. JOHN SCOTT, afterwards better known by the title of LORD CLONMELL. This person sprung from a very humble rank of life, and raised himself to his subsequent elevation, partly by his talents, partly by his courage, and, though last not least, by his very superior knowledge of the world. During the stormy administration of Lord Townsend, he, on the recommendation of Lord Lifford, the then Chancellor, was elected to a seat in the House of Commons, and from that period advanced gradually through the subordinate offices to his station on the bench. In the year 1770, and during the succeeding sessions, he had to encounter almost alone an opposition headed by Mr. Flood, and composed of as much effective hostility as ever faced a Treasury bench. His powers were rather versatile than argumentative; but when he failed to convince he generally succeeded in diverting; and if he did not by the gravity of his reasoning dignify the majority to which he sedulously attached himself, he at all events covered their retreat with an exhaustless quiver of alternate sarcasm and ridicule. Added to this, he had a

perseverance not to be fatigued and a personal intrepidity altogether invincible. When he could not overcome, he swaggered; and when he could not bully, he fought. The asperities of his public conduct were, however, invisible in private. He was stored with anecdote; seldom, it is true, very delicate in the selection: but his companionable qualities were well seconded by the fidelity of his friendships; and it is recorded of him, that he never made an insincere profession or forgot a favour. On the bench, indeed, and in some instances with Mr. Curran, he was occasionally very overbearing; but a bar such as I have described was not easily to be overborne; and for some asperity to a barrister of the name of Hackett, he was, after a professional meeting of the body, at which, though Chief Justice, he had but one supporter, obliged to confess and apologize for his misconduct in the public papers! The death of Lord Clonmell is said to have originated in a very curious incident. In the year 1792 Mr. John Magee, the spirited proprietor of the Dublin Evening Post, had a fiat issued against him in a case of libel for a sum which the defendant thought excessive. The bench and the press were directly committed; and in such a case had a judge tenfold the power he has, he would be comparatively