for Launceston, in 1722-Baron Dimsdale, for Hertford, in 1781, and 1784—and my friend Dr. Baldwin, for Cork, in 1832-exclusively of Dr. Power, the present member (1847) for the County of Cork. (See Nugæ Chirurgica, by Dr. Wadd, and Life of Sir A. Cooper, vol. ii., page 158.) I am not unaware of Mr. Hume's original calling, long since, and before he became a legislator, abandoned; but Mr. Wakley still continues, I understand, in the active exercise of his profession. In King James's Irish Parliament, there was also one, Dr. Rice. Sir Astley Cooper, it is understood, received one thousand guineas from George the Fourth, for the successful excision of a tumor on the King's head; and my valued friend and townsman, Sir Mathew Tierney, became at once the object of the same royal generosity and continued favor, by the prompt and decisive display of talent, in the rescue of that monarch from sudden and imminent danger of life. Antecedent instances of success and commensurate retribution in England, from the days of Linacre, and in France, since Ambroise Paré, (who owed his safety from the massacre of St. Bartholomew, says Brantôme, to the necessity of Charles IX. for his skill,) would be of easy citation, but of far too extensive engagement for my limits or immediate purpose. I shall, therefore, only add, that probably the most striking example of superior advancement, extraneous of, though originating in, professional celebrity, obtained by physicians, is that of Struenzee, (John Frederick,) appointed Prime Minister of Denmark, in 1771, but involved the following year in the persecution of our unhappy Princess Matilda, when he was beheaded. 244 FEES TO MR. JEFFREY, SIR E. SUGDEN, AND M. GERBIER. Recurring, in conclusion, to the Bar, and its retributive fruits, I have myself seen one thousand guineas endorsed on Mr., afterwards Lord, Jeffrey's brief, in the long-pending Queensberry case; and his two associates, pleading before the Lords, received each an equal fee; but the largest ever paid, was unquestionably that of three thousand guineas to Sir Edward Sugden, in the Atwood suit. Chief Baron Doherty stated before the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, that of the Law Officers in Ireland, about six or eight make £6,000 a-year, and the remainder gradually decreasing. The late M. Berryer, (the Edinburgh Reviewer, in No. 153, appeared unaware of his death,) asserts, in his autobiography, that the famous Gerbier had received one hundred thousand crowns, or £15,000 (in present estimation,) for the successful pursuit of a case; but it should be borne in mind, that the litigation had occupied the great advocate for some years; and I repeat that the British profession is far better paid than the Continental. In my early days, M. Gerbier stood supreme in forensic glory, as Erskine shortly after became in England, and Curran in Ireland; but in physical advantages his superiority was conspicuous, while all three apparently identified themselves with their client's cause and feelings, and communicated the conviction of right, which seemed to inspire their eloquence. "Pectus est quod disertos facit," truly observes Quintilian, (lib. x. cap. vii.) and Homer represents the power of Ulysses in speech as flowing from the same source. OTηOEOS Tet," (Il. г. 221.) στήθος ἵει,” Γ. “Αλλ' ὅτε δὴ ῥ ̓ ὅπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ Gerbier died in 1788, and, in eminence, was succeeded by Tronchet, who under took, and Target, who refused, the King's defence in 1792. Then arose the brothers, Dupin, Berryer, father and son, Odillon Barrot, Cremier, (a Jew,) with others, flourishing at the present day; while, in the provinces, Bordeaux and Lyons, have ever been conspicuous for forensic capacities. France never produced a more eloquent advocate than the unfortunate Conventionalist, my friend Vergniaud, whom I well recollect, as an advocate, before he represented Bordeaux in the Convention. Gerbier's predecessors of celebrity were Géau de Reverseaux, Cochin, and the great D'Aguesseau; previous to whom had successively shone for two centuries, the de Mesmes, Harlais, Nicolaïs, Molés, Michel de l'Hospital, the Arnaulds, Le Maistre, with Pothier, the Coke of France, and Tiraqueau, his senior, of whom De Thou, (lib. xxi., anno 1558,) says, "Æque ingenii ut corporus numerosa fœcundus prole; cum singulis annis singulos libros ac liberos reipublicæ daret." And this prolific parent and writer, it is to be observed, was a perfect teetotaller, wholly abstaining from all fermented liquor. See "Vies des plus célébres Jurisconsultes de toutes les Nations, par Taisand," 1737, 4to. The family of Talon, of the highest legal repute, for a series of ages, were of Irish origin; but although, *The ensuing lines, allusive to the fact and consequences, with poetical exaggeration, of course, are quoted by Bayle: "Fœcundus facundus aquæ Tiraquellus amator, Ter quindecim librorum et liberûm parens; The number of books, though mostly folios, have been equalled; but that one wife, as is maintained of Tiraqueau's, ever produced forty-five children, is, I apprehend, unexampled: and water-drinking, though it may have cooled the fires, did not impair the capability of procreation. M. Twiss, in his Irish Tour, which exposed him to so much danger and ridicule on its publication, says, that the wife of an Anglican Minister of Fermanagh, had thirty-one from the constitution of the ancient magistracy and bar of France-(see vol. i., p. 305)—professional fame frequently appears of hereditary transmission, few examples, or probably no instance of its enduring descent, nor again, in the healing art itself, except we recognise the asserted lineage of Hippocrates from Esculapius, can equal that recorded of an existing medical family at Lyons, whose patriarch, Edward White, attended our Black Prince at the battle of Poictiers, in 1356, as his surgeon. The name, on settling in France, being pronounced, was written, Vitet, (the final e, as in Chaucer, not being then, as now, silent in English, while our w always sounds as v in French, as well as in all European languages except the Low Dutch;) and medicine, in its various branches, has been the uninterrupted study and vocation of this Englishman's decendants to the passing day. I well remember the late Dr. Louis Vitet in the Convention; and several of the family have written on the art. The family again, of Montagnano followed the medical profession in uninterrupted succession at Padua and Venice, from 1420 to 1678. They furnished Professors to the University of Padua during nearly all this interval. Yet this inheritance of taste and talent we know is very rare "Rade volte risurge per li rami L'humana probitate: et questa vole Quei, che la da; perche da lui si chiami." Dante, Il Purgatorio, lib. vii. v. 121. children in twenty-nine years. M. Dreux du Radier shows, however, that Tiraqueau's progeny, physical or intellectual, did not exceed fifteen. (Bibliothèque Historique et Critique du Poitou, 1754, tome i.) I heard the late Lady of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart, say, that her mother had thirty-two children; and proofs of greater fertility may be given, but not to the extent of forty-five, I believe, unless, indeed, we resort to the storied fecundity of the progenitrix of the Guelphs. 66 And Boileau, on noticing the early attempts of Louis Racine to pursue the footsteps of his illustrious father, used every effort of dissuasion to divert the rising propensity, asserting, as an incontestible fact, that no precedent existed of inherited poetic genius. Depuis que le monde est monde, on n'a point vu de grand poète fils d'un grand poète," says the old satirist. Tasso, though depreciated by Boileau, was, indeed, a great poet; but his father, who certainly possessed considerable talent, could, by no means, be similarly designated. (See Gent. Mag. for July, 1839, p. 38.) In another line, not wholly alien to our subject, as being the instrument of letters and science, we may observe, that the printing office established by Christopher Plantin, about the year 1550, at Antwerp, then a great commercial emporium, has survived, to our time, in active operation, through the descendants of his daughter, the wife of John Moret, whose name the press has continued to bear. Some additional instances are mentioned in the Gent. Mag. for July, 1837, of typographical transmission of race. I do not think that any other industrial avocation presents an equal unbroken descent, though the establishment may maintain the same name, like the bank of Childs and Co., in which no individual of the founder's family has for many years been associated, except Lady Jersey, who is a partner. It dates from the Protectorate of Cromwell, or about two centuries. The Polyglott Bible of 1569-1578, is an enduring monument of Plantin's press, of which some of the productions attest the existence in 1553. It has latterly been the principal European workshop of Roman Missals and Breviaries. |