he had never been at the Scotch Bar. But Ogle belonged to the latter country, and he too is now thriving in India.

Ferguson was an excellent fellow, full of talent, little read in his profession, owing, indeed, the reading he had to the accident of having been imprisoned under sentence for a seditious riot at the state trials at Maidstone, where he and Lord Thanet were charged with having aided in a rescue of the prisoners just acquitted, but detained on a new charge. Ferguson always spoke of this conviction with a bitterness foreign to his nature, as does Lord Thanet to this day; but Ferguson used to give us anecdotes of the Maidstone trial, which were amusing. Thus, Sheridan being called for the defendants, Garrow cross-examined him, and happening to dislike the answer he got, was using the ordinary form of palaver in repeating the question, "Perhaps I don't make myself understood?" "Certainly you do not," said Sheridan coolly enough. "Oh' then," and Garrow repeated his question in a different form; but still the desired answer came not; whereupon he said in the accustomed palavering manner-"It is perhaps my obscurity and confused way of putting it ?"-Sheridan bowed assent in a marked manner, which excited loud laughter, as he added, "Exactly so." Abbott, now Chief Justice, was called for the Crown, and Erskine cross-examined him. Fugion, the Bow Street runner, had just been examined. Abbott gave a shuffling answer, which drew from Erskine the only harsh word, Ferguson said, he had ever heard from that great and mild-tempered man. "Sir, I should have been ashamed of the Bow Street runner if he had given me an answer like that." Abbott, Ferguson said, looked furious, and never forgot or forgave the blow.

The Irish Bar and Bench are, I believe, high in point of talent, and respectable in learning; but they have inferior powers of correctly doing their business. It is all a haphazard from what I have seen of them; but no

one can deny them great readiness and eloquence, and their wit is renowned. But their wit is not confined to the Bar as it is with us, unless on very rare occasions-"few and far between." On the contrary, the Irish Bench, if not the fountain of wit, is, at least, one of its reservoirs; it is a main through which wit flows freely and copiously. I have heard of numberless instances, like the one I formerly recounted, of Sir Frederick Flood's "unfortunate client," which, by the way, I ascribed to Lord Chief Justice Downes; whereas it was Lord Guillemores (Chief Baron O'Grady's). With his strong Limerick brogue; his quickness of repartee; his unscrupulousness of offending against strict decorum; he really seems to have been among the most accomplished of jokemongers. His sarcasm was often so sly that it went over the head of his victim, but was perceived and relished by the by-standers. Thus, when one rather of a silly nature was complaining of his son's obstinacy, and calling that near relative a "complete mule," "No doubt" (said O'Grady) "he has a title to the name, both personal and hereditary." But his victim asked, "How could a mule beget a mule?" "No, truly," answered he, "but every mule must have a father." Macnally, a vulgar man, and therefore ever fond of keeping high company, was once showing off about his dinners at Leinster House, and would bring on the subject by affecting to complain of their plainness and scantiness. "How so?" said the Chief Baron. "Why," says Macnally, "for instance, yesterday, we had no fish at table." Probably," said my Lord, "they had eaten it all in the parlour;" so fine was his wit. But in more broad jesting Chief Baron Patterson was at least his equal. He once addressed a Grand Jury on the state of the country, then disturbed by the cabals, intrigues, and squabbles of the great rival powers or families of Agar, Flood, and Bushe. "It is truly painful," said his Lordship, "to contemplate; but how can it be otherwise when the land is flooded with

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corruption, each man eager only for place, and every bush conceals a villian ?”

Macnally was one of the greatest romancers ever known even in Ireland. I have heard men say that he had, by some awkward, not very sober or any very temperate scrapes, lost the whole of one thumb and a moiety of another finger, and they used to ask the how and the when, to each of which interrogatories he would put in a totally different answer; till at last, getting quite confused, and half-recollecting his former accounts of the matters in question, he got furious, and said he had wholly forgotten all about it.

Another time Macnally went to Mr. Parsons, one of the wits of the Bar, when his son, a somewhat disreputable character, had been robbed: "Well (said M.), have you heard of my son's robbery ?" "No," answered Parsons quietly, "No, who has he been robbing ?"

I place Plunket very far above all the Irish and almost all the English speakers I have ever heard; and I have heard the best of both countries. But I never heard Plunket at the Bar, where I consider he must have been very great indeed. His perfectly logical head—his sustained force of reasoning-his entire neglect, amounting to an apparent contempt of everything but the matter in hand-the cause; his superiority to tinsel and all finery, like a kind of abhorrence—even without his own most chaste imagery, most apposite comparisons, happy illustrations, and occasionally, but very rarely, admirable jokes-these perfections place him in the very first line of orators among those of all ages; and these perfections are in a most peculiar manner suited to command the greatest success at the Bar, whether before the court or the jury. Of his wit, sometimes approaching to drollery, and the effect heightened by its contrast with the peculiarly grave aspect and manner of the man, I have seen both in Parliament and society instances not

very easy to repeat with success, because depending much on the circumstances and the humour of the person at the moment. There was, however, one quality that always marked them-they had something inexpressibly odd and wholly unexpected, and they came very easily into play. I remember once on a legal question in Parliament, he was speaking of the Bastard eigne and mulier puisne; he said, "the child after marriage, whom the law in its wisdom is pleased to call the mulier, and might as well have called the ostrich." I never saw the lawyers present more merry, except perhaps when Windham in his admirable and unreported speech on the Walcheren inquiry, said, "Talk of a coup de main in the Scheldt! You might as well talk of a coup de main in the Court of Chancery!" At that moment the Master of the Rolls (Sir William Grant) entered, and took his seat, looking as grave as usual. But the gravity lasted not long; the shot told on him, and he rolled about on his bench almost convulsed with laughter. The speech was unreported, because Windham had offended the gentlemen of the press, whom a Judge once called our Lord the King of the Press. He had on a recent occasion of some complaint about misreporting, dared to say that he only wished they would let him alone and not report him at all. They took him at his word during the greater part of the session.

But to return from my ramble, alas, the only one I can now enjoy since our Welsh tours of little work and much play have been abolished. I remember once when some one said that he had seen a brother of Leech's (then Vice-Chancellor), and that his way of speaking and his whole ways, were so like those of his Honour, that the manner seemed to run in the family; Plunket, who was present, said, "I should have just as soon expected to see a wooden leg run in a family." It was this perfect appropriateness, and at the same time perfect unexpectedness, that gave such point to

his jests, as well as to his more severe illustrations. Natural without being obvious, the description somewhere given of fine writing, peculiarly applies to him; so does that other description, right words in right places, apply to his style, which is quite perfect.

I forget whether it was Plunket or Grattan, who said of Lord Clare, the famous Chancellor, that he was a dangerous man to run away from. But I have often recollected the sentiment as well as the phrase, and thought how much it applied to the Irish men of loud valour. Lord Clare, formerly Fitz-Gibbon, was a very able man and a good and even powerful advocate, but little of a lawyer. As a minister in difficult times he showed great firmness and vigour. I remember Grattan (who had fought a duel with him) thus spoke in his usual picturesque language and yet drawling tones:

"Clare was an honest man, but no friend to Ireland. Foster was a knave, but he would do a job for Ireland!" and one plainly saw that Grattan, from love of Ireland, preferred the knave to the honest man.

Grattan was, we all know, full ready to "go out," as it is technically termed, in Ireland especially; so the Government of the day once deemed it advisable to have "a man" ready for him. A bullying ruffianly fellow was accordingly, in that virtuous Administration, brought into Parliament; and all men were aware his mission was not so much to represent the people as to "take off" the people's favourite. He made an offensive bravo kind of speech, saying, "Whichever way he turned his eyes,-to the north, to the east, to the west, to the south, he viewed with alarm the consequences of Mr. G.'s deeds." "Ay," answered Grattan, "the member has looked all around him, to the north, east, west, and south, and with alarm. Perhaps in the course of his survey he saw the gallows!"