England, politely to save (as asserted) pub lic time and conciliate their lordships, thus sending their clients out of court because they thought they were not defensible. On the contrary, as I have said, the worse the cause intrusted to an Irish barrister, the more zealously did he labor and fight for his client. If he thought it indefensible, why take a fee? But his motto was, ' While there is life there is hope.' During the speeches of these resolute advocates, pow der and perspiration mingled in cordial streams adown their writhing features; their mouths, ornamented at each corner with generous froth, threw out half a dozen arguments, with tropes and syllogisms to match, while English gentlemen would have been cautiously pronouncing one monosyl lable and considering most discreetly what the next should be. In short, they always stuck to their cause to the last gasp; and it may appear fabulous, to a steady, regular, English expounder of the law, that I have repeatedly seen a cause which the bar, the bench, and the jury seemed to think was irrevocably lost, after a few hours' rubbing and puffing (like the exertions of the Humane Society), brought into a state of restored animation; and after another hour or two of cross-examination and per severance, the judges and jury have changed their impressions, and sent home the cause quite alive in the pockets of the owner and lawful solicitor." Of the Irish judges our author says : " Be fore and for some time after I was called to the . bar, the bench was in some instances very curiously manned as to judges. The uniform custom had previously been to send over these dignitaries from England, partly with a view to protect the property of ab sentees, and partly from political considera tions; and the individuals thus sent appeared as if generally selected because they were good for nothing else. Such Irishmen also as were in those days constituted puisne judges were of the inferior class of practis ing barristers." He adds, however, that the
Chief-Justices were usually men of ability, and that the bench improved as time went on. Sir Jonah then descants at some length on the absurdity of the supposed infallibility of judges formerly prevalent in Ireland. Of an inferior barrister " whose opinion nobody would ask, or, if obtained, act upon," and who had been raised to the bench, he says : "The great seal and the king's patent were held to saturate his brain in half an hour with all that wisdom and learning which he had in vain been trying to get even a peep at during the former portion of his life; and the mere dicta of the metamorphosed barris ter were set down by reporters as the infal lible (but therefore inexplicable) law of the land, and, as such, handed round to other judges under the appellation of precedents entitled to all possible weight in judicial de cisions." Probably in all this surgit amari aliquid, but Sir Jonah proceeds to give some examples which tend to support his statements : — "Baron Monckton of the Exchequer (an importation from England) was said to un derstand black letter and red wine better than any who had preceded him in that situation. At all events, being often vino deditus, he on those occasions described the segment of a circle in making his way to the seat of justice." "Old Judge Henn (a very excellent pri vate character) was dreadfully puzzled on circuit, in 1789, by two pertinacious young barristers arguing a civil bill upon some trifling subject, repeatedly haranguing the court, and each most positively laying down the ' law of the case ' in direct opposition to his adversary's statement thereupon. The judge listened with great attention until both were tired of stating the law and con tradicting each other. ' How, gentlemen,' said Judge Henn, 'can I settle it between you? You, sir, say the law is one way, and you [turning to the opposite party] as un equivocally affirm that it is the other way. I wish to God, Billy Harris [to his register, who sat underneath], I knew what the law
