human head, — large, deeply set, dark, liquid, flashing like gems. And these fix you presently like a basilisk, and before he has spoken ten minutes you give yourself up to the feeling that you are in the presence of a man of genius." His parliamentary career was one long success, marred for a time only by his quarrel with O'Connell conse quent on his refusal to go to the length of "The Liberator" on the Catholic question. He died at Florence in 1851, and was buried there. Among these sketches of past leaders of the Irish Bar a man of a more recent generation may well serve as the last example. Richard Dowse was an Ulsterman by birth, and by birth alone. The Ulsterman, like his Scotch progenitor, "jokes wi' deeficulty." Dowse would probably have found it hard to be serious; but it is not on record that he ever tried. Life seemed one huge extrava gance to him, Law a farce in which he played a leading part, the House of Com mons and the Bench a theatre for the exer cise of his wit. Yet Dowse's life was one long success. As a Nisi Prius leader he was unsurpassed; no man was more readily listened to in parliament, and the Court of Exchequer twenty years ago owed much of its high reputation to his presence. Dowse was born in 1824, when men had just begun to hear of Sheil and O'Connell, and gained a scholarship in Trinity College in 1848. He graduated B. A. in 1850, and was called to the bar in 1852. For a few years he devoted himself to the building of a great reputation at Nisi Prius, and he was soon known as a man to be feared, — a man with a pitiless knack of detecting his opponent's weakness, and a gift for holding up an adverse witness to ridicule. He was never an espe cially eloquent orator. The fact of his being a dangerous man to have against any but the strongest case brought Dowse most of his business; and when in 1868 he was
elected member for Londonderry, he was the leader of the Nisi Prius Bar. The House of Commons usually takes to its wits in somewhat tentative fashion; but it welcomed Dowse with open arms. His dictum that " because some judges are old women is no reason why every old woman may be a judge " is a tradition that will live in the House as long as that hardy annual, the women suffrage question, comes up for inspection and defeat. Having served the apprenticeship of Solicitor-General, Dowse became a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1872. His appointment was hailed with some misgiving. The Exchequer Bench is not a sphere for a humorist, and it was pro phesied that either his reputation as a lawyer or a wit was doomed. Had Dowse been a mere buffoon, this might have come to pass. But he was more. He was a man of cul ture, of clear common-sense, and possessed of a gift for piercing through all the outside circumstances, and coming to the core and essence of the case. His colleague, the pre sent Chief Baron Palles, had law enough for two, and hence it came about that no fairer or more competent tribunal ever sat in the Court of Exchequer. Baron Dowse died in 1890. No one realized, until his death, what a high place he held in popular favor. The deep, rich voice with its inimitable accent, the shrewd and laughing eye, the portly, comfortable frame have become an institution through the assized towns of Ireland. His death eclipsed the gayety of the Court of Exchequer, and it has never recovered its tone. It is perhaps more decorous; it is certainly more dull. It was fitting that 'the " Times," in pronouncing a panegyric on the dead man, should end with a bull which would have made the heart of its subject rejoice, — "A great Irishman has passed away. God grant that many as great, and who as wisely love their country, way follow him!"
