Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/551

the hand has not lost its cunning. Often in as it were, infants together, and both have the Nisi Prius Court one may see the Lord risen by the same strict attention to business. Chief Justice, suave, urbane, but very deter The son of a clergyman, he entered Queen's mined, take a witness in hand and wring from College, Belfast, in 1853, and took his degree him an answer, clear, definite, and precise. in 1856, being nineteen years of age. Four He is probably the most impressive judge on years later he was called to the bar in Dub the Irish Bench. His sentences, delivered lin. His Belfast connection soon brought in grave, impassive tones and in splendid him a fair practice in commercial cases, language, make his court much patronized making his junior years very prosperous ones. In twelve years by the bar and the from the dateof his call public. he became a Queen's One of his most impressive judgments Counsel, and ten years was delivered last afterwards, in 1882, January. He had oc entered Mr. Glad casion to condemn the stone's ministry as action of the Irish Solicitor-General, be Chief Secretary, and coming Attorney-Gen one may be .pardoned eral in the next year. for suggesting of so This post involved the ardent a politician prosecution of the that the knowledge Phœnix Park murder that the Common Law ers, and here Mr. Por of Ireland had given ter set seal on his his late enemies into fame. Dublin was in the hollow of his hand a ferment, and clamor did not detract from ing for vengeance with the vigor of his lan that unreason ing haste guage. It will long be which stamps a pop remembered as a piece ulace frightened for of stirring and dra their lives. Mr. Por matic diction. He ter's calm, dispas was in his time the sionate conduct of the C. H. HEMPHILL, Q. C. Solicitor-General. best abused man in prosecution was a Ireland, but wisely model of forensic judg" valued solid pudding against empty praise," ment and skill. It was his last important and having, like Tom Bowling, done his duty case; in the same year he was appointed to faithfully below, was raised to the bench the Rolls. at the early age of forty-six. He was born It was not thought that Mr. Porter had in 1842, called in 1865, became a Q. C. in found a congenial post. The cumbrous 1880, a Judge in 1889, and a Baronet in machinery of the Equity Courts seemed ill 1891. calculated to bring out his powers of rapid The Master of the Rolls is, like Baron work and business acumen. The man and Dowse, an Ulsterman, and far more akin the method would probably clash, and Irish than was the Baron to that serious and Equity suitors would suffer. We do not business-like community. know if the prophecies were at first fulfilled. Andrew Marshall Porter was born in What is evident now is that the method has Belfast in 1837, ne and that city being, given way to the man, the delays and