it was hoped, the authority of the Roman pontiff would again be established in its ancient supremacy in Ireland. England was in a state of great confusion. The variance between the king and the parliament had deepened into a sanguinary civil war ; and neither party, in that melancholy contest, could, from the pressure of immediate exigencies, afford time to bestow any adequate consideration upon the condition of the distressed and afflicted Protestants of Ireland. The king was wholly unable to extend to them any relief; and the parliament seemed more disposed to look for matter of crimination against their royal antagonist in the sanguinary excesses of the Romish faction here, than to adopt any active measures by which their fiend-like atrocities might be counteracted.

The work before us is singularly abstinent from those harrowing details which are to be found in such abundance in the works of the Irish annalists who lived during this awful visitation, and by whom the sworn depositions of many of the sufferers have been recorded. This, we must think, is not as it should be. It would have well become Bishop Mant to stigmatize the leading actors in this dreadful tragedy with a deeper brand. We

can appreciate the motives which led to this forbearance; and we can honor the generosity and the gentle-heartedness which caused the mild and forgiving prelate to pass, with a hurried step and an averted eye, over scenes which, if steadily contemplated, might well provoke the most indignant reprobation. But it is not thus that history is to read her most impressive lessons to her votaries. If she undertake to exhibit the ages that are past, it is that we may be instructed respecting the course of events in the ages that are to come. And it is important to have it deeply imprinted upon our minds, that the principles which led to the massacre in 1641, are the same

that are this moment in living operation throughout the greater part of Ireland; -nor is there any one probable opinion of the truth of which we are more fully persuaded, than of this, that the time is not very distant when a similar explosion of bigotry may be appre hended; unless our rulers be timely awakened to their peril, and adopt measures of wiser precaution than any they have yet dreamed of for securing the tranquillity of this member of the empire.

Our author gives a touching account of the sufferings of Bishop Bedell; and deplores, with good reason, the interruption of those projects of usefulness upon which that great and good man was bent. He had undertaken a translation of the Old Testament into Irish, for the benefit of the natives, which, had it been published at the time, would have been attended with very good effects. But the rebellion, which threw all things into confusion, prevented him from thus seeing the fruits of his own labours. Nor was it until nearly forty years after his death, that the Hon. Robert Boyle, "the great Christian philosopher," as he has been called, caused a fount of types, in the Irish character, to be cast at his own expense, by means of which the work was at length printed.

But we must bring our notice to a close; not, however, without emphatically calling the attention of our readers to the curious alternationswhich marked the chequered progress of the reformed Church of England and Ireland.

The

first start of reformation took place under Henry the Eighth ; but then it proceeded very little beyond the denial of the pope's supremacy; and rather aimed at relieving our sovereigns from the yoke of foreign domination, than delivering the people from spiritual bondage. Henry died, leaving the Established Church, in point of doctrine, almost as popish as he found

it.

Then came Edward, under whom

the enlightened minds of Cranmer and Ridley had free scope; and the Liturgy and the Catechism attest the degree to which these great and good men were both disposed and enabled to restore the purity of apostolical doctrine and worship. But no sooner had true religion been, as it were, thus born again, than, like the Saviour in his infancy, it was exposed to bitter persecution. Mary came; all the milk of whose woman's nature had been turned, by an infuriate bigotry, into poison; and whatever persecution, in all its varied forms, could do, to extinguish the reformed doctrines, was done, with an unrelenting severity of which we have but few examples. But it was not suffered to work out the purposes of those by whom it was employed. Elizabeth succeeded, under whom the professors of true religion were again cherished, and the Liturgy again restored to its proper place. She was followed by James, who trode in her footsteps; but began to encounter a new enemy, in the Puritans, to whom Church discipline was odious; and who, in the reign of Charles, became so strong, and so unruly, that the Church itself was overthrown, and continued in a state of prostration and ruin for more than twenty years. All was set right again, by the happy Restoration; and continued so, until Charles's popish predilections strongly manifested themselves towards the close of his reign. his brother, by whom he was succeeded, the Church was again placed under ban and interdict, from which it was not delivered until the glorious Revolution.

By

And we are induced, at present, to allude to this curious series of providential arrangements, for the encouragement of those, who, in this our day, are over-much cast down by the present fortunes of the Church. We tell them to be of good cheer. What is happening now, happened before; and although we appeared to be for a season forsaken, and the countenance of the Lord seemed to be withdrawn from us, we were soon made to feel that the chastisement we experienced was that of a gracious father; and that, although heaviness may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning. Even so, we confidently say, it will now be, if we are only true to ourselves.

In the reign of James the Second, almost every one of the circumstances, by which the Irish Protestants are at present oppressed, were felt in a manner by which the faith and the constancy of their forefathers were most severely tried; and happy was it, both for themselves and their posterity, that they were not then found wanting. If we have to complain of the disposal of patronage under a protestant Lord Lieutenant, they had to complain of it under a popish. If we have to complain of a constabulary, who constitute a sort of standing army, nominated, in a great degree, by the influence of popish priests, they had to deplore the disbanding of a loyal Protestant army, upon whom, alone, they could have relied for protection. If we see popish judges, and popish privy councillors, filling the bench and thronging the council chamber, the like extraordinary and ominous spectacle was witnessed by them.

The

same may be said of popish law officers, popish magistrates, popish sheriffs, and popish corporations. If the clergy, in our day, have been reduced to grievous distress, by the withholding of their lawful incomes, and by the difficulties which hostile judges have thrown in the way of the recovery of their dues ; a calamity precisely similar was visited upon their predecessors during the reign of James. If national education has been wrested from them, and the privileges which they should have enjoyed conferred upon their popish rivals; the like indignity was, under the last of the Stewarts, offered to their ancestors over whom that odious bigot reigned; and not only that, but their own places of education were taken from them; the college of Kilkenny, founded by the munificence of the great Duke of Ormond, converted into a Jesuit's seminary; and an attempt made to fill the vacant fellowships in the University of Dublin with papists.

These things are all written for our instruction; and when the clouds of calamity gather around us, and our beloved Sion appears in the very jaws of destruction, we should never forget "what we have heard with our ears, and what our fathers have told us had been done in their time of old;" and that the darkest hour in the history of England was that which

immediately preceded the dawn of her brightest day. Nor should it for a moment be absent from our remembrance, that had our forefathers been faithless in their generation, or shrank, under their trials, from the vindication of their faith, their hearts would never have been gladdened by the happy deliverance from temporal and spiritual oppression, which it pleased God, in his own good time, to vouchsafe to them. Even so it will be with us, we confidently repeat it, if we are true to ourselves, and steadfast in that good cause to which we have been pledged, and to the maintenance of which we are bound by every motive which should influence us as men and

The

as Christians. Truth and falsehood have not changed their nature. same God who presided, when we were abandoned, for a season, to the oppressions of the bigot James, still presides over the world; and as then he suffered not his truth to fail, but wrought deliverance for his people, at a time when they looked not for it, and in a manner the most extraordinary, so, doubtless, it will be again; when our gracious sovereign has been disabused of the delusions by which she is at present possessed; when the twin fiends of popery and infidelity have done their worst; and when their persecutions have wrought the proper effects upon

us.

THE fortunes of distinguished men at the bar, form an interesting chapter in biography, not alone, nor even chiefly, because in our days it has been almost the only avenue for unassisted talents to the highest offices of the state-nor because the history of celebrated lawyers is the history of the founders of many of our greatest families, but because the lives of such men afford a remarkable illustration, that little or nothing of that which secures success is owing to accident in a country circumstanced like England-that the reward is after all to the deserving. "It never occurs to fools "---says a great poet." to notice that merit and fortune are inseparably united. Give a fool the Philosopher's stone---and what have you given him? The stone is but a stone in any but the hands of the philosopher." The accidents, as they are called, which have led to the rapid success of the great men who had never been heard of before some fortunate display, had they found them unprepared would have been in vain, and to men who have taken care diligently to prepare themselves, it is scarcely possible that favourable opportunities should not arise. The volumes before us are books that may be described as made up for the market; compiled carefully however, and leaving us little to complain of, except

this, that it would now and then gratify us to learn on what authority some of the best stories are related. An inaccurate and unjust estimate of the book is likely enough to be formed from the circumstance that it records too many of that class of bar-jests, which have been going circuit and walking the hall for the last half century---attributed always to the last professed joker---in Ireland told of Curran, or Parsons, or Grady, so often that we anticipate affidavits will be necessary to support the character of the gentlemen who never omit the assertion, that they were themselves present when the jest was uttered. The more serious part of the book is better done, and much of it contains matter of exceeding interest. The first chapter, on Law Education, is not of much value---it consists of extracts, most of them familiar enough, descriptive of the habits of the bar some two centuries ago, and the exclusiveness with which they sought to devote themselves to their books aud papers. From such details little is to be learned ---we have a discussion on Lord Chancellor Talbot's aphorism, which says, that "parts and poverty are the only things needed by the law student." It is clear that if such a proposition is interpreted strictly, it is false. That a barrister should not be so independent

of his profession as to have strong temptations to idleness is no doubt desirable, but the struggles of poverty can have little other effect, than separating him from the studies of his profession, and compelling him to seek support in some of those occupations of literature, which young men by a common but irreparable mistake imagine may be pursued in connection with the studies and practice of this jealous and absorbing profession. The cases which are brought to illustrate the proposition, are cases not of absolute but relative poverty. "Lord Erskine," we are told," said that the first time he spoke in court, he was so overcome with confusion that he was about to sit down." "At that time," he added, "I fancied I could feel my little children tugging at my gown, so I made an effort went on and succeeded." The story of Thurlow's rise at the bar is well told---and that of Lord Kenyon and Dunning---Eldon's is yet more remarkable.

"It is well known that Scott, when only twenty years of age, eloped with a daughter of a wealthy Newcastle Banker

·

Jack Scott has run off with Betty Surtees,' was the exclamation of the future chancellor's old schoolmaster: the poor lad is undone.' I suppose,' said William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, to an Oxford friend, you have heard of this very foolish act of my very foolish brother.' I hope.' replied his friend, that it will turn out better than you anticipate.' Never, Sir,' replied Mr. Scott, he is completely ruined; nor can anything now save him from absolute beggary. You do not know,' he continued, how very unhappy this makes me; for I had good hopes of him, till this last confounded step has destroyed all.'

"It has often been said that after his marriage, his father-in-law refused all intercourse with him, until he had acquired

Mr.

fame and wealth, and then made some overtures which Scott rejected. When Chancellor, he is said to have affixed the great seal to a commission of bankruptcy against his father-in-law. But these circumstances are not true. A few days after her marriage, Mrs Scott received, by her youngest brother, a letter of forgiveness, on which, accompanied by her hus band, she returned to her father's, where the young couple staid for some months. It has been reported, that during his sojourn in Newcastle, a very respectable and wealthy tradesman, a grocer, who had known his father and family for many years, called on Scott, and proposed, as he himself had no children, that he should become a partner in his business. Scott is said to have paused on this offer, and to have told the worthy grocer that he had written to his brother at Oxford, respecting his plans-that he expected an answer the next day-and that, according to the advice it should contain, would his future course be shaped. The next day the letter arrived, and, as it conveyed an invitation to return to Oxford, determined him to decline the generous offer of the friendly grocer. Scott, accompanied by his wife, then went to Oxford, where he resided until his call to the bar, studying law with the utmost severity. After his call, he spent two years in the chambers of Mr. Duane, an eminent conveyancer, by which means he acquired a most intimate acquaintance with the principles and practice of the Law of Real Propertyan acquaintance which an observant reader will detect in many of his judg ments, after he was placed on the woolsack. The fruits of his first year's practice were not large-amounting to one solitary half-guinea, which he generously presented to his wife as pocket-money. His father-in-law obtained for him a general retainer from the corporation of Newcastle, and several fees from some of its wealthy merchants.

"Scott, about this time, was also made one of the commissioners of bankrupts; beside which, he obtained the professional business of the Duke of Northumberland.

From 1774--one year after he commenced practice-to 1783, his business, at first gradually, and afterwards rapidly, increased. About four years after his call, Scott appeared to have been impatient of the tardiness of his progress; and, apprehensive that the difficulties imposed on him, as the father of a family, would increase, resolved to abandon the London bar, and to return to Newcastle. There were two circumstances that prevented him from carrying this resolution into effect. The first was his success in the great case of Ackroyd v. Smithson, (1 Brown. Chan. Ca. 505,) which was originally heard before the Master of the Rolls. Scott had a guinea brief to consent on behalf of one of the parties-another of the parties, however, would not yield, and appealed from the Master to the Chancellor. The solicitor of Mr. Scott's client, called on him with another guinea consent brief: but Mr. Scott said that now he had heard the matter argued, he was disposed to think that a good deal might be said on his client's behalf, and therefore, he thought he should be imprudent to consent. The solicitor replied, that he had no other instructions but to consent; but he would mention the matter to his client. The result was, that Mr. Scott was instructed to take what course he thought proper. When the day for the cause arrived, the other parties urged their claims with such apparent reason, that Lord Thurlow enquired what the opposite side had to observe. On this, Scott rose and advocated the cause of his client, with such learning and ability, that Lord Thurlow said he had been so much startled with the novelty and force of his reasoning, that he must take time to consider; and ultimately decided, with many compliments to Mr. Scott, in his favour.

"The following anecdote has also been related of one of Mr. Scott's early happy hits. At York, the judges often left remanets. Mr. Scott was junior in an action of assault, and when the cause was called on, he rose to say that his leader was engaged in the crown court, and to express his hope that the court would postpone the cause for a short time. • Call the next cause,' exclaimed the judge, in a tone, which implied strike this out of the list.' Mr. Scott immediately-it was a case of desperation-addressed the jury: -a Mrs. Fermor, and an elderly maiden lady, Miss Sanstern, were opposed to each other, at a whist table, and had a slight difference. Words led to blows, and Mrs. Fermor was forced from her chair to the floor. The evidence appeared conclusive that Miss Sanstern committed the first

VOL. XV.

assault; but the defendant's counsel objected that there was a fatal variance between the declaration and the proof, the declaration alleging that the assault hal been committed by the hand of the defendant; the proof being that she had flung her cards into the plaintiff's face. Mr. Scott replied, that In the common parlance of the card-table, a hand means cards. She did assault the plaintiff with her hand of cards.' Lord Eldon's recollection of the story was, that he gained a verdict for a small amount. The year after his success in Ackroyd v. Smithson, Eldon refused a mastership in chanceryin three years received a silk gown-and led the northern circuit."

The circumstances of Lord Erskine's early life are worth recording. He was the younger son of a noble Scottish family was sent to sea at the age of fourteen, and attained the rank of lieutenant; his chance of promotion seemed but slight, and he entered the army. After six years service in this new profession, he determined to try his fate at the bar-took a degree at Cambridge as filius nobilis, and was, in due season, called to the bar. "While in the army," says our author, "he married a beautiful and intelligent young lady, and his wife is said to have borne the hardships of her lot with a constancy and courage which proved how warmly she was attached to her husband."

We must, however, give his own account of the circumstances to which he owed his first distinction at the English bar.

"I had scarcely a shilling in my pocket when I got my first retainer. It was sent me by a Captain Baillie of the navy, who held an office at the Board of Greenwich Hospital; and I was to show cause in the Michaelmas term against a rule that had been obtained against him, in the preceding term, calling on him to show cause why a criminal information for a libel, reflecting on Lord Sandwich's conduct, as governor of that charity, should not be filed against him. I had met, during the long vacation, this Captain Baillie at a friend's table; and after dinner expressed myself with some warmth, probably with some eloquence, on the corruption of Lord Sandwich, as First Lord' of the Admiralty; and then adverted to the scandalous practices imputed to him, with regard to Greenwhich Hospital. Baillie knudged the person who sat next

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