with the genius of a Grattan." These were his very words, but my modesty was in no way pained at them, for I believed every syllable to be literally true. I went home in a glorious intoxication of spirits. My success had surpassed my most sanguine expectations. I had now established a character for public speaking, which, independently of the general fame that would ensue, must inevitably lead to my retainer in every important case where the passions were to be moved, and, whenever the Whigs should come in, to a seat in the British Senate. After a restless night, in which however, when I did sleep, I contrived to dream, at one time that I was at the head of my profession, at another that I was on the opposition-side of the House of Commons redressing Irish grievances, I sallied forth to the Courts to enjoy the impression which my display of the day before must have made there. On my way my ears were regaled by the cries of the newshawkers, announcing that the morning papers contained. "Young Counsellor —'s grand and elegant speech." "This," thought I, "is genuiue fame," and I pushed on with a quickened pace towards the Hall. On my entrance the first person that caught my eyes was my friend and fellow-student Dick We had been intimate at College, and inseparable at the Temple. Our tastes and tempers had been alike, and our political opinions the same, except that he some. times went far beyond me in his abstract enthusiasm for the rights of man. I was surprised, for our eyes met, that he did not rush to tender me his greetings. However I went up to him, and held out my hand in the usual cordial way. He took it, but in a very unusual way. The friendly pressure was no longer there. His countenance, which heretofore had glowed with warmth at my approach, was still and chilling. He made no allusion to my speech, but looking round, as if fearful of being observed, and muttering something about its being "Equity-day in the Exchequer," moved away. This was a modification of "genuine fame," for which I was quite unprepared. In my present elevation of spirits, however, I was rather perplexed than offended at the occurrence. I was willing to suspect that my friend must have found himself suddenly indisposed, or that, in spite of his better feelings, an access of involuntary envy might have overpowered him, or perhaps, poor fellow, some painful subject of a private nature might be pressing upon his mind, so as to cause this strange revolution in his manner. At the time I never adverted to the rumour that there was shortly to be a vacancy for a commissionership of bankrupts, nor had I been aware that his name as a candidate, stood first on the Chancellor's list. He was appointed to the place a few days after, and the mystery of his coldness was explained. Yet I must do him the justice to say that he had no sooner attained his object than he showed symptoms of remorse for having shaken me off. He praised my speech, in a confidential way, to a mutual friend, and I forgave him, for one gets tired of being indignant, and to this day we converse with our old familiarity upon all subjects except the abstract rights of man. In the course of the morning I received many similar manifestations of homage to my genius from others of my Protestant colleagues. The young, who up to that time had sought my society, now brushed by me as if there was infection in my touch. The seniors, some of whom had occasionally condescended to take my arın in the Hall, and treat me to prosing details of their adventures at the Temple, held themselves sullenly aloof; and if our glances encountered, petrified me with looks of established order. In whatever direction I cast my eyes, I met signs of anger or estrangement, or what was still less welcome, of pure commiseration. Such were the first fruits of my "grand and elegant speech," which had combined (O'Connell, may Heaven forgive you!) the spirit of a Washington with the genius of a Grattan." I must, however, in fairness state, that I was not utterly "left alone with my glory." The Catholics certainly crowded round me and extolled me to the skies. One eulogized my simile of the eagle; another swore that the corporation would never recover from the last hit I gave them; a third that my fortune at the bar was made. I was invited to all their dinner-parties, and as far as "lots" of white soup and Spanish flummery went, had unquestionably no cause to complain. The attorneys both in public and private were loudest in their admiration of my rare qualifications for success in my profession, but though they took every occasion, for weeks and months after, to recur to the splendour of my eloquence, it still somehow happened that not one of them sent me a guinea. I was beginning to charge the whole body with ingratitude, when I was agreeably induced to change my opinion, at least for a while. One of the most rising among them was an old schoolfellow of mine named Shanahan. He might have been of infinite service to me, but he had never employed me, even in the most trivial matter. We were still, however, on terms of, to me, rather unpleasant familiarity; for he affected in his language and manners a certain waggish slang from which my classical sensibilities revolted. One day as I was going my usual rounds in the Hall, Shanahan, who held a bundle of briefs under his arm, came up and drew me aside towards one of the recesses. "Ned, my boy," said he, for that was his customary style of addressing me, "I just want to tell you that I have a sporting record now at issue, and which I'm to bring down to for trial at the next assizes. It's an action against a magistrate and a bible-distributor into the bargain, for the seduction of a farmer's daughter. You are to be in it-I have taken care of that ;-and I just want to know if you'd like to state the case, for, if you do, it can be managed." My heart palpitated with gratitude, but it would have been unprofessional to give it utterance; so I simply expressed my readiness to undertake the office. "Consider yourself, then, retained as stating counsel," said he, but without handing me any fee. "All you want is an opportunity of shewing what you can do with a jury, and never was there a finer one than this. It was just such another that first brought that lad there into notice," (pointing to one of the serjeants that rustled by us.) You shall have your instructions in full time to be prepared. Only hit the bible-boy in the way I know you can, and your name will be up on the circuit." The next day Shanahan called me aside again. In the interval, I had composed a striking exordium and peroration, with several powerful passages of general application, to be interspersed according as the facts should turn out, through the body of the statement. "Ned," 66 said the attorney to me as soon as we had reached a part of the Hall where there was no risk of being overheard, "I now want to consult you upon"-here he rather hesitated-" in fact, upon a little case of my own. After a short pause he proceeded, "You know a young lady from your country, Miss Dickson ?" Harriet Dickson ?” "The very one."—"Intimately well; she 's now in town with her cousins in Harcourt-street; I see her almost every day." She has a very pretty property too, they say, under her father's will, a lease for lives renewable for ever.""So I have always understood." "In fact Ned," he continued, looking somewhat foolish, and in a tone half slang, half sentiment, "I am rather inclined to think-as at present advised—that she has partly my gained affections. Come, come, my boy, no laughing; upon my faith and soul I'm serious-and what's more, I have reason to think that she 'll have no objection to my telling her so; but with those devils of cousins at her elbow, there's no getting her into a corner with one's-self for an instant; so what I want you to do for me, Ned, is this-just to throw your eye over a wide-line copy of a little notice to that effect I have been thinking of serving her with." Here he extracted from a mass of law-documents a paper endorsed "Draft letter to Miss D-," and folded up and tied with red tape like the rest. The matter corresponded with the exterior. I contrived, but not without an effort, to preserve my countenance as I perused this singular production, in which sighs, and vows were embodied in the language of an affidavit to hold to bail. Amidst the manifold vagaries of Cupid, it was the first time I had seen him exchanging his ordinary dart for an Attorney's office-pen. When I came to the end, he asked if I thought it might be improved. I candidly answered that it would, in my opinion, admit of change and correction. "Then," said he, "I shall be eternally obliged if you 'll just do the needful with it. You perceive that I have not been too explicit, for, between ourselves, I have one or two points to ascertain about the state of the property before I think it prudent to commit myself on paper. It would never do, you know, to be brought into court for a breach of promise of marriage; so you'll keep this in view, and before you begin, just cast a glance over the Statute of Frauds." Before I could answer, he was called away to attend a motion. The office thus flung upon me was not of the most dignified kind, but the seduction-case was too valuable to be risked; so pitting my ambition against my pride, I found the latter soon give way, and on the following day I presented the lover with a declaratory effusion at once so glowing and so cautious, so impassioned as to matters of sentiment, but withal so guarded in point of law, that he did not hesitate to pronounce it a masterpiece of literary composition and forensic skill. He overwhelmed me with thanks, and went home to copy and despatch it. I now come to the most whimsical part of the transaction. With Miss Dickson, as I had stated to her admirer, I was extremely intimate. We had known each other from childhood, and conversed with the familiarity rather of cousins than mere acquaintances. When she was in town, I saw her almost daily, talked to her of myself and my prospects, lectured her on her love of dress, and in return was always at her command for any small service of gallantry or friendship that she might require. The next time I called, I could perceive that I was unusually VOL. X. No. 55.-1825. 3 welcome. Her cousins were with her, but they quickly retired and left us together. As soon as we were alone, Harriet announced to me "that she had a favour--a very great one indeed-to ask of me.” She proceeded, and with infinite command of countenance. "There was a friend of hers-one for whom she was deeply interested-in fact it was-but no-she must not betray a secret-and this friend had the day before received a letter containing something like, but still not exactly a proposition of-in short-of a most interesting nature; and her friend was terribly perplexed how to reply to it, for she was very young and inexperienced, and all that; and she had tried two or three times and had failed-and then she had consulted her (Harriet), and she (Harriet) had also been puzzled-for the letter in question was in fact, as far as it was intelligible, so uncommonly well written both in style and sentiment, that her friend was of course particularly anxious to send a suitable reply-and this was Harriet's own feelingand she had therefore taken a copy of it (omitting names), for the purpose of shewing it to me, and getting me-I was so qualified, and so clever at my pen, and all that sort of thing-just to undertake-if I only would, to throw upon paper just the kind of sketch of the kind of answer that ought to be returned." The preface over, she opened her reticule, and handed me a copy of my own composition. I would have declined the task, but every excuse I suggested was overruled. The principal objection-my previous retainer on the other side, I could not in honour reveal; and I was accordingly installed in the rather ludicrous office of conducting counsel to both parties in the suit. I shall not weary the reader with a technical detail of the pleadings, all of which I drew. They proceeded, if I remember right, as far as a surrebutter—rather an unusual thing in modern practice. Each of the parties throughout the correspondence was charmed with the elegance and correctness of the other's style. Shanahan frequently observed to me, "what a singular thing it was that Miss Dickson was so much cleverer at her pen than her tongue;" and once upon handing me a letter, of which the eloquence was, perhaps, a little too nasculine, he protested "that he was almost afraid to go farther in the business, for he suspected that a girl who could express herself so powerfully on paper, would one day or other prove too much for him when she became his wife." But to conclude, Shanahan obtained the lady, and the lease for lives renewable for ever. The seduction-case (as I afterwards discovered), had been compromised the day before he offered me the statement; and from that day to this, though his business increased with his marriage, he never sent me a single brief. Finding that nothing was to be got by making public speeches, or writing love-letters for attorneys, and having now idled away some valuable years, I began to think of attending sedulously to my profession; and with a view to the regulation of my exertions, lost no opportunity of inquiring into the nature of the particular qualifications by which the men whom I saw eminent or rising around me, had originally outstripped their competitors. In the course of these inquiries I discovered that there was a newly invented method of getting rapidly into business, of which I had never heard before. The secret was communicated to me by a friend, a king's counsel, who is no longer at the Irish bar. When I asked him for his opinion as to the course of study and conduct most advisable to be pursued, and at the same time sketched the general plan which had presented itself to me, "Has it never struck you," said he, "since you have walked this Hall, that there is a shorter and a far niore certain road to professional success?" I professed my ignorance of the particular method to which he alluded. "It requires," he continued, "some peculiar qualifications: have you an ear for music ?"—Surprised at the question, I answered that I had. "And a good voice ?"-" A tolerable one.". "Then my advice to you is, to take a few lessons in psalm-singing; attend the Bethesda regularly; take a part in the anthem, and the louder the better; turn up as much of the white of your eyes as possible, and in less than six months you'll find business pouring in upon you. You smile, I see, at this advice, but I have never known the plan to fail, except where the party has sung incurably out of tume. Don't you perceive that we are once more becoming an Island of Saints, and that half the business of these Courts passes through their hands. When I came to the bar a man's success depended upon his exertions during the six workingdays of the week; but now, he that has the dexterity to turn the sabbath to account, is the surest to prosper-and "Why should not piety be made, As well as equity, a trade, eter These hints, though thrown out with an air of jest, made some impres- |