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the heroic way of his fathers in single combat, and then the executors threw the estate into Chancery, by way of settling all claims; or it fell into the hands of the family attorney, who suddenly discovered that he had a mortgage on it, of which not a shilling interest had ever been paid from the first signing and sealing.' Thus, in some way or other, while the high contracting parties were threatening each other with vengeance by sword and pen, the little holders held on, waiting for the decision of the fray that was never to be decided; till they too died, and left the matter to be settled by their heirs, and the landlord to get what he could out of their bodies, for those by this time constituted the only available property of the heir. But such, it must be acknowledged, were extreme cases; and the time was when there were few happier landlords and few more willing tenants than the Irish. Paying to the day was certainly not among the failings of the national character at any time. But what they could not give in money they gave in what is better, zeal, kindliness of heart, and fidelity that would follow the master to the death. The landlords now get better rents, where they get them at all; and sometimes see the rent-day followed by the conflagration of their own houses."

But the Earl of Kilkenny was not one of those heavy spirits who are content to follow in the track of the age. He led the way; and determined to make his tardy tenantry comprehend as much of the law of the land as was to be taught by civil action. Accordingly, he commenced suits against a whole posse of his frieze-coated debtors. The debtors of course made a prodigious clamour, an effect which follows on all occasions in Ireland, and of course had the popular feeling entirely on their side, as is the case in all instances of owing money. They soon found an attorney to conduct their defence, in the hope of fleecing a Lord. And he was now plunged into a sea of litigation, in which one billow seemed to succeed another, until the Earl was at once out of his depth and out of his wits. His expedient on this occasion, however, shewed a man who thought for himself. "His Lordship," as Sir Jonab, who was one of his counsel, says, was dreadfully tor

mented. He devised a new mode of carrying on his lawsuits. Not daring, as he said, to trust his attorney out of his sight, he engaged a clientless attorney, named Egan, as his working solicitor, at a very liberal yearly stipend; upon the express terms of his undertaking no other business whatever, and holding his office in his Lordship's house, and under his own direction. He next applied to Mr Fletcher (afterwards Judge) and to myself, requesting an interview; in which he informed us of his situation, that there were generally eight or ten counsel pitted against him; but that he would have much more reliance on the advice and punctual attendance of two certain, than of ten straggling gentlemen; and that, under the full conviction that one of us, at least, would always attend the Court when his causes came on, and not leave him in the lurch, as he had often been left, he had directed his attorney to mark on our two briefs ten times the amount of what the fees should be on the other side. Because,' said he, if you don't attend, to a certainty I must engage ten counsel, as well as my opponents.' The singularity of the proposal set us laughing, in which his Lordship joined.

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"Fletcher and I accepted the offer. We did punctually and zealously attend those numerous trials, and were most liberally fee'd; but most unsuccessful, being never able to gain a single cause, verdict, or motion for our client. The principle of strict justice certainly was with his Lordship; but certain formalities of the law were against him; he had, in fact, adopted an absolute mode of proceeding, as a short cut."

His Lordship's character as a man of genius has been already stated. And in what is genius more discoverable, than in fertility of resources? Finding the law unfavourable, he was not dispirited, but had recourse to that system of settling contested rights which came before law; from Themis he appealed to Bellona. The fashion was national, yet he distinguished his performances by a flight above nationality. Even his pistoling was ultra-Irish. This produced some most extraordinary scenes.

"Perceiving himself foiled, he determined to take another course

quite out of our line, namely, to fight it out, muzzle to muzzle, with the Attorney and all the Counsel on the other side! His first procedure on this determination was a direct challenge from his Lordship to the Attorney, Mr Ball. It was accepted, and a duel immediately followed, in which my Lord got the worst of it. He was wounded by the attorney at each shot, the first taking place in his right arm, which probably saved the solicitor, as his Lordship was a most accurate marksman. The noble challenger received a second bullet in his side, but the wound was not dangerous. The attorney's skin remained quite whole." Strange as this commencement was, the principle was followed up with equal eccentricity. The tactique of rebutting actions at law by actions in the field, and retorting the pen by the pistol, was pursued without deviation or delay, and his Lordship found the enemy's barristers as ready to answer to his suit in arms as the chivalrous and lucky solicitor. "My Lord and the attorney having been thus disposed of for the time being, the Honourable Somerset Butler, his Lordship's son, now took the field, and proceeded according to due form, by a challenge to Mr Peter Burrowes, the senior of the adversaries' counsel, now Judge Commissioner of Insolvents. The invitation not being refused, the combat took place, one chilly morning, near Kilkenny. Somerset knew his business well. But Peter had yet had no practice in that line of litigation, being goodtempered and peaceable. Few persons feel too warm on such occasions, of a cold morning; and Peter formed no exception to the general rule. An old woman who sold spiced gingerbread-nuts in the street they passed through, accosted the party, extolling her spiced nuts to the skies, as being fit to warm any gentleman's stomach as well as a dram. Peter bought a pennyworth by the advice of his second, Dick Waddy, a well-known attorney in his day, and duly receiving the change of his sixpence, marched off to the scene of action, munching his gingerbread. Preliminaries being soon arranged, the pistols given, the steps measured, the flints hammered, and the feather-springs set, Somer

set, a fine, dashing young fellow, full of spirit, activity and animation, after making a few graceful attitudes, and slapping his arms together, as hackney-coachmen do in frosty weather to make their fingers supple, gave elderly Peter, who was no posture-master, but little time to take his fighting position. In fact, he had scarcely raised his pistol to a wabbling level, before Somerset's ball came crack dash against Peter's body. The halfpence rattled in his pocket. Peter dropped; Dick Waddy roared murder, and called out to Surgeon Pack. Peter's clothes were ripped up, and Pack, secundum artem, examined the wound. Something like a black spot designated the part where blue lead had penetrated the abdomen. The doctor shook his head, and pronounced but one short word-Mortal.' It was, however, more expressive than a long speech. Peter groaned, his friend Waddy began to think about the coroner, his brother barristers sighed heavily, and Peter was supposed to be departing, when Surgeon Pack, after another 'fatal,' taking leave of Peter, and leaning his hand upon the grass to assist him in rising, felt something hard, took it up, and looked at it curiously. The spectators closed-in the circle, to see Peter die. The patient turned his expiring eye towards the surgeon, as much as to say, 'Good-by to you all;' when, lo! the doctor held up to the astonished assembly the identical bullet, which, having rattled among the heads, and harps, and gingerbread-nuts in Peter's waistcoat pocket, had flattened its own body on the surface of a penny, and left his Majesty's bust distinctly imprinted in black and blue shading on his subject's carcass. Peter's heart beat high; and finding that his gracious Sovereign and the gingerbread had saved his life, lost as little time as possible in rising from the sod. A bandage was applied round his body, and in a short time, he was able, though, of course, he had no reason to be overwilling, to renew the combat.

"His Lordship having now, on his part, recovered from the Attorney's wounds, considered it high time to recommence hostilities, according to his original plan of the campaign; and the engagement immed

succeeding, was between him and the late Counsellor John Byrne, King's Counsel, and next in rotation of his learned adversaries. His Lordship was much pleased with the spot upon which his son had hit Counsellor Peter, and resolved to select the same for a hit on Counsellor John. The decision appeared to be judicious, and, as if the pistol itself could not be ignorant of its destination, (for it was the same,) it sent a bullet to the identical level; and Counsellor Byrne's carcass received precisely a similar compliment with Counsellor Burrowes's; with this difference, that as the former had no gingerbread-nuts, the matter appeared more serious. I asked him, during his illness, how he felt when he received the crack; he answered-just as if he had been punched by the main-mast of a manof-war! Certainly a grand simile; but how far my friend Byrne was enabled to form the comparison, he never divulged to me."

Monstrous as all this was, and implying nearly as much extravagance on the side of his Majesty's Counsel learned in the law, as on that of the wild peer and his wild offspring, the business went on. His Lordship had another son, and by him the cause of the family was now to be sustained.

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My Lord, having got through two counsellors, and his son a third, it became the duty of Captain Pierce Butler, brother to Somerset, to take his turn in the list. The barristers now began not much to relish this species of argument, and a gentleman who followed next but one on the list, owned fairly to me, that he would rather be on our side of the question. But it was determined by our noble client, as soon as the first series of combats should be finished, to begin a new one, till he and the lads had tried the mettle or touched the inside' of all the remaining barristers. Dick Guinness, a very goodhumoured, popular, lisping, dapper little pleader, was next on the list; and the Honourable Pierce Butler, his intended slaughterer, was advised, for variety's sake, to put what is called the onus on that gentleman, and thereby force him to become the challenger; which, he was told, by his spiritual adviser, would considerably diminish the crime of killing him! Dick's friends kindly and can

didly informed him that he could have but little chance, the Honourable Pierce being one of the most resolute of a courageous family, and quite an undeviating marksman; that he had, besides, a hot, persevering, thirsty spirit, which a little fighting would never quench and as Dick was secretly informed that he would, to a certainty, be forced to battle, it being his turn, and his speedy dissolution being nearly as certain, he was recommended to settle all his worldly concerns without delay.

"But it was to be otherwise. Fate took Dick's part, and decided that there was to be no coroner's inquest held on his body. The Honourable Pierce injudiciously put his onus on Dick in open court before the Judge. An uproar ensued, and the Honourable Pierce hid himself under the table. However, the Sheriff lugged him out, and prevented that encounter effectually. Pierce, with great difficulty, escaped immediate incarceration, on giving his honour never to meddle with Dick or his members for three years, commencing from the day of his onus. This was an interruption which the Kilkenny family could not have foreseen. And at length his Lordship, finding that neither the laws of the land, nor those of battle, were likely to adjust affairs to his satisfaction, suffered them to terminate with the three duels."

But the Peerage of Ireland was by no means exhausted of its oddity even when the Kilkenny dynasty disappeared from the scene. The noble family of the Stratfords, who once figured largely in Irish high life, would deserve a sketch by the historiographer of any St Luke's under the moon. The Irish brain is undoubtedly different in its construction from all other national brains, and one of the evidences is its extraordinary amalgamation of Law and Duelling. The examples which have been just given, are merely passing instances of the permanent million. To other men's minds the logic of the courts has its natural line of demarcation from "dead levels," "muzzle to muzzle,” and the other technicals of the field; the lingering process of the one, and the rapid decision of the other; the pacific acrimony of contending lawyers, and the angry courtesy of champions bowing to each other at the interval

of fifteen paces, are perfectly divided in the apprehension of the more tardy intellects beyond the borders of the "Gem of the Ocean." But within those borders the connexion was established by all the rules of indigenous reason. The lawsuit and the duel were distinguished from each other, only as the five-act comedy is from the farce of one. It was the more expanded form of that which constituted the national occupation; and as no man could be a gentleman without having exhibited his contempt for the laws in the field, so no man could be satisfied with his personal career, unless it was diversified with a routine of appeals to the laws in every court where a plaintiff and defendant might be turned alike into beggars. The present propensities of Ireland differ from those ancient ones, yet more in their form than in their spirit. The private love of lawsuits has magnified itself into one great popular litigation against all that takes the name of English authority or Irish government; and the original fondness for individual performances on the hair trigger is now invigorated and amplified into popular riot, where it can display its tastes at its ease, and popular conspiracy where it cannot, the spirit not being in the least diminished in either case, but the whole forming a national preparative for a furious and general explosion of civil

war.

Robert Stratford, Earl of Aldborough, was a collection of qualities that would have delighted a dramatist. Crafty and simple, bold and timid, witty and absurd, possessing a great variety of information, yet often ludicrously ignorant. Shakspeare might have cut him up at once into Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Parolles, and Falstaff. He was called the Lord of "a Hundred Wills," from a propensity which alone was sufficiently indicative of the compound of subtlety and simplicity which formed this miscellany of a man." It was a general rule with him to make a will or codicil in favour of any person with whom he was desirous of carrying a point; taking especial care that the party should be acquainted with his proceeding. No sooner, however, was the end accomplished, and other game started, than a fresh instrument annulled all

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the provisions of the preceding one! Thus, if desirous of obtaining a lady's hand, he made a will in her favour, and let her find it by accident." Whether this were the final charm of his marriage, he at length succeeded on a scale which must have gratified his regard for money and for alliance in a remarkable degree. He won and wedded the granddaughter of the Duke of Chandos, with a dower of L.50,000, enough to have purchased the fee-simple of an Irish principality. His successor, Earl John, was equally amusing in his peculiarities, equally shrewd and simple, equally narrow and extravagant, equally dexterous in laying traps for other men, and equally apt to entangle himself in the first that was set before him. The first act of his successor was to impeach the sanity of Earl Robert. this occasion fifty-one wills were produced of his Lordship's inditing, from which the counsel on one side proposed to establish the fact that he was mad, and the counsel on the other side that he was sane. The quantity of provisions, the contradictions, the verbal extravagances, were a strong hold for the insanity; yet the skill, the knowledge of nature, the humour, and the general cajoling of mankind, which the same documents exhibited, were equally irresistible in the hands of the opposing counsel. The Bench and the bystanders enjoyed an unrivalled treat, but the Jury were prodigiously perplexed. At length they decided the case on the known character of the man, and brought in a verdict of sane, on the expressive ground," that all knew that he was more knave than fool."

But he distinguished himself still more in a contest with that very remarkable man, Lord Clare, the Chancellor. Lord Aldborough had, among his predominant fancies, one which, as men who know the world say, is, in itself, evidence of unsound mind, a fondness for building. In the indulgence of this passion, he had purchased a fragment of ground in the most unsightly and desolate spot in the suburbs, an actual marsh, and there erected a very shewy mansion, with a chapel in one wing, a theatre in another, and as many Latin mottoes fixed upon every part of the architecture, as would have

cellor; and, without delay, fell to composing a book against the appellant jurisdiction, and its chief minister, contemptuous alike of the principle, the practice, and the man, and insisting that "it was a total abuse of justice to be obliged to appeal to a prejudiced man against his own prejudices, and particularly in the instance of the existing Chancellor, who was notorious for being unforgiving to those who vexed him; few Lords attending to hear the cause, and such as did being not much the wiser for the hearing, it being the province of counsel to puzzle, not to inform noblemen."

In the course of his publication he humorously stated a case in point, in which he himself had been an actor when travelling in Holland. "He was going to Amsterdam in a trekschuit, the skipper of which being a very great rogue, extorted from him for his passage much more than he had a right to claim. My Lord expostulated with the fellow in vain he grew rude. My Lord persisted

acted as a capital advertisement for a village pedagogue. As an additional instance of the oddity of the man, after having expended twenty or thirty thousand pounds in the building, the spirit of parsimony again had the ascendant, and a corner of the ground, not actually occupied by the house, was sold to a carpenter, who immediately established his trade upon the spot, and while his piles of slit deal made a most unsightly flanker to the handsome mansion, kept up with his sawing and hammering, a perpetual din, that must have driven any man but a mad Lord out of his senses. But the grievance of the carpenter was not enough to grow out of this tenement. A portion of the ground belonged to one of the Beresford family, then very powerful, deeply engrossed in the politics which his Lordship disliked, and closely allied to the Chancellor, whom he very thoroughly hated. To law the parties went without delay. The cause was in Chancery; and, by a rare fate in that Court, the issue was not of the Alex--the fellow grew more abusive. At audrine length, that sees both parties into their graves. His Lordship was very rapidly, and very summarily defeated, with full costs. Nothing could have been more irritating. He loved money, he loved to be able to bear down every body, and he had long looked on himself as one of the greatest lawyers in the world. He was stung by the decision in every point of his sensibility; his pride and his purse must first suffer, and next his taste, for the decision involved the fate of at least one-half of his building. Still the law was unfortunately open to him, and he plunged into the gulf without hesitation. He appealed to the House of Lords, where in due season the cause came on for hearing, and the Chancellor himself presided. The Lay Lords, of course, took no interest in the matter. The appeal failed, and without loss of time, Lord Clare, of the House of Peers, confirmed the decree of Lord Clare of the Court of Chancery, again with full costs against the appellant. Lord Aldborough was now at the height of indignation; and conceiving that justice, driven from the earth, was to be brought back only by the spell of his pen, he determined to write down the Lord Chan

length he told the skipper, that he would, immediately on landing, go to the proper tribunal, and get redress from the judge. The skipper snapped his tarry fingers in his face. Lord Aldborough paid the demand, and, on landing, went to the legal officer to know when the court of justice would sit. He was answered, at nine next morning. Having no doubt of ample redress, he did not choose to put the skipper on his guard by mentioning his intention. Next morning he went to court, and began to tell his story to the judge, who sat with his broad-brimmed hat on in great state. His Lordship fancied that he had seen the man before. Nor was he long in doubt. For before he had half-finished, the judge, in a roar, but which he immediately recognised, for it was the identical skipper who sat on the bench, decided against him with full costs, and ordered him out of court. His Lordship, however, said that he would appeal, and away he went to an advocate for the purpose. He did appeal accordingly, and the next day his appeal came regularly on. But all his stoicism forsook him when he perceived that the very same skipper and judge was to decide the appeal who had decided the cause; so that

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