The Irish counsel like the occupants of the Bench were, in early times, eminent for their jolly carousing. Once, about 1687, a heavy argument coming on before Lord Chancellor Fitton, Mr. Nagle, the solicitor, retained Sir Toby Butler as counsel, who entered into a bargain that he would not drink a drop of wine while the case was at hearing. This bargain reached the ears of the Chancellor, who asked Sir Toby if it was true that such a compact had been made. The counsel said it was true, and the bargain had been rigidly kept; but on further inquiry he admitted that as he had only promised not to drink a drop of wine, he felt he must have some stimulant. So he got a basin, into which he poured two bottles of claret, and then got two hot rolls of bread, sopped them in the claret and ate them. "I see," replied the Chancellor; "in truth, Sir Toby, you deserve to be master of the rolls!"

One naturally turns to Curran for a selection of the witty sayings of the Irish Bar, and abundantly he supplies them, although in these days many of his jests may be considered as in somewhat doubtful taste. Phillips tells us he remembered Curran once—in an action for breach of promise of marriage, in which he was counsel for the defendant, a young clergyman—thus appealing to the jury: "Gentlemen, I entreat you not to ruin this young man by a vindictive verdict; for though he has talents, and is in the Church, he may rise!"

After his college career Curran went to London to study for the Bar. His circumstances were often straitened, and at times so much so that he had to pass the day without dinner. But under such depressing circumstances his high spirits never forsook him. One day he was sitting in St. James's Park merrily whistling a tune when a gentleman passed, who, struck by the youth's melancholy appearance while, at the same time, he whistled a lively air, asked how he "came to be sitting there whistling while other people were at dinner." Curran replied, "I would have been at dinner too, but a trifling circumstance—delay in remittances—obliges me to dine on an Irish tune." The result was that Curran was invited to dine with the stranger, and years afterwards, when he had become famous, he recalled the incident to his entertainer—Macklin, the celebrated actor—with the assurance, "You never acted better in your life."

From Phillips again we have Curran's retort upon an Irish judge, who was quite as remarkable for his good humour and raillery as for his legal researches. Curran was addressing a jury on one of the State trials in 1803 with his usual animation. The judge, whose political bias, if any judge can have one, was certainly supposed not to be favourable to the prisoner, shook his head in doubt or denial of one of the advocate's arguments. "I see, gentlemen," said Curran, "I see the motion of his lordship's head; common observers might imagine that implied a difference of opinion, but they would be mistaken; it is merely accidental. Believe me, gentlemen, if you remain here many days, you will yourselves perceive that when his lordship shakes his head, there's nothing in it!"

Curran was one day engaged in a case in which he had for a junior a remarkably tall and slender gentleman, who had been originally intended to take orders. The judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law, Curran interposed with: "I refer your lordship to a high authority behind me, who was once intended for the Church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple."

He was one day walking with a friend, who, hearing a person say "curosity" for "curiosity," exclaimed: "How that man murders the English language!"—"Not so bad as that," replied Curran. "He has only knocked an 'i' out."

Curran never joined the hunt, except once, not far from Dublin. His horse joined very keenly in the sport, but the horseman was inwardly hoping all the while that the dogs would not find. In the midst of his career, the hounds broke into a potato field of a wealthy land-agent, who happened to have been severely cross-examined by Curran some days before. The fellow came up patronisingly and said, "Oh sure, you are Counsellor Curran, the great lawyer. Now then, Mr. Lawyer, can you tell me by what law you are trespassing on my ground?"—"By what law, did you ask, Mr. Maloney?" replied Curran. "It must be the Lex Tally-ho-nis, to be sure."

During one of the Circuits, Curran was dining with a brother advocate at a small inn kept by a worthy woman known by the Christian name of Honoria, or, as it is generally called, Honor. The gentlemen were so pleased with their entertainment that they summoned Honor to receive their compliments and drink a glass of wine with them. She attended at once, and Curran after a brief eulogium on the dinner filled a glass, and handing it to the landlady proposed as a toast "Honor and Honesty," to which the lady with an arch smile added, "Our absent friends," drank off her amended toast and withdrew.

He happened one day to have for his companion in a stage-coach a very vulgar and revolting old woman, who seemed to have been encrusted with a prejudice against Ireland and all its inhabitants. Curran sat chafing in silence in his corner. At last, suddenly, a number of cows, with their tails and heads in the air, kept rushing up and down the road in alarming proximity to the coach windows. The old woman manifestly was but ill at ease. At last, unable to restrain her terror, she faltered out, "Oh dear; oh dear, sir! what can the cows mean?"—"Faith, my good woman," replied Curran, "as there's an Irishman in the coach, I shouldn't wonder if they were on the outlook for a bull!"

Curran was once asked what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in England, could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue. "I suppose," replied the wit, "he's trying to catch the English accent."

During the temporary separation of Lord Avonmore and Curran, Egan espoused the judge's imaginary quarrel so bitterly that a duel was the consequence. The parties met, and on the ground Egan complained that the disparity in their sizes gave his antagonist a manifest advantage. "I might as well fire at a razor's edge as at him," said Egan, "and he may hit me as easily as a turf-stack."—"I'll tell you what, Mr. Egan," replied Curran; "I wish to take no advantage of you—let my size be chalked out upon your side, and I am quite content that every shot which hits outside that mark should go for nothing." And in another duel, in which his opponent was a major who had taken offence at some remark the eminent counsel had made about him in Court, the major asked Curran to fire first. "No," replied Curran, "I am here on your invitation, so you must open the ball."

Sir Thomas Furton, who was a respectable speaker, but certainly nothing more, affected once to discuss the subject of eloquence with Curran, assuming an equality by no means palatable to the latter. Curran happening to mention, as a peculiarity of his, that he could not speak above a quarter of an hour without requiring something to moisten his lips, Sir Thomas, pursuing his comparisons, declared he had the advantage in that respect. "I spoke," said he, "the other night in the Commons for five hours on the Nabob of Oude, and never felt in the least thirsty."—"It is very remarkable, indeed," replied Curran, "for everyone agrees that was the driest speech of the session."

Lord Clare (says Mr. Hayward) had a favourite dog which was permitted to follow him to the Bench. One day, during an argument of Curran's, the Chancellor turned aside and began to fondle the dog, with the obvious view of intimating inattention or disregard. The counsel stopped; the judge looked up: "I beg your pardon," continued Curran, "I thought your lordship had been in consultation."

Curran often raised a laugh at Lord Norbury's expense. The laws, at that period, made capital punishment so general that nearly all crimes were punishable with death by the rope. It was remarked Lord Norbury never hesitated to condemn the convicted prisoner to the gallows. Dining in company with Curran, who was carving some corned beef, Lord Norbury inquired, "Is that hung beef, Mr. Curran?"—"Not yet, my lord," was the reply; "you have not tried it."

"A doldrum, Mr. Curran! What does the witness mean by saying you put him in a doldrum?" asked Lord Avonmore. "Oh, my lord, it is a very common complaint with persons of this description; it's merely a confusion of the head arising from a corruption of the heart."

Angered one day in debate, he put his hand on his heart, saying, "I am the trusty guardian of my own honour."—"Then," replied Sir Boyle Roche, "I congratulate my honourable friend in the snug little sinecure to which he has appointed himself."

But on one occasion he met his match in a pert, jolly, keen-eyed son of Erin, who was up as a witness in a case of dispute in the matter of a horse deal. Curran was anxious to break down the credibility of this witness, and thought to do it by making the man contradict himself—by tangling him up in a network of adroitly framed questions—but to no avail. The ostler's good common sense, and his equanimity and good nature, were not to be upset. Presently, Curran, in a towering rage, thundered forth, as no other counsel would have dared to do in the presence of the Court: "Sir, you are incorrigible! The truth is not to be got from you, for it is not in you. I see the villain in your face!"—"Faith, yer honour," replied the witness, with the utmost simplicity of truth and honesty, "my face must be moighty clane and shinin' indade, if it can reflect like that." For once in his life the great barrister was floored by a simple witness. He could not recover from that repartee, and the case went against him.

When Curran heard that there was a likelihood of trouble for the part he took in 1798, and that in all probability he would be deprived of the rank of Q.C., he remarked: "They may take away the silk, but they leave the stuff behind."

"Bully" Egan had a great muscular figure, as may be guessed from the story of the duel with Curran. To his bulk he added a stentorian voice, which he freely used in Nisi Prius practice to browbeat opposing counsel and witnesses, and through which he acquired his sobriquet. On one occasion his opponent was a dark-visaged barrister who had made out a good case for his client. Egan, in the course of an eloquent address, begged the jury not to be carried away by the "dark oblivion of a brow."—"What do you mean by using such balderdash?" said a friend. "It may be balderdash," replied Egan, "but depend upon it, it will do very well for that jury." On another occasion he concluded a vituperative address by describing the defendant as "a most naufrageous ruffian."—"What sort of a ruffian is that?" whispered his junior. "I have no idea," responded Egan, "but I think it sounds well."

H. D. Grady was a strong supporter, in the Irish Parliament, of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, although he represented a constituency strongly opposed to it; and he did not conceal the fact that the Government had made it worth his while to support them. "What!" exclaimed one of his constituents who remonstrated with him; "do you mean to sell your country?"—"Thank God," cried this patriot, "I have a country to sell."

For his Court work this anti-Nationalist barrister had what he called his "jury-eye." When he wanted a jury to note a particular point he kept winking his right eye at them. Entering the Court one day looking very depressed, a sympathetic friend asked if he was quite well, adding, "You are not so lively as usual."—"How can I be," replied Grady, "my jury-eye is out of order."

He was examining a foreign sailor at Cork Assizes. "You are a Swede, I believe?"—"No, I am not."—"What are you then?"—"I am a Dane." Grady turned to the jury, "Gentlemen, you hear the equivocating scoundrel. Go down, sir!"

Judge Boyd who, according to O'Connell, was guilty of sipping his wine through a peculiarly made tube from a metal inkstand, to which we have already referred, one day presided at a trial where a witness was charged with being intoxicated at the time he was speaking about. Mr. Harry Grady laboured hard to show that the man had been sober. Judge Boyd at once interposed and said: "Come now, my good man, it is a very important consideration; tell the Court truly, were you drunk or were you sober upon that occasion?"—"Oh, quite sober, my Lord." Grady added, with a significant look at the inkstand, "As sober as a judge!"

Mr. Bethell, a barrister at the time of the Union of Ireland and Great Britain, like many of his brethren, published a pamphlet on that much-vexed subject. Mr. Lysaght, meeting him, said: "Bethell, you never told me you had published a pamphlet on the Union. The one I saw contained some of the best things I have ever seen in any of these publications."—"I am proud you think so," rejoined the other eagerly. "Pray what was the thing that pleased you so much?"—"Well," replied Lysaght, "as I passed a pastry-cook's shop this morning, I saw a girl come out with three hot mince-pies wrapped up in one of your productions!"

"Pleasant Ned Lysaght," as his familiar friends called him, meeting a Dublin banker one day offered himself as an assistant if there was a vacancy in the bank's staff. "You, my dear Lysaght," said the banker; "what position could you fill?"—"Two," was the reply. "If you made me cashier for one day, I'll become runner the next."

And it was Lysaght who made a neat pun on his host's name at a dinner party during the Munster Circuit. The gentleman, named Flatly, was in the habit of inviting members of the Bar to his house when the Court was held in Limerick. One evening the conversation turned upon matrimony, and surprise was expressed that their host still remained a bachelor. He confessed that he never had had the courage to propose to a young lady. "Depend upon it," said Lysaght, "if you ask any girl boldly she will not refuse you, Flatly."

O'Flanagan, author of The Lord Chancellors of Ireland, writes of Holmes, an Irish barrister: "He made us laugh very much one day in the Queen's Bench. I was waiting for some case in which I was counsel, when the crier called, 'Pluck and Diggers,' and in came James Scott, Q.C., very red and heated, and, throwing his bag on the table within the bar, he said, 'My lords, I beg to assure your lordships I feel so exhausted I am quite unable to argue this case. I have been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer, and I am quite tired; and pray excuse me, my lords, I must get some refreshment.' The Chief Justice bowed, and said, 'Certainly, Mr. Scott.' So that gentleman left the Court. 'Mr. Holmes, you are in this case,' said the Chief Justice; 'we'll be happy to hear you.'—'Really, my lord, I am very tired too,' said Mr. Holmes. 'Surely,' said the Chief Justice, 'you have not been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer? What has tired you?'—'Listening to Mr. Scott,' was Holmes' sarcastic reply."

Although rivals in their profession, C. K. Bushe had a great admiration for Plunket's abilities, and would not listen to any disparagement of them. One day while Plunket was speaking at the Bar a friend said to Bushe, "Well, if it was not for the eloquence, I'd as soon listen to ——," who was a very prosy speaker. "No doubt," replied Bushe, "just as the Connaught man said, ''Pon my conscience if it was not for the malt and the hops, I'd as soon drink ditch water as porter.'"

There is an impromptu of Bushe's upon two political agitators of the day who had declined an appeal to arms, one on account of his wife, the other from the affection in which he held his daughter:

A young barrister once tried to raise a laugh at the Mess dinner at the expense of "Jerry Keller," a barrister who was prominent in social circles of Dublin, and whose cousin, a wine merchant, held the contract for supplying wine to the Mess cellar. "I have noticed," said the junior, "that the claret bottles are growing smaller and smaller at each Assizes since your cousin became our wine merchant."—"Whist!" replied Jerry; "don't you be talking of what you know nothing about. It's quite natural the bottles should be growing smaller, because we all know they shrink in the washing."

An ingenious expedient was devised to save a prisoner charged with robbery in the Criminal Court at Dublin. The principal thing that appeared in evidence against him was a confession, alleged to have been made by him at the police office. The document, purporting to contain this self-criminating acknowledgment, was produced by the officer, and the following passage was read from it:

This, it will be observed, has no mark of the writer having any notion of punctuation, but the meaning attached to it was, that

Mr. O'Gorman, the counsel for the prisoner, begged to look at the paper. He perused it, and rather astonished the peace officer by asserting, that so far from its proving the man's guilt, it clearly established his innocence. "This," said the learned gentleman, "is the fair and obvious reading of the sentence:

This interpretation had its effect on the jury, and the man was acquitted.

There were two barristers at the Irish Bar who formed a singular contrast in their stature—Ninian Mahaffy was as much above the middle size as Mr. Collis was below it. When Lord Redsdale was Lord Chancellor of Ireland these two gentlemen chanced to be retained in the same cause a short time after his lordship's elevation, and before he was personally acquainted with the Irish Bar. Mr. Collis was opening the motion, when the Lord Chancellor observed, "Mr. Collis, when a barrister addresses the Court, he must stand."—"I am standing on the bench, my lord," said Collis. "I beg a thousand pardons," said his lordship, somewhat confused. "Sit down, Mr. Mahaffy."—"I am sitting, my lord," was the reply to the confounded Chancellor.

A barrister who was present on this occasion made it the subject of the following epigram:

A very able barrister, named Collins, had the reputation of occasionally involving his adversary in a legal net, and, by his superior subtlety, gaining his cause. On appearing in Court in a case with the eminent barrister, Mr. Pigot, Q.C., there arose a question as to who should be leader, Mr. Collins being the senior in standing at the Bar, Mr. Pigot being one of the Queen's Counsel. "I yield," said Mr. Collins; "my friend holds the honours."—"Faith, if he does, Stephen," observed Mr. Herrick, "'tis you have all the tricks."

It is told by one of O'Connell's biographers that he never prepared his addresses to judges or juries—he trusted to the inspiration of the moment. He had at command humour and pathos, invective and argument; he was quick-witted and astonishingly ready in repartee, and he brought all these into play, as he found them serviceable in influencing the bench or the jury-box.

Lord Manners, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, stopped several of the many counsels in a Chancery suit by saying he had made up his mind. He, in fact, lost his temper as each in succession rose, and he declined them in turn. At last O'Connell, one of the unheard counsel, began in his deepest and most emphatic tone: "Well then, my lord, since your lordship refuses to hear my learned friend, you will be pleased to hear ME"; and then he plunged into the case, without waiting for any expression, assent or dissent, or allowing any interruption. On he went, discussing and distinguishing, and commenting and quoting, till he secured the attention of, and evidently was making an impression on, the unwilling judge. Every few minutes O'Connell would say: "Now, my lord, my learned young friend beside me, had your lordship heard him, would have informed your lordship in a more impressive and lucid manner than I can hope to do," etcetera, until he finished a masterly address. The Lord Chancellor next morning gave judgment in favour of O'Connell's client.

He was engaged in a will case, the allegation being that the will was a forgery. The subscribing witness swore that the will had been signed by the deceased "while life was in him"—that being an expression derived from the Irish language, which peasants who have long ceased to speak Irish still retain. The evidence was strong in favour of the will, when O'Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always repeated the same words, "The life was in him." O'Connell asked: "On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?"—"By the virtue of my oath, the life was in him."—"Now I call upon you in the presence of your Maker, who will one day pass sentence on you for this evidence, I solemnly ask—and answer me at your peril—was there not a live fly in the dead man's mouth when his hand was placed on the will?" The witness was taken aback at this question; he trembled, turned pale, and faltered out an abject confession that the counsellor was right; a fly had been introduced into the mouth of the dead man, to allow the witness to swear that "life was in him."

O'Connell was defending John Connor on a charge of murder. The most incriminating evidence was the finding of the murderer's hat, left behind on the road. The all-important question was as to the identity of the hat as that of the accused man. A constable was prepared to swear to it. "You found this hat?" said O'Connell. "Yes."—"You examined it?"—"Yes."—"You know it to be the prisoner's property?"—"Yes."—"When you picked it up you saw it was damaged?"—"Yes."—"And looking inside you saw the prisoner's name, J-o-h-n C-o-n-n-o-r?" (here he spelt out the name slowly). "Yes," was the answer. "There is no name inside at all, my lord," said O'Connell, and the prisoner was saved.

Explaining to a judge his absence from the Civil Court at the time a case was heard, in which he should have appeared as counsel, O'Connell said he could not leave a client in the Criminal Court until the verdict was given. "What was it?" inquired the judge. "Acquitted," responded O'Connell. "Then you have got off a wretch who is not fit to live," said the judge. O'Connell, knowing his lordship to be a very religious man, at once replied: "I am sure you will agree with me that a man whom you regard as not fit to live would be still more unfit to die."

There was a young barrister—a contemporary of O'Connell—named Parsons, who had a good deal of humour, and who hated the whole tribe of attorneys. Perhaps they had not treated him very well, but his prejudice against them was very constant and conspicuous. One day, in the Hall of the Four Courts, an attorney came up to him to beg a subscription towards burying a brother attorney who had died in distressed circumstances. Parsons took out a one-pound note and tendered it. "Oh, Mr. Parsons," said the applicant, "I do not want so much—I only ask a shilling from each contributor. I have limited myself to that, and I cannot really take more."—"Oh, take it, take it," said Parsons; "for God's sake, my good sir, take the pound, and while you are at it bury twenty of them."

There is a terseness in the following which seems to be inimitable. Lord Norbury was travelling with Parsons; they passed a gibbet. "Parsons," said Norbury, with a chuckle, "where would you be now if every one had his due?"—"Alone in my carriage," replied Parsons.

Here is a young Irishman's first Bar-speech. "Your lordships perceive that we stand here as our grandmothers' administrators de bonis non; and really, my lords, it does strike me that it would be a monstrous thing to say that a party can now come in, in the very teeth of an Act of Parliament, and actually turn us round, under colour of hanging us up, on the foot of a contract made behind our backs."

A learned Serjeant MacMahon was noted for his confusion of language in his efforts to be sublime. He cared less for the sense than the sound. As, for example: "Gentlemen of the jury, I smell a rat—but I'll nip it in the bud." And, "My client acted boldly. He saw the storm brewing in the distance, but he was not dismayed! He took the bull by the horns and he indicted him for perjury."

Peter Burrowes, a well-known member of the Irish Bar, was on one occasion counsel for the prosecution at an important trial for murder. Burrowes had a severe cold, and opened his speech with a box of lozenges in one hand and in the other the small pistol bullet by which the man had met his death. Between the pauses of his address he kept supplying himself with a lozenge. But at last, in the very middle of a 'high-falutin' period, he stopped. His legal chest heaved, his eyes seemed starting from his head, and in a voice tremulous with fright he exclaimed: "Oh! h-h!!! Gentlemen, gentlemen; I've swallowed the bul-let!"

An Irish counsel who was once asked by the judge for whom he was "concerned," replied: "My lord, I am retained by the defendant, and therefore I am concerned for the plaintiff."

A junior at the Bar in course of his speech began to use a simile of "the eagle soaring high above the mists of the earth, winning its daring flight against a midday sun till the contemplation becomes too dazzling for humanity, and mortal eyes gaze after it in vain." Here the orator was noticed to falter and lose the thread of his speech, and sat down after some vain attempts to regain it; the judge remarking: "The next time, sir, you bring an eagle into Court, I should recommend you to clip its wings."

Mr. Tim Healy's power of effective and stinging repartee is probably unexcelled. He is seldom at a loss for a retort, and there are not a few politicians and others who regret having been foolish enough to rouse his resentment. There is on record, however, an amusing interlude in the passing of which Tim was discomfited—crushed, and found himself unable to "rise to the occasion."

During the hearing of a case at the Recorder's Court in Dublin the Testament on which the witnesses were being sworn disappeared. After a lengthy hunt for it, counsel for the defendant noticed that Mr. Healy had taken possession of the book, and was deeply absorbed in its contents, and quite unconscious of the dismay its disappearance was causing.

"I think, sir," said the counsel, addressing the Recorder, "that Mr. Healy has the Testament." Hearing his name mentioned, Mr. Healy looked up, realised what had occurred, and, with apologies, handed it over.

"You see, sir," added the counsel, "Mr. Healy was so interested that he did not know of our loss. He took it for a new publication." For once Mr. Healy's nimble wit failed him, and forced him to submit to the humiliation of being scored off.

In the North of Ireland the peasantry pronounce the word witness "wetness." At Derry Assizes a man said he had brought his "wetness" with him to corroborate his evidence. "Bless me," said the judge, "about what age are you?"—"Forty-two my last birthday, my lord," replied the witness. "Do you mean to tell the jury," said the judge, "that at your age you still have a wet nurse?"—"Of course I have, my lord." Counsel hereupon interposed and explained.

The witness who gave the following valuable testimony, however, was probably keeping strictly to fact. "I sees Phelim on the top of the wall. 'Paddy,' he says. 'What,' says I. 'Here,' says he. 'Where?' says I. 'Hush,' says he. 'Whist,' says I. And that's all."

The wit of the Irish Bar seems to infect even the officers of the Courts and the people who enter the witness-box. It is impossible, for example, not to admire the fine irony of the usher who, when he was told to clear the Court, called out: "All ye blaggards that are not lawyers lave the building."

Irish judges have much greater difficulties to contend against, because the people with whom they have to deal have a fund of ready retort. "Sir," said an exasperated Irish judge to a witness who refused to answer the questions put to him—"sir, this is a contempt of Court."—"I know it, my lord, but I was endeavouring to concale it," was the irresistible reply.

A certain Irish attorney threatening to prosecute a printer for inserting in his paper the death of a person still living, informed him that "No person should publish a death unless informed of the fact by the party deceased."

A rather amusing story is told of a trial where one of the Irish jurymen had been "got at" and bribed to secure the jury agreeing to a verdict of "Manslaughter," however much they might want to return one upon the capital charge of "Murder." The jury were out for several hours, and it was believed that eventually the result would be that they would not agree upon a verdict at all. However, close upon midnight, they were starved into one, and it was that of "Manslaughter." Next day the particular juryman concerned received his promised reward, and in paying it, the man who had arranged it for him remarked: "I suppose you had a great deal of difficulty in getting the other jurymen to agree to a verdict of 'Manslaughter'?"—"I should just think I did," replied the man. "I had to knock it into them, for all the others—the whole eleven of them—wanted to acquit him."

An Irish lawyer addressed the Court as Gentlemen instead of Your Honours. When he had concluded, a brother lawyer pointed out his error. He immediately rose and apologised thus: "In the heat of the debate I called your honours gentlemen,—I made a mistake, your honours."