We do not know whether any formal life of Chief Justice Bushe has been written; but it was impossible that, of a great man so long before the public, there should not be many incidental notices. In Mr. Wills's "Lives of Illustrious Irishmen," his character is sketched by a faithful and friendly hand. The same writer has publish, ed a little essay on "The Evidences of Christianity" by the late Chief. Justice Bushe-an essay of very remarkable power and beauty.* In the eighteenth volume of this Journal there is a sketch of Bushe's life and fortunes, written while he was still Chief Justice, and in which are several extracts from his speeches while yet at the bar. In Finlay's "Miscellanies we have him described while still Solicitor-General. Lord Brougham has preserved a record of his conversations when he visited London to be examined before some Parliamentary Committee or Royal Commission. Sheil's "Legal and Political Sketches," one of the best and most brilliant chapters is devoted to Bushe; and in Mr. Curran's life of Wallacet will be found his estimate of some of the peculiar characteristics of Bushe's mind. We refer to all and each of these, satisfied that many of our readers will look at the books, and thank us for the references. But we must for ourselves say, that the little book published by Mr. Wills, which we mention in the hope of bringing it before some of our readers to whom it may be new, and the record of Bushe's conversations

In

with Mr. Curran here preserved, have given us what we believe to be a truer picture of Bushe than any or all the

rest.

His narrative of these conversations is thus introduced by our author :

“Upon one occasion of my life, I had not a single opportunity, but opportunities continued for several days, of appreciating the late Chief Justice Bushe's captivating powers as a tête-à-tête companion.

"Just after the close of the summer circuits of the year 1826, I went, by invitation, to stay for some time with him at his old ancestral place of residence, Kilmurry, in the county of Kilkenny. He was, according to his annual custom, passing his long vacation

there, surrounded by a numerous family cir cle. I had the good luck to be the only stranger, and thus came to be at his side, and to have him all to myself, for many hours daily. At first he used to retire after breakfast to finish off some judgments that he was to deliver in his court in the ensuing term; but this occupation lasted for only four or five days, and then he felt himself to be (as he said) in the delicious state of being perfectly solutus curis for the remainder of the vacation. Every day at one o'clock a pair of horses were brought to his hall door for us. From the heat of the weather (it was the hot summer of 1826') we always moved along merely at a walking pace; secure, however, from the same state of the weather, against any annoyance from sudden showers. We seldom returned to Kilmurry before five o'clock. Then came dinner, and at no long interval tea; and the moment tea was over, the Chief Justice rose, and proposed to me a stroll with him through the grounds. We had no occasion to keep to the gravel walks; the grass was as dry as the carpets we had left; and accordingly his habit was to push on at once for the fields, and plunging into them, and crossing, and recrossing them, to prolong the stroll often till the approach of midnight.

"On the second or third evening of my visit, the conversation turned on Boswell's 'Life of Johnson,' which, by the way, the Chief Justice said, 'was to him the most delightful of books, first, because he found everything in it so charming in itself; and next, because he no sooner finished it, than he forgot it all, and so could return to it, toties quoties, and be sure to find it all as charming as before, and almost as new."pp. 77, 78.

The conversation led our author to

try how far he could enact the part of committing to paper the conversations of the two or three preceding days. They were jotted down in pencil, without the slightest thought of publication :

"In thus giving publicity to these fragments of Charles Kendal Bushe's familiar conversation, I should be doing a grievous injustice to the memory of that accomplish ed man, if I were to intimate that, in themselves, they can convey any but the faintest idea of what that conversation was. They may lead his surviving intimates to recog nise him, but they never can enable a stranger to him to know him. Even if I could offer a literal transcript of every word that fell from him, how much would still be

wanting! His imposing figure and deportment, his graceful, persuasive gestures, his manly, pliant features, so easily seduced from their habitual dignity by a love of gentlemanly fun, his fine, sonorous voice, his genial laughter; such were some, though not all, of the ingredients in that combination, which made Bushe the most fascinating of companions; and supposing all these to be accurately imagined, there would still remain to be described that one more attribute, which, without exaggeration, might be termed the marvellous opulence of his mind for the purposes of conversation. I had often met him in society before my visit to Kilmurry, but it was only there that, from being daily alone with him for many hours, I was enabled to be a witness to the extent of his resources in this way, and his facility in using them. In those conversations (to which my contributions were naturally very scanty, and seldom anything more than the asking of questions), he never allowed any but the most momentary pauses to intervene; but passing on from topic to topic, as they came to him, unsought for, in rapid succession, he would go on for hours conversing away, unimpeded by any obstruc tions, for he made no efforts to produce effect, and seemingly as if he were only carelessly obeying some hidden law of his nature, which had taken all the trouble off his hands. It was in this profusion of materials, and in the power of pouring them out for hours without cessation or fatigue, that the Chief Justice appeared to me to be so peculiar, and, in his own time and country, unrivalled. It was that ever-running 'stream of mind,' such as Johnson had found, and so much prized in the conversation of Edmund Burke."-pp. 78, 79.

We transcribe as much as we can make room for of these conversations:

"Kilmurry, August 6, 1826. "CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CHIEF JUSTICE. "GRATTAN.-"He loved old trees, and used to say, 'Never cut down a tree for fashion-sake. The tree has its roots in the earth, which the fashion has not.'"

"A favourite old tree stood near the house at Tinnehinch. A friend of Grattan's, thinking it obstructed the view, recommended to him to cut it down. Why so?' said Grattan. Because it stands in the way of the house!'-GRATTAN. 'You mistake, it is the house that stands in the way of it, and if either must come down, let it be the house.'

"Grattan said, the most healthy exercise for elderly persons was indolent movement in the open air.'"

"He deplored the Union, and chiefly from the difficulties it threw in the way of a set

tlement of the Catholic Question. The Constitution in Ireland was never considered as essentially Protestant. Irish prejudices would not have been shocked at seeing Catholic gentlemen in the House of Commons, Catholic Bishops in the Peers, or even at seeing two established religions. But the Union has done some good. It has purified the administration of justice by leading to the appointment of a better class of judges, and by putting them more under the control of the English press.' He frequently recurred to the influence of public opinion as expressed through the press, and called it 'that useful rod, suspended over the heads of men in authority."

"He thought that no public speech of Plunket had done justice to his powers; not even the speech of 1813. He also said that, with the exception of the speech for Hamilton Rowan, there was no sufficient record of my father's powers. He had often heard him in petty cases superior to anything else recorded of him."

"The day after Lord Kinnaird came to Ireland, he dined at Plunket's. The ChiefBaron was there. The conversation turned on Lord Castlereagh. Several of the company questioned his sincerity on the Catholic Question. Plunket undertook his defence with much animation; and having stated the several efforts he had made in favour of Emancipation, concluded by saying, that, upon that subject, he had latterly made a great deal of character for himself.' 'He has (said the Chief Baron, in his dry way), and, depend upon it, he'll lose no time in spending it all like a gentleman.' Lord Kinnaird was delighted with the sarcasm, and said to me in a whisper, if I am to hear nothing but that, I am rewarded for coming to Ireland.''

"Your father's memory was surprising. I once casually observed to him, that I thought it a common error to suppose that men did not know their own characters. Twenty years after, he said to me, I quite agree with you in an observation I remember to have heard you make. The truth is, every man knows his real character; but as he has come by his knowledge of it confidentially, he makes it a point of honour not to admit the fact-even to himself.'"

"He was speaking to me about my life of my father, when, in explanation of my having become his biographer, I told him that three or four days after his death, Woulfe, who was then in London, called upon me to apprise me that some of the Irish connected with the press there, were already going about among the publishers, and proposing to write his life; that their sole object was the money to be made by the speculation,

and that not one of them was competent to produce anything that would be creditable to my father's memory; that Woulfe urged npon me to undertake the office myself, and at once to announce my intention, so as to prevent any publisher from encouraging the speculation in question, and that after talking over the matter with Woulfe, I came to the determination of acting on his advice. When I had finished, the Chief Justice suddenly pulled up his horse, turned in his saddle towards me, and, for the moment, rising in tones and gestures above his ordinary manner, said, with some emotion, 'You were quite right. It was your duty to bestride his remains, and protect them from the vultures.""

"He said he discovered some time ago, to his amazement, that the Chief Baron writes poetry, and good poetry."

"The Chief Justice related to me the particulars of his meeting with the King at Slane Castle:

"Saurin and I went down together, and arrived barely in time to dress for dinner. I had never been seen by the King, but once at the levee. On going down stairs, I met him coming up. The rencontre was most embarrassing, for I imagined that he would not recognise me; but I was at once relieved. He said, Bushe, I believe you don't know the ways of this house,' and taking me under the arm, conducted me to the drawingroom. In one moment, I was as much at my ease as if I had been his daily companion.

She

"I sat opposite to him at dinner. The first words he addressed to me were these (Lady Conyngham, who sat next him, had been whispering something in his ear)— 'Bushe, you never would guess what Lady Conyngham has been saying to me. has been repeating a passage from one of your speeches against the Union.' He saw that I started, and was rather at a loss for what to say, and instantly changed the subject by recommending me to try a particular French dish, from which he had been just helped. This (said he) I can recommend as the perfection of cookery. My cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, often produces it for his guests, but always fails in it. It is the same with all his dishes. He has a remarkable talent for giving bad dinners.'

"The King soon after returned to the Union. My early opinion was (said he, addressing Saurin) that your and the Solicitor-General's opposition to the measure was well founded, and since I have seen this glorious people, and the effects produced by it, that opinion is confirmed; but (he added, as if correcting himself) I am sure you will agree with me in considering that, now the measure is carried, you would both feel it your duty to resist any attempt to repeal it

with as much zeal as you originally opposed it. But you all committed a great mistake. Instead of direct opposition, you should have made terms, as the Scotch did, and you could have got good terms.' He then summed up some of the principal stipulations of the Scotch Union (he had history at his fingers' ends). Saurin said (a very odd remark, as it struck me, to come from him), ' and the Scotch further stipulated for the establishment of their national religion.' 'You are quite right,' said the King; they secured that point also; but no, no,' he added, hastily checking himself, you must pay no attention to what I have just said. It would not be right to have it supposed that I entertain an opinion, from which inferences might be drawn that would afterwards lead to disappointment.'

6

"In the evening, despatches arrived from England, containing an account of the tumultuous proceedings at the Queen's funeral. The King expressed, without the slightest reserve, his dissatisfaction at the want of energy shown by the Government on the occasion, and contrasted with it the firmness of his father during the riots of 1780. He detailed the particulars of the late king's conduct upon that occasion, who, he said, expressly sent for him to be a witness of it, for the regulation of his own conduct upon any similar emergency. He concluded by suddenly saying, in an altered and broken voice, I shall never again see such a man as my father.'

"A difference of political sentiment dissolved the intimacy that had for many years subsisted between Curran and Yelverton. Curran thought him a corrupt politician, and expressed his opinion with great severity, before Yelverton had derived any benefit from his desertion of his former principles. 'But after all,' said a friend to Curran, 'you see that he has got nothing for himself or his family.' 'Oh! that only shows that a man, though a keen sportsman, may be a very bad shot." "

"The Chief Justice's opinions on Catholic affairs are much stronger on the popular side than I had imagined. He thinks Woulfe's

pamphlet by far the best that he ever read upon the Catholic Question. It contains views (he says) that struck him as quite original.'"

"Grattan was firmly persuaded, from the internal evidence of the style, that Burke was the author of Junius. Among other instances, he used to insist upon it that no living man but Burke could have written that passage in one of the letters to the Duke of Grafton, You have now fairly travelled through every sign in the political zodiac, from the Scorpion, in which you stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Virgin in the house of Bloomsbury.' pp. 80-94.

With the single exception of Grattan, Bushe, who had lived through the periods of Ireland before and after the Union, is the person with respect to whom all persons will be most anxious to learn whatever they can.

Of the parts of this publication which are reprints from Campbell's Magazine, one of the most remarkable is the sketch of Lord Plunket. In it our author takes occasion to advert" to an accusation frequently made," and which, he says, many persons gave credence to at the time these sketches were written. At Emmet's trial, the case for the Crown was stated by O'Grady (afterwards Lord Guillamore). Emmet entered into no defence, and did not even cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution. His counsel made no speech. Under these circumstances, it was urged for him that the Crown had no right to a speech in reply. Plunket insisted on the right, and the Court decided with him. Plunket's speech was described as unreasonably harsh towards Emmet; and, to give colour to this assertion, a passage was interpolated in the report of Emmet's address to the Court, in which the dying enthusiast was made to pronounce a bitter invective against the viper that his father had nurtured in his bosom."

66

Plunket instituted legal proceedings against a London journalist in vindication of his character, and obtained a verdict. He also, in another case, applied for a criminal information against a Dublin bookseller, who published the same libellous statement, and filed an affidavit denying every material fact in the allegation. Mr. Curran tells us that, at the trial, there was not one word uttered by Emmet bearing the remotest allusion to the charge.

In what way the speech alleged to be Emmet's was manufactured, or by whom, we do not know; but within these few days curiosity led us to look at one of the little books called "Lives of Emmet," to see whether the traders in such ware continued to print the passage. It would appear that they do not; but a strange sentence occurs, in which Lord Norbury is spoken of as "a serpent wallowing in blood." A gentleman who was present at the trial assures us that nothing of the kind was said.

Mr. Curran's Irish Bar sketches are six in number - Plunket, O'Connell, Goold, North, Wallace, Doherty. The two first names belong to the general history of the empire; and of both, it is probable, as no such perfect picture of either elsewhere exists, that Mr. Curran's portraits will be those which the future narrator of the story of the times in which they lived will be glad to adopt. Of what Plunket has spoken accurate records will remain to justify Curran's estimate of his powers. Of O'Connell it is scarce possible that something shall not be preserved; yet he flung himself away, we almost think too generously, on objects in their nature temporary. We have always felt O'Connell to be infinitely above the miserable local politics in which he appeared to us unworthily entangled; and the great question of his life it seems to us not only might, but would have been sooner and more happily determined, were it not for the interruption he was mainly instrumental in creating. But a great, a good, and a generous man we believe him to have been; and of all these qualities ample proofs are given in Curran's volumes. At the time Curran's sketch was published, he could only have been heard of in England as a factious, turbulent tribune of the people. That he was a great lawyer was to them a fact first communicated by Curran. The sketch of Doherty does not satisfy us; but, in truth, it was not until after the year in which that article appeared that Doherty's power appeared in anything of full development. North's is a kindly notice of a remarkable man; but with him Curran's relations of thought appear to have been what Charles Lamb would have called those of imperfect sympathy. Wallace is a sketch well worth careful perusal.

had, it would seem, dashed through a good deal of money, and was almost, if not altogether, a ruined man to all appearance, when he first applied himself diligently to the labours of his profession. There is an amusing allusion to some apocryphal adventures of his in the German courts. Doubtful hints, in which we hear of a "palatine princess-jealous husbandsbabbling maids of honour." When Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" appeared, Goold published a pamphlet in vindication of Burke. This brought a kindly letter from Burke, and an invitation to Beaconsfield. Lord Fitzwilliam was at Beaconsfield, and on his way to Ireland. Goold was too late to catch the Viceroy, and some reasonable hopes which he had of promotion were disappointed, and he had to work hard, depending alone on such support as the public that is, as the attorneys-were disposed to give. Goold's talents and powers of being of service were of that unmistakeable kind which attorneys are quick-eyed to perceive.

From this sketch we must give a sentence:

"Serjeant Goold's practice has been, and still is, principally in the nisi prius courts. I have not much to say of his distinctive qualities as a lawyer. He is evidently quite at home in all the points that come into daily question, and he puts them forward boldly and promptly. Here indeed, as elsewhere, he affects a little too much of omniscience; but unquestionable it is, that he knows a great deal. There is not, I appre

hend, a single member of his profession less liable to be taken by surprise upon any unexpected point of evidence, or practice, or pleading, the three great departments of our law to which his attention has been chiefly directed. But there is no want of originality in his appearance and manner. His person is below the middle size, and, notwithstanding the wear and tear of sixty years, continues compact, elastic, and airy. His face, though he sometimes gives a desponding hint that it is not what it was, still attests the credibility of his German adventures. The features are small and regular, and keen without being angular. His manner is all his own. His quick blue eye is in perpetual motion. It does not look upon an object: it pounces upon it. So of the other external signs of character.

"His body, like his mind, moves at double-quick time. He darts into court to argue a question of costs with the precipitation of a man rushing to save a beloved child from the flames. This is not trick in him, for, among the collateral arts of attracting notice at the Irish Bar is that of scouring with breathless speed from court to court, upsetting attorneys' clerks, making panting apologies, with similar manifestations of the counsel's inability to keep pace with the importunate calls of his multitudinous clients. Serjeant Goold stands too high, and is, I am certain, too proud to think of resorting to these locomotive devices. His impetuosity is pure temperament. In the despatch of business, more especially in the chorusscenes, where half-a-dozen learned throats are at once clamouring for precedence, he acquits himself with a physical energy that puts him almost upon a par in this respect with that great lord of misrule'-O'Connell himself. He is to the full as restless, confident, and vociferative, but he is not equally indomitable; and I have some doubts whether, with all his bustle and vehemence, he ever ascends to the true sublime of tumult, which inspires his learned and unemancipated friend. The latter, who is in himself an ambulatory riot, dashes into a legal affray with the spirit of a bludgeoned hero of a fair, determined to knock down every friend or foe he meets for the honour of old Ireland.' He has the secret glory, too, of displaying his athletic capabilities before an audience, by many of whom he knows that he is feared and hated."-pp. 196-198.

The second volume of Mr. Cur ran's work contains a good many essays on subjects of general literature. Of those we think the most interesting are his reviews of Monsieur Musset Pathay's "Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de J. J. Rousseau," and of the "Napoleon Memoirs." The fol