STATE OF PARTIES IN DUBLIN, IN 1831.

On the 5th of this month of May [1831], my business led me into the Four Courts, Dublin; and on the way, by a train of associations too obvious to require to be analyzed, my mind involuntarily reverted to the past, and took note of the vicissitudes produced since I last wrote. But it was only when I found myself in that emporium of law, and politics, and gossip the Hall of the Four Courts-that I felt in all their force the variety and extent of those mutations. The scene and the majority of the actors were still the same, and the general resemblance, at the first view, appeared unimpaired: but, upon a nearer scrutiny, how striking and singular had been the changes!

Of these actors, for instance, one of the first that attracted my attention was Mr. William Bellew, a Roman Catholic barrister of great personal respectability, and of just repute in certain departments of his profession. In his general aspect there was little perceptible aeration. Time, as if from a kindly feeling toward an old acquaintance. seemed to have spared him more than younger men. I found the same spire-like altitude of frame; the same solemn, spectral stride; the same grave and somewhat querulous, but not undignified cast of feature In his own proper person," in face and form, Mr. Bellew was such as I had seen him in his penal days; but what a transfiguration had been accomplished in his gown! How omnipotert must have been that act of Parliament which had substituted his present rustling silk attire for the dingy, tattered fustian, in which I had so often seen him haunting the precincts of the Court of Chancery, and which he had vowed to

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wear while a rag of it remained, as an ensign of reproach to the presiding bigot of the court! But Lord Manners and his tenets had passed away, and Mr. Bellew's epitaph may state that he too, in his generation, was one of his Majesty's counselat-law.

My eye, turning from Mr. Bellew, soon rested upon several other barristers of his creed, who, like him, had been taking the benefit of the statute. Among them, and apparently the youngest of the group, was Mr. O'Loghlin, upon whom Emancipation had fortunately come just at a period of his career when promotion, being possible, was inevitable. He is already one of the three sergeants, and, if the orisons of the public can confer length of days, the highest judicial office is his certain destination.

But the most singular of those metamorphoses, which, when I last addressed you, it would have been maniacal to have predicted, was exhibited in the personal identity and present official attributes of the worthy ex-Secretary of the ex-Catholic Association, Mr. Nicholas Purcel O'Gorman. This excellent and best-tempered of organized beings, who, during a fe devoted to the angry politics of Ireland, has made as many friends as another would have created enemies-who was ever frank and fearless in the expression of his opinions, even though one of those opinions was and is that "St. Paul was a decided Orangeman"-now stood before me, transformed into nothing less than a public functionary, by title Cursitor, of that very court in which Mr. Saurin had pleaded and Lord Manners had presided. The selection, I am bound to add, has been pronounced by the public, from whose discernment in such matters there is no appeal, to have been worthy of the exalted person to whom, fortunately for Ireland, higher functions than the extension of mere acts of considerateness toward meritorious individuals have been again committed.

I approached the group, to whom Mr. O'Gorman, who had been recently sworn in, was detailing with humorous exaggeration the weighty responsibilities that had descended upon his rather Atlantean shoulders. The Cursitor's office, I collected from him. was one of the great fountain-heads of justice, whence

litigation flowed in streams or torrents through the land. It was emphatically the officina brevium, the inner temple of ori ginal writs, and the Cursitor the high-priest, without whose signature, now written with majestic brevity, "O'Gorman," those sacred documents would want their legal potency. I was gratified, however, to hear Mr. O'Gorman add, which he did with a glance of no doubtful meaning at one of his auditors, who had been an unsuccessful expectant under the old régime, that his hierarchal cares were in some measure soothed by sundry daily and not unwelcome offerings from the devotees at the shrine over which he had been appointed to preside. It was an office of trust coupled with emolument, a coincidence which Mr. O'Gorman, though a stanch reformer, very justly pronounced to be not incongruous.

These are single instances of the changes which the surface prescured, but I could multiply them without number; wher ever I looked around, I found abundant evidences, had I otherwise been unaware of the fact, that the genius of Mr. Gregory,* no longer presided in the government of Ireland. Religious peace, and never was a peace more just and necessary, had been picclaimed; and, after it, had followed in due course the gradual decline of as hateful a faction as had ever desolated and insulted a devoted country. There was, however, no want of excitement. It had changed its character, but was as active in its way as in those dreary times when Mr. Lefroy's theology and Master Ellis's statesmanship found favor at the Castle. The groups of animated bustlers in the Hall were no longer discussing the divided allegiance of the Catholics, or holding a drum head inquiry over Mr. Sheil's last speech at the Association, but much was said of schedule A-of its multiform abominations by the smaller and more hopeless politiciansof its wisdom and necessity by others, and among them not a few who conceived it to be both wise and necessary to declare their opinions in favor of reform. But I soon discovered that

Of William Gregory (who was Privy Councillor and under-Secretary for Ireland) mention has already been made in one of the notes on Lord Norbury, page 36, in this volume. Mr. Gregory was a "Protestant Ascendency" a ar His son represented Publin, in Parliament, for a time.-M.

the buzz around me turned upon a matter of a still more immediate interest; an active canvass was going forward. The Dublin election was fixed for the following day; and the popular party, in perfect accordance upon this occasion with the wishes of the Government, had determined upon attempting a decisive blow. Committees had been sitting; subscription-lists opened; Mr. William Murphy sent for; an earnest but amicable conflict of opinion had ensued: Mr. Murphy, with the caution of long experience, was strenuous in his advice that they should run no risks, but, by concentrating their forces, secure the return of one member. Delenda est Carthago," was the cry of Sergeant O'Loghlin and Mr. Blake, and the bolder counsel had prevailed: two reform candidates had been started against the corporation of Dublin.

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The competitors upon this stirring occasion were the late members, Messrs. Moore and Shaw, who rested their pretensions on their love of corporations, and their hatred of reform; Mr. (now Sir Robert) Harty,* the Lord-Mayor of Dublin, and Mr. Louis Perrin, an eminent member of the Irish bar. The two latter announced themselves as sturdy reformers.

Of Mr. George Moore I can not tell you much, for I only know of him what the public knows. He is, I should suppose, between fifty and sixty years of age. There is nothing remarkable in his face or person. He is a man of mild manners and violent opinions; can make a long speech on most subjects, either in or out of Parliament; is the proprietor of an ample sinecure in one of our courts; and much regarded by his personal acquaintances. The only singular events in the history of his life that I have heard recorded were, his first return for the city of Dublin, and an incident connected with it. The day preceding that fixed for the election had closed. and the corporation, still in search of a fit and proper nominee,

* Sir Robert Harty, who was made a Baronet in September, 1331, was a libera in politics. He was an Alderman of the old Dublin Corporation, and was Lord-Mayor in 1830-'1. Though he and Mr. Perrin were elected, as stated by Mr. Sheil, their triumph was short-lived, for they were unseated on perition.-M.

† Mr. George Ogle Moore, who was M. P. for Dublin, for a short time, was ne of the most undistinguished men in Parliament.-M.

continued their deliberations through the night. Mr. Moore, as yet unthought of, retired at his accustomed hour to repose. At midnight, as the story goes, he was suddenly awakened, and saw at his bedside the portly form of Master Ellis, deputed from the still-sitting committee, to know if he would consent to be returned to Parliament from his native city. Mr. Moore rubbed his eyes, pressed the Master's hand more closely, to ascertain that it was a hand of flesh and blood; saw visions of Parliamentary renown start up before him, and thinking that now he surely could not be dreaming, gave his assent. The next day he was the member for Dublin: the Mirror of Parliament" tells the rest.

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Mr. Frederick Shaw is a much younger man than Mr. Moore. He was called to the bar in the year 1822, and for the first five years gave no signs of his subsequent prosperity.* He was assiduous, but in no way distinguished. The first occa sion upon which the courts became familiar with his name was in 1827, upon the arrival of Sir Anthony Hart as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Sir William M‘Mahon, the Master of the Rolls, conceived that in him was vested the power of appointing a particular officer of his own court. Former Chancellors, however, had claimed and exercised the right of appointment, and Sir Anthony Hart announced that he would follow their example. The Master of the Rolls, desirous that the question should undergo a solemn discussion and adjudication, nominated his relative, Mr. Shaw, to the office in dispute. Mr. Shaw presented a petition to the I ord-Chancellor, praying to be admitted to the performance of the duties, and the perception of the profits, and Mr. Saurin appeared as the leading counsel in support of the claim.

The matter, in itself, was one of no sort of public interest: it was a mere question of patronage between two judicial dig

* Frederick Shaw, whose early appointment to the Recordership of Dublin excited much discussion at the time, probably owed his preferment to the fact that his aunt was wife of the late Sir William M'Mahon, then Master of the Rolls in Ireland. Mr. Shaw, where politics did not bias him, gave satifaction as a judge. He was a Privy Councillor and represented the University of Dublin in several Parliaments.-M.