Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

built a house on a vacant spot of of ground, in Leeson-street, employing his leisure hours in his large and well-kept garden. The writer of this paper had the honour of a business interview with the venerable Judge in that same house a few years before his death. He was then upwards of eighty years of age, but appeared possessed of the mental and bodily vigour of a man of fifty, who had lived a well-ordered life.

In 1816 he was appointed King's Counsel, and in 1818 King's Serjeant. Before 1824, he was three times offered in succession a seat on the judicial bench; but he preferred his profitable home occupation to the inconvenience of Circuit journies, and the disagreeable duty of passing judgment in criminal cases. In 1822 he first filled the seat of Judge of Assize on the Munster Circuit, and at the general election following the death of King George IV., in 1830, he became member for the Dublin University, his eldest son being elected member for Longford at the same time. In the end of 1841 he accepted the office of Baron of the Exchequer, and on the first day of term, 1852, he took his seat as Chief-Justice. In 1858 he was separated by death from his amiable, and estimable lady. In 1866, he resigned his office into the hands of the Earl of Derby, by whom he had been invested with it in 1852. His death occurred at his country residence, Newcourt Bray, in the beginning of May, 1869, he then being in his 94th year.

The portrait which accompanies the volume presents a countenance expressive of dignity of character, deep reflection, thorough command over passion, benignity, and sweetness of disposition. His possession of all these good qualities is established by his biographer, who, indeed, appears unable to detect the slightest trace of evil or even weakness in his loved and revered parent. He thus speaks of him as he ap

pears to his family, during the intervals of his judicial avocations:

His

"The feature of his character in private life which was most generally observed by those who enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with him, was his love for the study of Scripture, and the tendency of his mind to lead conversation to the discussion or consideration of scriptural subjects; and perhaps in no way was the closeness of his walk with God so fully manifest as in the happiness with which he looked forward to the Sunday, and the refreshment he always felt in the religious observance of the Lord's day. No one who spent that day in his society could fail to observe that he regarded the sacred obligations of its religious duties not as a tedious burden, but as a high and happy privilege. earnest devotion in public worship told plainly that he was engaged in no mere form or ceremony, but was enjoying communion with his God; and with the exception of an hour, or little more, after church, during which he was in the habit of walking into the country with his children, the greater portion of the time which intervened between morning service and his dinner hour was spent in the retirement of his study. But it was not on the Sabbath morn alone that he thus enjoyed holding communion with his God in private. He never travelled without having his Bible at hand in his writing-case, and generally some of Archbishop Leighton's works, or some book on Prophecy or on the Revelation, which formed the pastime of his journey."

Whether such occupation as that about to be quoted, of the time necessarily spent in carriage or ship, is the most profitable that could be adopted, may be left an open question. We have many instances of individuals deriving more injury than benefit from the study of prophecy. We give the text, as it furnishes a special trait of Mr. Lefroy's mental workings

"I laid out the two days of this journey for going very minutely into the prophecies which Lord Mandeville and I had been reading together; and I made it the subject of earnest prayer, that I might be guided aright, and profit by my search. The first day I read through my whole journey, but was more than ever puzzled. However, I was so prepared by my reading to ask questions and receive instruction, that dear Robert Daly relieved me out of my perplexities, and opened views of the subject so much more clear and satisfactory than any I had met with, that I consider myself to have had quite a gracious answer to my prayer. On landing, Daly came home with us for breakfast, and read for us in our family worship. He is, indeed, a true servant of God."

Of Judge Lefroy's attention to the beneficial exercise of family prayer, his son gives the subjoined account: "It may be truly said of him that he considered family prayer to be the border which keeps the web of daily life from unravelling. When holding the first rank at the Chancery bar, and overwhelmed with professional business, the duties of each day were opened and closed by assembling his whole household for family worship, consisting of a portion of Scripture, which he read and accompanied with a few practical observations, concluding with prayer. Later in life, when occupying a villa some miles distant from Dublin, he had daily to attend the courts as Chief- Justice, his morning hours were so regulated as to secure ample time for family worship before the departure of the train, which carried him to his arduous and responsible duties ... I do not recollect his ever leaving home to attend Parliament, or for his judicial duties on circuit, without assembling the members of his family to ask for God's assistance and blessing upon the discharge of his own duties, and

committing to his care and guidance those from whom he was parting."

The precious quality of unalterable cheerfulness seems to have been possessed by Mr. Lefroy in an eminent degree:

"Though the shadow of a cloud might flit past, it could never long obscure the sunshine of his temper or his countenance. If a wet day interfered with some cherished plan for a holiday excursion (and he retained to the very last an almost childish enjoyment of such occasions), we were sure to hear some such remark, as 'Well, only think of the good this gracious rain will do in the country,' or 'Really when I come to think of it, 'tis a decided advantage to me to have the day at home, as I shall have a fine opportunity of mastering a difficult case I have to look into.' There is a tradition amongst us that the only time grandpapa was ever known to be put out by the weather was on one occasion during his vacation, when he had spent some hours the day before in manufacturing for two little grandsons a paper kite which was to be flown on the lawn tomorrow; but to-morrow was a storm of driving rain, and as the party was to break up the following day the failure of the cherished scheme seemed an equal trial both to old and young. This habit of always looking at the bright side of everything arose undoubtedly from his. constant realisation of the overruling Providence of God, even in the lesser affairs of every-day life."

His enjoyment of the society of his children revived when Providence blessed him with grandchildren:

"When he was Chief-Justice and past eighty, his cheerful habits and loving heart so entirely won their affections that the greatest indulgence which could be offered them at any time, was the promise of a visit to dear grandpapa. Nor will the cordial welcome be easily forgotten with which he used to greet

the happy group on our Christmas visit to Carrig-glas, when, in the old days of posting, my wife and I used to arrive with our carriage full of children, each little one eagerly pressing forward, as we drove up the avenue, to catch the first look at dear grandpapa's bright and joyous countenance, and ready before the carriage-door was open, to jump into his arms."

We could long linger over such traits of amiability and domestic attachment, but can only afford space for one other extract :

"In the evenings his delight was as often as possible to gather round him the whole family group-children and grandchildren. In all these gatherings the still fresh flow of his natural spirits, the unaffected interest which he took in promoting the happiness and amusement of all around him, ever rendered him the great centre of attraction to young and old, who alike seemed to regard him as the cheerful companion and the revered parent; and while he never tried to restrain the lighthearted spirit of youth, he always endeavoured to impart a religious, or at least, an intellectual tone into whatever might be the subject, which occupied the social circle for the time."

But we must turn our attention from these agreeable traits of character, and happy social scenes, to take a glance at such circumstances of Mr. Lefroy's official life as we judge may interest our readers.

The following opinions expressed by Dr. Burrowes to the father of Mr. Lefroy, when the latter was going through his academic course, will find little favour with modern professors of the utilitarian school, who take little note of prosodial longs and shorts:

"A learned education, comprehending perfect classical scholarship, ought to be his present object, and trifling as it may appear, I would rather he employed his time in

making bad Latin verses, if he cannot make good ones, simply with the view of making himself master of prosody, than in reading Smith's "Wealth of Nations" at the present moment. It will never be forgotten of that able and eloquent speaker, Mr. Burke, that he mistook the quantity of vectigal, and called it vectigal. This little instance of prosodaical ignorance would in this country have damned a young speaker for ever, or at least, he must have distinguished himself exceedly afterwards, before he could have convinced his hearers that he had common sense."

Our Edmund made the very pardonable mistake (Dr. Burrowes notwithstanding) in the quotation, Magnum vectigal est parsimonia, while animadverting on Lord North's want of economy in managing the public revenues, that learned, but improvident nobleman, nearly asleep on his bench at the moment, and heaving backwards and forwards like a great turtle. But the sound of a false quantity instantly aroused him, and opening his eyes he exclaimed, in a very marked and decided manner, "vectigal." 'I thank the noble Lord,' said Burke, with happy adroitness, for the correction, the more particularly as it affords me an opportunity of repeating a maxim which he greatly needs to have reiterated upon him; and he then thundered. out, 'Magnum vectigal est parsimonia." (A great revenue is parsimony.)

Mr. Lefroy was married, as already mentioned, to Miss Paul, in 1797. Her father and family experienced some of the anxieties of the next year, the dismal "'98." Mr. Paul,. in his letters to his new relatives, expresses no sympathy with the unfortunate chiefs, Bagenal Harvey, John Colelough. and Cornelius Grogan, who had been compelled to take command of the insurgents at the risk of their lives, and had done all in their power to restrain the ex

cesses of the misguided people. He says not a word of the little faux pas committed by the yeomen.

Our young lawyer studied diligently and wrote incessantly while keeping his law terms at Lincoln's Inn.. During his stay at the Temple he resided with his grand-uncle, Mr. Langlois, in London, and attended daily at Westminster Hall, where, in the courts presided over by such men as Lord Eldon and Lord Kenyon, he had an opportunity of imbibing those great fundamental principles of law and equity, with which his mind in after-life proved to be so richly imbued, and which marked the able judgments he delivered as Baron of the Exchequer, and Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench."

In November, 1801, after an able speech of two hours on a writ of error, he apologised for taking up so much of their lordship's time, but was set at ease by the reply of Lord Clare: "Mr. Lefroy, you have no reason whatever to lament, for you have argued the case with most uncommon precision, and much satisfaction to the Court."

This was a sort of "Peebles v. Plainstanes" case, for it had been trying the patience of the Courts for about thirty years. The Chief-Baron said that day at a large dinner party, "It was the ablest argument which had been made at the Bar." We are not informed of its effect on the fortunes of the Irish "Plainstanes and Peebles."

In those "good old times" Lord Chancellors were reckoned among Irish importations. Lord Clare dying in 1802, the seals were entrusted to Lord Redesdale. Mr. Lefroy was commended to his notice by Judge Burton. The new Chancellor was no more partial to his new home than the Dutch Captain who figures in the "White Horse of the Peppers." He exhaled his ill-humour in a letter to Justice Burton, then residing in Chester County. A few extracts are

characteristic of the relative scales of comfort, and the value of commodities, in the English and Irish capital seventy years ago:

"I have been unable either to purchase or rent a place tolerably pleasant or commodious, and have been compelled to purchase a little farm of about sixty English acres, with a small house, very quiet, though only four English miles from this town (!).

I must be a good economist if, after six years, it should replace me in my former fortune-that is, if it should give me back the sum I have expended and lost in the change of country.

"Expenses here are very great, especially to a stranger. A few articles are cheaper than in England, but an Englishman cannot live like an Englishman at nearly so cheap a rate in Dublin as in London. If he can adopt the habits of the country, and be content without a thousand comforts which he has been used to in England, and live in the true Irish style, he may perhaps make something of external show rather cheaper than he would do in London ; but every real luxury and almost every convenience is cheaper in London, and everything is infinitely better. The paper I write on, and the pen I write with, remind me how execrably bad almost every article of manufacture is, and how abominably dear it is at the same time.

"I must endeavour to make my farm a comfortable residence, for I cannot submit to live all the year in the stew and dust of Dublin.

"Your friend, Mr. Lefroy, is a young man who fully answers your favourable description. He is much esteemed here, and I think must get forward. . . The people in England are generally ignorant of this country and its inhabitants. (They are nearly as ignorant in 1872 as in 1802.) At this moment they are more than ordinarily ignorant. The great thing looked for is purity of Government. You might as well

consult Sir Robert Walpole (then fifty-seven years dead), about the proper mode of managing England at this moment, as consult any of the modern secretaries, even the manager of the Union itself, about the state of Ireland. He must no longer talk, even among Irishmen, of making men amiable-a term which, you will recollect, Sheridan handled with much dexterity in answer to the noble lord."

Very few years after his call to the bar, Mr. Lefroy was engaged for a cause in Wexford, receiving one hundred guineas for his trouble, a very unusual fee to be given to a lawyer so short in practice.

Out of the heart the mouth speaketh. Let affection and worldly business enter as they might into the texture of the young lawyer's letters to his wife, they were sure to be blended with, or overruled by pious feeling. Speaking of earthly good and comforts, he thus placed them in their true relation to celestial treasures:

"I include under the head of false treasures, every object of earthly attachment, however innocent or even praiseworthy, on which a value is set beyond what any earthly object is entitled to; and yet this is a point on which we are all most sadly and practically going astray every hour of our lives, and on which nothing can set us right but by keeping before us, as in a magnifying glass, the great and paramount claims to a Christian's regard. I do not say that we are to extinguish the affections which belong to the different relations of life on the contrary, by the pure and sincere exercise of them, selfishness is in some degree extinguished; but the gratification arising from the most delighted of these affections, should not form the stay, and hope, and prop of life. No: therein consists the excess and the abuse. But I'll say no more on this head, lest you should tell me that nothing

but vanity could suggest the neces sity of sermonising with you in this manner. Probably the fond husband, devout as he assuredly was, here began to suspect that he was giving permission to his idolised wife to love him for the future a leetle less than she did at the moment, so he corrected himself after a fashion:

"But remember, I am not willing to part with the least atom of it (her affection for him, to wit) to any earthly object. Whatever of it ought. to be pruned away, let it be transported to that region where we may hope to enjoy it in bliss unfading."

Out of sundry evangelical effussions which have come under our notice, we could select a few of many words, but of marvellously few and vague ideas. They are the productions of folk to whom Scriptural phraseology is as familiar as the ordinary sneech of social life, but who probably are devoid of sincere piety, and possessed of unlogical minds. In Mr. Lefroy's written thoughts and feelings weare sensible of a devout spirit, and of a power of arranging his ideas so that every one is found just where it is most appropriate and effective.

These few sentences of another letter to the same are worthy of all attention from parents in every state of life:

"If I do not deceive myself very much (and God knows how very possible this is!) the most fervent prayer of my heart in respect to them is, that I may be able to say at the last day, in giving up my charge, 'Of them which thou gavest me I have lost none.' When compared with this, my anxiety in respect of their worldly welfare sinks. to nothing, though both duty and affection dictate a reasonable shareof attention to objects essential to their welfare and usefulness in this life too. . . If ever my darling children should be led to think that I am unduly anxious about the

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »