HIS BUFFO PERFORMERS.

21

that much has been attributed to him which does not belong to him; and many a dealer in illegitimate wit, who was ashamed of acknowledging his own productions, laid his spurious offspring at his lordship's door.

As he so essentially contributed to the amusement of the public, he gradually grew into the general favor, and was held in something like the reverence which is entertained by the upper galleries for an eminent actor of farce. His performances at Nisi Prius were greatly preferable, in the decline of the Dublin stage, to any theatrical exhibition; and, as he drew exceedingly full houses, Mr. Jones [patentee of Dublin Theatre] began to look at him with some jealousy, and is said to have been advised by Mr. Sergeant Goold, who had a share of £3565 5s. 63d. in Crow-street Theatre, to file a bill for an injunction against the Chief-Justice, for an infringement of his patent. Lord Norbury was at the head of an excellent company. The spirit of the judge extended itself naturally enough to the counsel; and men who were grave and considCatholics. Ignorant or regardless of the rules of the House of Commous, young Burke determined to present the petition himself, and in the body not at the bar of the House. He had reached the Treasury bench before he was perceived, and cries of "Privilege," and a "A stranger in the House" instantly arose. The Speaker sonorously called on the sergeant-at-arms to do his duty. Dreading arrest, Burke ran toward the bar, where he was faced by the sergeaut with a drawn sword; returning, he was stopped, at the table, by the clerk. A chase ensued, the members all keeping their seats, and, at last, Burke escaped behind the Speaker's chair. In the debate which ensued, the sergeant-at-arms was blamed for not having arrested Burke at the back-door. Sir Boyle Roche asked, with much naîveté, "How could the officer stop him in the rear, while he was catching him in the front?" and emphatically declared that “ no man could be in two places at one time-barring he was a bird!" When the laughter at this had subsided, Norbury (then Mr. Toler) said "A few days ago, I found an incident, like what has just now occurred, in the cross-readings of the columns of a newspaper. Yesterday a petition was presented to the House of Commons-it fortunately missed fire and the villain ran off." This renewed the mirth, and no further notice was taken of Burke's escapade. I give the sally, to show how near to the confines of wit was the apt readiness of Norbury's humor.-He had his joke to the very last. His neighbor, Lord Erne, was far advanced in years and bedridden. When his own health failed, he heard of his friend's increased illness. "James," said he to his servant, go next door, and tell Lord Erne, with my compliments, that it will be a dead-heat between us."-M.

erate everywhere else, threw off all soberness and propriety, and became infected with the habits of the venerable manager of the court, the moment they entered the Common Pleas His principal performers were Messrs. Grady, Wallace, O'Connell, and Goold, who instituted a sort of rivalry in uproar, and played against each other.

With such a judge, and such auxiliaries to co operate with him, some idea may be formed of the attractions which were held out to that numerous class who have no fixed occupation, and by whom, in the hope of laughing hunger away, the Four Courts are frequented in Dublin. Long before Lord Norbury took his seat, the galleries were densely filled with faces strangely expressive of idleness, haggardness, and humor. At about eleven his Lordship's registrar, Mr. Peter Jackson, used to slide in with an official leer; and a little after Lord Norbury entered with a grotesque waddle, and, having bowed to the Bar, cast his eyes round the court. Perceiving a full house, an obvious expression of satisfaction pervaded his countenance; and if he saw any of his acquaintance of a noble family, such as John Claudius Beresford, who had a good deal of time on his hands, in the crowd, he ordered the tipstaff to make way for him, and, in order, I presume, to add to the dignity of the proceedings, placed him beside himself on the bench.

While the jury were swearing, he either nodded familiarly to most of them, occasionally observing, "A most respectable man;" or, if the above-mentioned celebrated member of the house of Curraghmore chanced to be next him, was engaged in so pleasant a vein of whispering, that it was conjectured, from the heartiness of his laugh, that he must have been talking of the recreations of the Riding-house, and the amusements of 1798. The junior counsel having opened the pleadings, Lord Norbury generally exclaimed, "A very promising young man! Jackson, what is that young gentleman's name?""Mr. , my Lord."-"What, of the county of Cork?-I

Curraghmore, in the County of Waterford, is the seat of the Marquis of Waterford, head of the Beresford family.-M.

The Riding-house was a place in Dublin, where Beresford used to have suspected "rebels" flogged, with cruelty, to torture them into "loyalty."— M.

HENRY DEANE GRADY.

23

knew it by his air. Sir, you are a gentleman of very high pretensions, and I protest that I have never heard the many counts stated in a more dignified manner in all my life: I hope I shall find you, like the paper before me, a Daily Freeman in my court." Having despatched the junior, whom he was sure to make the luckless, but sometimes not inappropriate victim of his encomiums, he suffered the leading counsel to proceed.

As he was considered to have a strong bias toward the plaintiff, experimental attorneys brought into the Common Pleas the very worst and most discreditable adventures in litigation. The statement of the case, therefore, generally disclosed some paltry ground of action, which, however, did not prevent his Lordship from exclaiming in the outset, "A very important action indeed! If you make out your facts in evidence, Mr. Wallace, there will be serious matter for the jury." The evidence was then produced; and the witnesses often consisted of wretches vomited out of stews and cellars, whose emaciated and discolored countenances showed their want and their depravity, while their watchful and working eyes intimated that mixture of sagacity and humor by which the lower order of Irish attestators is distinguished. They generally appeared in coats and breeches, the external decency of which, as they were hired for the occasion, was ludicrously contrasted with the ragged and filthy shirt, which Mr. Henry Deane Grady, who was well acquainted with "the inner man" of an Irish witness, though not without repeated injunctions to unbutton, at last compelled them to disclose.

The cross-examinations of this gentleman were admirable pieces of the most serviceable and dexterous extravagance. He was the Scarron of the Bar; and few of the most practised and skilful of the horde of perjurers whom he was employed to encounter, could successfully withstand the exceedingly droll and comical scrutiny through which he forced them to pass. He had a sort of "Hail fellow, well met!" manner with every varlet, which enabled him to get into his heart and core, until he had completely turned him inside out, and excited such a spirit of mirth, that the knave whom he was uncovering,

could not help joining in the merriment which the detection of his villany had produced.

Lord Norbury, however, when he saw Mr. Grady pushing the plaintiff to extremities, used to come to his aid, and rally the broken recollections of the witness. This interposition called the defendant's counsel into stronger action, and they were as vigorously encountered by the counsel on the other side. Interruption created remonstrance; remonstrance called forth retort; retort generated sarcasm; and at length voices were raised so loud, and the blood of the forensic combatants was so warmed, that a general scene of confusion, to which Lord Norbury most amply contributed, took place.

The uproar gradually increased till it became tremendous; and, to add to the tumult, a question of law, which threw Lord Norbury's faculties into complete chaos, was thrown into the conflict. Mr. Grady and Mr. O'Connell shouted upon one side, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Goold upon the other, and at last, Lord Norbury, the witnesses, the counsel, the parties, and the audience, were involved in one universal riot, in which it was difficult to determine whether the laughter of the audience, the exclamations of the parties, the protestations of the witnesses, the cries of the counsel, or the bellowing of Lord Norbury, predominated. At length, however, his Lordship's superiority of lungs prevailed; and, like olus in his cavern (of whom, with his puffed cheeks and inflamed visage, he would furnish a painter with a model), he shouted his stormy subjects into peace. These scenes repeatedly occurred during the trial, until at last both parties had closed, and a new exhibition took place. This was Lord Norbury's monologue, commonly called a charge.

He usually began by pronouncing the loftiest encomiums upon the party in the action, against whom he intended to advise the jury to give their verdict. For this the audience were well prepared; and accordingly, after he had stated that the defendant was one of the most honorable men alive, and that he knew his father, and loved him, he suddenly came, with a most singular emphasis, which he accompanied with a strange shake of his wig, to the fatal "but," which made the

audience, who were in expectation of it, burst into a fit of laughter, while he proceeded to charge, as he almost uniformly did, in the plaintiff's favor. He then entered more deeply, as he said, into the case, and, flinging his judicial robe half aside, and sometimes casting off his wig, started from his seat, and threw off a wild harangue, in which neither law, method, nor argument, could be discovered. It generally consisted of narratives connected with the history of his early life, which it was impossible to associate with the subject-of jests from Joe Miller, mixed with jokes of his own manufacture, and of sarcastic allusions to any of the counsel who had endeavored to check him during the trial. He was exceedingly fond of quotations from Milton and Shakspere, which, however out of place, were very well delivered, and evinced an excellent enunciation. At the conclusion of his charge, he made some efforts to call the attention of the jury to any leading incident which particularly struck him, but what he meant it was not very easy to conjecture; and when he sat down, the whole performance exhibited a mind which resembled a whirlpool of mud, in which law, facts, arguments, and evidence, were lost in unfathomable confusion.

Some years ago, I remember, at the close of his charges a ludicrous incident, which was a kind of practical commentary, sometimes took place. A poor maniac, well known about the Hall, whose name was "Toby M'Cormick," had been a suitor in the Common Pleas, and had lost his senses in consequence of the loss of his cause. He regularly used to attend the court, to which he was attracted by an odd fantasy :-Toby had got it into his head that he was Lord Norbury himself, having merged all consciousness of his own separate being in the strong image of his Lordship which was constantly present to his mind, while, upon the other hand, he took Lord Norbury for "Toby McCormick;" believing that they had made a swap of their personal identities, and exchanged their existence. This strange madman, at the end of Lord Norbury's charges, used to cry out, with some imitation of his manner, "Find for the plaintiff!" and though not intended as a sarcasm upon his habits, yet it was so just a satire that Lord Norbury was half VOL. II.-2