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whom Rory's aspects and bearing had their effect, for he was indeed a proper man of body: the witness was no less than the lady Eva, the ward and relative of Butler, who was descended from Margaret Butler of Carrick, that married the father of Anna Boleyne. She disliked Black Tom for his despotic disposition and his high handed manner, and now that she heard this hard hap destined for Rory, she resolved to save him, even though it should oblige her to leave the castle; for she knew it were as ill holding converse with Butler if his prisoner escaped, as with a she wolf deprived of her young. Poor Rory lay in his cell, now looking at the rays of the moon, whenever they struggled for a moment through the stormy winter clouds that were sailing across the wintry sky; remembering with a heavy heart, how often he saw them in his boyhood silvering the sides of his native mountains; and anon he would ponder on the unnatural course of disunion which afflicted his native land, and which alone could allow the Saxon churls who wrought her so much woe, to retain an hour's possession of any part of her fair extent, when the door of his cell was opened, and a lady in a travelling dress entered.

"If, sir knight," she said, "you prefer the wholesome weather and heaven's free air to this suffocating dungeon, follow me and parley not 'till you are at least outside these cold walls, which seldom prove healthful to bold hearts that are likely, if at liberty, to strike a blow for their native land."

"I had little hopes of life one while since, fair lady, and I do not now dread any death that Butler can award; but would to heaven I were free to lead my good kerne a second time, and have one jouste more with this half English earl, on something more equal terms than our last, when I was caught in a wolf trap."

"We lose time in converse, sir knight, which were better employed in action. I shall undo thy bolts with a key which I received from a warden, then follow me to one of the posterns, where my nurse's brother has a horse in waiting for you, and if any of Butler's men are sufficient vigil keepers to perceive us, you must fly fast, for Butler will be ill to abide when he hears of your escape."

Without further debate, she undid the bolts which fastened Rory, after much exertion, and led the way towards the gate of which she had spoken. No sooner had they opened it, than they were aware of a clump of trees near the wall, with a horse amongst them fastened to a stone, and towards those trees they hastened; but they had not moved three paces, when lights suddenly blazed in the windows of the castle, the slogan was raised, and a cry sent forward amongst the bow-men who garrisoned the place, to mount and join in pursuit of the chieftain who escaped.

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"Holy mother!' said Eva, Butler will put me to death when I return, if he should suspect the foil I have played.'

"That he shall never do,' quoth Rory, whilst I have an arm to wield a falchion; and, so saying, he threw her on the horse, and jumped

up himself immediately after. He urged the beast at the top of his speed towards the Walsh mountains, and quickly struck into the road, on which he could hear the tramping of many horsemen at no great distance behind him—a sound which brought dismay to his heart, for he reflected on the fate that awaited the lady in case she was taken; and he felt that his horse was not of sufficiently high-blood to continue the fast pace to which he pressed it, for any lengthened period. The horsemen continued to gain on him, and his steed was now nearly falling, from the unusual speed at which he was driven, and the weight of two persons, so that Rory, by the time he came to the ford of the Lingan, had prepared for the worst, and making a last exertion, dashed the horse into the roaring water; but the ignoble beast, used only to rustic habits, was unable to bear a harnessed knight and his lady any longer, and so, in their greatest streight, he fell head foremost into the stream; but our youth, foreseeing this calamity, dismounted without injury, and taking the lady in his arms, waded downwards with the current for a few yards, and then landed at the side from which he started, wisely judging that his pursuers would cross the river, which they did, and so may all the enemies of beauty and old Ireland ever be blinded and misled! He wandered along the bank, towards the place at which the Lingan empties itself into the Suir, until the lady became faint, and then, with an anxious heart, he sat on the bank to allow her a few moments' rest. During this interval, a thought struck the gentle heart of Eva, which, with Rory's acquiescence, she quickly put in execution.

"I have,' said she, 'frequently comforted the villeins who abide here, when they were afflicted with sickness or sorrow, and those mere Irish, albeit of a rebellious nature, yet are they, in a marvellous spirit of contrariety, very grateful for any good feeling shown towards them.'

"Rory did not approve of this description of his countrymen, but being delivered by the lips of a fair lady, 'twas sufficient to forbid dissent; so without any further parley they proceeded in search of a rustic's hut, and having lighted upon one, they told their story truly, and demanded the assistance of the peasant, being, as they told him, sore beset and hard pressed by their enemies. The faithful hind agreed to do their behest, and presently launched his little skiff, into which they all got, and bravely pushed towards the main river, which they soon reached; but to their utter dismay it was impossible to land at either side, as both banks were traversed by men with torches, who were in hot pursuit of the dwarf and me. Seeing this mischance, they pushed into the middle of the stream, intending to float downwards for a mile or two, and thus baffle their pursuers. They had not gone far, however, when a light suddenly appeared in a corach quite near them, and they could perceive in the little vessel two armed men, with a gillie to paddle. When the men in the corach saw our knight and his lady, they uttered a yell of delight and made straightway for them, so that the game appeared up and their fate sealed; but our honest rustic was accustomed to warfare in rivers, so he dived head foremost and

noiselessly into the water, with his skein between his teeth, and swam towards the hostile corach. When he had reached within a few yards of it, he dived, and rising under its bottom, he with his skein slit the horse. skin, that covered its frail timbers, almost from stem to stern, and the doughty men at arms were soon struggling with the rushing water, an enemy which I ween their armour did not assist them to conquer. The fugitives had no other mishap till they arrived at Tiddown, where they landed, and with ease made their way to Rory's castle, where in a short time he was married to the lady Eva, and through her evil counsel he made treaties of peace with several of his English neighbours. Some say this marriage caused Black Tom such grief, that he never held up his head after; whilst others say it was with his connivance Rory escaped, as thereby he formed an alliance with a chief who was a thorn in the side of the English, whilst he also disposed of his ward. Rory found before him a prey of a thousand cows, which his men drove when they left the walls of Carrick, with twenty barrels of wine they had seized on the road to Kilcash. I remained to preserve order during the revels consequent on the marriage, which had taken place only a few days before my arrival; but the new fangled modes of hostelry introduced by the English lady did not please me, so I left her as soon as she got a strange priest, with whose English education this better comported, seeing that he had not suffering and sore oppressed fellow-countrymen, in whose struggles it would be his conscientious duty to assist. I then joined with bold Desmond, who is the most Irish man in Ireland, and if we now obtain the assistance of the King of Spain in ridding our country of the Sassenachs, I shall hang up my hauberk and falchion, in which I have often, I fear me, taken too great a share of fleshly pride."

It was now time for the worthy priest to seek some repose in his cabin, and the shallop held on her course till morning, when a passage befel her which it shall be our duty to record on a future occasion.

MORS OPTIMA RERUM.

""Tis better to sit still than to walk: better to sleep than to wake; but death is better than all." INDIAN PORT.

'Tis sweet, all motionless to sit,

Where placid objects win the sense
To shadowy thoughts that rise and flit,
Too transient to become intense;
And hardly feel that day by day
Life's rippling current steals away.
'Tis joy to close life's happiest day,
To feel soft sleep benignly come,
Lulling the heart with tender sway,

Charming the truant thoughts all home.
Oh! why should wakefulness again
Release them for their quest of pain?
But death!-the stillness of the tomb;
Its holy calm for dreams too deep-
Blest home, whose darkness is not gloom!
Sole refuge free to all that weep!
Say, thou vain world! Oh say what bliss
Hast thou that can compare with this?

C.

ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW IN IRELAND.

THE DUBLIN LAW INSTITUTE.

Ir must seem strange to such of our readers as have at all reflected upon the subject, that while a preliminary course of instruction or training is requisite for the exercise of every other profession or trade, the profession of the Law, certainly not the easiest or least important, should be open to every person without the slightest preparation; and that its privileges should be conferred indiscriminately upon all who seek them, without any attempt to ascertain whether they have qualified themselves for its exercise. This, however, is not the only anomaly which the legal profession presents; for not only is there no attempt made to test the qualifications of the candidates for admission into it, but no facility is afforded to those who may be desirous of acquiring the knowledge, necessary to enable them to use the privileges of advocates with advantage to themselves or to their clients. The consumption of a certain number of dinners at certain fixed times, and the payment of certain sums of money, are the only indispensable conditions which must be complied with, before the aspirant for forensic honours can invest his person with the barrister's robe. The providing the requisite dinners, and receiving the requisite monies, constitute the entire functions discharged by the societies to which has been entrusted the privilege of conferring the degree of Barrister-at-Law. There are, to be sure, libraries through which the student has the privilege of roaming; but not the slightest attempt has been made to furnish him with a guide to the use of the vast materials, accumulated in masses of startling magnitude for his use. No effort has been made to furnish him with a clue to the trackless labyrinth; he is left to struggle through it or not, with such help as accident or his own ingenuity may provide. The consequence is either that, dismayed by the immense collection of reports, statutes, and text books, through which he is to plod his weary way, the student abandons it in despair, and postpones the acquisition of legal knowledge until it is forced upon him by actual practice; or he wastes both time and labour in the attempt to discover the track over which so many of his predecessors have passed.

The disheartening effects of this state of things upon a student, can only be adequately conceived by one who has himself experienced it. None else can appreciate fully the sense of weariness and disappointment, which arises from the obscurity and uncertainty that attend the unaided efforts of the student to acquire a competent degree of legal knowledge. The most complicated, the most peculiar, and the most technical system of municipal law is undoubtedly the English; its materials are scattered

through about eight hundred volumes, in the utmost confusion; its terminology is obscure and barbarous; its rules are arbitrary, and unintelligible without previous study and explanation; and yet no provision whatever has been made by the legislature, for the instruction and guidance of those who are to expound its mysteries. For this recognized absurdity, there is not even that pretext which has served as a defence for so many other established abuses. The Inns of court were established for the express purpose of supplying the instruction so much needed; they were intended, in fact, as seminaries for the cultivation and diffusion of legal knowledge; and it was because they were supposed to discharge that duty, that the privilege of admitting their pupils to the bar was given them. For a long period, the practice corresponded to the theory; instruction and assistance were supplied by those societies, and none were admitted to the higher branch of the legal profession, but those who had diligently availed themselves of those advantages. Lectures were given, which it was incumbent on each pupil to attend; legal discussions, called "mootings," were held, as a practical preparation for the real contests upon which the disputants were to enter. For the convenience of the students, the societies provided dinners in their halls, which were resorted to by those who had attended the lectures and "mootings." But our unenlightened ancestors never contemplated, that the consumption of those dinners should be the sole preliminary exercise requisite for admission to the privileges of an advocate. To that extent, however, has modern improvement reached; the dinners are the only part of the machinery provided for imparting legal instruction, which has survived the lapse of time, and hence arises the necessity for going through the process generally known as "eating one's way to the bar."

In consequence of the total abandonment by those societies, of the purposes for which they were founded, a system has prevailed for a long time in England, of students becoming pupils to persons actually in practice, who undertake to afford them that instruction and guidance which were formerly supplied by the societies in question; and to give them, besides, the opportunity of applying practically the knowledge which they acquire from their reading. If the student has been fortunate enough to find his way into the chambers of a gentleman, who has both the capacity and the disposition to impart to others the knowledge he has acquired himself, and who has at the same time sufficient leisure to attend to the performance of the duties that he has undertaken, he will find his path much smoothened, and his labour considerably lightened. The instances, however, of such good fortune are rare; in the generality of cases, the student does not derive much assistance from his master, who is too much occupied with his own practice to bestow a thought upon the perplexities which beset the pupil's progress; and the latter is left to read the pleadings and precedents in the chambers, and gather meaning from their hopeless jargon, by the light of his own intellect, or by such assistance as his fellow-pupils or the clerks may vouchsafe to him.

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