tion to facts; in short, he succeeded not only in crippling all his professional efforts, but actually to leave him without a client. Mr. Curran, indeed, appeared as usual in the three other courts; but he had been already stripped of his most profitable practice; and his expenses nearly kept place with his gains, he was almost left a beggar; for all hopes of the wealth and honours of the long robe were now denied him. The memory of this persecution embittered the last moments of Curran's existence; and he could never even allude to it without evincing a just and excusable indignation. In a letter which he addressed to a friend, twenty years after, he says, "I made no compromise with power; I had the merit of provoking and despising the personal malice of every man in Ireland who was the known enemy of the country. Without the walls of the court of justice, my character was pursued with the most persevering slander; and within those walls, though I was too strong to be beaten down by any judicial malignity, it was not so with my clients; and my consequent losses in professional income have never been estimated at less, as you must have often heard, than £30,000."

The incidents attendant upon this disagreement, were at times ludicrous in the extreme. One day, when it was known that Curran was to make an elaborate argument in Chancery, Lord Clare, (the title of Fitzgibbon) brought a large Newfoundland dog upon the bench with him and during the progress of the argument, he lent his ear much more to the dog than to the barrister. At last the Chancellor seemed to lose all regard to decency; he turned him

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self quite aside, in the most material part of the case, and began in full court to fondle the animal. Curran stopped short: "Go on, go on, Mr. Curran," said Lord Clare. "Oh!" replied Mr. Curran, "I beg a thousand pardons, my lord; I really took it for granted that your lordship was employed in consultation."

MISTAKING SIDES.

A Scottish advocate, (we believe the present Lord Hd,) who had drank rather too freely, was called on unexpectedly to plead in a cause in which he had been retained. The lawyer mistook the party for whom he was engaged, and, to the great amazement of the agent who had feed him, and the absolute horror of the poor client who was in court, he delivered a long and fervent speech, directly opposite to the interests he had been called upon to defend. Such was his zeal, that no whispered remonstrance, no jostling of the elbow, could stop him, in medio gurgite dicendi. But just as he was about to sit down, the trembling solicitor in a brief note informed him, that he had been pleading for the wrong party. This intimation, which would have disconcerted most men, had a very different effect on the advocate, who, with an air of infinite composure, resumed his oration. "Such, my lords," said he, “is the statement which you will probably hear from my learned brother on the opposite side in this cause. I shall now therefore beg leave, in a few words, to show your lordship how utterly untenable are the principles, and how distorted are the facts, upon which this very specious

statement has proceeded." The learned gentleman then went over the whole ground, and did not take his seat until he had completely and energetically refuted the whole of his former pleading.

A similar circumstance happened in the Rolls Court, on the 11th of July, 1788.

Mr. A., an eminent counsel, received a brief in court a short time before the cause was called on, for the purpose of opposing the prayer of a petition. Mr. A. conceiving himself to be the petitioner, spoke very ably in support of the petition, and was followed by a counsel on the same side. The Master of the Rolls then inquired who opposed the petition? Mr. A. having by this time discovered his mistake, rose in much confusion, and said, that he felt really much ashamed for a blunder into which he had fallen, but that, instead of supporting the petition, it was his business to have opposed it. The Master of the Rolls, with great good humour, desired him to proceed now on the other side, observing, he knew no counsel who could answer his arguments so well as himself.

SIR VICARY GIBBS.

In the trial of Hardy for high treason, Mr. (afterwards Sir Vicary) Gibbs, in rising to address the jury on behalf of the prisoner, fainted away. After he had somewhat recovered himself, he turned about suddenly, and bursting into tears, assured the jury that it was his anxiety for the miserable man at the bar, and his own consciousness of his inability to do him that justice in his defence that he wished, that had overpowered him.

THE TABLES TURNED.

A very respectable gentleman once appeared at Westminster Hall, to justify bail. The counsel, determining to be very witty upon him, opened upon him in the following extraordinary manner :

Pray, sir, is there not a certain lady who lives with you

?

"Yes, sir, there is.

"

'Oh, there is; and I suppose, if the truth were known, that lady has been very expensive to you?

"Yes, sir, that lady has been very expensive to

me.

"And I suppose you have had children by that lady, and they too have cost you a good deal of money?

"Yes, they have.

"And yet you have come here to justify bail to a large amount!

The counsel thought he had now done enough to prevent the confidence of the court being placed in the gentleman; when the latter raising his voice, indignantly said, "It is true, Mr. Counsellor, that there is a lady lives with me, but that lady is my wife; we have been married these fifteen years, and have children and whoever has a wife and children, will find them expensive."

The counsellor looked a little foolish at this unexpected retort, which the gentleman followed up by asking him (with permission of the bench) "whether in his brief, or otherwise, he had instructions to insult

a respectable citizen, and a man of honour, by impertinent questions?" To this, as may be expected, no answer was made.

CHALLENGING A JURY.

An Irish colonel of Dragoons, previous to a trial in which he was the defendant, was informed by his counsel, that if there were any of the jury to whom he had any personal objections, he might legally challenge them. Faith, and so I will," replied the son of Mars; "if they do not bring me off handsomely, I will challenge every man of them."

LORD NORBURY.

The following anecdotes belong more properly perhaps to the bench than the bar; but the learned Judge to whom they relate would say, that ought not to be a bar to their insertion. Lord Norbury, whose love of punning is proverbial, and not always very consistent with the dignity of the bench, gave the following characteristic specimen of this foible in a civil action, respecting the validity of an alleged marriage between a Mr. Watson, and a Margaret Lee. His lordship began by congratulating Mr. Clarke (who closed the case for the plaintiff) on the great powers of his Stentorian lungs, which he had used so effectually, as to have made himself heard, not only by every person in the court, but by the very passengers in the mail-coaches that went by the window: he was highly pleased to see Mr. Clarke exert himself so ably for his client; he wished at all

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