1835; Queen's Serjeant, 1842. He was raised to the Bench in 1843, as Judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland, was sworn a Privy Councillor in the following month, and elected a Bencher of the King's Inns, Dublin, in 1843. He was Judge of the Probate Court in Ireland from January 1858 to October 1868. He never held a seat in Parliament.

During the fifteen years he presided over the Prerogative Court he maintained the high character he won at the bar; but it is chiefly in connection with the Court of Probate that his name is most favourably known. There are not, perhaps, to be found in the history of legal reform instances of measures more sweeping in their character, or more productive of beneficial results, than those introduced into England and Ireland by the Probate Acts of 1858. The provisions of the Irish Act were identical with those of the English, mutatis mutandis. But the difficulty of administering the new law was far greater in Ireland, owing to the disturbing elements of religious prejudices excited in every case, involving a question of undue influence, alleged to have been exercised by persons in ecclesiastical positions. It is, however, creditable to the independent spirit of the jurors called upon to serve in the Irish Court of Probate in cases of this nature, that they almost without an exception returned verdicts satisfactory, not only to the judge, but to all classes of the community having no interest in the issues except the furtherance of justice. To the judicious but fearless manner in which the judge discharged his duties are mainly to be attributed these satisfactory results. He possessed, perhaps in a higher degree than any of the ablest or most experienced of the Common Law Judges, the power of presenting the most complicated cases in the clearest and most exhaustive manner to a jury But while he fully reviewed the evidence on both sides in all its bearings, he never hesitated to indicate his own impression. As a natural consequence of this tendency, it was only to be expected that his charges should have been sometimes censured by disappointed suitors and their counsel as too one-sided, and usurping the proper functions of the jury. This, however, is an objection which has been made at some time or other against the ablest Judges of the benches of England and Ireland; but there are occasions when it seems proper that a judge should give a decided opinion on questions of fact, rather than add to the bewilderment of a jury by a vague and uncertain charge.

Judge Keatinge's knowledge of the Law of Evidence was only surpassed by his knowledge of Testamentary Law; and it always seemed hopeless to move for a new trial on the ground of the improper reception or rejection of evidence, or of misdirection on questions of law by this learned Judge. But it was not alone as a judge presiding at a trial before a jury that he gained his high reputation-in contentious business of every kind his knowledge of Probate Law and practice was equally remarkable.

When Lord Derby's Administrations of 1858 and 1866 were in course of formation, Judge Keatinge was confidently named for the Chancellorship; and there can be no doubt that his appointment to the highest office in the profession would have been hailed with the greatest satisfaction on the part of the legal and general public.

THE RIGHT HON. DAVID RICHARD PIGOT, LORD CHIEF BARON OF THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER IN IRELAND.

BORN 1796-DIED 1873.

THE Right Hon. David Richard Pigot, son of a physician at Kilworth, county Cork, was born in 1796. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and took the degrees of A.B. in 1819, and A M. in 1832, and was called to the Irish bar in 1826, and made King's Counsel in 1835. He was Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1839, AttorneyGeneral from 1840 till September 1841, and was appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1846. He sat for Clonmel in the Liberal interest from 1839 till 1846. He was appointed one of the visitors of Maynooth College in 1845. He was sworn a Privy Councillor on becoming Attorney-General for Ireland in 1840. He became a member of the Senate of the Queen's University in Ireland, and a Commissioner of National Education. He was elected a Bencher of the Hon. Society of King's Inns in 1839, and elevated to the Bench as Chief Baron in 1846, in the room of Chief Baron Brady, appointed Lord-Chancellor of Ireland.

Mr Pigot, as Solicitor-General for Ireland and member for Clonmel, entered Parliament at a very stormy period in the history of Irish politics. The murder of Lord Norbury in January of the year 1841 had produced the greatest excitement among the nobility and landed gentry throughout the country. On the assembling of Parliament, Mr Shaw, one of the members for Dublin University, brought forward his celebrated motion for returns on the criminal statistics of Ireland. On this debate the Irish Solicitor-General made his first appearance, and created a most favourable impression in the House. He next took part in the adjourned debate on the same motion, which was renewed after the recess with increased vigour on both sides. On this occasion Mr Pigot added considerably to his reputation as a debater, and as an able representative of the Government. All through his subsequent Parliamentary career he took part in all the principal debates on Irish questions, and carried many important measures of reform, affecting the administration of the law in Ireland. Few Irish law officers have been more fortunate in gaining the respect and high opinion of all parties in the House of Commons, and his elevation to the Bench on Lord Russell's return to power in 1846 was justly considered the wellearned reward of his services to the Government as Solicitor and Attorney-General, and to his party as a private member in the interval between the end of the year 1841, when he resigned the post of Attorney-General, and the end of the year 1846, when he was created Lord Chief Baron.

From that period till his death on the 22nd of December 1873, he maintained the highest reputation as a learned and upright judge. For sound legal erudition his name stands deservedly high, both among his Irish brethren and the English Judges and Law Lords.

As a Nisi-Prius Judge, the Chief Baron was accused of overscrupulousness in taking down the testimony of witnesses: but after a

judicial career of twenty-seven years, it may be said that an extreme anxiety to do justice was the only fault that could be laid to his charge. As an amiable and accomplished gentleman, there were few men more highly esteemed. He is interred at Kilworth, his native place.

BARON FITZGERALD.

BORN A.D. 1805.

THE Hon. Francis Alexander Fitzgerald, second Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, was the second son of Maurice Fitzgerald, Esq., M.D. He was born in 1805, and received his early education at Middleton School, in the county Cork. After a brilliant undergraduate career he took the degree of A.B. in Trinity College, Dublin, in 1827, and of A.M. in 1832. He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1834; appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1849; and a Bencher of the King's Inns, Dublin, 1857. He was raised to the Bench in 1859 as fourth Baron of the Court of Exchequer.

Mr Fitzgerald while at school gave early indications of those brilliant abilities which secured his fame and advancement in after life. His brother, the present Bishop of Killaloe, so favourably known in the literary world, was also educated at Middleton, and Mr Turpin, the master of that celebrated school, and one of the most distinguished scholars of the day, truly foretold the destinies of the two brothers when he declared that the elder should be a bishop, and the younger a judge. Having carried off the highest honours in College, Mr Fitzgerald graduated in 1827, and commenced to study for the bar. Soon after his admission in 1834, he selected the Equity Bar, and was a constant attendant in the Court of Chancery and the Rolls. It was some time, however, before his abilities became known, and it has been said that he seriously determined at one time to abandon the profession in disgust. But wiser counsels prevailed, and he persevered until he got the wished-for opportunity of proving his extraordinary capacity as a lawyer. In a very few years afterwards his abilities were publicly recognised, and his reputation for industry and learning became fully established. His progress was now so rapid that he became a Queen's Counsel in 1849, and took rank beside the great leaders of the Equity Bar. He never took any active part in politics, and his preferment was the reward of his acknowledged ability.

Mr Christian, who was brought into constant rivalry with Mr Fitzgerald, although junior in years, had a considerable start, having been called to the Inner Bar in 1845. The latter, however, quickly made up for this disadvantage, and it soon became a moot question to which of the two eminent and accomplished lawyers the higher rank should be assigned. On this nice point a good deal of eloquence and ingenuity was expended by the junior Bar and the Solicitors of the Court of Chancery. The result of this competitive examination appears to have been that in point of legal learning they were considered nearly on a par; that Mr Fitzgerald possessed a somewhat higher order of intellect; and that their respective styles, though widely different, were

equally effective. Mr Fitzgerald's manner was more natural and energetic, and occasionally impassioned. Mr Christian's, on the other hand, was artificial, elaborate, and calm, and derived its force rather from the vigour of language than the vigour of elocution. It is not easy to determine whether this comparison affords a just appreciation of the characters of the two men, but if their merits are to be measured by professional success, they stand on an almost perfect equality. Mr Fitzgerald, so far as we can ascertain, never practised in the Common Law Court, his first and only appearance before one of those tribunals being in O'Brien's case, when he acquitted himself in a manner worthy of the high estimate formed of him by his client.

Since his elevation to the bench Mr Baron Fitzgerald has exhibited all the requisite qualities of a good judge-clearness of intellect, integrity of purpose, urbanity of manner, strict impartiality, and a total absence of religious or political bias. His advance in dignity had not the common effect of rendering him either proud, formal, or reserved. In the sacred seclusion of private life he commands the admiration and affectionate esteem of all.

THE RIGHT HON. JAMES HENRY MONAHAN, CHIEF-JUSTICE OF the COMMON PLEAS IN IRELAND.

BORN A.D. 1805.

THE Right Hon. James Henry Monahan was born at Portumna, county Galway, in 1805. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained the gold medal of 1823 in science. He graduated A.B. in the same year, and in 1860 took the degrees of LL.B. and LL.D. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1828; and he was made a Queen's Counsel in 1840. He was Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1846-7, and Attorney-General in 1847-50, when he was appointed ChiefJustice of the Common Pleas. He was elected a Bencher of the Hon. Society of King's Inns in 1847, and appointed a Commissioner of National Education in 1861. He was one of the members in the Liberal interest for Galway from February to August 1847. He was sworn a member of the Privy Council on becoming Attorney-General. As Solicitor and Attorney-General Mr Monahan discharged his duties to the Crown most efficiently during a very trying and critical period in the history of his country. His reputation as a sound and able lawyer always stood deservedly high Since, his elevation to the Bench he has enjoyed the entire confidence of the Bar and public as an upright and conscientious judge. The very opposite of his contemporary, the Chief Baron, he has been accused of erring occasionally by an over-expeditious method of disposing of Nisi-Prius business. His career in Parliament was very short, and requires no particular comHis public services were so fully recognised at that period that he was promoted to the first vacancy, which occurred a few months after he entered Parliament as the representative of his native county.

ment.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JAMES WHITESIDE, LL.D., D.C.L. P.C., LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE OF IRELAND,

BORN A.D. 1806,

CHIEF-JUSTICE WHITESIDE is one of the most distinguished living Irishmen, whether we look to the part which he has borne in the home politics of Ireland, with which he was connected in a leading but chiefly professional capacity, or to his position in the House of Commons, in which he was one of the principal Conservative debaters. It has been truly said that he is "the only survivor of the old eloquence at the Irish bar," and in Parliament he was on several occasions put up against Mr Bright, Sir James Graham, Mr Gladstone, Earl Russell, and Lord Palmerston, as an antagonist of similar calibre. He is one of those whose great speeches are each in itself a title to fame. He could brace himself up for some grand occasion, and erect to himself a monument of speech. If it must be admitted that on slight occasions ChiefJustice Whiteside, when at the bar, was too fond of sporting with his subject, such Samson-like sport was counterbalanced by Samson-like feats of intellectual strength when a great occasion demanded. He was born at Delgany, in the county of Wicklow, in August 1806, and was a son of the Rev. William Whiteside, and brother of the late Rev. Dr Whiteside, vicar of Scarborough. He married, in 1833, Rosetta, daughter of William Napier, Esq., of Belfast, and sister of Sir Joseph Napier, Bart., ex-Lord-Chancellor of Ireland. During his university career he was a highly distinguished member of the Historical Society which preceded the present. We have not been able to find his name as an office-bearer, but he gave brilliant and showy promise of a great oratorical success. He was a contemporary of Mr Butt, who was twice auditor, or president as the office was then called, Dr Ball, Archer Butler, M'Cullagh, and other eminent men, since become remarkable in politics and letters. He graduated with honours in 1827, having obtained many classical honours and a scholarship in his undergraduate course. The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by his own university, and he was created D.C.L. at Oxford in 1863.

After obtaining his degree in Dublin, he proceeded to London, and commenced the study of the law, to which he applied himself with great assiduity. The next three years of his life were spent at the Temple; during this period he belonged to the first Law Class of the London University, and obtained honours in it. He had the advantage of studying under Professor Amos, the author of several legal works, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and successor of Macaulay in India. During his London life Mr Whiteside made a remarkable figure at a public debating club in which he maintained his practice as a speaker. He also studied from the living models of the English law-courts; and his "Early Sketches" of Denman, Macintosh, Scarlett, Wetherell, and Wilde, and of Earl Grey as a statesman, show him to have been a keen observer of the men who