and now I rejoice that we are at last uniting, in a time of hope and progress, to put away that reproach for ever.

"We may hold various opinions with reference to Grattan's policy and conduct; but we can have no dissension as to his pure and earnest life-his public virtue-his indomitable courage-his true and unchanging devotion to his country-the achievements by which he lighted up the fairest page in our dismal story-the genius which made him matchless amongst the orators of the modern world.

"The Irish Protestant will not hold unworthy of his homage the chief of the great men, of his own faith, whose labours and sacrifices for Ireland have given lustre to their race. The Irish Catholic will be emulous to honour him who, in evil days-untainted by corruption and unawed by power-was the dauntless champion of religious liberty.

"The fame of Henry Grattan is the common and the proud inheritance of all good Irishmen. It is no longer clouded by the mists and heats of faction. It suffers no more from the insolence of authority or the fickleness of the crowd. It lifts him high on the roll of names which live through ages. And we are bound-one and all, of every class and creed-to demonstrate, according to our power, how dear it is to the memory and the heart of Ireland.-Believe me, dear Lord Charlemont, yours faithfully, "THOMAS O'HAGAN.

"The Earl of Charlemont."

In June 1870 the Gazette announced Mr O'Hagan's elevation to the peerage as Baron O'Hagan of Tullahogue. The claim to the title was asserted in virtue of the rights already stated; but it called forth a letter of complaint from the descendant of the Scotch patentee, who deemed it improper in the noble lord to take his title from Tullahogue without Mr Lindsay's leave.

In June 1871, the Trinity Vacation having left the Lord-Chancellor free from judicial duties, he went to London, and the Great Seal of Ireland was placed in custody of commissioners. These were the Right Hon. Judge Fitzgerald, the Right Hon. Baron Deasy, and J. J. Murphy (Master in Chancery). Lord O'Hagan had lost his wife shortly after his elevation to the Chancellorship, and the object of his visit to England was to contract a marriage with Miss Alice Towneley, youngest daughter of Colonel Towneley of Towneley, in Lancashire.

They

The Towneleys had been Lords of Towneley long anterior to that date when the memory of man "runneth not to the contrary." had been distinguished for their rigid adherence to the ancient faith. From Towneley went forth many a priest to the altar, and many a nun to the convent cell. They had fought for the Stuarts when "'twas treason to love them, and death to defend." No less than two of the Towneleys had been beheaded for preferring the House of Stuart to that of Hanover. In the long line which the erudite genealogist, Sir Bernard Burke, traces from the days of Alfred to our own, many of the race held places of honour in their native land. The rank of High Sheriff, chief executive officer within his shire, was theirs many a time. They were famous in the field, and not undistinguished in the closet. Richard Towneley, of Towneley, born in 1628, was an eminent mathe

matician. Another was tutor to the son of James II., and distinguished for his translation of Hudibras into French, by no means an easy task, considering the peculiar style of the poem. Charles Towneley was the collector of the antique statues now known in the British Museum as the "Towneley Marbles."

Colonel Towneley was a true type of an English gentleman. He was a great lover of field sports, and one of his race-horses won the "blue ribbon of the turf." He was also a very successful exhibitor at the great agricultural shows of the kingdom. He married in 1836 Lady Caroline Harriet Molyneux, daughter of the Earl of Sefton. Lady Caroline became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, and emulated her husband in acts of piety and deeds of charity. Three daughters were the offspring of this union. One married Lord Norreys, eldest son of the Earl of Abingdon; another Lord Gordon Lennox, brother of the Duke of Richmond; the youngest, Alice Mary, Lord O'Hagan.

*

The year 1872 had been one of great political importance in the British Empire. The Alabama claims had been settled by the Congress of Geneva. The ballot was made the law of the land, and its doubtful effects were looked forward to with interest. In Ireland the decision of the Galway Election Petition against the return of Captain Nolan excited popular commotion, and the language used by the judge, Mr Justice Keogh, was so calculated to excite the Irish people, always remarkable for their love of their priests, that it set the country in a blaze. Lord O'Hagan attended to his important political duties with diligence, and was considered by his friends to discharge his judicial functions with due efficiency. Severe attacks, however, were made upon him by his associate in the Court of Appeal, Lord-Justice Christian, who, although no doubt actuated by a sense of public duty, and equally courageous in attacking the legislation of a Government or the efficiency of a brother judge, was not generally supported in this instance by public opinion. In addition to open attacks in court, which it must have been painful for the Lord-Justice to make, and in which, indeed, it could not be doubted that he was only actuated by conscientious motives, he was reputed to be the author of a pamphlet handling the Lord-Chancellor with great severity. The fact that this pamphlet was withdrawn from circulation shortly after its appearance relieves us from the unpleasant necessity of going at any length into its contents; the personal criticism we must altogether pass by. We are of opinion that compilers of memoirs of the living and the dead must reverse the maxim de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and leave the faults of the living, of whom during their lifetime we will say nothing but good, to be set forth when the mention of them can no longer give pain. It may be objected that this is not a noble rule, but it is the rule of all civilised society to be courteous to those who are present and to abuse them, if necessary, in their absence. We uphold it as a good and beneficent

* In the Session 1871, the following Irish subjects appear under Lord O'Hagan's name :-Charitable Donations and Bequests; Fenian Prisoners, Release of; Juries; Lunacy Regulation. In Session 1872:-Bankruptcy Amendment; Courts of Quarter-Sessions; O'Keefe, Rev. R., Case of; Galway Election. Session 1873-Government of Ireland; Juries Act; Landlord and Tenant Act; Marriages; Public Records Act.

canon. With respect to Lord O'Hagan's acts, the pamphlet accused him of evading and overriding Acts of Parliament referring to the Court of Chancery in Ireland. These charges came upon the public with surprise, and in the legal profession met with almost universal disapprobation as violating professional etiquette. Of course, it was impossible for the Chancellor to answer a pamphlet which did not bear the distinguished name of its reputed author, but to those attacks which were made upon him in open court he replied, not without dignity, and with comely moderation, Nor was he with out a champion with the pen, although unable to enter the lists personally with an opponent who showed no recognisance. An Irish barrister wrote a reply entitled, "In Chancery-the Lord Justice's Pamphlet." It was divided into forty-one sections, and went seriatim through the allegations of the pamphlet, purporting to show their injustice. The two chief charges against the Lord Chancellor were,— first, delay in bringing out the revised Chancery orders; and, secondly, the alleged encroachments of the chief clerk on the powers of the judge. The reply to these two charges was the chief object of the Irish barrister.

The spring of 1873 witnessed the first rude shock to the stability of the Gladstone administration The Premier had passed two of the three great Irish measures which he had promised to the constituencies. He had disestablished the Irish Church, and had given the farmers a measure of Tenant Rights, and now he approached the difficult question of University Education. He prepared a bill which had the singular infelicity of pleasing no one. He sought to conciliate the Roman Catholics by placing the University of Dublin in the hands of a governing body to be appointed by the Government, with representatives from affiliated colleges, and by closing the Queen's College in Galway, and providing a University where no danger to the Catholic faith could arise, because there were to be no Professors of Modern History and Philosophy. This did not please the Protestants, because they objected to the nomination of the governing body of the Dublin University by the Government, and the suppression of the professorships; they also objected, that by the proposed system the Roman Catholics in course of time would be a majority in the governing body of the university. The Dissenters opposed the bill; the Irish members, Catholic and Protestant, with a unanimity seldom shown, went into the lobby against the Ministry, and placed the Government in a minority of three. Mr Gladstone and his colleagues tendered their resignation, which the Queen accepted, and Mr Disraeli was sent for and asked to form a Ministry. On the evening, in the month of March 1873, when Mr Gladstone in the Commons and Earl Granville in the Lords announced the resignation of Ministers, Lord O'Hagan was in the House of Lords. The bill for legalising marriage with a deceased wife's sister was to be read a second time, and when Lord Houghton proceeded to move the second reading, a question was raised as to whether this could be done when the Ministry had resigned. A case in point for the affirmation was quoted, and the debate went on. Lord Lifford having stated that "the bill excited no opposition in Ireland, and that such marriages there were sanctioned by the Catholic Church," Lord O'Hagan said, "he

would have given a silent vote on the measure, but he wished to correct the noble Lord Lifford. So far from such marriages being looked upon with favour in Ireland, he could say they were the very reverse. Those who contracted them were considered to have acted wrongly. Though they were allowed by the Catholic Church, it was under a dispensation from the Pope, and the fact of this dispensation being necessary showed they were not consonant to the spirit or the practice of the Catholic Church." He opposed the bill. On the question having been put, the majority were against the second reading, and the bill was lost. Mr Disraeli refusing to take office in the face of a hostile majority, Mr Gladstone and his Ministry resumed their various offices and Lord O'Hagan returned to Ireland as Lord Chancellor

THE RIGH HON. RICKARD DEASY, P.C., THIRD BARON OF
THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER IN IRELAND.

BORN A.D. 1812.

THE RIGHT HON. RICKARD DEASY, second son of Rickard Deasy, Esq. of Clonakilty, county Cork, by the daughter of Cotter, Esq., was born at Clonakilty in 1812. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated A.B. 1833, A.M. 1847, and LL.B. and LL.D. 1860. He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1835, and became a Queen's Counsel in 1849. In 1858 he was appointed third sergeant-at-law, and became Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1859, from which post, in 1860, he was promoted to the AttorneyGeneralship, on which occasion he was made a Privy Councillor, He was raised to the bench in 1861 as fourth Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland. He represented the county Cork in the Liberal interest from April 1855 to January 1861. He married in 1861 the youngest daughter, of the late Hugh O'Connor, Esq. of Sackville Street, Dublin.

From his early years Mr Deasy was a most diligent student, and applied himself sedulously to master the theory of the law. Having attended the chambers of some of the eminent pleaders in London, he came to the Irish bar in 1835 fully qualified for immediate business; and his great legal learning was not destined to lie shut up in "the nooks and chambers of his brain," but was soon in great request. Α member of the Munster circuit thus describes him soon after his admission to the bar:-" He possesses a most sensitive disposition, and the eagerness with which he advocates the case of his clients proves the anxiety of his mind. He never abandons his case while an inch of debatable ground remains to be defended; and when he does yield, argument and legal skill are alike exhausted. For some years after being called he confined his practice very much to Equity, and was a laborious reporter in the Court of Chancery. When he joined the Munster circuit he did not soon get into practice. The distinguished men then on the circuit were the tried and trusted leaders and juniors; but as soon as an open was made, Rickard Deasy stepped in, and once placed, his progress was sure. His ready and extensive learning, his

clearness and precision, his well-known assiduity, were at once the passport to practice."

He received the honour of a silk gown in 1849, and soon was established in leading business in the Court of Chancery.

On the elevation of his friend and relative, Mr Burke Roche, M.P., to the peerage as Lord Fermoy, a vacancy occurred in the representation of the county Cork, and Mr Deasy was induced by his numerous friends and admirers to put himself in nomination. His election, however, was contested, but he was returned by a considerable majority. It is highly creditable to Mr Deasy that when he was asked at a large meeting at Cork, if he would pledge himself not to accept place under the Government of the day, he boldly refused to enter into any obligation on the subject.

"As a member of Parliament," observes the same writer already referred to," he is greatly respected, and I doubt much if there is any Irish member on the Liberal side of the house who commands more attention for the moderation of his views, the cogency of his reasoning, and the fairness with which he combats the arguments opposed to him, than this distinguished lawyer."

On the promotion of Mr Sergeant O'Brien to the seat on the Queen's Bench, vacant by the death of Judge More, the Irish Government selected Mr Deasy as her Majesty's third sergeant-at-law.

During his tenure of office as Solicitor-General in 1859, and as Attorney-General in 1860, he conducted the business of the Crown most efficiently, and gave satisfaction to all parties in Ireland.

On becoming Attorney-General he was obliged to seek re-election for the county Cork; but his conduct in Parliament had so disarmed the hostility of the Conservative party that he was allowed to resume the representation without a contest.

As a judge he enjoys the confidence of all classes; and in the circle of private life he is highly esteemed.*

ISAAC BUTT, Q.C., M.P.

BORN A.D. 1813.

ISAAC BUTT, only son of the Rev. Robert Butt, incumbent of Stranorlar, county Donegal, was born in 1813, and claims descent from the O'Donnells, the ancient Irish chiefs of Tyrconnell, and from Berkeley, the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne. He received his early education at the Royal School, of Raphoe, and subsequently at Middleton Endowed School. After a brilliant course in Trinity College, Dublin, of which he was a scholar in 1832, he graduated with high classical and mathematical honours in 1835. In 1836, after a close and interesting

Lord-Justice Christian, in his recent pamphlet on "The Coming Court of Appeal for Ireland," pays the following high tribute to Baron Deasy :-"There is not a gentleman in Ireland-Catholic, Episcopalian-Protestant, Presbyterian, or Free-thinker-but would have acclaimed the appointment [to the Chancellorship] of that practised equity lawyer, approved judge, and true gentleman, Baron Deasy."