It is easy to conceive that this publication, from the pen of a very gentlemanly, well-educated barrister, who had defended the monster at the bar and the Duke of York in Hyde Park, and showed himself ready and willing to write or fight with any man or body of men in Ireland, naturally made no small bustle and fuss among a portion of the university-men. Those who had kept out of the scrape by neither marrying nor doing worse, were reported not to be in any state of deep mourning on the subject, as their piety was the more conspicuous; and it could not hurt the feelings of either of them to reflect that he might possibly get a step in his promotion, on account of the defection of those seniors whose hearts might be broken, or removal made necessary, by the never-ending perseverance of this tremendous barrister, who had christened his son Dean Swift, that he might appear a relative of that famous churchman, the patron and idol of the Irish people.
The gentlemen of the long robe were, of course, delighted with the occurrence: they had not for a long time met with so full and fair an opportunity of expending every sentence of their wit, eloquence, law, and logic, as in taking part in this celebrated controversy. I was greatly rejoiced at finding on my table a retainer against the fellows and parsons of Trinity College, whom I formerly considered as a narrow-minded and untalented body of men, getting from 1000l. to 1500l. a year each for teaching several hundred students how to remain ignorant of most of those acquirements that a well-educated gentleman ought to be master of: it is true, the students had a fair chance of becoming good Latin scholars, of gaining a little Greek and Hebrew, and of understanding several books of Euclid, with three or four chapters of Locke on the Human Understanding, and a sixpenny treatise on logic written by the Rev. Dr. Murray, a very good divine, (one of the body,) to prove clearly that sophistry is superior to reason.[[73]] This being my opinion of them, I felt no qualms of conscience in undertaking the defence of Theophilus Swift, Esq., though most undoubtedly a gross libeller. It is only necessary to say, that Lord Clonmel, who had been (I believe) a sizer himself in that university, and, in truth, all the judges felt indignant (and with good reason) at Theophilus Swift’s so violently assailing and disgracing, in the face of the empire, the only university in Ireland—thus attacking the clergy though he defended a monster.
[73]. Nothing can so completely stamp the character of the university of Dublin as their suppression of the only school of eloquence in Ireland—“The Historical Society;”—a school from which arose some of the most distinguished, able, and estimable characters that ever appeared in the forum, or in the parliament of Ireland: this step was what the blundering Irish would call—“advancing backwards.”
An information was in due form granted against Theophilus; and as he could neither deny the fact nor plead a justification to the libel, of course we had but a bad case of it. But the worse the case the harder an Irish barrister always worked to make it appear a good one. I beg here to observe, that the Irish bar were never so decorous and mild at that time, as to give up their briefs in desperate cases, as I have seen done in England—politely to save (as asserted) public time, and conciliate their lordships: thus sending their clients out of court, because they thought they were not defensible. On the contrary, as I have said, the worse the case entrusted to an Irish barrister, the more zealously did he labour and fight for his client. If he thought it indefensible, why take a fee? but his motto was—While there is life there is hope. During the speeches of these resolute advocates, in obstinate cases, powder and perspiration mingled in cordial streams adown their features: their mouths, ornamented at each corner with generous froth, threw out half-a-dozen arguments, with tropes and syllogisms to match, while English gentlemen would have been cautiously pronouncing one monosyllable, and considering most discreetly what the next should be. In short, they always stuck to their cause to the very last gasp!—and it may appear fabulous to a steady, regular English expounder of the law, and conceder of cases, that I have repeatedly seen a cause which the bar, the bench, and the jury, seemed to think was irrevocably lost,—after a few hours’ rubbing and puffing, (like the exertions of the Humane Society,) brought into a state of restored animation; and, after another hour or two of cross-examination and perseverance, the judges and jury have changed their impressions, and sent home the cause quite alive in the pockets of the lawful owner and his laborious solicitor.
In making these observations, I cannot but mention a gentleman long at the very head of the bar, as prime serjeant of Ireland, Mr. James Fitzgerald.[[74]] I had a great friendship for him: I knew him in extensive practice, and never saw him give up one case while it had a single point to rest upon, or he a puff of breath left to defend it; nor did I ever see any barrister succeed, either wholly or partially, in so many cases out of a given number, as Mr. Fitzgerald: and I can venture to say (at least to think), that had that Right Honourable James Fitzgerald been sent ambassador to Stockholm in the place of the Right Honourable Vesey Fitzgerald, his cher garçon, he would have worked Bernadotte to the stumps, by treating him just as if he were a motion in the court of exchequer. There was no treaty which the government of England might have ordered him to insist upon, that he would not have carried, at all events to a degree, and pleaded for costs into the bargain.
[74]. This is the Mr. James Fitzgerald who gave up the highest office of his profession rather than betray his country:—he opposed the Union zealously, and received and deserved the most flattering address from the Irish bar.