As we have introduced Mr. Whiteside in our procession, it would be unjust to omit his double, Mr. Napier. His talents deserve honourable record, and we forthwith enrol him. Sensible of the advantage which both parties would derive from his abilities, there was a rush of both to secure them. The crown was the more fortunate. And herein lies a question connected with the ethics of the retaining system, which merits some investigation. The first was sent to his house by the traversers. Happening at the time to be luxuriating in the scenery of Rosstrevor, the crown forwarded a retainer to Mr. Napier on a subsequent day, which came to hand in due course. On his return, both sides insisted on his services, the traversers on the ground of a first engagement, the crown on the ground that their retainer first reached his breeches-pockets. The position of Mr. N. was in some degree a delicate one, though he might safely satisfy a scrupulous conscience by following the usual and well-recognised principle of "first come, first served." Mr. N. hesitated-he refined on the nature of retainers, and felt strongly on the fact of having first received the crown money-the attorneys on the opposite side urged the dangers which would arise if lawyers were not bound by the "house-practice. How were they to know whether he happened to be at home or not? To suppose a case-A lawyer of sufficient importance to attract the anxiety of contending parties, and whose avaricious eye might look to a larger fee from the rich than the needy client, had only to escape for a few hours from town, and receive in his retreat the rich man's retainer, though the poor man's in the meanwhile might be lying under red tape on his writing-desk. Three solicitors, chosen by Mr. Napier, decided the point in favour of the crown! The tribunal was unnecessary. Mr. Napier, who is so attached to precedents, might appeal to invariable usage-to the lex et consuetudo of the profession. Against his election the attorneys for the accused entered a formal protest, lest future lawyers should sacrifice the public interests in attending too closely to their own. Mr. Napier is gifted with too high a sense of honour, and a spirit above the mean and the mercenary, to abandon his duty, or fritter it away with nice distinctions-what was done we doubt not was conscientiously done; but the community demand a protection, independent of individual conviction. So far as to the introductory matter. Mr. Napier is facile princeps at the head of our pleaders. Whatever of the abstruse or perplexing in that department is to be accomplished, finds its way into his ingenious hands. He takes as much delight in elaborating a difficult set of pleas as Burke Bethel in a venison party and a bottle of claret. He is a very walking machine of points and crotchets. He would detect a curve in the straightest line, and demonstrate the perfect inequality of two right angles. The plainest surface is with him uneven where a billiard ball would roll for miles, his inventive genius would raise mountains. There is nothing impossible to his powers of argument e contra. Where all is clear and direct, he will take the opposite side, and raise up a pyramid of contradictions "most marvellous to see." When his feelings are earnestly enlisted in any cause, he is apt to grow rhetorical, and enliven the dreary landscape of a law argument with the hues of fancy! He is wonderfully acute as a reasoner, but often refined beyond intelligibility. We would consider him the most law-learned man at the bar. Dowling's Practice cases" are not too hot," or Lutwich and the year books "too cold for him." Like the player in Hamlet, he is thoroughly at home in everything. It is said of Lord Campbell when at the bar, that a junior unexpectedly asked him about some cross question of practice, and that he referred the interrogator to a case in point, naming the volume of the report- tradition does not add the page. If Lord Campbell did not, Mr. Napier could. Pope lisped in numbers. He must have lisped in cases, for he has them all spread out before him, mutually aiding and comforting each other, like the branches in a royal genealogical tree. But Mr Napier has not chewed the leaves of old reports alone-the labour of a life, and a long one-he is a person of cultivated mind and literary taste, in which he is forbidden to indulge, more from his business than his inclinations. He is a great favourite with all their lordships, and with the profession, from his gentle manners and obliging disposition. There is no glory without some attendant ill. Mr. Napier is unhappily afflicted with a degree of deafness, which militates against his court success, and mars the enjoyment of his high position. Mr. Holmes would have been more prominent in our notice, had he not exhausted our approbation on a former occasion. He was the first in our "Note-Book," and we see no reason to alter our early opinions. He is now gifted with the rudis-not the Latin adjective, but the Roman symbol of long and faithful service, and he might retire from the arena where he has so often triumphed. It would give us more pleasure to see him among the counsel for the accused. The other props of the crown are Mr. Freeman, a leading advocate on the Munster circuit-Mr. Martley, a lawyer, scholar, and gentlemanMr. Smiley and Mr. Baker, stuff-gownsmen, the last distinguished for his general as well as professional attainments. And here we rest. We have aimed at impartiality-have we found it? It is often difficult, and always invidious, to touch on the virtues or failings of those whom we meet in the walks of private or the crowded thoroughfares of public life. If friends were reasonable, and opponents generous or even just, our task would be less arduous, and we might hope, if not for approbation, at least the candid acknowledgment that we sought or said nothing at the expense of truth. Whether we are so fortunate we know not, but in what we have written we have been as little influenced by favour as by fear. Since the notice of Mr. Napier was written, the correspondence between him and the attorneys for the traversers has been published. The following extract from his letter puts his defence on the strongest grounds, though the main question and principle involved seem to us almost untouched. "A fortnight has elapsed this day since I forwarded from Belfast in due course of post a formal communication to Mr. Mahony that I had received and accepted a retainer for the crown before I had been apprised that he had left for me a retainer on behalf of Mr O'Connell and his son. During that interval I have appeared in court on several occasions as one of the counsel for the prosecution, taking part in the consultations, and shared the coufidence of the law officers of the crown with reference to this case; and I am now for the first time required, upon what you state to be your anxiously considered and deliberate opinion of the duties of my profession, to take my place amongst the counsel for the traversers.' Whether there could be found at the Irish bar a man who conld be guilty of treachery so base and meanness so contemptible, it is not for me to say; but I wil afirm that instead of occupying the honourable position of one whose services might be considered desirable by both parties, he would be unworthy the notice of either. I cannot for a moment suppose that you intended seriously to propose I should thas compromise my integrity and my character. Whatever may have been your real object, it LA BELLE BLANCHE AND HER ABIGAIL BY MRS. CRAWFORD. My heart has not one joyous string, Mine has been pierced with many darts. Lord John declared he could not tarry, I'll rouse my pride, and break his chain; No, no-I'm out with Lord Quadrille ; Heigh-ho! Pray, don't forget the kalidor, Pearl powder too; oh! what a bore! These vile cosmetics, dress, and paint ;- Heigh-ho! I've often heard my mother say And girls were not obliged to woo, I'll go to Lady Dangle's ball, I'm sure I shall eclipse them all: That dress with roses; pray, Bab, mind is but right to inform you of the true facts. Mr. Mahony's retainer was dated as the 21st October, and left at my house about the 25th. It was notified to every person who inquired, that I was in Belfast, but daily expected to return. On the 27th Mr. Mahony had a consultation, of which I had not any intimation; he was aware on that day I had not returned. A clerk from Mr. Kemmis's office called at my house and was informed I was in Belfast. He left a retainer for the crown, aud Mr. Kemmis addressed and forwarded a letter to me at Belfast containing a duplicate retainer. This reached me before I was apprised of Mr. Mahony's retainer, and I accepted that which was first offered. Mr. Malony's docket reached me after I had sent off my answer to Mr. Kemmis, and by the very next post I wrote to Mr. Mahony that I had for the first time ascertained that he had left a retainer, and that before I was apprised of it, I had accepted a retainer for the crown. This letter, I presume, reached, Mr. Mahony on Tuesday, 31st October; on that day I returned to Dublin, and having (to my surprise) heard from my friend Mr. Whiteside that Mr. Mahony still expected my services, and being desirons to act with every regard to professional propriety, I waited on Mr. Holmes, and at his suggestion I made inquiry from several of the most experienced and respectable members of your own profession as to the course of practice on such an occasion. They all concurred in the opinion that, according to the practice in Ireland, where papers are not received through the intervention of a clerk, as in England, a personal communication had priority. I'm only twenty-one to-morrow, And yet the fates have wrought such sorrow! Go, Bab, and fetch my Paris bonnet, Well, thank my stars, she's gone, a fidget! Miss Blanch is worse than Lady Bridget; Look, here's a room, a perfect litter! She thinks there's nothing else to do ;- THE PALAIS ROYAL.1 BY THE AUTHOR OF "HENRI QUATRE, OR THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE." CHAPTER V. "The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong; SHAKSPEARE. ST. MAUR had not been many minutes in his precarious retreat, ere the annoyance he felt was changed to dismay and extreme alarm for the imprudence he had been guilty of. The astrologer had thrown aside his mask, and disclosed features which could not but be well known, at least throughout the capital. It was the Cardinal Mazarin who sat thus lowlily at the feet of the lady; and she, by the language used, if other evidence were wanting, could be no other than the queen-regent, Anne of Austria, as she was popularly called. By degrees, for the confusion of the young man was so great, that he could not readily connect his ideas, the mystery of the last twenty-four hours was disappearing. He heard enough to warrant the general opinion of the extreme regard, if not affection, entertained by her majesty for the minister; and by incidental remarks he learned the extreme caution adopted by the Queen in preserving their more private interviews a secret, even to the confidential members of her household. Often when it was believed in Paris, and even in the Palais Royal, that Mazarin was closely shut up in his hotel, afraid to venture out through fear for his personal safety, and also, that his presence at the palace should not compromise his royal mistress in her pretended overtures to the party of the Prince of Condé; and when it was supposed that the Queen herself, distracted with her perilous situation, and the imminent danger which hung over the young King, was at prayers in her oratory, or had retired for that holy purpose to the convent of the Val-de-Grace-a convent which she had removed from the valley of that name to Paris, building for the nuns a sumptuous edifice, and endowing it with rich revenues-she was in reality in close conference with the minister-either at his own domicile, to which she had resorted in disguise, or at the Val-de-Grace, or other favoured spot. It did not require much sagacity to identify her majesty with the elder lady, whom our young adventurer had had the honour to escort to the convent. If he had been himself more at ease, he might have admired the courage or obstinacy, as many called it, of the queen, in clinging at all risks to her favourite minister, and incurring such peril for his sake. But his own danger he deemed very great, for although he had by some rare accident found very easy access to the privacy of majesty, he could not but suppose that aid was close at hand in the 1 Continued from vol. xxxviii. page 368. |