legal requirements of the Irish nation. Thus centralized, and the Lord Lieutenancy abolished, the record of Ireland's wrongs will become so foul, so base, so horrible, that if the most deeply damned fiend could read our history by the blaze of hell's fiercest fire, he would shudder at the degradation of a people who, year by year, have suffered themselves to be bullied into slavery and bribed into patient acquiescence. But deep as this degradation might be, there are old recollections-dreams now, but, in brighter and better times, glowing realities-which, despite all the decay that has, and yet may, come upon us, give, and must ever give, a golden ray to the decline of the Irish Bar. Even at this day there are men who, like Macdonough, and Fitzgibbon, and Brewster, and Christian, illustrate it by their learning and ability; men who, like Whiteside and like Butt, make it glorious by an eloquence and by a power of advocacy which rise with the importance of the subject, and swell in grandeur, in intensity, and in earnestness, as difficulties gather round the client. Young men who, like Armstrong, and Meagher, and Ball, make the junior ranks of the profession junior only in their years, and in the period of their callThese and others, are men who worthily represent the brave, proud old days of Ireland, in which the gown of the lawyer was as honorable as the ribbon of a peer, and when the profession of an Irish barrister was, as the great Chancellor D'Agesseau writes of that of the French advocate-" Nobility without title, rank without birth, and riches without an estate." Amongst the most brilliant of all the brilliant lawyers who have distinguished this country within the last seventy years, Charles Kendal Bushe was the most remarkable-as a patriot, whilst patriotism was virtue; the most national whilst life continued the equal, if not the victor, of Plunket, as a lawyer and as an advocate; his equal-few men since the creation of the world were his superiors-as an orator. He was born before patriotism was looked upon as the creed of an Utopian, or as a marketable commodity to be sold for money, or bartered for place and title. Springing from respectable, but not from patrician parents, he rose to high offices in the state; and after years of party strife, of political turmoil, and of official and judicial service, no man can point to his grave and call him a traitor, a time-server, a renegade to his early principles, or a self-seeker in any portion of his long career. Charles Kendal Bushe was born on the 13th day of January, 1767, at Kilmurry, about a mile from Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny. The family of Bushe are stated to have first settled in Ireland under the Viceroyalty of Lord Carteret, and their founder was Secretary in this country during part of the reign of William III.; but we have been informed that some branch of the family was resident in the county of Kilkenny so early as the reign of James II. Secretary Bushe, however, purchased, or acquired by grant, very considerable property in the neighbourhood of Thomastown, including Kilfane, now the estate of Sir John Power, which came into the possession of the late, and first, baronet by marriage with Harriet, daughter of Gervais Parker Bushe, of Kilfane. About the year 1690, the member of the Bushe family who was then proprietor of Kilfane, married Eleanor Wandesford, sister of the first Viscount Wandesford. By her he had two sons who inherited, Amyas, the elder, Kilfane, from whom the Kilfane Bushes sprung. To Arthur, the younger, was left Kilmurry, a not very considerable property, and severed from the family estates. Thomas Bushe, the eldest son of Arthur, entered into holy orders and married Catherine Doyle, sister of the late General Sir John Doyle, who was Colonel of the 87th Regiment, and afterwards governor of Guernsey. The owners of Kilmurry had unfortunately encumbered it, and the Rev. Thomas Bushe was compelled to either sell or mortgage the property, and to accept the rectorship of Mitchelstown in the county of Cork, and the chaplainship of Kingston College.* *Kingston College is a handsome and extensive range of building raised in the lifetime of the founder, James Lord Kingston, who endowed it with £25,000, to be vested as trustees, in the Archbishop of Cashel, and the Bishops of Cloyne, Waterford, and Limerick, and to be devoted after the completion of the buildings to the support of a chaplain, of twelve poor gentlemen, and eighteen poor gentlewomen, with preference to such as had been tenants on the Kingston estate. The duty of the chaplain is to read morning and evening prayers daily, to preach a sermon every Sunday morning, and to administer the sacrament at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, for which he receives the sum of £120 per annum, with a house and garden: the inmates must be members of the Established Church: they each receive £40 per annum, and to every two a house. The buildings are sixteen dwellinghouses, with a chapel in the centre of the row, and beneath the chapel is placed the vault of the Kingston family. Before leaving Kilmurry two children were born to hima daughter named Elizabeth, and Charles, called also Kendal, which name was given to him in memory of Mr. Kendal, who had left by will to the Rev. Thomas Bushe, the property entitled Mount Juliet, then, and afterwards, occupied by Lord Carrick. Charles' first school days were passed at Ballytore, in the county Kildare, where the great Edmund Burke received his early instruction, and his later in the academy of Mr. Craig, a clergyman who resided in Henry-street, Dublin. At this school his companions were Theobald Wolfe Tone and Dr. Miller, the author of the Philosophy of History. Of his boyish years nothing very remarkable is related; he was not notorious for stupidity like Swift and Sheridan; he was not remarkable for ability like Erskine or Scott. After the usual school probation, he entered Trinity College in the month of July, 1782. His career there was honorable to his ability, and he carried off the gold medal from very able and remarkable competitors, and in the year 1783 he obtained a scholarship, with eight first best marks. At the period of his entrance into College the Historical Society was in the full zenith of its reputation. It had been founded by Grattan and by his coevals, and with Bushe, the speakers were Plunket, Miller, Graves, and Magee. But it was ever viewed with jealousy and distrust by the Board. It is unnecessary here to refer at any length to the history of its expulsion from the College. It is sufficient to state that the expressed reasons were as follow :-Miller, when junior Dean, and whilst walking in the Old-square one evening during the summer vacation, observed the entrance of a carriage from which there descended three young men and two women. He knew that these men occupied the rooms of some students who were then absent, and he thought it his duty to complain to the Board that the women had been brought within the walls. The Board, of course, took all proper steps, and ordered that the men who had thus offended, should not again be admitted. So the affair ended; but in the succeeding session Miller saw one of the parties thus forbidden to enter the College, present at a meeting of the Historical Society. He drew his attention to the fact of the prohibition, and requested him to leave the room; the request was refused, upon which Miller mentioned the facts to the The school was established in 1726 by Abraham Shackleton, grandfather of Mary Leadbeater. officers of the Society, desiring that they would direct the intruding party to quit the apartment. Neither President nor officers would obey, and Miller was compelled to state all the facts to the Board, who, to prevent a recurrence of such scenes, prepared a certain code of rules, and ordered that unless they were accepted and considered binding, the Society could no longer meet within the walls of the College. The acceptance of the rules was refused; the Society was excluded, and thenceforth held its meetings in the Exhibition Rooms in William-street. Thus, the society was prohibited from again meeting within the precincts of the College, and whilst, in the House of Commons, eloquence and patriotism had compelled_the British minister to do justice to the nation, whilst Grattan and Flood night after night hurled their scathing and bitter invectives against the government; and, although a gallery of the House of Commons was specially set aside for the students of Trinity College, yet debates within the College upon those same subjects which had engaged their attention in the House, were strictly forbidden to the students. As Bushe had been an ardent supporter, and the chief leader of that party who were most anxious that the society should continue to hold its meetings within the College, he was, as a mark of respect, requested to deliver the address at the close of the first session held without its walls.* This address was eloquent, heartfelt, and glowing. It may want the thought, the gravity, or the severe finish which in after years distinguished the orator, but he had formed himself upon Grattan, and this speech displays most of the beauties, and few of the blemishes of the illustrious patriot; he cried : I have now remarked upon those slanders uttered against an institution which originate in malignity of heart: but malice was not our only foe, it called in dullness and bad taste to its aid, and from this triple alliance, from this mischievous conclave issued that rescript of barbarism, viz. That we were to be suppressed because oratory was an anti-collegiate study. If oratory is not detrimental to mankind it cannot be anti-collegiate, except it be proved by college logic that what is honourable and useful and dignifying to man is unfit for the study of youth, that everything eligible is best taught negatively, and that no instruction is equal to learning by contradictions: but there are men who have even put it to issue whether Peter Burrowes spoke the closing address of the last session of all. oratory has been useful to mankind, and have reasoned eloquently against eloquence; in what department of life, then, lies the danger of this fascinating destruction? Did St. Paul mistake the spirit of Christianity when he spake with the tongues of angels and of men? Has religion, has charity, suffered by the eloquence of Kirwan? That great man revived, if he did not create, pulpit eloquence :The dulness of mankind had conspired with their vices to fetter the pulpit in the shackles of inexertion. The smallest attempt at composition was spurned at as conceited-any attempt at oratory derided as theatrical stupidity became orthodoxy-and genius reluctantly bridled itself at the peril of heresy :-but the mighty powers of that man, and a few more, broke down the despotism of prejudice-and what was the consequence-churches overflowed, religion disdained not the aid of talents-with a holy indignation he smote the haughty ones of the earth and denounced them before their God. Pride, like Felix, trembled before him: his eloquence, at once pathetic and commanding, opened all the sources of compassion and forced all the fortresses of vice-flinty avarice, callous profligacy, selfish ambition, saucy presumption, all melted before him, their tears and their alms flowed plenteously; captivity was released, the fatherless and orphan were adopted, the widow's heart sung for joy.-Nor did it end here, the example was infectious, a sanctified emulation ran through the profession; universal exertion took place, and universal benevolence has followed it, and public charity has become the characteristic of this country. Bring me, then, the muddy-headed and cold-hearted divine who tells you that oratory is anti-collegiate and anti-clerical, and I will tell him that he is unfit for his high calling because his soul warms not his intellect in the discharge of it. He will never do that good to others which is the essence of his duty. He may serve out dull homilies with phlegm of a Dutchman, and the graces of an automaton. He may laboriously entangle the simple beauties of the Gospel in the embarrassing mazes of a learned controversy, and profane its mysteries by presumptuous explication-he may make the Prophecies a riddle book, and the Revelations a conundrum, and think himself like Edipus entitled, in virtue of his blindness, to solve the enigma, but he is not the sanguine, the zealous, the efficient, officer of the Almighty that is to turn many to righteousness, and whose reward is promised to be, that he shall shine like the stars for ever and ever. Bar eloquence, I hear, is also cried down-to study it is anti-collegiate, to practice it is anti-professional-good English induces suspicion of shallowness-but oratory is prima facie evidence of ignorance-the black letter and the Belles lettres are uncongenial-ornament is misdemeanour, and eloquenee high treason. Such is the vile and senseless cant that assails the most liberal professions, and labours to illiberalize and degrade them. Such an opinion is the offspring of a vulgar and technical mind— 'Whose genius never soared beyond The narrow rules of art his youth had conned; |