in Westminster during a five years' residence in England; they bear strong testimony to his industry and diligence, and are worthy the imitation of students.
The want of a judicial fiat was considered indecorous, and even induced Lord Hardwicke to consider them as no authority, though with the candour inseparable from great ability, and the knowledge of a conemporary, he admits their accuracy. A faction circulated with active malignity the propriety of marking a man by rejection who had thus, in their opinion, committed a direct contempt against the Judges of England, and which merited the vengeance of their subordinate and subservient brethren in this kingdom. This concealed and sudden attack was even carried, and the Chancellor, Lord Wyndham, left in a minority. Had that great officer been a petulant, unprincipled, unfeeling, party man, he would gratify such a disposition by a cruel and inconsiderate assent to this measure. What would avail the complaint of a young man, no matter how meritorious, rather obnoxious to government and parliament from lineage and mode of education, also equally destitute of connexion or public character to vindicate the wrong? In this entire transaction Lord Wyndham had the cordial support of Chief Justice Reynolds. They resisted, from motives of justice, the attempt, and agreed in thinking, that a person performing the legal requisites enforced by modern statute law, and the ordinances enjoined by prescriptive authority, had a right to be called to the Irish bar. They were successful, and the party finally and silently yielded to the Chancellor and Chief Justice.
When the reader reflects on the excellence of Mr. Fitzgibbon's personal, political and legal character, it must inspire him with an added abhorrence of concealed, unsworn and tyrannic discretion. In this instance the voters have not been ascertained; the junior Sergeants were, however, the avowed but subordinate leaders; men whom the reader will find damned to merited in my upon historic record by the baseness of their own acts—one as a vindictive assassin, and the other as a popish discoverer; he will be curious to know whether Irish legal writers
