HIS DISTASTE FOR LETTERS. 169 tor and a statesman, and Saurin is a lawyer-not a mere one, indeed; but the legal faculty is greatly predominant in his mind. His leisure has never been dedicated to the acquisition of scientific knowledge, nor has he sought a relaxation from his severer occupations in the softness of the politer arts. His earliest tastes and predilections were always in coincidence with his profession. Free from all literary addiction, he not only did not listen to, but never heard, the solicitations of the Muse. Men with the strongest passion for higher and more elegant enjoyments have frequently repressed that tendency, from a fear that it might lead them from the pursuit of more substantial objects. It was not necessary that Mr. Saurin should stop his ears against the voice of the siren-he was born deaf to her enchantments. I believe that this was a sort of good fortune in his nature. Literary accomplishments are often of prejudice, and very seldom of any utility, at the bar. The profession itself may occasionally afford a respite from its more rigid avocations, and invite of its own accord to a temporary deviation from its more dreary pursuits. There are moments in which a familiarity with the great models of eloquence and of high thinking may be converted into use. But a lawyer like Mr. Saurin will think, and wisely perhaps, that the acquisition of the embellishing faculties is seldom attended with a sufficiently frequent opportunity for their display, to compensate for the dangers of the deviation which they require from the straightforward road to professional eminence, and will pursue his progress-like the American traveller, who, in journeying through his vast prairies, passes without regard the fertile landscapes which occasionally lie adjacent to his way, and never turns from his track for the sake of the rich fruits and the refreshing springs of those romantic recesses, which, however delicious they may appear, may bewilder him in a wilderness of sweets, and lead him for ever astray from the final object of his destination. VOL. I.-8 HENRY BOX. MR. Joy, the present Solicitor-General for Ireland [1823], and the anti-papistical associate in office of the chief-advocate of the Roman Catholic claims, Mr. Plunket, is the son of a literary man, who was the editor of a newspaper in Belfast.* To the violent spirit which characterized the democratic lucubrations of the father, I am inclined to attribute a mistake into which the public have fallen with respect to the juvenile propensities of the son. Mr. Joy is commonly considered to have been addicted to liberal principles in his early life, and has been reproached with having started a patriot. But whiggism is not a family disorder, nor have I been able to discover any grounds for thinking that Mr. Joy was at any time the professor of opinions at variance with his present political creed. Henry Joy, born in 1767, was called to the Irish bar in 1788. He was a good lawyer, as well as an able advocate. He had a very good-humored, insinuating way with witnesses as well as juries, and was happy at retort. In 1827, when Plunket was made Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, he was succeeded as Attorney-General, by Joy. In 1831, on the retirement of Lord Guillamore (Standish O'Grady), Mr. Joy became Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and held that high office until his death, which took place, near Dublin, on June 5, 1838.-Chief Baron Joy was an impartial and humane administrator of the law. He was repeatedly pressed to enter Parliament, but always declined. His name presented an obvious subject for Lord Norbury's wit. An attorney, named Hope, prayed his Lordship to wait a few moments for his leading Counsel, Mr. Joy, who was unavoidably detained and would presently attend. His Lordship's very small stock of patience was soon exhausted and he said, "We can wait no longer- "Although Hope told a flattering tale, And said the Joy would soon return,' and directed the next case to be called on.- - M. HIS POLITICAL CREED. 171 Since he was called to the Bar, which was in the year 1788, I can not find a single deviation in his conduct from the path of obvious prudence, which his instinctive tendencies would naturally have led him to adopt, and to which his matured experience must have instructed him to adhere. It required little sagacity to perceive that by allying himself with the religious and aristocratic passions of the prosperous faction, he was much more likely to attain distinction, than by any chivalrous dedication of his abilities to a more noble, but unrequiting cause. Had he had the misfortune to inherit so sterile and unprofitable a patrimony as the love of Ireland, he might still, perhaps, have risen to eminence and honor. But his success would have been achieved in despite of his principles. By choosing a different course he has succeeded through them. Instead of the difficult and laborious path by which so few have won their way, and which is filled not only with obstacles but thorns, he selected the smoother road, the progress in which is as easy as it is sure which is thronged by crowds, who, instead of impeding individual advancement, sustain and bear each other on-and which not only leads with more directness to a splendid elevation, but is bordered with many fertile and rich retreats, in which those who are either unable or unwilling to prosecute their journey to the more distant and shining objects to which it conducts at last, are certain of finding an adjacent place of secure and permanent repose. In this inviting path, the weak and the incapable may sit down in ease and luxury, even in the lowest gradations of ascent; while the more vigorous and aspiring receive an impulse from the very ground they tread, and are hurried rapidly along. Mr. Joy could not fail to see the advantages of this accelerating course, nor do I impute much blame to him for having yielded to its allurements. He has, perhaps, acted from that kind of artificial conviction, into which the mind of an honorable man may at last succeed in torturing itself. Conscience, like every other judge, may be misled, and there is no advocate so eloquent as self-interest before that high, but not infallible tribunal. Whatever were his motives in choosing this judicious though not very exalted course, Mr. Joy soon distinguished himself by his zeal in his vocation, and became prominent among the stanch Tories at the Bar. He displayed in its fullest force that sort of sophisticated loyalty, of which vehement Protestants are in the habit of making a boastful profession in Ireland, and carried the supererogatory sentiment into practice, even at the convivial meetings of the Bar. A lawyer, who has since risen to considerable distinction, and whose youth was encompassed by calamities, which it required a rare combination of talents and of fortitude to surmount, was selected by Mr. Joy for an early manifestation of his devotedness to the cause, which it required no very high spirit of prophecy to foresee would be ultimately canonized by success. It was upon the motion of Mr. Joy, that the barrister to whom I allude, was expelled, for his republican tendencies, from the Bar-mess of the Northeast Circuit. In recommending so very rigorous a measure, he gave proof of his earnestness and of his good taste. The expulsion of an associate, whom an almost daily intercourse ought to have invested with at least the semblances of friendship, afforded abundant evidence of the sincerity of the emotion with which he was influenced, while his discrimination was approved, by marking a man out for ruin, whose endowments were sufficiently conspicuous to direct the general attention, not only to the peculiar victim that suffered in the sacrifice, but to the priest who presided at the immolation. This unequivocal exhibition of enthusiastic loyalty was followed by other instances of equally devoted and not more disinterested attachment to the government, and Mr. Joy gradually grew into the favor of those who are the distributors of honor and of emolument at the Bar. He did not, however, abuse the predilections of authority for any mean or inglorious purpose. He is, I believe, unsullied by any sordid passion; and whatever may be his faults, avarice is not among them. He has never been an occupant of any one of the paltry offices at the Bar, to the invention of which the genius of Irish Secretaries is unremittingly applied. Aiming at loftier objects, he preserved a character for independence, by abstaining from solicitation. HIS SYMPATHY WITH SAURIN. 173 It would be tedious to trace his progress through the various stages of professional success which conduct to celebrity at last. A lawyer advances by movements almost imperceptible, from obscurity into note, and from note to fame; and would find it difficult to ascribe with certainty the consummation of his success to any direct or immediate cause. It is by a continued series of meritorious effort and of fortunate event, that eminence is to be attained at the Bar. I pass by the many years of labor in which Mr. Joy, in obedience to the destinies of his profession, must have expended the flower of his life, and lead him directly to the administration of Mr. Saurin. That gentleman, the Coryphæus of the Orange party, formed for Mr. Joy a strong political partiality. He found in Mr. Joy the cardinal virtue, which, in his opinion, is the hinge of all integrity and honor, and in the absence of which the highest genius and the deepest knowledge are wholly without avail. With Mr. Saurin, Orangeism in politics has all the efficacy of charity in religion, and in the person of Mr. Joy, he found many conspicuous qualities set-off by the full lustre of Protestantism. This community of sentiment engendered a virulent sympathy between them. Mr. Joy was appointed one of the three Sergeants, who take precedence after the Attorney and Solicitor General, and * * In Ireland there are only three Sergeants-at-Law, who are appointed by the Crown, and take precedence, after the Attorney and Solicitor General, over the rest of the bar. In England, any barrister of a certain standing may assume the coif"—that is, wear a wig with a black patch on the crown-provided he pay the usual expenses, amounting to one hundred pounds sterling. He is then called "Mr. Sergeant," sits within the bar, with the Queen's Counsel, and takes precedence with them. There is this disadvantage: as a Sergeant-at-Law can not hold a brief under any one but a Queen's Counsel, or another Sergeant of seniority to himself, he is precluded, in point of fact, from being other than a leader in each case he appears in; and it sometimes happens that a barrister in good practice, whose ambition leads him to take the coif, soon finds himself briefless- -as he can not act as junior, and the attorneys may not think so well of him as to employ him as a leader. In England, every lawyer, previous to taking his seat as a Judge, undergoes the formality and expense of being made a Sergeant-at-Law. When a barrister is of sufficient standing, it is usual to make him "one of Her Majesty's Counsel," which entitles him to sit within the bar, gives him precedence over the rest of the profession, and |