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there, is the wish of every man by whom indiscriminate urbanity to the bar, unremitting attention to the duties of his office, and a perfect competence to their discharge — the purest impartiality and a most noble intellect are held in value. Notwithstanding that the Bench was withdrawn from Mr. Joy, while he was almost in the attitude of seating himself upon it, he did not fall to the ground. Bushe's promotion left a vacancy in the office of Solicitor-General, and it was tendered to Mr. Joy. This was considered a little singular, as his opinions were well known to be exactly opposite to those of the new Attorney-General, Mr. Plunket. That circumstance, however, so far from being a ground of objection, was, I am inclined to think, a principal motive for submitting the vacant place to his acceptance. It had been resolved to compound all parties together. The more repulsive the ingredients, the better fitted they were for the somewhat empirical process of conciliation, with which Lord Wellesley had undertaken to mix them up together. The government being itself an anomalya thing "of shreds and patches"-it was only consistent that the legal department should be equally heterogeneous. To this sagacious project, the conjunction of two persons who differ so widely from each other as Mr. Plunket and Mr. Joy, is to be attributed. The latter was blamed by many of his friends for the promptitude with which he allied himself to the new administration, for he did not affect the coyness which is usually illustrated by a proverbial reference to clerical ambition. He was well aware that if he indulged in the mockery of a refusal, amid the rapid fluctuations of an undecided government, he might endanger the ultimate possession of so valuable an office. He did not put on any virgin reluctances, nor seem "fearful of his wishes," but embraced the fair opportunity with a genuine and unaffected ardor.

Mr. Joy is justly accounted one of the ablest men at the Irish Bar. In the sense in which eloquence, and especially in Ireland, is generally understood, I do not think that it belongs to him. in a very remarkable degree. At times his. manner is very strenuous, but energy is by no means the characteristic of his

speaking. I have seen him, upon occasion, appeal to juries with considerable force, and manifest that honest indignation. in the reprobation of meanness and of depravity, which is always sure to excite an exalted sentiment in the minds of men. The sincere enforcement of good principle is among the noblest sources of genuine oratory; and he that awakens a more generous love of virtue and lifts us beyond the ordinary sphere of our moral sensibilities, produces the true results of eloquence. This Mr. Joy has not unfrequently accomplished, but his habitual cast of expression and of thought is too much subdued and kept under the vigilant control of a timid and suspicious taste, to be attended with any very signal and shining effects. He deals little in that species of illustration which indicates a daring and adventurous mind; that seeks to deliver its strong, though not always matured, conceptions in bold and lofty phrase. Its products may be frequently imperfect, but a single noble thought that springs full formed from the imagination, compensates for all its abortive offspring. Mr. Joy does not appear to think so, and studiously abstains from the indulgence of that propensity to figurative decoration, which in Ireland is carried to some excess. Nature, I suspect, has been a little niggard in the endowment of his fancy; and if she has not given him wings for a sustained and lofty flight, he is wise in not using any waxen pinions. I have never detected any exaggeration in his speeches, either in notion or in phrase. His language is precise and pure, but so simple as scarcely to deviate from the plainness of ordinary discourse.

It was observed of Lysias that he seldom employed a word which was not in the most common use, but that his language was so measured as to render his style exceedingly melodious and sweet. Mr. Joy very rarely has recourse to an expression which is not perfectly familiar. But he combines the most trivial forms of phrase with so much art together, as to give them a peculiarly rhythmical construction. Upon occasion, however, he throws into a speech some ornamental allusion to his own favorite pursuits. He takes a flower or two from his hortus siccus, and flings it carelessly out. But his images are derived from the museum and the cabinet, and not from the

HIS SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS.

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mountain and the field. He is strongly addicted to the study of the more graceful sciences, and versed in shrubs, and birds, and butterflies.

In this respect he stands an honorable exception to most of the eminent members of the Bar, with whom all scientific and literary acquirement is held in a kind of disrepute. Mr. Joy has not neglected those sources of permanent enjoyment, which continue to administer their innocent gratifications, when almost every other is dried up. He has employed his solitary leisure (for he is an old bachelor, and appears to be an inveterate Mr. Oldbuck) in the cultivation of elegant, although, in some instances, fantastic tastes. He is devoted to the loves of the plants, and spends in a well-assorted museum of curiosities many an hour of dalliance with an insect or a shell. It is not unnatural that his mind should be impregnated with his intellectual recreations; and whenever he ventures upon a metaphor, it may readily be traced to some association with his scientific pursuits.

With this rare exception, Mr. Joy may be accounted an unadorned speaker. His chief merit consists in his talent for elucidation and for sneering. He is, indeed, so sensible of his genius for mockery, that he puts it into use wherever the least opportunity is afforded for its display. When it is his object to cover a man with disgrace, he lavishes encomium with a tone and a look that render his envenomed praises more deadly than the fiercest invective. He deals in incessant irony, and sets off his virulent panegyric with a smile of such baleful derision as to furnish a model to a painter for Goëthe's Metempsyphiles. In cross-examination he employs this formidable faculty with singular effect.

*

Here he shows high excellence. He contemplates the witness with the suppressed delight of an inquisitor, who calmly surveys his victim before he has him on the wheel. He does not drag him to the torture with a ferocious precipitation, and throw him at once into his torments, but with a slow and blandishing suavity tempts and allures him on, and invites him to the point at which he knows that the means of infliction lie Mephistophiles?-M.

*

in wait. He offers him a soft and downy bed in which the rack is concealed, and when he is laid upon it, even then he does not put out all his resources of agony at once. He affects to caress the victim whom he torments, and it is only after he has brought the whole machinery of torture into action, that his purpose is perfectly revealed; and even then, and when he is in the fullest triumph of excruciation, he retains his seeming and systematic gentleness; he affects to wonder at the pain which he applies, and while he is pouring molten lead into the wound, pretends to think it balm.

The habitual irony which Mr. Joy is accustomed to put into such efficient practice, has given an expression to his face which is peculiarly sardonic. Whatever mutations his countenance undergoes, are but varied modifications of a sneer. It exhibits in every aspect a phasis of disdain. Plunket's face sins a little in this regard, but its expression is less contemptuous than harsh. There is in it more of the acidity of ill humor than of the bitterness of scorn. His pride appears to result rather from the sense of his own endowments than from any depreciating reference to those of other men. But the mockery of Mr. Joy is connected with all the odium of comparison :

"Et les deux bras croisés, du haut de son esprit,

Il écoute en pitié tout ce que chacun dit.”.

The features upon which this perpetual derision is inlaid, are of a peculiar cast;-they are rough-hewn and unclassical, and dispersed over a square and rectangular visage, without symmetry or arrangement. His mouth is cut broadly, and directly from one jaw to the other, and has neither richness nor curve. There are in his cheeks two deep cavities, which in his younger days might have possibly passed for dimples, hollowed out in the midst of yellow flesh. Here it is that Ridicule seems to have chosen her perpetual residence, for I do not remember to have seen her give way to any more kindly or gentle sentiment. His nose is broad at the root; its nostrils are distended, and it terminates in an ascending point: but it is too short for profile, and lies in a side view almost concealed in the folds of parchment by which it is encompassed.

The eyes are dark, bright, and intellectual, but the lids are shrivelled and pursed up in such a manner, and seemingly by an act of will, as to leave but a small space between their contracted rims for the gleams of vision that are permitted to escape. They seem to insinuate that it is not worth their while to be open, in order to survey the insignificant object on which they may chance to light. The forehead is thoughtful and high, but from the posture of the head, which is thrown back and generally aside, it appropriately surmounts this singular assemblage of features, and lends an important contribution to the sardonic effect of the whole.

His deportment is in keeping with his physiognomy. If the reader will suggest to his imagination the figure of a Mandarin, receiving Lord Amherst* at the palace at Pekin, and with

* The British Government, always anxious to establish intimate commercial and political relations with China, despatched Lord Macartney, at the head of a special Embassy, in 1792. He and his suite reached China the following year, were received there, with all courtesy as "tribute-bearers," and were promised an audience of the Emperor, provided they would perform the usual prostrations of the person made in the presence of his Majesty by his own subjects. This was declined, but Lord Macartney finally offered to perform the Kou-to (as it is called) if some high officer of state would previously do like homage before a portrait of George III. Lord Macartney and Sir George Staunton actually had the promised audience, each kneeling on one knee as they presented the Emperor with a magnificent gold box, richly adorned with jewels, which contained the King of England's letter, which, with other presents, was well received, and the return of the embassy requested. In 1816, Lord Amherst headed a second embassy, and strongly declined making the required nine prostrations to the Emperor, declaring he would pay him the same homage as he yielded to his own sovereign, and no more—unless a Tartar mandarin of rank would perform the Ko-tou before the portrait of the English ruler. Finally, on the Emperor's declaration that Lord Macartney had Ko-toued on the former occasion, Lord Amherst agreed to do the same- -but the Embassy was literally hurried out of the country, to their ships on the coast, before this could be done. A reply to the Royal letter from England pompously intimated that it would not again be necessary to send "; a tribute-bearer" from such a distance. The two embassies cost about three hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. Napoleon (who was visited at St Helena by Lord Amherst, on his return from China), said he should have complied with the customs of the place, or not have been sent at all, for that what the chief men of a nation practise toward their chief, could not degrade strangers to prac tise.-M.