it is but fair that they should not re- of stamp duty, are about thirty-eight quire the distinction without having pounds eighteen shillings. We see to work for it. There is also a quali. no reason why this should be. Mr. ty most pre-eminently useful at the Joy proposes that the students' fees bar, which public examinations would should be increased about eighteen not only develope but encourage pounds; and we quite agree with him. readiness and presence of mind, as This increase, would, of course, assist well as a facility in giving utterance to in defraying the salaries of competent the thoughts. Many men have ex- professors, none of whom ought to perienced most painfully, in after-life, have less than three or four hundred the consequences of a deficiency in this guineas a-year, which would make it valuable quality, which a little early worth the while of able and experienced experience and practice could scarcely lawyers to undertake the duties. have failed to supply.

The plan of education which Mr. We are informed by the Chief Re- Joy proposes is in effect almost similar membrancer that the benchers of the to that which has been introduced into King's Inns have a property, consisting the English Inns of Court. He sugof seventy-four thousand five hundred gests, however, in addition, that the and ninety-nine pounds, in the funds, two law professorships which at prebesides two thousand odd pounds in sent exist in Trinity College, should bank, and an annual rental of more be made available for a course of lecthan two hundred a-year. They are tures between the period of taking the persons to whom the state bas de- the degree of bachelor and that of legated its authority in these matters. master; one in general jurisprudence, They have an unlimited power to com- the other in the law of real property pel the student to go through any pre- and criminal law. That a certificate paratory ordeal upon which they de- of attendance on one course of leccide. Into their hands has the trust tures in each of these subjects, as been committed of educating the bar well as examinations in them, should of this country. Have they fulfilled, be required by the benchers previous with ample and increasing funds at to admission to the bar, independently their command, that trust ?--have they of the more particular and practical ever done anything towards improv- courses connected with the Inns of ing the intellectual condition of that Court of England and Ireland. profession to which they belong ? That after these preliminary studies We fear they have not. We hope at the University, two years should be their inertness will not continue. devoted by students for the Irish Bar We warn them that public attention to study and attendance on lectures in is awake ; and should they hesitate law and equity, and examinations in any longer to apply some portion of England; and that a certificate of atthose large revenues at their command tendance upon two courses of lectures to the purposes of education, the coun. in each year-of which conveyancing try will demand that the state should should be one should be essential to resume the control of those funds admission to the bar. He suggests which they have wilfully neglected to that these two years of attendance apply to their legitimate destination.* upon lectures in the University should

It appears that while the expenses precede the course of education now incidental to a call to the Bar of being adopted in England; and that the England amount to nearly one hun- benchers in this country should require dred pounds, while an outlay of nearly certificates of the student's attendthree hundred pounds is involved in ance upon each previous to his being a call to the Scotch Bar, the only called to the bar. The system of edafees payable in this country, exclusive cation which has lately been adopted in

* The first move in the proper direction we have heard of is, the opening of the Law Library at an earlier hour. We believe it is now open from 8 o'clock a.m. until 6p.m.; and while we are upon this subject we venture to express a bope that they have had the consideration to make an increase in the salary of the Assistant Librarian, proportionate to the additional labour which has devolved upon him. They could not possibly employ a portion of the large funds at their command better.

Vol. XXX-No. 175.

each year.

the Middle Temple, promises to be very most advisable—that having reference effective as far as it goes.

A lecturer to the publication of lists containing has been appointed for the purpose of the names of those students whose angiving lectures in jurisprudence and swering has been successful, as well as civil law; and two exhibitions have of those who have obtained honours, been established for the benefit of those thus affording to the student, at once, students who shall exhibit the greatest a direct incentive to industry and approficiency in these studies ; no student plication, and at the same time, a gua. for the future to be admitted to the rantee, that these shall not have been bar, who had not attended these lec- opened in vain, for the client will tures, which consist of three terminal thereby be afforded a sure index to courses, and each of these courses of direct him to the advocate to whose twenty lectures. The first course to abilities he may entrust his cause, and take place between the first day of many a man will be saved from the Hilary term and the end of March ; agonies of hope deferred, and the mithe second between the first day of serable mortification of waiting through Easter term and the 1st of July ; a course of weary years for business and the third between the 26th of which never comes. October and the 24th of December in The observations of Mr. Joy upon

this point, are pregnant with good An annual examination of students sense and ability :is to be held previous to their admission to the bar, which, however, is “ The student would thus enter upon not to be compulsory, but for the pur- the profession, ripe to undertake its pose of encouraging the attendance of duties, conscientiously and adequately, men, and of affording them an oppor

and would be likely, in a very short tunity of becoming advantageously

time, to meet with employment ; his known, and acquiring distinction, lists

usefulness and competency would immeare to be published, containing the

diately be developed. According to the

present usage, a lad of one or two and names of those students who have ac

twenty years is called to the bar, and quitted themselves in a satisfactory idles away term after term, and year manner, as well as of those whose an.

after year, in the gossip of the hall, or swering has been distinguished by its reading at random in a law library, marked superiority.

without assistance or encouragement. For the purpose of encouraging good

Such time as is not spent in the hall, or attendance at the lectures, as well as

in miscellaneous reading, is passed in answering at the examination, two

picking up, in an irksome attendance on prizes, of one hundred guineas each, judgments upon cases, following one

the courts, detached arguments, or are proposed for the competition of

another in rapid succession, quite unconthose who, having attended at least

nected, and leaving a confused impresthree terminal courses of lectures, shall sion of legal points and principles, which have made the best examination.- he finds it impossible to reduce to any de. This is all excellent as far as it goes. finite theory, or to arrange in his mind The period during which the system

with reference to future use. If some has been at work is not, of course, suf

good-natured client or favouring atficient to test its efficacy, or to enable

torney, who thinks more of bringing his us to pronounce any decided opinionsulting the interests of his client, gives

young kinsman into notice than of conupon its merits. We are of opinion

him employment in court, and if he is that these prizes will be most effica

thus forced prematurely into business, cious in promoting a diligent atten. he loses the chance of ever becoming a dance at the lectures, as well as an in- sound lawyer. His previous education centive to the industry of those who is but a skeleton-his information has are possessed of but slender means. been acquired at random_he bas no We can discover no sufficient reason

scientific knowledge of the principles of why a similar system should not be

law-his reading has not been directed adopted at the King's Inns in this

by any experienced head-he has gone

over such books as accident suggested country-why prizes should not be

he has seen nothing of practice all he offered—and why an attendance at

can do is to make himself up for the case lectures, both here and in London, he has to deal with, and so on for the should not be enforced. There is one next; and thus he goes on from case to portion of this plan which we consider case, congratulated by his less successful young friends, until when it is too

mix so little together, when they haplate to methodize his knowledge, or to pen to be at the same college, that they master law as a science, he sees

his com- come to the bar almost strangers to each panions, who employed their years of other. Nothing would tend more to studentship under a learned and ex- better or kinder mutual feeling than being perienced member of the profession, who associated in the same classes during guided their reading, and explained the four or five years proposed to be what they read, and developed the rules, devoted to professional education, ata principles, and science of the law, turn tending the same lectures, taking part out superior scholars—more useful in the same examinations, reading and members of the profession-more stea- conversing together on the same books, dily employed-and more likely to re- and gradually learning to appreciate in ceive and to keep to their places as one another qualities which neither, perleaders at the Bar."

haps, gave the other credit for possess

ing; and gradually softening down the These are the observations of a man doubts, distrust, and prejudices formerly of sense and experience, who has fully cherished, from mutual unacquaintance. considered the subject upon which he

This may be done in merely professional writes, and we hope that this pamph

education, without any compromise of let may have the effect of attracting politics or religion, which early educa

those all-important opinions, whether in the notice of the legislature, as well as

tion may have implanted. From igno. of the profession, to this important

rance of one another, each is habituated subject.* The character of the pro- to consider the other, in his own mind, in fession will be raised; the standard of the false colour which party spirit sheds ability will be elevated; men will no over every object; mutual distrust is longer seek to obtain employment by the consequence, and is continually unthe mean and unworthy arts which dermining the amenities of social interare at present adopted; business will course, and indirectly affecting the chabe distributed through its legitimate

racter, and moral effect, and combined channels ; men will no longer seek

action of professional life. Familiar init-like Lord Chancellor Jeffreys

tercourse, at that period when life's cup

runs sparkling to the brim, and feelings by getting drunk with attorneys ; are fresh and unchilled by the experiand the Irish bar will become again ences and disappointments of after years, what it was once--the resort of edu- is the first means of correcting those cated gentlemen, competent to dis- prejudices, and enabling men to do juscharge the responsible duties of an tice to one another. As intercourse arduous profession.

We shall con

increases, at a period when worldly include these observations upon this sub

terests and prospects of gain or ambiject, which we have been obliged to

tion do not mutually interfere, they learn

that neither talent nor virtue is peculiar curtail much more than we intended,

to any party, and that men may differ on by making one more extract from Mr.

many and most important questions, and Joy's book, which breathes a spirit that yet each be sincere, each trustworthy, cannot be too much commended :- and each retain his own opinions upon

revealed truth. If conversation should * Amongst the indirect consequences occasionally turn upon such questions, of systematic and united education of each will learn what the other's views the bar, particularly in Ireland, extend- really are, and the grounds of them; ing over four or five years—the bringing and they will then have an opportunity together and encouraging the mutual of knowing them as they are, not as they communication of thoughts and feelings have been misrepresented. They will between students of different religious learn the habit of stating each other's persuasions, is one which might have a opinions fairly, which, even in profesmost happy effect. It is so much the sional life, as it respects the argument habit for those so circumstanced to be of an adversary, gives an intellectual, educated at separate schools, and they no less than a moral superiority."

a

* Since this paper has been in type we are informed that these letters have bad the effect which we would naturally have expected. At a meeting of the Benchers it has been resolved that some prompt measures shall be taken, and the introduction of a system similar to that proposed by Mr. Joy has been recommended.

ANTHOLOGIA HIBERNICA.NO, III.

We promised, at the close of our last article, to lay before the reader, on the earliest opportunity, some native historical poems of high interest. In our present paper we shall commence the fulfilment of this promise, by presenting him with two specimens of such productions, for literal translations of which we are indebted to the celebrated Irish scholar, Mr. Eugene Curry. Of our own versions we shall say nothing, except that we believe they will be found, upon comparison with the originals, to possess the merit of fidelity—a merit, we admit, occasionally of a very questionable kind in translations.

Our first poem—the following—was originally written by Donall O'Mulconry, as an Inauguration Ode to Torlogh, the son of Teige O'Brien, who became the O'Brien, and entered into possession of the Lordship of Thomond, in the

The reader will observe that although formally addressed to this Chieftain, it opens with a rather long invocation to the palace of Kincora, and elsewhere speaks of the same palace in the third person, while the O'Brien himself is not apostrophised until towards the latter stanzas ; but these irregu. larities of composition are by no means of rare occurrence in our native poets.

On the Inauguration of the O'Brien, A. B. 1469.

year 1468.

I.

Oh, great Kincora! 'tis my grief
Το
gaze upon thy crumbling walls

And chambers lone!
The O'Briens now forget their Chief,
And dwell, alas ! in other halls,

To him unknown!

II.

Of yore, at royal Brian's call,
The hundred kings of Banba's isle

Would throng thy rooms;
But now how strangely changed is all ! —
Thy glories, O, majestic Pile,

Are turned to glooms !

III.

House of the Drinking-horns of old,
Where Chief and Bard with sword and lyre,

So often met,
Wouldst thou thus mourn all unconsoled,
Were Morrogh or his regal sire

But reigning yet?

IV.

Were Donogh of the Glossy Hair,*
Round whom the Fergus' warriors thronged, f

To-day to see

Donogh was, after the battle of Clontarf, the second son of Brian. He procured the death of his elder brother, Teige, in 1022, and, after the decease of Malachy, assumed the sovereignty of Ireland, but subsequently abdicated, and retired. The place and period of his death are not known with any degree of certainty.

† The Dalcassians and others.

Sons of Brian. 7 A Scottish prince, who was killed at the battle of Clontarf. He fought under the banner of Brian.

Dunlaing O'Hartigan, a Dalcassian chief, and one of the body-guards of Morrogh, the eldest son of Brian. Dunlaing also fell at Clontarf.

$ The Corcobaiscinns were the inhabitants of those localities now known as the baronies of Moyarta, Clonderalaw, and Ibrickane, in the county of Clare. At the period of the battle of Clontarf, these territories were occupied by the descendants of Ailill Baskeen, son of Conaire Mor, King of Ireland, then represented by the O'Donnell family, the head of which, Donali, was killed in the engagement; and in the thirteenth century the heritage of the title devolved on the Mac Mahons, who remained in possession of it down to the time of the Cromwellian wars.

| Brother of Brian, and ancestor of the O'Kennedys. He was killed at Clontarf.