to professional honours. Without perhaps commanding talents, he was busy, quick, bold, a prompt speaker, careless of the higher order of oratory, who being deemed useful in the House became Attorney-General under Lord Northington. A duel with Curran showed that, like so many other Irish members, he fought as well as talked his way into eminence. The regency question made him Lord Chancellor and a peer, but rent asunder all former political ties. An earldom followed when revolutionary principles took root in that country, and when a strong, daring, perhaps even unscrupulous hand became necessary to restrain their progress. These qualities he possessed, and nowhere was their exercise more required.
He appears to have had little sympathy with popular opinions. When unimportant things were started, he took no trouble to identify himself with the general voice. When doubtful, they encountered effectual opposition. He saw peace, order, security of person and property risked by men of little weight or wisdom in the country for love of the fanciful theory of republicanism, and as he hated the principle as well as the race that approved it, stood on no ceremony in putting down both with a strong hand. The scene was cut out for the man, and the man for the scene. As head of the law he was said to have attempted to stretch law beyond its limits under the plea of preserving the constitution from conspirators and traitors. Devoted to what he considered duty, he was willing in its exercise to brave any amount of odium. Influence, and the vigour by which it was exercised, gave the impression of
