To the few it affords all that men can wish—rank, wealth, and honours; to the many, but a dreary attendance, unenlivened by calls to employment. The stream of success sweeps by unfelt by the large majority of candidates, who, like wrecks upon the shore, remain objects of pity or spectacles to gaze at, till disgust drives them from a scene of failure and mortification to some other occupation. Ingenuity indeed has found out other spheres for exertion for the helpless of the profession. A “barrister of seven years’ standing,” although unknown to fame, unheard of in the courts, is often deemed fit for anything; and he who never held half-a-dozen briefs, or showed himself in the courts, may at last, by the favour of friends, stumble into a lucrative office. “Life at the Bar” may make a title and promising theme for the ingenious novelist.
His hopes we may believe, were as vivid as youth and good connections could make them. But law did not close his heart against letters. London, associates and conversations were not forgotten; politics certainly were not. They became a necessary condition of Bar life, as forming the main road to its higher offices; and at the tables of his father and uncle were found those who could aid in bestowing such things, as well as others who were fated, if not fitted, to receive them.
But some restraint was thrown upon the reception of certain political guests at particular tables shortly after this period. The wits of Dublin on the popular side had combined against the government of Lord Townshend. Missiles, in the form of jest, story,
