The Sun.
London, England, 1827-11-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAX,t,i:,,

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Mr. Campbell's " Third Letter to the Students

of Glasgow," is the best article in the present
Number, and gives an elaborate but just account
of the character of the Athenian Sophists. We

think he rather overrates Isocrates, when he talks
of his ennobling moral maxims, and the
grandeur of his political principles." Isocrates
—it is some years since we perused him—is (if
we remember rightly) chiefly remarkable for his
ethics ; a body of which he strung together at
random, and addressed as an epistle to some
philosophic friend. These ethics, however
exemplary in moral, have one leading defect—
the want of character : they are tame and insipid
(with one solitary valuable exception) and pretty
nearly as common place as Blair's Sermons; or
even the Critical Lectures of that much over-
rated writer. To the accomplished orator,
Lysias, Mr. Campbell has barely done justice.
The " Sketches of the Irish Bar, No. XVI.,
Lord Norbury," is not so good in matter as one
upon the same subject, which appbared some
time since in the Monthly Magazine. The
style, however, is superior—" materiem superat
opus." Mr. Came's Letters from the Levant,
the subject of which in the present number is
" Laodicea," is chiefly characterized by its per-
fect acquaintance with the East. We know no
one but the author of that magnificent fiction,
Anastasius, who could describe so well from
personal knowledge of his subject. The follow-
ing from the analysis of " Norbury," gives an
entertaining account of an Irish Court of
Common Pleas :

Long before Lord Norbury took his seat, the galleries
were densely filled with faces strangely expressive of idle-
ness, haggardness, and humour. At about eleven his
Lordship's registrar, Mr. Peter Jackson, used to slide in
with au official leer; and a little after Lord Norbury en-
tered with a grotesque waddle, and, having bowed to the
Bar, cast his eyes round the Court. Perceiving a full
house, an obvious expression of satisfaction pervaded his
countenance ; and if he saw any of his acquaintance of a
noble family, such as John Claudius Beresford, who had a
good deal of time on his hands, in the crowd, he ordered
the tipstaff to make way for him, and in order, I presume,
to add to the dignity of the proceedings, placed him be-
side himself on the bench. While the jury were swear-
ing, he either nodded familiarly to most of them, occa-
sionally oserving " A most respectable man ;" or, if the
above-mentioned celebrated member of the house of Cur-
raghmore chanced to be next him, was engaged in so plea-
sant a vein of whispering, that it was conjectured, from
the heartiness of his laugh, that he must have been talking
of the recreations of the Riding-house, and the amusements
of 1798. The junior Counsel having opened the pleadings
Lord Norbury generally exclaimed " A very promising
young man ! Jackson, what is that young gentleman's
name?" " Mr. --, my Lord." " What, of the
County of Cork ?—I knew it by his air. Sir, you are a
gentleman of very high pretensions, and I protest that I
have never heard the many counts stated in a more digni-
fied manner i❑ all my life : I hope I shall find you, like the
paper before me, a Daily Freeman in my Court." Having
despatched the junior, whom he was sure to make the
luckless, but sometimes not inappropriate victim of his en-
comiums, he suffered the leading Counsel to proceed. As
he was considered to have a strong bias towards the plain-
tiff, experimental attornies brought into the Common Pleas
the very worst and most discreditable adventures in litiga-
tion. The statement of the case, therefore, generally dis-
closed some paltry ground of action, which, however, did
not prevent his Lordship from exclaiming, in the outset,
" A very inwortaut action indeed ! If you make out your
facts in evidence, Mr. Wallace, there will be serious matter

for the Jury." The evidence was then produced ; and the
witnesses often consisted of wretches vomited out of stews
and cellars, whose emaciated and discoloured countenances
showed their want and their depravity, while their watch-
ful and working eyes intimated that mixture of sagacity
and humour by which the lower order of Irish attestators
is distinguished. They generally appeared in coats and
breeches, the external decency of which, as they were hired
fix• the occasion, was ludicrously contrasted with the
ragged and filthy shirt, which 11.1 r. Henry Deane Grady,
who was well acquainted with " the inner man" of an
Irish witness, though not without repeated injunctions to
unbutton, at last compelled them to discicse. The cross-
examinations of this gentleman were admirable pieces of
the most serviceable and dexterous extravagance. He was
the Scarron of the Bar ; and few of the most
practised and skilful of the horde of perjurers whom
he was employed to encounter, could successfully

withstand the exceedingly droll and comical scrutiny
through which he forced them to pass. He had a sort of
" Hail, fellow, well met !" manner with every varlet, which
enabled him to get into his heart and core, until he had
completely turned him inside out, and excited such a spirit
of mirth, that the knave whom he was uncovering could
net help joining in the merriment which the detection of
his villainy had produced. Lord Norbury, however, when
he saw Mi. Grady pushing the plaintiff to extremities, used
to come to his aid, and rally the broken recollections of the
7.1::; interposition called the dekndan's Counsel
into stronger action, and they *ere as vigorously encoun-
tered by the Counsel on the other side. Interruption
created remonstrance ; remonstrance called forth retort;

retort generated sarcasm ; and at length voices were raised
so loud, and the blood of the forensic combatants was so
warmed, that a general scene of confusion, to which Lord
Norbury most amply contributed, took place. The uproar
gradually increased till it became tremendous; and, to add
to the tumult, a question of law, which threw
Lord Norbury's faculties into complete chaos, was
thrown into the conflict. Mr. Grady and Mr.
O'Connell shouted upon one side, Mr. Wallace
and M. Gould upon the other ; and at last, Lord
the
uCu
eo uunnsievl
e, r
sti;hie
riot,) t the
aNuodribe up rze: twerehe w
involved
, iu
was difficult to determine whether tha laughter of the au-
diencc, the exclamations of the parties, the protestations
of theg
of
L witnesses,ord
isie lb] oo twv
ortbhueryer,ieis)roodfotrohienaCotedr.inse,l4,,t
ever, his Lordship's superiority of lungs prevailed; and,
like Eolus in his cavern, (of whom, with his puffed
o length,teb
cheeks and inflamed visage, he would furnish a painter
with a model), he shouted his stormy subjects into peace.
These scenes repeatedly occurred during the trial, until at
last both parties had, closed, and a new exhibition took
place. This was Lord Norhury's monologue, commonly
called a charge. He t'sually began by pronouncing the
Tattiest encomiums upon the party in the action, against
whom he intended to advise the jury t 6 give their verdict.
For this the audience were well prepared ; and accordingly.
after he had stated that the defendant was one of the most
honourable men alive, and that he knew his father, and
loved him, he aud&nly came with a most singular empha-
sis, which he accompanied with a strange shake of his
wig, to the fatal " bat," which made the audience, who
wcre in expectation of it, burst into a fit.of laughter, while
he proceeded to charge, as he almost uniformly did, in the
plaintiff's favour. He then entered more deeply, as he
said, into the case, and, flinging his judicial robe half aside,
and sometimes casting off his wig, started from his seat,
and threw off a wild harangue, in which neither law, me-
thod, nor argument,- could be discovered. It generally
consisted of narrative connected with the history of his
early life, which it was impossible to associate with the
subject—of jests from Joe Miller, mixed with jokes of his
own manufacture, and of sarcastic allusions to any of the
Counsel who had endeavoured to check him during the
trial. He was exceedingly fond of quotations from Milton
and Shakspeare, which, however out of place, were very
well delivered, and evinced an excellent enunciation. At
the conclusion of his charge, he made some efforts to call
the attontion of the jury to any leading incident which
particularly struck him, but what he meant it was not
very easy to conjecture ; and when he sat down, the whole
performance exhibited a mind which resembled a whirl-
pool of mud, in which law, facts, arguments, and evi-
dence, were lost in unfathomable confuiion.