We need not accompany the Tourist farther on his travels; enough has been given to show his quality, and the hourglass by which we measure the due length of an article has been for some time run out. The book is an agreeable book, and our article is likewise, we doubt not, an agreeable article; it should be, for it contains the chefsd'œuvre of Creole eloquence, besides other good things. The two sermons which we quote, it would give us no small pleasure to hear duly delivered by Mathews. On the whole, however, Mr. Williams has rather shown that he is able to make a good book than completely succeeded. It was a sad mistake to mix up fiction with fact, when treating of a country about which so much falsehood had already been published. This same admixture of the story-book with his own experience, likewise exceedingly diminishes the force of much that would otherwise carry conviction along with it. Were it necessary to produce an example, we may observe that we should have thrown "Cato and Plato" into the fire; and a greater piece of fudge than the Irishman's history was never furbished up in Grub Street. These faults are slight on the whole, and yet we cannot help dwelling upon them, for they cause us to leave the work with an unsatisfactory feeling; they give to it an air of doubt and mystery, and smack of jobbing and book-making.

The Tour in Jamaica is published by our publishers, and we have with small exception praised it unreservedly; but let no unfair comparisons thence be drawn. We have boasted of our independence, and all who look into this Tour will see that the same sense of justice which guides our decision in other cases, reigns in this. The task of dispensing just criticism is an unthankful office; we are sure to offend some one; they whose good we seek are slow enough in the expression of their gratitude-nevertheless, we shall persevere, and set the example of one periodical at least which is above the control of any sinister interest whatever, which will not stoop either to avert the anger of the sensitive and disappointed, or to win the favour of the powerful and unjust.

CALAMITIES OF IRISH LAW STUDENTS.

THE author of the very able Sketches of the Irish Bar, which have from time to time appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, has feelingly deplored, and with a too faithful pencil pourtrayed, the "thousand ills" by which an "utter barrister" is assailed from the day of his call in this "nether sphere," to the day of his peremptory summons to another and, let us hope, a "better world;" but in none of the many papers that he has given to the public, has he in any degree dwelt on the manifold difficulties that intervene between an entry on the Temple books, and that day of call which in many instances is never, alas! to come. Be it my task then (" quoque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pas magna fui,") to unfold to the reader the difficulties, the dangers, the distresses, pecuniary as well as mental, which the Irish student frequently undergoes, but more frequently sinks under, in journeying to a profession, in which, if he be suc

cessful, the splendours of wealth, the fascinations of society, the pomp and possession of power are within his grasp-but in which, if he be doomed to fail, nought remains to him, to use the words of Lord Mansfield, but "the echo of folly and shadow of renown." But before I enter on a task, which I undertake with mingled feelings of pleasure and pain, it will be perhaps necessary for the information of those unconnected with the profession, that I should proceed into a little detail.

The average number of students on the books of the King's Inns, Dublin, (an institution similar to the inns of court here,) may be estimated at about fifty. The ages of these gentlemen vary from seventeen to twenty-five; but it should be observed, that the great majority are under the age of twenty-one; as it is the almost invariable usage to attend the two last years of the college course, and to serve nine terms at the King's Inns at one and the same time. But while the average rate of entry may he computed at fifty, the annual calls to the bar in Ireland amount only to about twenty.

The causes of this disproportion result from calamities which it is the purpose of this article to explain.

The profession of the bar in Ireland has always been popular: and now that the church is impenetrable to aught except family descent, or great parliamentary influence, the possession of a wig and gown is as much coveted by senior and under-graduates as though it added to personal beauty, or were deemed a certain provocative to popular eloquence. A barrister in Ireland is "hedged in" by adventitious rank. He is, if he be at all eminent, the centre of a circle, around which a tribe of admirers revolve. In him, and in him alone, the coterie of his particular street or square "live, move, and have their being." On the circuit, the M. P.s of the county, the "estray of a lord," as well as the resident gentry, combine to lay an embargo on the connsellor's conversation, and transfer him from day to day to each other's table, to the infinite mortification of client, and solicitor, and the junior counsel in the cause in which he may happen to be. engaged.

Is it then strange, that one so coveted and clung to the pearl of sense in all family quarrels—the breath of eloquence in court-the hilarious two-bottle man at the dinner table:-is it strange, I say, that his career should be looked on as meteor-like by the school-boy who has given promise of obtaining first place at a college entrance; or by the more advanced, though just as silly junior sophister, whose discourse is redolent of premises and conclusions, and who bursts to be sensible and syllogistic, like the counsellor who is

-In logic a great critic,
Profoundly skilled in analytic.

or is it matter of marvel that the young mind should aspire to track a path strewed with " all manner of gold and precious stones?"

I remember that when I was a school-boy myself, the mania for the bar was communicated to me by a grave sizar of forty, who, although stored with a prodigious quantity of Latin and Greek, had no one requisite for the profession; and in my subsequent course through the University, eating my terms in Dublin, and afterwards in London, have I met with dull, plodding, self-satisfied men, generally past thirty, and

often forty, fired with a zeal for the administration of justice, and proving their fitness for the woolsack, by disgorging a prodigious quantity of Greek, and swallowing a still more indigestible posset of veal and ham pye, stewed mackarel, and toasted cheese-and marry! what was the inducement? Why to become the Plunket or O'Connel of some future day.

But to return. Of the fifty students on the books of the inns of court in Ireland, the one-half may have property quite exclusive of their profession; perhaps the estate of seven or eight of the richest may be estimated at from 1000l. to 3000l. per annum, while the income of the remaining seventeen may be variously stated at from 1007. to 8007. per year. The former class of persons are called to the bar in Ireland as a matter of course, and without any view to practice. Some acquaintance with the profession being deemed requisite in order to discharge the duties of the magistracy and justices of the peace. The second class have generally other objects in view. If they be of the true "ascendancy" caste, they look according to the various degrees of interest they can bring into requisition, to be appointed in due time assistant-barrister, commissioners of bankrupts, of enquiry, or if they have a share of talent, to King's counsel, serjeantries, and justices-but if they be of no particular party, or independent men who think for themselves, or Roman Catholics, they generally either pursue the profession sedulously for some years, and then fall into business, or feeling that" sickness of the heart which ariseth from hope deferred," retire in disgust. It is, however, to be observed, that among this second class I could enumerate several who have attained the first rank in their profession.

The third class is that of which I meant more immediately to speak, but of which, in the true Hibernian style, I have been hitherto silent.

There remain twenty-five undisposed of, and of these, with the exception of four or five who are supported by their parents while in London, and after their call to the bar-the majority are thrown on the world to shift for themselves, to sink or swim as fate or fortune may determine.

Being one of this class myself, although born of respectable and rather wealthy parents, I have had opportunities of personally experiencing what I would fain describe, and am therefore within the rule of the poet, which holds good in law as well as love

Those best can paint them who has felt them most.

It is a trite remark, that one fact is worth a hundred arguments, and two or three well-authenticated cases of misery will go farther to enlist the pity of the reader, than the most artful and elaborated description. When Sterne wished to depict the horrors of slavery, he chose but a single victim, but the picture was true in all its parts, and the prominent features will be recognised so long as the human soul shall thirst after the blessing which was denied to the dungeon-victim.

To many persons now at the Irish Bar the following detail is well known, but to the majority of readers it will wear the appearance of novelty and the grace of fiction. For mine own part, however, I can attest its truth.

C was my school-fellow, and the companion of my earliest years. Our habits and feelings were the same. He was of a romantic and melancholy cast of mind, and while our play-mates were pursuing the mad gambol of the hour, I well remember that poor C. and myself were wont to sit among the trees, and read aloud alternately books of fiction and romance. I confess I was interested much by this line of study, but on the too sensitive soul of C. it made an impression which neither years nor misfortunes could efface. It gave a tinge and colour to his future life, and even while at school was productive of a thousand little misfortunes. But these ills were disregarded at the time, for C. expected to inherit a handsome fortune. In due time my friend was entered of Trinity College, Dublin; but instead of pursuing the ordinary routine of college business, he devoted himself to the muses and to the study of oratory.

I well remember his debut at the historical society. It was the most successful in my day. The echo of his first speech resounded beyond the walls of Alma Mater, and reached the ears of his father, who resided in a remote part of the country. It was forthwith determined by the family that C. should be entered of the King's Inns, although his own passion was for a military life. For two years I was his companion at dinner, in the hall of the King's Inns,* where he was considered as the life and soul of our party. Immediately after C.'s admission to the society, his father, who was extensively engaged in trade, died—it was said, of a broken heart. He had been robbed to an immense extent by a confidential clerk, in whose integrity he placed the most implicit confidence. The family prospects of my friend were changed, and "shadows, clouds, and darkness," were substituted for success and sunshine. After having generously devoted what remained of his patrimony to the service of his mother and sisters, C. flung himself into the great current of human existence, and journied up to London. For a while, like most young men, he devoted himself to pleasure, and to the seeing of all that was to be seen, but experience convinced him, as his purse collapsed, of the truth of the language of St. Paul, and gave to the words a practical verification, which was as unpleasing as it was real:-" If you do not work neither shall you eat,” says the apostle, and I am nothing if not scriptural, (said he,) as he unfolded the complicated beauties of his last five pound note. What was to be done when this was spent? From whence was the source of subsistence to flow? From the labour of his own hands and the sweat of his own brow. The Daily Press stretched forth its hundred temptations, and enmeshed C. within the folds of the "broad sheet." My friend became a reporter, and mortgaged his flesh and blood for the deathless fame which he fondly hoped would follow in the wake of his exertions. How often have I heard him say-Why shall I not be as successful as Mackintosh, as Courtenay, as Campbell, as Spankie, as Wallace? or why should I despise the labours in which Johnson and

* A newly erected and handsome building, situated in Henrietta-street, Dublin, and similar in object to the Temple, Lincoln's and Gray's Inns.

+ Thomas Wallace, Esq. of the Irish bar, a man of the sternest integrity, of the profoundest legal and literary, united to the purest taste. Why has Mr. Wallace been neglected by the author of the Irish Bar?

Sheridan have been engaged? But alas! it is with the Press as with the Stage. We only hear of the successful. There is much talk of the Kembles and Keans, of the Sheridans and Mackintoshes, but there is no sympathy extended to, not a tear is shed for, the humble son of genius, who is "born to bloom unseen," and perish amidst the horrors of penury and the complicated agonies of disease.

C soon became disgusted with the gallery of the House of Commons. His fragile frame but ill accorded with the late hours and onerous duties of his station, and after nearly two years' probation, he made room for another aspirant, whose mind was of a different mould, and who has since been numbered amidst the elect of the Law.

Leisure not more than inclination revived the master, although subdued, passion of my friend's mind. His love of poetry returned afresh, and he retouched a tragedy, the produce of his early years, and altered the plot in order to its successful representation. It was presented and accepted at one of the great theatres, but the prominent actor, in one of those unaccountably capricious moods which resemble an April day, all sunshine now, all storm anon-refused to be the hero of the piece to which he had but "one little month before pledged his plighted troth." This disaster visibly affected C.'s spirits, and he was again forced to seek employment on the Press. But the session was drawing to a close, and the gallery door was hermetically sealed unless to those who had entered it on the first day of the session. Long previously to this C. had formed an impure connexion, of which the fruit resembled those sea-apples that we read of in eastern history

that meet the eye

Yet turn to ashes on the lips.

And now that the hour of sunshine was over, he was abandoned for a prosperous trade-wind."-This, added to his other miseries, was too much to bear.-He took to his bed; but without money, without friends-it was deemed advisable to remove him to a hospital!

I saw him there just before his death. His frame was attenuated, and presented to the "mind's eye" the idea of a human skeleton covered with a thin and filmy parchment. His eye glared wildly, and now and again a hectic flush rose on his cheek, but to die away again! He was voluble, and talked like one full of wine. He saw a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; and muttered- The bar a street-sweeper-a judge-a pickpocket." There was a sailor in the same ward, who was at his last gasp, but who with unnatural strength, caught the infection, and roared forth "D-n the big Wigs ; women and wine for me!" And roaring thus all night, the nurses told me he died next morning.

His mind was more affected than his body, and his limbs ceased to pain, but C. was numbered before him, for he never spoke during this scene, or afterwards. His eye that glanced before, was still yet stern. He motioned me to give him pencil and paper, and, with a firm hand, he wrote,-" Tell my friends at Trinity to be warned by my fate, and to give up the bar, unless they have a certain support before and after their call." I obeyed my friend's injunction, and am willing to believe I have preserved many from a like fate.