The crowning effort of the man for the Quarter Sessions day, however, was reserved for of the county of Dublin, always the afternoon. By that time held at Kilmainham. He was several thousands of people, a big, burly, black-haired man, including all the rabble of commonly known as Bully Dublin who had been able on Egan, because of his rough, foot or by vehicle to transport overbearing manners and his themselves so far, were assem- readiness to give and accept bled on the ground. A drove challenges. In those days it of active pigs, with their tails was no uncommon occurrence well shaved and soaped, were for two counsellors who had a produced, some of them were difference in court to retire to a dressed up in wigs and gowns neighbouring field to settle the to resemble Lord Clonmell and question by a resort to arms, other legal dignitaries, and the and then to return and resume biggest and fattest porker of their arguments at the point them all had been christened where they had been broken off. Shamado, after Higgins, Magee's Egan was on one occasion conenemy. Silence having been ducting a case at the Waterwith difficulty procured, it was ford Assizes, and had a dispute proclaimed that an Olympic Pig with the opposing counsel over Hunt was about to take place, a point of law. They exchanged and that whoever could catch glances, and both simultanea pig by its tail and hold it ously disappeared from court. fast might have it for his own, They crossed the Suir in the after which, at a given signal, ferry-boat, and having by this the whole number were let means gained the county Killoose. A scene of indescrib- kenny and put themselves beable confusion followed. The yond the jurisdiction of the terrified animals, penned in by Waterford authorities, they the crowd in all other direc- deemed that they were safe tions, burst through the fence from any possible interruption. which separated Lord Clon- It chanced, however, that a mell's pleasure-grounds from Kilkenny magistrate had been Fiat Hill, with the whole mob in court, and guessing whither in full cry behind them. Shrub- the gentlemen had betaken beries and plantations were themselves he hurried after broken and trampled down, them. He crossed the river lawns and flower-beds trodden in the next trip of the ferryinto indistinguishable ruin, boat, and arrived upon the and within half an hour John scene just as the combatants Magee saw himself amply had taken their ground and avenged for the wrongs which were about to fire. he had suffered from the noble owner. Another legal luminary much distinguished for his duelling propensities was John Egan, who subsequently became Chair "Stop, stop!" he shouted; "I'm a justice of the peace for this county." "You may be St Peter from heaven for all we care, you won't stop us!" retorted Egan. Finding commands of of no avail, the J.P., who was a big, broadly built man, planted himself boldly between the antagonists, thus effectually masking their fire. "If you don't get out of that, by we'll shoot you first, and pound you to a jelly afterwards," swore Egan's opponent. Appalled by this threat, and finding all his arguments and protests vain, the worthy magistrate at length consented to stand aside and allow the combat to proceed. The opposing counsel emptied a case of pistols, as the phrase was, without damage being done to either side, and recrossed the river to the court, where they found the judge, the jury, and the general public, who had all thoroughly well understood the cause of their abrupt departure, quietly waiting to hear which of them had been killed before proceeding with the case at hearing. Another of Egan's duels was fought with Curran. Egan, as already said, was a stout, bulky man, and on coming on the ground he complained that Curran had an unfair advantage over him, for whilst he himself was as big as a turfstack, Curran was as thin as a blade of grass. "Oh, Mr Egan," said Curran, "I have no desire for anything that might be considered unfair. Let my size be chalked out upon your body, and any hits outside the line shall not count." The handicap proved unnecessary, however, as neither of the combatants was wounded: Egan, indeed, notwithstanding the numerous duels which he fought, both with sword and pistol, had the singular goodfortune to come off unscathed in them all. It must be said that the marksmanship of the Irish fire-eaters does not seem to have been of the best, or the tragic results of these encounters would have been much greater than they were. In one duel in which the Right Honourable G. Ogle, Privy Councillor and Member for Dublin, figured, he and his opponent were so inveterate that they insisted on discharging four brace of pistols at each other, but the only damage sustained on either side was that one of the seconds tumbled into a potato - trench and broke his arm. Late in life, after he had been made county court judge, Egan had an encounter with Roger Barett, Master of the Rolls. The duel was fought upon the fair-ground at Donnybrook, and a large concourse gathered to witness it. Both men were humorists, and the meeting was characteristic. Upon the combatants taking their ground, Barett, who was the challenger, promptly fired without waiting for the signal to be given, and then walked coolly away, calling out, "Now, Egan, my honour is satisfied." The judge was, however, by no means contented, and shouted, "Hilloa! stop, Roger, till I take a shot at your honour!" Barett thereupon came back, and planting himself in his former station, said composedly, "All right then, fire away!" Egan presented his pistol, intense though suppressed exand taking most deliberate citement. At last he could aim, first at one part of the restrain himself no longer, but Master of the Rolls' anatomy springing to his feet he deand then at another, seemed livered a vehement denundetermined to finish him off ciation of the Bill. At the end outright. At last, however, of it he paused, then stamped he called out, "Pho, pho, I his foot violently: "Ireland! won't honour you, I won't be Ireland for ever!" he shouted, bothered shooting you, so now "and damn Kilmainham !” you may go to the d-l your own way, or come and shake hands, whichever you like best." Barett chose the latter alternative, and, amidst the plaudits of the crowd, the antagonists departed from the field in much good-humour and the best of friends. Like most counsellors of any eminence, Egan was in Parliament, sitting as one of the members for Tallagh in Waterford. He distinguished himself by his absolute integrity, a quality only too rare in that venal assembly, one member of which, on being reproached for having sold his country for filthy lucre, thanked God that he had a country to sell. Egan was entirely without private means, and dependent upon his stipend as chairman of Kilmainham. He was indeed so poor that when he died three shillings, found upon his mantelpiece, represented the sum total of his worldly wealth. During the struggle over the Union it was intimated to him with great plainness that he would incur the Government's most serious displeasure if he opposed that measure, whilst he might hope for very substantial advancement if he supported it. As the debate progressed, Egan was seen to be labouring under For the honour of the Government, it must however be recorded that no attempt was made to deprive him of his post, which he continued to hold up to his death. Sir Jonah Barrington's and Toler's abortive attempt to fight each other was by no means the only encounter occasioned by a debate in the House of Commons, nor is this surprising considering the amazing language which the Speaker permitted the members to indulge in. A younger scion of a titled family having on one occasion addressed the House, the speaker who rose to reply to him declared that the race to which he belonged were rotten and corrupt every one of them, from the member who had just sat down to the toothless hag grinning in the gallery. This last was a delicate allusion to the mother of the member in question, who had come down to hear her son speak. Even Grattan himself stooped to invective and personalities at times. He was small and slender of build, and once when he had assailed Egan, the latter retorted by calling the great orator "a duodecimo volume of abuse." The fiercest and most envenomed conflict of rhetoric upon the floor of the Irish House of Commons, however, Flood both succeeded in slip was that between Grattan and Flood, who till then had been close political friends, and members of the same opposition, but had differed upon a motion of Flood's for retrenchment and reduction of the army in Ireland. Flood, who had but recently recovered from illness, and spoke with difficulty, twitted Grattan with being a mendicant patriot, who had been bought by his country, and had sold that country for prompt payment of the sum at issue. Grattan, in return, sneered at Flood's bodily infirmity, which he hinted was assumed to suit his own purposes, and likened him-Flood being of gaunt and cadaverous aspect to an ill-omened bird of prey with broken beak and sepulchral note. Flood was on his feet in an instant. At least his infirmity had not made him afraid of the right honourable gentleman, and he would meet him anywhere, upon any ground, by day or by night. At this point it would seem to have dawned upon the Speaker that matters were going rather far, for he arose and appealed to the House to support him in keeping the gentlemen in order. A Mr Burke thereupon moved that the honourable members be made to promise that nothing further should happen. The House was cleared, and during the confusion attendant upon that process, Grattan and ping out and making good their escape. A meeting was arranged to take place the following day at Blackrock, and the antagonists had nearly reached the trysting-place when they were overtaken by messengers bearing the Chief Justice's warrant, and arrested. Being brought back to Dublin in custody, they were bound over in recognisances of £20,000 each to keep the peace. The last expiring struggle of the Irish Parliament was not without another dramatic episode of this sort. Upon the night of February 14, 1800, Isaac Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, rose to move the resolution for the Union between Great Britain and Ireland. In his speech introducing that measure, he made a violent personal attack upon Grattan because of the hostility which he had always shown to it in his writings and in his utterances both within and without the House. He accused him of associating with disaffected persons, and wound up his harangue by calling him an unimpeached traitor. Grattan's reply was vigorous and forcible. "Far be it from us, said a Dublin newspaper of the following day with commendable reticence, "to communicate to the Public the portrait which one Honourable Gentleman holds forth of another on an occasion of this kind; but it may at least be 1 The Irish Parliament had voted Grattan £100,000 for his services to his country. He could only be induced to accept £50,000, and that under extreme pressure, said that the picture was a members, we are told, spoke full length, in which, whether or no there were some features that might be overcharged, there were none that were not touched in with great strength and spirit." What may be called an outline drawing has, however, come down to us. Grattan declared that he would not call his adversary a villain, both because it would be unparliamentary and because he was a privy councillor, nor would he call him a fool, because he happened to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Half minister, half monkey, a prentice politician and a master coxcomb, he had abused the privileges of the House by using language which, if he had uttered it outside its walls, he, Grattan, would have replied to with a blow. He had scarcely resumed his seat when an intimation was conveyed to him that General Cradock, the honourable and gallant member for Thomastown, desired as Mr Corry's second to wait upon him in the Speaker's room. Grattan, who practised oratory and pistol-shooting with equal zest in the woods of Tinnehinch, his Wicklow home, lost no time in betaking himself to the sacrosanct spot appointed for the interview, and it was agreed that the meeting between him and the Chancellor of the Exchequer should take place with the least possible delay,-in other words, as soon as it was light enough for the combatants to see each other. The rest of the night was occupied by a very desultory and protracted debate. Several more than once, a matter of the less moment, as no one appears to have listened to them, the attention of all being engrossed by the impending duel. At daybreak the gentlemen stepped out from the heated atmosphere of the chamber, lit by the flaring candles of its chandelier, into the chilly dawn of the winter's morning. Ball's Bridge, a mile and more away, was the place fixed upon, and out of the many members who had eagerly proffered him their services, Grattan had selected Mr Metge, one of the members for West Meath, to act as his second. Just, however, as Grattan and his antagonist had been placed opposite each other, up rushed a sheriff's officer-whom we should nowadays term a policeman-who had got wind of the affair. "Gentlemen, this must not go on," he gasped, with as much dignity as he was capable after his race; "I forbid these proceedings." General Cradock, who had distinguished himself greatly in the West Indies, who had borne a large part in putting down the rebellion of '98, and who was moreover a very large and powerfully-built man, was not to be so easily daunted. Seizing the representative of the law in his arms, he swung him round and deposited him in a little ditch near by. The officer might very easily have emerged from it, but he either deemed discretion the better part of valour, or else, his conscience once eased, he was anxious, like a true Irishman, not to spoil sport, and he pre |