Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn.

Chapter XL. **

Life of Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. **

The family of JOCELYN is distinguished for great antiquity, and many of its members have achieved renown in history. When William the Norman planned his expedition to England, and selected the bravest knights of Normandy to share the Saxon spoils, foremost of those who spurred by his side on the red sands of Hastings was Sir Gilbert Jocelyn. Faithful to his friends, William the Conqueror distributed the broad lands and rich lordships of the vanquished Thanes to his companions in arms with no niggard hand, and to Sir Gilbert he assigned the lordships of Sempringham and Tyrrington, in pleasant Lincolnshire. Sir Gilbert had two sons, Gilbert and Geoffry, but the latter (evincing that zeal for the Catholic Church which one noble daughter of the race has so piously displayed in our day, though unable to manifest it to the same extent as Geoffry) abandoned the large possessions which the favour of the monarch granted to his father, and preferred the cloister, there to work out his salvation by serving God in the persons of His poor. Geoffry’s devotion to a religious life left his brother sole heir to the estates of their father.

The genealogist and historian will find a full account of the honour and intermarriages of the descendants of Sir Gilbert Jocelyn in the ‘Peerage of Ireland,’ [Lodge’s Peerage of Ireland, edited by Archdall, vol. iii, p. 265.] but my space prevents my giving them here. I must not omit, however, a brief account and notable epitaph of John Jocelyn, third son of Sir Thomas Jocelyn, of Hide Hall, a Privy Councillor in the reign of Edward VI. John was an eminent antiquary, and Secretary to Archbishop Parker, by whose direction he wrote the book ‘De Antiquitate Ecclesiae Britannicae,’ published by the Archbishop, and was collated by the Archbishop to the parsonage of Hollingbourne, in Kent. John Jocelyn was a perfect master of the Saxon language, of which he published a dictionary, was a member of Queen’s College, Cambridge, died a very aged man, and lies buried in High Roothing Church, Essex, with this quaint inscription to his memory:-

John Joceline, Esq.,* interred here doth lye,

Sir Thomas Joceline’s third son, of worthie Memorie.

Thrice noble was this Gentleman, by Birthe, by learning great,

Of single, chaste, and godly Life; he has in Heaven a seat.

He the year fifteen hundred twenty-nine was born,

Not twenty yeeres old, him Cambridge did with two Degrees adorn.

King’s College him a Fellow chose *in Anno *forty-nine;

In learning tryde, worthy he did his mind always incline,

But others took the Fame and Praise of his deserving wit,

And his Inventions, as their own, to printing did commit.

Sixteen hundred and three it grieves all to remember,

He left this life (Poor’s daily friend) the 28th December.

I think he ought to have been styled Reverend.

Robert Jocelyn, the future Viscount of that name and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was only son of Thomas, fifth son of Sir Robert Jocelyn, Baronet, and Anne, daughter of Thomas Bray, Esq., of Westminster. He was born about the year 1680, and received an excellent education, which fitted him for any learned profession. His taste having induced him to study law, he applied himself diligently, and when called to the Bar in 1706, family influence and his own abilities soon hastened his promotion at the Irish Bar. On May 28, 1726, Mr. Jocelyn was appointed third Serjeant-at-Law to King George I,. [Pat. March 28, 1726. 12 Geo. I. 2a pars, f. R. 2.] and he so well sustained the favourable impression entertained of his capacity, that, in the following year, he became Solicitor-General. [Pat. May 4, 1727. 13 Geo. I. 3a pars, d. R. 18.] On the accession of George II., in the autumn of 1727, this appointment was confirmed, [Pat. October 28, 1727. 1 Geo, II. 2a pars, d. B. 22.] and the office of Attorney-General becoming vacant in 1730, he was promoted to that place, in the room of Thomas Marley, appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer. [Pat. October 22, 1730. 4 Geo. II. 3 pars, f. R. 33.]

In 1739, on the resignation of Lord Wyndham, Lord Chancellor, the Great Seal of Ireland, was at the disposal of the Government. It was speedily entrusted to the Attorney-General. [Pat. September 7, 1739. 13 Geo. II. 1a pars, d. R. 12.] This appointment gave very general satisfaction, as the new Lord Chancellor was distinguished for great amiability in private life, high public character, eminent literary tastes, and profound legal acquirements.

The Chancellor gave a very excellent proof of his esteem for men of ability by encouraging the study of Irish history and antiquities. [In the patronage of literary and artistic skill, Jocelyn resembled the eminent English Chancellor, Lord Ellesmere, who was the patron of Sir John Davies. Shaftsbury and Bathurst were the friends and promoters of Sir William Jones. Jocelyn’s efforts in favour of Walter Harris deserve to be faithfully recorded and mentioned with praise, because they are, as far as I am aware, the only instance of a Lord Chancellor of Ireland encouraging a literary barrister and rewarding his efforts by generous and liberal patronage.] He assisted Walter Harris, a member of the Irish Bar, but better known by his historical and antiquarian works. This gentleman married a grand-daughter of the learned Irish antiquary, Sir James Ware, and aided by the liberality of the Lord Chancellor, and other lovers of Irish literature, he published in 1739 a handsome folio edition of the ‘Lives of the Irish Bishops,’ translated from the Latin of Sir James Ware. The success of this work induced Harris to undertake the publication of Ware’s ‘Antiquities and Irish Writers,’ which is one of the most valuable compilations on the subject. [A fine edition of these works was issued in Dublin in 1764.] His edition, published in 1747, contains numerous and well-executed engravings of ancient coins, medals, arms, and other antiquities, besides costumes of the various religious orders. He gave faithful representations of canons, nuns, knights templars, monks and friars, in their respective habits. The history of Irish writers in this work is particularly valuable, being most carefully compiled, and has been of considerable use to me in the composition of the first series of Lives in this work. It contains the lives and writings of authors born in Ireland, also of those who, though not born here, received their education, or enjoyed preferments or offices, and mentions their respective writings. Harris’s ‘Hibernica,’ collected from manuscripts in Trinity College Library, was printed in 1749, and in the same year appeared his ‘Life’ of King William III.’

During Handel’s visit to Dublin in 1741, the great composer obtained the patronage of the Lord Chancellor, as he mentions in a letter to Charles Jennens, of Gopsall Hall, who had selected the words of the ‘Messiah’:-

‘I opened with the Allegro, Penseroso, and Moderato, and I assure you that the words of the Moderato are vastly admired, the audience being composed (beside the flower of ladies of distinction and other people of the greatest quality) of so many Bishops, Deans, Heads of the College, the most eminent persons in the law, as the Chancellor, Auditor-General, &c., all which are very much taken with the poetry, so that I am desired to perform it again the next term. I cannot sufficiently express the kind treatment I receive here; but the politeness of this generous nation cannot be unknown to you, so I let you judge of the satisfaction I enjoy, passing my time with honour, profit, and pleasure.’

The condition of the Irish Bar in 1740 may be well illustrated by the high eulogium of a contemporary. Treating of the style of oratory best suited for arguments at the Bar, Mr. Howard [Treatise on the Equity side of the Exchequer in Ireland, Preface, p. viii,] says:- ‘It should be strong and expressive, without stiffness or affectation, as short and concise as the nature of the subject will admit of, without being either obscure or ambiguous, and easy and flowing, without one superfluous word, I have seen an advocate [The Right Hon. Anthony Malone.] at the Bar in this kingdom, who was a model for that kind of oratory which is alone fit for the Bar, and who, I believe, it is allowed, was never exceeded, if ever he was equalled. He had the shortest, clearest, easiest way of expressing his thoughts by the most harmonious arrangement of the best chosen words, both for meaning and sound. He had that knack of familiarly conveying his ideas to every, even the meanest, capacity, that every man who heard him might flatter himself he could speak the same way; but with such perspicuity and strength of reasoning as I never before saw any man possessed of within any degree of him, and, it is five hundred to one if ever I do. The adoration (if so I may express it) which was always paid to him, whenever he rose to speak, was more than ever I saw offered to any man except his father. [Richard Malone.] All rose with him as if they would not lose a syllable that fell from his lips. And so it is in the Senate House.

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem’d

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care. **

His look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer’s noontide air, while thus he spake.*

Milton’s Paradise Lost.

‘He was always master of his brief; and never attempted to deceive or impose on any Court, or to insist or persist when he knew his client’s cause was not a just one; nor did he ever use the little arts of chicanery or sophistry, or any trick or cunning in his pleading. His true oratory needed them not, and his candour abhorred them.’

The love of fun and frolic prevalent in Ireland in olden times, and which, I trust, will again enliven the routine in which man’s life is, for the most part, spent, was not diminished by the terrors of the grim destroyer. Richard, first Earl of Rosse, who died in 1741, was a humourist who delighted in practical jokes, and on his death-bed could not resist indulging in his .favourite pleasantry. As his life had not been sufficiently edifying to suit the evangelical notions of the Dean of Kilmore, that pious divine wrote him a very strong-worded epistle, reminding him ‘of the fearful account he would have to render of his blasphemy, obscenity, gaming, and other iniquities, unless he forthwith repented.’ This letter was despatched to the house of the dying Peer, [The Lord Chancellor married his widow] next door to whom lived a very different nobleman, the God-fearing and home-loving Earl of Kildare. The thought of how indignant his virtuous neighbour would be on reading such a letter, which, bore no special address save on the envelope, instantly flashed into the frolicsome mind of Lord Rosse, so, carefully refolding the letter, he put it into a new envelope, and, imitating the Dean’s writing, directed and sent it by the Dean’s servant to the Earl of Kildare. The Earl having read it with equal surprise and indignation, showed it to the Countess, saying, ‘he feared the Dean had lost his senses.’ She read the letter again, and, considering the style too earnest for a lunatic, advised her husband to take it to the Archbishop of Dublin. The Earl accordingly went to his Grace and said, ‘Pray, my Lord, did you ever hear that I was a profane blasphemer, a profligate liver, an habitual gambler, a rioter - in short, everything that is base and vile P’

‘You, my Lord!’ replied the Archbishop, ‘every one knows you are a pattern of humility, godliness, and virtue.’

‘Well, then, my Lord, what satisfaction can I have of a reverend divine who, under his own hand, lays all this to my charge?’

‘Surely no man in his senses, who knew your Lordship, would presume to do it; and if a clergyman had been guilty of such an offence, your Lordship would have satisfaction in the Spiritual court.’

The Earl then produced the letter, saying it had been left at his house that morning by the Dean’s servant. The Archbishop immediately sent for the Dean to demand an explanation of his writing this uncalled-for letter, and on his obeying the summons, the Archbishop placed the Earl in an adjoining room while he conversed with the Dean.

On the entrance of the latter, his Grace produced the letter, and reproached him for having written it. The Dean said ‘he was much surprised at his Grace’s remarks, for in writing it he had conceived he was doing no more than his duty in trying to rescue a soul from perdition.’ The Archbishop said, ‘there was nothing to justify such a letter as he held in his hand,’ and hinted at unpleasant consequences.

The Dean, quite taken aback, said, ‘I have done what was my duty, and am quite ready to abide any result.’ He then retired, and the Earl consulted the Chancellor, who advised him to institute proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court.

Next day the Archbishop again met the Dean, and told him the consequences of writing such a letter might be ruinous, and urged him as a friend, to ask the Earl’s pardon.’

‘Pardon, my Lord,’ echoed the Dean, ‘why the Earl is dead!’

‘Dead! ‘exclaimed the Archbishop, ‘Lord Kildare dead?’

‘No, Lord Rosse!’

‘Whom did you write the letter toe’ inquired the Archbishop.

‘The unhappy Lord Rosse.’

The mystery was then explained to Lord Kildare’s satisfaction, and showing, in the case of Lord Rosse, the ruling passion strong in death.

His Majesty was pleased to confer on ‘the Lord Chancellor the title of Baron Newport, of Newport, in the County of Tipperary, which is thus recorded in the Lords’ Journals under date of November 30, 1743:-

‘The Right Hon. Robert Jocelyn, Esq., Lord Chancellor of Ireland, being by Letters Patent dated November 29, in the seventeeth year of the reign of our Sovereign lord King George II., created Baron Newport, his Lordship taking in his hand the Purse, with the Great Seal, retired to the lower end of the House, and having there put on his robes, was this day introduced between the Lord Tullamore and the Lord Southwell, also in their robes.

‘Then his Lordship having at the table taken and subscribed the oaths, and made and subscribed the Declaration pursuant to the Statutes, was conducted to and placed at the lower end of the Barons’ Bench, from which he went to the upper end of the Earls’ Bench and sat there as Lord Chancellor, and then returned to the Woolsack.’ [Lords’ Jour.Ir.vol.iii.p,547.]

The Lord Chancellor bad again to assist at the trial of a Peer charged with murder. This time as President. He received the Commission of Lord High Steward during the trial of Nicholas, fifth Viscount Netterville, who was indicted for the murder of Michael Walsh, in the county of Meath. The trial took place in 1743. Very much the same course and ceremonies were observed as during the trial of Lord Santry. The Crown was represented by Prime Serjeant ‘Malone, the Attorney-General (Bowes), and Solicitor-General. As Spiritual Peers were exempt from attending in all matters of blood, leave was given them to withdraw, but owing to the death of the two principal witnesses, whose depositions were rejected in evidence, the prosecution failed, and the Lord High Steward said, ‘The House having heard all the evidence, the question was, whether Nicholas Lord Viscount Netterville is guilty of the felony treason and murder whereof he stands indicted, or not guilty?’ The Peers, *seriatim, *were then called, beginning with the youngest Baron, when stood each in his place, uncovered, and laying his right hand on his breast declared, ‘Lord Netteville not guilty, upon my honour.’ The Lord Steward. then broke the white wand and adjourned the House.

The Irish Viceroy, from August 1745 to September 1747, was the celebrated Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, and as the opinions of such a man on Irish affairs are interesting and valuable, I subjoin some of practical utility. [Vide Chesterfield’s Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. .541.] When writing to Mr. Prior, a patriotic Irishman, whom Lord Chesterfield and the Chancellor much esteemed, he says:-

‘London, June 14, 1766.

‘As you are one of the few in Ireland who always think of the public, without any mixture of private interest, I do not doubt that you have already thought of some useful methods of employing the King’s bounty to the Dublin Society. The late additional tax upon glass here, as it must considerably raise the price of glass bottles imported into Ireland, seems to point out the manufacturing them there. Fine writing and printing paper we have often talked of together, and the specimen you gave me before I left Dublin proves that nothing but care and industry is wanting to bring that manufacture to perfection. I am convinced you might supply England with a great deal if you made it, as you could do, both good and cheap. Also starch. These are the sort of jobs that I wish the people of Ireland would attend to, with as much industry and care as they do jobs of a very different nature. These honest arts would solidly increase their fortunes, and improve their estates, upon the only true and permanent foundation, the public good.’

In another letter to the same gentleman, the Viceroy remarks upon the intemperance of the Irish gentry of his time, and censures the degrading vice in language which would have endeared him to Father Mathew, while his sentiments in reference to the country would certainly have been applauded by Daniel O’Connell, ‘Five thousand tuns of wine, imported *conmmunibus annis *into Ireland, is a sure proof of the excessive drinking of the gentry there, for the inferior sort of people cannot afford to drink wine, so that these 5,000 tuns of wine are chiefly employed in destroying the constitutions, the faculties, and too often the fortunes of those of superior rank, who ought to take care of the others. Were there to be a contest between public cellars and public granaries, which do you think would carry it? I believe you will allow that a claret board, if there were one, would be much better attended than the linen board, *unless *when flax-seed were to be distributed. I am sensible I shall be reckoned a very shallow politician, for my attention to such *trifling *objects as the improvement of your lands, the extension of your manufactures, and the increase of your trade, which only tend to the advancement of the public; whereas an able Lord Lieutenant ought to employ his thoughts in greater matters, He should think of jobs for favourites, sops for enemies, of managing parties, and engaging Parliaments to vote away their own and their fellow-subjects’ liberties and properties. But these great arts of government, I confess, are above me, and people should not go out of their depth. I will modestly be content with wishing Ireland all the good that is possible, and with doing it all the good I can; and so weak am I that I would much rather be distinguished and remembered by the name of the * Irish Lord Lieutenant *than by that of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.’ [I had been so accustomed to regard Lord Chesterfield as a very superficial courtier and man whose business was pleasure, that these thoughtful and noble sentiments came on me by surprise, and I gladly print them for the benefit of future Viceroys. His keen irony is very happy in describing the duties of an *able *Viceroy, such as unfortunately Ireland was too familiar with.]

With all his Lordship’s expressions of affection for Ireland, the recollections of his Viceroyalty would have been lost but for two circumstances. He erected the column surmounted by the phoenix, in the Viceregal Park, which tends to give some ground for the misnomer. [The proper name was *Fion-uisge, *clear or fair water, so called from a spring in the grounds near the Zoological Gardens.] The other was from his constantly hearing of dangerous Papists, he declared ‘the beautiful Lady Palmer was the only *dangerous Papist *he had met in the entire kingdom.’ The Lord Chancellor likewise ridiculed the fears of the credulous Protestants, and joined the Viceroy in turning a deaf ear to all idle rumours. Many were reported. A notorious assertor of Popish plots rushed to the Castle early one morning, and demanded ‘to see the Lord Lieutenant on highly important business.’ He was informed ‘that his Excellency had not left his bed-chamber,’ on which the enquirer went away, saying ‘he would return in a couple of hours.’ True to his words he called, but alas for the indolence of the representative of Majesty, the same answer met his eager demand. ‘I must see the Lord Lieutenant,’ said the Irish Squire resolutely.

‘Is your ‘business so very urgent, Sir?’ enquired one of the aides-de-camp..

‘Matter of the greatest public importance,’ replied the visitor.

The aide-de-camp obtained permission for the applicant to enter the bed-chamber of the Viceroy, who was still in bed.

‘Well, Mr. ---, what’s stirring now?’ demanded the Viceroy.

‘All the Papists in Ireland are *up, *my Lord,’ replied the alarmist, using a term very significant in Ireland.

‘Then it’s high time for all the Protestants to be up too,’ said his Excellency, looking at his watch; “tis half-past ten; good day, Sir;’ and ordering his valet, he very summarily dismissed his morning visitor, whose news of a similar nature, on many previous, equally urgent occasions, was not very reliable. [The ingenious way in which Lord Chesterfield won a wager is related in Schoelcher’s Life of Handel. Heidegger, lessee of the Haymarket Theatre in 1734, was said to be the ugliest man of his time. Lord Chesterfield laid a wager it was impossible to find a human being more ugly. The bet was taken, and a hideous old woman produced, and on comparison Heidegger looked the least horrible of the two. As the old woman’s backer was pluming himself on winning, Lord Chesterfield said, ‘he would not acknowledge his defeat until Heidegger ‘put on the old woman’s bonnet.’ Thus attired the fortunes of the Earl were retrieved, for Heidegger looked so frightfully ugly, Chesterfield was declared the winner without any dissent.]

The eminent Irish barrister and orator, Richard Lalor Shiel, relates an interview he had with the Lady Palmer whom Lord Chesterfield described as the ‘only dangerous Papist he ever met in Ireland.’ The admiration Lord Chesterfield entertained for her, induced Shiel to seek an introduction to her when upwards of a hundred years of age. She then resided, secluded and alone, in small apartments in Henry Street, Dublin, though her means afforded her a house. Over the chimney-piece of her sitting-room was the portrait of the courtly Earl, to whose fine face the artist has done every justice. The Lady was in her bed-chamber when Shiel called, so he had time to examine the picture, said to have been a keepsake from the platonic admirer to the beauty of his Viceregal court. Shiel was. conjuring up, in his vivid imagination, the young and lovely lady whose charms had fascinated the intellectual and accomplished nobleman. The Castle, in the days of the Earl and his wife, Melosina de Schulenburg, Countess of Walsingham and Baroness of Aldborough, rose before him, brilliant with the beauties, the beaux, and the statesmen of their day; and he was picturing Lord Chesterfield conducting Lady Palmer through the mazes of a minuet, when the door slowly opened, and, in the midst of a volume of smoke which had opportunely enough filled the room, a weird and withered female grew visible amidst the vapour. She fixed on the startled visitor a wild and sorceress eye, the expression of which was aided by her thin and shrunken form draped in black, her elongated neck, her marked and strongly moulded but emaciated features. She leaned with withered hands, the skin coloured like aged parchment, upon an ivory-headed cane, while, with a smile not free from ghastliness, she enquired the name of her visitor. I can well conceive how difficult it was to recall the lustre of those aged eyes, the brightness of the faded beauty, the graces of that bent and drooping form. When acquainted with the name of her accomplished guest, whose fame was not unknown to her, she grew animated, and something of her pristine charm was restored. Two subjects interested the venerable lady. One was Lord Chesterfield, the other the condition of the Irish. She was a vehement Catholic, and when she spoke with fire and energy on the oppressions her co-religionists suffered, [This was previous to 1829.] striking her cane violently on the ground, exclaiming, ‘Sir, it is not to be borne!’ Shiel said ‘he was ‘not surprised Lord Chesterfield called her *a dangerous Papist.’ *

Associated with the Viceroy and the Lord Chancellor in the Government of Ireland, I must not omit a notice of the Primate.

The mantle of Primate Boulter, the great sustainer of the English interest in Ireland, had fallen upon Primate Stone, who had been translated from the See of Derry to that of Armagh, in the year 1746. It would however be unfair to this latter prelate not to mention a very marked difference in their sentiments; while Boulter excluded every Irishman from office, Stone admitted them without any distinction save the religious test.

He was a man of great abilities and unbounded ambition. He had a very powerful party to support his political views; but had a strong opponent in Mr. Boyle, who, as we have seen, was elected Speaker of the House of Commons. Primate Stone sought pre-eminence from the influence of the Government, while Boyle took the popular side. The great subject of contention between them was, no doubt, a subject of the highest importance to the community: ‘Whether the House of Commons of Ireland had, or had not, a right to dispose of, the surplus revenues of the country.’

Although the Irish Parliament, in the days of the earlier Georges, had been very persistently ‘snubbed,’ to use a very significant, though inelegant, expression, by the more powerful Parliament of Great Britain, it occasionally showed the spirit of resistance; and though crushed, was not dead. It was at this period not the Parliament of the Irish nation, but of the Protestant electors. The Roman Catholics were the vast majority of the population, but neither directly nor indirectly had they a share in the legislation. They could not sit as members, or vote for those who could. The borough system extensively prevailed, and was in the hands of a comparatively small party. Of the 300 members of the Irish House of Commons, fully 216 were returned for boroughs. Of these, 200 were elected by 100 individuals, and nearly 50 were the nominees of 10. [Grattan’s Life, by his son.] This enabled the Ministry to have a sufficient number under control, either by official ties or by patronage. There was a numerous band of stipendiaries, pensioners for imaginary services, paid of course out of Irish taxes, so that, as was well observed, the country paid annually a considerable sum for stifling the voice of its own representatives. The lucky hirelings were in no dread of being called on by enraged or troublesome constituents, to account for corrupt votes; these happy members might sit all their lives without even once seeing the electors who returned them. They enjoyed a ‘fixity of tenure,’ disturbed only by a dissolution of the Crown. Answerable only to their own consciences, they were beyond other control; for sometimes thirty years elapsed before they ran the risk of losing their seats. Yet on one subject they were very sensitive, like all other mortals, they kept a tight hold of the purse. They conceived that it was their undoubted right to apply the surplus revenue of Ireland towards Irish purposes, without the consent of the King; and in 1749 prepared as much of a Bill as the Poyning’s law enabled them to do- namely, the heads - as follows: ‘Whereas on the 25th day of March last a considerable balance remained in the bands of the Vice-Treasurer, or Receiver-General of this kingdom, unapplied, it will be for your Majesty’s service, and for the ease of your faithful subjects of this kingdom, that so much thereof as can be conveniently spared should be paid, agreeably to your Majesty’s most gracious intentions, in discharge of part of the National Debt.’

This appropriation, which was apparently the proper one, excited the anger of the advocates of prerogative in England, who affirmed ‘the Irish House of Commons had no right to apply any part of the unappropriated revenue, nor even to entertain any question of the kind *without the express consent of the Crown.’ *

In consequence of this, the Viceroy, Duke of Dorset, was commanded to give this consent at the session of Parliament, He stated, ‘he was commanded by the King, ever attentive to the ease and happiness of his subjects, to acquaint them his Majesty would consent and recommend to them, that such part of the money then remaining in his treasury as should be thought consistent with the public service, be applied towards the discharge of the National Debt, or such part thereof as they shall think expedient.’

This declaration alarmed the Irish Commons, and called into life all the elements of oratorical power. Hitherto the current of legislation flowed so evenly, and ran in such a narrow groove, that there was little to excite, and excitement is the mainspring of debate. Eloquence must exist in the subject and in the occasion, or it will not be produced in the man; but now enthusiasm glowed in. the Irish House of Commons. There were not wanting able speakers. Foremost among them was Prime Sergeant Malone, whose eminence as a barrister I have already mentioned. This gentleman, educated under his father’s care, was called to the Irish bar in 1727, and represented the county of Westmeath in the Irish Parliament. He had great practice in the Court of Chancery, and his style of speaking was admirable. [Ante, p. 77.]’ Clear as a limpid stream, yet forcible as a mountain torrent, it was so logical that conviction was sure to follow in the train of his argument. Lord Sackville said of him: ‘Mr. Malone was a man of the first intellect that . country ever produced; the three ablest men I ever beard were Mr. Pitt (the father), Mr. Murray (Lord Mansfield), and Mr. Malone. For a popular assembly, I would choose Mr. Pitt; for a Privy Council, Murray; for twelve wise men, Malone.’ ‘He is a great sea in a calm,’ was another observation applied to him by Gerard Hamilton, a good judge of capable men, it was replied; ‘but had you heard him when he was, young you would have said he was a great sea in a storm; and like the sea, whether in calm or storm, he was a great production of nature.’

He was about fifty years of age when the conflict between the ruling powers and the House of Commons broke forth; and with all the vehemence of a patriot, Prime Serjeant Malone advocated the rights of the Commons of Ireland. He was ably supported by the Speaker, and many other Members, while the great majority of the nation applauded their conduct. Whenever the opportunity arose they asserted their rights; but the course taken by the Prime Serjeant was attended with the usual result, loss of Court favour. Whether the Lord Chancellor resisted the proposition of the Government to deprive him of his legal rank, which gave him precedence of the Attorney and Solicitor-General, I know not; but, to the regret of the Bar, and the rage of the people, he was deprived of the office of Prime Serjeant. [In 1757, during the Duke of Bedford’s Viceroyalty, Mr. Malone was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, then a quasi-judicial office, and as he delighted in equity business, sat in Court and did more of the legal work than Chief Baron Willis. It is said there never was an appeal from his judgments; more than can be said of most Chancellors. When he lost this office he returned to the equity practice with a patent of precedency. After the accession of King George III. he supported the Government until the period of his lamented death, May 8, 1776.] During the Viceroyalty of the Marquis of Hartington, who had replaced the Duke of Dorset, the state of parties was much unsettled in Ireland. The Chancellor’s health was not very good; but he attended Court with regularity, and disposed of his cause list in a satisfactory way.

His Lordship married twice. His first wife was Charlotte Anderson, daughter and co-heiress of Charles Anderson, Esq., of Worcester, by whom he had a son, Robert, his successor. [Robert, second Viscount, succeeded his father in 1756. He had previously, in 1752, married Anne, daughter and heiress of James, Earl of Clanbrassil. He held the office of Auditor-General of Ireland, and was created Earl of Roden, of High Roding, in the County Tipperary, September 9, 1771.] She died February 23, 1747, and he remained several years a widower. In 1754 his Lordship married again. His second choice was a widow, Frances, daughter of Thomas Claxton, Esq., and relict of Richard, first Earl of Rosse, the practical joker who could not refrain from jesting on the verge of the grave. She was a lady of considerable personal attractions, and is favourably mentioned by a very competent judge, Mrs. Bushe. Mrs. Delaney (Mary Granville), writing to her sister, Mrs. Dewes, shortly after the wedding, alludes to a heavy equity suit, in which Mr. Delaney was concerned, and which occasioned him much anxiety: ‘I think this is a good time to wish our cause to come on, for surely my Lord Chancellor must now be in a very good humour. I had a letter from Mrs. Bushe last post. She says Lady Newport (Lady Rosse that was) looks very handsome.’ [Correspondence of Mary Granville, vol. iii. p. 312.] The marriage did not conduce to longevity in the Chancellor; two years barely. elapsed before he died. He had, in the year following his marriage, been created Viscount Jocelyn; [December 6, 1755.] but honours or distinctions of rank and power could not prolong his life. The Lord Chancellor died on October 25, 1756, and was succeeded in his office by the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Bowes; and in his title and estates by his only son, Robert, from whom the present Earl of Roden is lineally descended.

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