The Irish quarterly review - 1851 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Art. IV.—THE PRESENT CONDITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OP THE IRISH BAR. More than one hundred and twenty years ago, the great Chancellor of France wrote, that t... more »he profession of the lawyer was " nobility without title, rank without birth, and riches without an estate." Very possibly, in the days of Louis XV., D'Aguesseau may have found the profession of the law to be all that he has represented it; but, alas l in our tune, things are sadly altered, at least for the lawyers; all men know that the profession of the law is not " nobility without title," and everybody, from a chief justice to a tipstaff, feels, that it is very far indeed from being " richea without an estate." Young men sigh over the remembrance of the years cast away in preparing for the business, or the advancement, which may never arrive, and old men repine at the degeneracy and want of legal pugnacity of the present age. We are writing in the Gallery of the Four Courts' Library, and have, what may be considered, a bird's-eye view of the working and reading portion of the Irish bar. We see below us the laughing, jovial Nisi Prins man, recounting the pleasant stories of circuit doings, of dishonest wituesses driven into truth, of unwilling jurors cajoled into acquiescence. We mark the grave Equity lawyer, with hand thrust deep into his pockets, and looking as if his single brain contained all the cases of Vesey, and all the luminous erudition of poor Spence. We observe the gay-hearted, light-pursed juniors, disputing the merit of the questions furnished by " The Legal ,xr Historical," or considering the probable effects of the fee-annihilating " Process and Practice Act." And though last not least, we have before us, that hardest worked, and worst paid body of professional men in Europe, the Irish Common Law lawy...« less