the moment when they would be required. The handles were mysteriously notched; and it was with a pardonable pride that the head of the house, when called on by the admiring stranger, would proceed to tell off (guided by those rude chroniclers, the notches aforesaid) the history of each notch; for by each hung a tale, and-it must be added-a catastrophe. Sir Jonah Barrington swells with enthusiasm over a pair which had been in his family-in constant work, too -since the days of Elizabeth. Of course, adds the baronet, the cocks and barrels had been renewed. One of these ancestral 'tools' was known by a phrase of endearment, as 'sweet lips,' the other as 'the darling;' and the accumulated trophies, contributed by a long series of the Barrington family, must have been something very considerable. There was usually also a companion weapon kept carefully in the armoury, in case of an adversary drawing a choice of weapons;' and the baronet had a powerful instrument of this description, known as 'skiver the pullet'-a happy expression, in which lurks what Mr. Carlyle would call a deep no-meaning,' and on which gloss or comment would throw much interesting light. Every domestic hearth had its skiver the pullet;' and it may be taken for granted that each skiver the pullet' had its own tally of legends or 'notches.'

"This holy Irish chivalry chastened even the family circle. On Easter-day, a lady from the west tells the writer how, in her youth, she recalls one early morn

ing, barely forty years ago, when the son of the family was sent forth with blessings to prosecute a last night's quarrels; and how, when he returned scatheless himself, and without having scathed others, he was met with lowering brows and ill-concealed displeasure. The family honour had not been properly vindicated. The gloom even re-acted upon the children and domestics. The matron and mother would barely speak to her degenerate offspring—a picture of the unhealthy state of manners at the period.

"Indeed, in the education of a young man about this time, there was considered to be an indefinable something wanting-analogous to the absence of a degree at college—when he had not qualified with the pistols. As soon as he became conspicuous enough to be the subject of any conversation, two questions were sure to be put, considered excellent tests in their way : 'What family is he of?' 'Has he ever blazed?'

"In nuptial matters, 'Big brother' looked with as much nicety into these qualifications of the pretendant as the father did into his pecuniary abilities and settlements. Of course it is the same among those savages who have, on similar occasions, to show the scalps they have taken, or to tell, with proof, of other atrocities. But the thing seems to have tinctured even mother's milk, for they tell of a gentleman of some duelling eminence, who was heard trying to quiet his little boy with some such little endearments as these: -Come, now, be a good boy! Don't, don't cry, and

you shall have a case of nice little pistols, and we'll shoot them off in the morning!' The lively offspring, delighted with the notion, began to dry its eyes, and revelled in the pleasing prospect.

"At this epoch the counties of Tipperary and Galway were looked up to with a fond pride as the universities of the science of duelling. Galway was held to turn out the best swordmen, much as Cambridge is esteemed for its mathematics; but Tipperary took the higher 'honours' of the pistol. The most notable graduates had the names of Jemmy Keogh, Buck English, Cosey Harrison, Crowe Ryan, Paddy Long, Amby Bodkin, Squire Falton, Squire Blake, and Amby Fitzgerald-names significant in the highest degree. These gentlemen bore the highest reputation, and were profoundly skilled in all the points and niceties of this elegant chivalry.

"It was within the Irish barristerial ranks, in the sacred order whose province was the vindication and the interpretation of the law, that this violation of its strictest injunctions was carried out. The priests and the preachers of the Legal Temple were by far the most daring sinners. The judges of the land-where their arguments failed to convince, or were fortified by a tone and expression derived from no higher source than the mere accident of exalted position-were willing to gauge the issue by a fairer test. There is a list of legal worthies preserved, who have adopted this impartial mode of arrangement.

"Another list has been handed down of the more notable encounters. We find a Lord Chancellor fighting a Master of the Rolls; a Chief Justice fighting two peers and two other gentlemen; a local Judge fighting a Master of the Rolls and four others; a Baron of the Exchequer fighting his own brother-inlaw and two others; a Chancellor of the Exchequer fighting a Privy Councillor; a Provost of College fighting a Master in Chancery; and another Chief Justice disposing of three gentlemen from the country, one with swords, another with guns-wounding all three!

"So repeated were these little differences in the case of the well-known Lord Norbury, that he was happily said to have 'shot up' into preferment.

"It strikes the modern mind with astonishmentthe mind that has not as yet become 'more Irish and less nice'-to see the intimate manner in which these two departments of the profession were linked together. A nice capacity for pleading, and a nice eye for levelling, were equally essential. It would be madness, indeed, to be deficient in either, when there was to be found a noble lord, who, being worsted in a series of suits, determined to vindicate himself by calling out, seriatim, the dozen barristers or so who were retained on the other side. Commencing with the attorney, and distributing the parts among his own sons, he disposed of three, when some circumstances interfered and checked his future progress.

"Counsel often fell out on circuit, would leave court and hurry to an adjoining field, 'blaze,' and return (if the issue admitted of it) to the Court, where Judge and jury were anxiously expecting them.

"A perfect chronicle of duelling, taken on its facetious as well as on its serious side, may be found set out in detail in Sir Jonah Barrington's volumes, who enumerates no less than two hundred and twenty-seven 'memorable and official' duels as having occurred during his grand climacteric.' So lately as the O'Connell trials, the Attorney-General prosecuting, showed himself no degenerate member of his order, and wrote a challenge across the table to his adversary.

"Even when sojourning in a strange land, and under the blighting influence of the cold and order-loving Saxon, the traditions of his country did not desert the Irish gentleman. In the little pugnacious entries in the London Chronicle, which were as invariably recorded as the births and marriages, the exiled Hibernian took his part, not ingloriously. He turned up, often playing principal, very often second. His known experience made him an invaluable assistant, or even arbitrator. The inexperienced Saxon was grateful for his services. Thus, in the year 1777, where my Lord Milton met my Lord Poulett this morning at ten o'clock,' my Lord Poulett was fortunate enough to secure Captain Kelly's' advice and aid as his second. The natural ties of kindred-often carried to an absurd extent were, in the case of unhappy Irish differences,