CHARACTERS. Character of John Earl of Clare, late Lord High Chancellor of Ireland., (From a Sermon preached by Dr. William Magee, at Trinity Chapel, Dublin, February 7, 1802.) 'tance, to reduce them from the exaggerated standard of party-feeling to their true and natural dimensions. This much suffice it to say, that having once chosen the line of his public exertions, his HAVING been engaged in conduct was uniformly firm, manly, scenes of peculiar agitation and difficulty; having, from the energies of his mind, and the duties of his situation, been led to take an active part in events, which involved deep interest and excited much resentment; having been uniformly connected with the party of administration, during a period, in which the governing power (from whatever cause) was occupied in the warmest contests, and resisted by the most vehement opposition: it should not excite surprise, if either his character should have taken some tincture from the acrimonious politics of the times, or if the exasperation of party should have affixed to it qualities which were either against or beyond the truth. - Details of political conduct are not the proper subjects for this place and, perhaps, in all cases, the actions and motives of political men should be viewed from a dis and consistent. Equally insensible to the acclamations and the menaces of popular zeal, he pursued undaunted his onward course: and it is not impossible, that an indignation conceived against the gross and often mischievous sacrifices to popularity, which in his political experience he must have too frequently witnessed, might have thrown the bias to the contrary side, and confirmed in him an indifference to popular opinion. That unshaken firmness which marked his character, and directed his steps through life, was discernable on particular occasions, in proportion as they brought with them the difficulty or the danger that called forth its display. Of these occasions, two may be sufficient to notice; one of them endangering his political, and the other his personal, existence. On the former, we behold him risking station, emolument, and power, The reader will easily perceive, that the measure of the regency is that to which reference is here made a measure, which, in opposition to the most able and strenuous exertions of Mr. Fitzgibbon, then attorney-general, was decided by the VOL. XLIV, Irish power, in the cause of loyal attachment to his sovereign, and in the maintenance of his rights, at a time, when the hopeless recovery of the monarch could leave no expectation of recompense; at a time, when wily calculation repudiated the right of the crown, as a sinking cause; and when, in his most sanguine speculations, he could have looked to no other issue than that which must have dismissed him from political confidence. On the other occasion to which I allude, we behold him exposing himself to still more serious hazard, in the joint defence of the king and the constitution, against the furious onset of rebellion. We all may remember that when treason wore the air of triumph, and the friends of loyalty and order hung their heads, he stood prominent and erect: when many, even of those whose fidelity was unimpeached, seemed to feel, that prudence required of them a more softened accent of reprobation, and reserving their tones of boldness until the danger had passed by, did not scruple to shrink from an open avowal of their sentiments: when many, even of unquestioned fortitude, deemed it not inconsistent with that fortitude, to seek a momentary shelter from the storm: when treason and loyalty hung trembling in doubtful scales, and not a few paused to see which would preponderate: when it appeared to many not unlikely, that rebellion might through success change its title to revolution:-in times, and under circumstances such as these, whilst he was know to be the object eminently selected for vengeance by the ferocity of an ensanguined rabble, he remained firm and unmoved; he stepped not, for a moment, from the post of duty, and of danger; and sought no safety from the perils which as sailed him, save what might arise from presenting to them a bold and manly front. If from his political we pass to his judicial conduct, we shall find the firmness of the former, equalled by the decision, the promptness and the rectitude, of the latter. Here indeed is the high ground of this distinguished character. Unit ing an ardent love of justice with a rapid intuition of truth, he com bined in himself the two great qualities of the judicial station, integrity and dispatch; and thus, as far as lies in the power of man, he diminished the evils of litigation, by taking from law all its delay, much of its uncertainty. Neither did the labours of his exalted station terminate with himself. and His comprehensive view embraced the whole circle of the profession: and it was not more his study to discharge his own immediate duties with fidelity, than to enforce on others the due observ ance of theirs. To purify the courts of justice was with him an object of unremitting attention: 2nd amongst the unprincipled part of the lower order of legal practi tioners, it will not easily be for gotten, with what unwearied vig lance he detected and punished every attempt to defeat the claims Irish parliament in such a manner, as to give cause of deep and lasting regret to every true friend of the country, by breaking the unity of the councils of the empire, and endangering the existing connection of its parts. of uity, by the technical dexterif a fraudulent chicane. r were the salutary effects of perintending care confined to bordinate ranks of the profesTo the honest exercise of uthority, which the eminence s station and services must secured to his official repreions, we may, in no small e, attribute that chasteness lection, which is allowed for years to have guided the juappointments. The disinterfriend of real talents and true knowledge, to the zeal and ent of his recommendation, public in a great measure in ed for the many splendid ornas of which the judicial bench is country can boast: for it safely be pronounced, that, in jority of instances at least, the om of the government took the tion of its choice, from the ions and views of him, whom new to be so well qualified to ern, and so warmly interested romote, what was most conduto the respectability of the bar, the interests of justice. n enemy to pretenders of all riptions; to those who, by inct means, would intercept the ard of professional ability and th, he must naturally have left ind him not a few who will lar to traduce his character and y his motives: but from all is liberal, judicious, and ectable, in the profession; all who know how to appree the value of an upright and dispensation of justice in the land; from the general voice of the nation, which may have long indeed to wait for a successor, possessed of similar endowments; the most honourable and lasting testimony will be borne, not more to his excellencies as a judge, than to his beneficial exertions as superintendent of the whole department of the law. On remaining particulars I must not too long detain your attention. As to his private life, it is well known, that the same steadiness which sustained his public conduct governed his personal attachments. His friendships were sincere and fixed: -and although in a character marked by such strength of features, the lineaments of the softer virtues could scarcely be expected to mix, yet they who knew him in the unbendings of his retirement have often witnessed the genuine indica-, tion of their existence, and can fully attest the spontaneous and animated emotions of a latent tenderness, which it seemed as much his study carefully to conceal, as, in this age of affected sensibility, it is that of others to display. In this, indeed, as in other parts of his character, it is to be lamented, that an habitual disgust against all hypocritical appearances had so far wrought upon his mind, as to render him generally anxious to suppress, lest he might be supposed to affect, feelings and qualities the most honourable and endearing. The occasions, however, have not been few, in which, even to the public eye, the milder affections of his nature have broken through this restraint *. And, if the charities of A striking instance of this appeared at the visitation, held in the college, in the h of April 1798, at which lord Clare presided as vice-chancellor. On this occanotwithstanding his indignation at the horrible conspiracy which had shed its 222 poison of domestic life be received as evidence of the kindly dispositions of the heart, perhaps in no case can such proof be adduced more abundant and convincing.. In all matters of pecuniary concern, his dealings were directed by a strict and punctual regard to his engagements; and, at the same time, distinguished by a liberality which, without indulging in those excesses that beget embarrassment and sacrifice independence, manifestly evinced a mind aloof from the sordid love of accumulation. In him, indeed, honesty and liberality can scarcely be said to have claimed the rank of virtues. They required no effort, and could boast no triumph, where a rooted contempt of wealth precluded all means of their counteraction. And it deserves to be remarked, that amongst the numerous calumnies which a vindictive malice has endeavoured to cast upon the fame of this distinguished person, the tongue of slander has never whispered the imputation of a single act of merte those necessities, or that avidity which too often impel our laud holders to sacrifice to the prospect of gain, the claims, the comforts, and the independence of the pea sant, by surrendering him to the rapacity of a class of men, who used to view the cultivator, like the cled he tills, but as a subject of profitable traffic, have, by ther unfeeling extortions, constituted or e of the most perniciously operating causes of the wretchedness, the i norance, and the degradation, of the lower order of our people. I turn now to the consideration of those points in which we must feel a more immediate concern. His unvarying attachment to the interests of the established. religion of these countries should not be forgotten in this place. Founded for the express purpose of teaching and propagating that religion which we believe to be the religion of the gospel, we must naturally retain a grateful remembrance of those strenuous exertions which at all times he opposed to the designs of those who laboured to erect upon the ruins of our protestant establishment, the gloomy fabric of an erroncous, an exclusive, and an intolerant superstition. We must 1turally retain a grateful remembrance of his services, when we consider, that at the moment when a strange spirit of an innovation (combined, as it must have been, with an indifference to religious truth) had so far perverted the judgment of some who held the helm of the state, as to induce them to hazard a mad ex poison even into the recesses of academic seclusion, the severity of justice seemed to melt away in compassion for the errors of youthful credulity; and the affectionate suavity of paternal remonstrance, in many cases, superseded the strict sentence of judicial condeinnation. periment periment upon the establishment of his academic labours had been so richly crowned, conspiring with his professional endeavours in be half of its political independence †, naturally led to his connection with the university, in the quality of re presentative; and to this, after an interval of some years, succeeded a connection of another and a higher kind, by which the supreme superintendence of the institution was vested in his hands ‡. But it is not through the medium of the establishment alone, that we find an interest in the retrospect of his exertions. Educated in this seminary, he here laid the foundation of those intellectual improvements and exhibited the first specimen of those talents and that perseverance which afterwards advanced him to the highest offices in the state. His early intercourse with this society, and the honours by which In this last relation, which continued whilst he lived, the benefits which this place has experienced have been important, and should be gratefully acknowledged. To him we owe that liberal and just decision, which, by restoring to the governing part of this body its due deliberative Mr. Fitzgibbon's collegiate honours make a distinguished appearance on the face of our public records. laving entered the college of Dublin, as fellow-commoner, in the year 1763, he appears to have prosecuted his studies with unusual diligence and success. The competition between him and the celebrated Mr. Grattan was unremitting through the entire of their course. Being always of the same division, they were necessarily engaged in immediate contest for those academic rewards that are bestowed on superiority of answering at the stated quarterly examinations. It is interesting to trace through the judgments, and the prizes allotted to these several examinations, the eagerness of the struggle for preeminence, which at this early day commenced, between two men so conspicuous, and who have since carried that struggle into the highest concerns of life. Mr. Grattan seems to have taken the lead at the commencement of the course, having won from his competitor the premium and certificate in two of the examinations of the junior freshman year. But victory then changed sides, and continued with his opponent through the remainder of the contest: Mr. Fitzgibbon bearing away from him, in every succeeding instance, the premium or certificate; and, being particularly distinguished, at the Hilary examination of 1706, by the extraordinary judgment of Optime, conferred on his transtion of the Georgics, by the late Dr. Law. The validity of the return of Mr. Richard Hely Hutchinson (now lord Donoughmore, as representative of the university of Dublin, was tried before a committee of the house of commons, in the month of February 1777. The ability and zeal of Mr. Fitzgibbon, who acted as counsel on the part of those who were desirous to preserve the purity of college elections, were on this occasion conspicuous and triumphant. And in the following month, he received from the university the honourable reward of his services; being elected in the room of Mr. Hutchinson, whose return had been annulled by the committee, on the ground of undue influence in the returning officer, the right honourable John Hely Hutchinson, provost of the collage. Oir the resignation of the office of vice-chancellor to the university, by primate Robinson, the carl of Clare was appointed to that office by his royal highness the duke of Gloucester, on the 22d of June 1791. || To those who are unacquainted with the history of the college, some explanation. on this head is necessary. The charter has vested in the provost and senior fellows the government Zz3 |