SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR.--NO. XII

NOT very long after I had been called to the Bar, I one day chanced to observe a person standing beside a pillar in the Hall of the Four Courts, the peculiar wretchedness of whose aspect attracted my notice. I was upon my way to the subterranean chamber where the wigs and gowns of lawyers are kept, and was revolving at the moment the dignity and importance of the station to which I had been raised by my enrolment among the members of the Irish Bar. I was interrupted in this interesting meditation by the miserable object upon which my eyes had happened to rest; and without being a dilettante in affiction, I could not help pausing to consider the remarkable specimen of wretchedness that stood before me.