sense in which eloquence, and especially in Ireland, is generally understood, I do not think that it belongs to him in a very remarkable degree. At times his manner is very strenuous, but energy is by no means the characteristic of his speaking. I have seen him, upon occasion, appeal to juries with considerable force, and manifest that honest indignation in the reprobation of meanness and of depravity, which is always sure to excite an exalted sentiment in the minds of men. The sincere enforcement of good principle is among the noblest sources of genuine oratory; and he that awakens a more generous love of virtue and lifts us beyond the ordinary sphere of our moral sensibilities, produces the true results of eloquence. This Mr. Joy has not unfrequently accomplished, but his habitual cast of expression and of thought is too much subdued and kept under the vigilant control of a timid and suspicious taste, to be attended with any very signal and shining effects. He deals little in that species of illustration which indicates a daring and adventurous mind; that seeks to deliver its strong, though not always matured, conceptions in bold and lofty phrase. Its products may be frequently imperfect, but a single noble thought that springs full formed from the imagination, compensates for all its abortive offspring. Mr. Joy does not appear to think so, and studiously abstains from the indulgence of that propensity to figu rative decoration, which in Ireland is carried to some excess. Nature, I suspect, has been a little niggard in the endowment of his fancy; and if she has not given him wings for a sustained and lofty flight, he is wise in not using any waxen pinions. I have never detected any exaggeration in his speeches, either in notion or in phrase. His language is precise and pure, but so simple, as scarcely to deviate from the plainness of ordinary discourse. It was observed of Lysias that he seldom employed a word which was not in the most common use, but that his language was so measured as to render his style exceedingly melodious and sweet. Mr. Joy very rarely has recourse to an expression which is not perfectly familiar. But he combines the most trivial forms of phrase with so much art together, as to give them a peculiarly rhythmical construction. Upon occasion, however, he throws into a speech some ornamental allusion to his own favourite pursuits. He takes a flower or two from his hortus siccus, and flings it carelessly out. But his images are derived from the museum and the cabinet, and not from the mountain and the field. He is strongly addicted to the study of the more graceful sciences, and versed in shrubs, and birds, and butterflies. In this respect he stands an honourable exception to most of the eminent members of the Bar, with whom all scientific and literary acquirement is held in a kind of disrepute. Mr. Joy has not neglected those sources of permanent enjoyment which continue to administer their innocent gratifications, when almost every other is dried up. He has employed his solitary leisure (for he is an old bachelor, and, in despite of certain rumours recently afloat among "the womankind" in Temple-street, appears to be an inveterate Mr. Oldbuck) in the cultivation of elegant, although, in some instances, fantastic tastes. He is devoted to the loves of the plants, and spends in a well-assorted museum of curiosities many an hour of dalliance with an insect or a shell. It is not unnatural that his mind should be impregnated with his intellectual recreations; and whenever he ventures upon a metaphor, it may readily be traced to some association with his scientific pursuits. But, with this rare exception, Mr. Joy may be accounted an unadorned speaker. His chief merit consists in his talent for elucidation and for sneering. He is, indeed, so sensible of his genius for mockery, that he puts it into use wherever the least opportunity is afforded for its display. When it is his object to cover a man with disgrace, he lavishes encomium with a tone and look that render his envenomed praises more deadly than the fiercest invective. He deals in incessant irony, and sets off his virulent panegyric with a smile of such baleful derision as to furnish a model to a painter for Goethe's Metempsyphiles. In cross-examination he employs this formidable faculty with singular effect. Here he shews high excellence. He contemplates the witness with the suppressed delight of an inquisitor, who calmly surveys his victim before he has him on the wheel. He does not drag him to the torture with a ferocious precipitation, and throw him at once into his torments, but with a slow and blandishing suavity tempts 'and allures him on, and invites him to the point at which he knows that the means of infliction lie in wait. He offers him a soft and downy bed in which the rack is concealed, and when he is laid upon it, even then he does not put out all his resources of agony at once. He affects to caress the victim whom he torments, and it is only after he has brought the whole machinery of torture into action, that his purpose is perfectly revealed; and even then, and when he is in the fullest triumph of excruciation, he retains his seeming and systematic gentleness; he affects to wonder at the pain which he applies, and while he is pouring molten lead into the wound, pretends to think it balm. The habitual irony which Mr. Joy is accustomed to put into such efficient practice, has given an expression to his face which is peculiarly Sardonic. Whatever mutations his countenance undergoes, are but varied modifications of a sneer. It exhibits in every aspect a phasis of disdain. Plunket's face sius a little in this regard, but its expression is less contemptuous than harsh. There is in it more of the acidity of ill humour than of the bitterness of scorn. His pride appears to result rather from the sense of his own endowments, than from any depreciating reference to those of other men. But the mockery of Mr. Joy is connected with all the odium of comparison : Et les deux bras croisés, du haut de son esprit, Il écoute en pitié tout ce que chacun dit. The features upon which this perpetual derision is inlaid, are of a peculiar cast-they are rough-hewn and unclassical, and dispersed over a square and rectangular visage, without symmetry or arrangement. His mouth is cut broadly, and directly from one jaw to the other, and has neither richness nor curve. There are in his cheeks two deep cavities, which in his younger days might have possibly passed for dimples, hollowed out in the midst of yellow flesh. Here it is that ridicule seems to have chosen her perpetual residence, for I do not remember to have seen her give way to any more kindly or gentle sentiment. His nose is broad at the root; its nostrils are distended, and it terminates in an ascending point: but it is too short for a profile, and lies in a side view almost concealed in the folds of parchment by which it is encompassed. The eyes are dark, bright, and intellectual, but the lids are shrivelled and pursed up in such a manner, and seemingly by an act of will, as to leave but a small space between their contracted rims for the gleams of vision that are permitted to escape. They seem to insinuate that it is not worth their while to be open, in order to survey the insignificant object on which they may chance to light. The forehead is thoughtful and high, but from the posture of the head, which is thrown back and generally aside, it appropriately surmounts this singular assemblage of features, and lends an important contribution to the Sardonic effect of the whole. His deportment is in keeping with his physiognomy. If the reader will suggest to his imagination the figure of a Mandarin receiving Lord Amherst at the palace at Pekin, and with contemptuous courtesy proposing to his Lordship the ceremony of the Ko-tou, he will form a pretty accurate notion of the bearing, the manners, and the hue of his Majesty's Solicitor-general for Ireland. He is extremely polite, but his politeness is as Chinese as his look, and appears to be dictated rather by a sense of what he owes to himself, than by any deference to the person who has the misfortune to be its object. And yet with all this assumption of dignity, Mr. Joy is not precisely dignified. He is in a perpetual effort to sustain his consequence, and arms himself against the least invasion upon his title to respect. Of its legitimacy, however, he does not appear to be completely satisfied. He seems a spy upon his own importance, and keeps watch over the sacred treasure with a most earnest and unremitting vigilance. Accordingly he is for ever busy with himself. There is nothing abstract and meditative in his aspect, nor does his mind ever wander beyond the immediate localities that surround him. There is no speculation in his eye;" an intense consciousness pervades all that he says and does. I never yet saw him lost in reverie. When disengaged from his professional occupations, he stands in the Hall with the same collected manner which he bore in the discharge of his duties to his client, and with his thoughts fastened to the spot. While others are pacing with rapidity along the flags which have worn out so many hopes, Joy remains in stationary stateliness, peering with a side-long look at the peristrephic panorama that revolves around him. The whole, however, of what is going on is referred to his own individuality; self is the axis of the little world about him, and while he appears scarcely conscious of the presence of a single person in all the crowd by which he is encompassed, he is in reality noting down the slightest glance that may be connected with himself. There is something so artificial in the demeanour of Mr. Joy, and especially in the authoritativeness which he assumes with the official silk in which he attires his person, that his external appearance gives but little indication of his character. His dispositions are much more commendable than a disciple of Lavater would be inclined to surmise. I suspect that his hauteur is worn from a conviction that the vulgar are most inclined to reverence the man by whom they are most strenuously despised. Upon a view of Mr. Joy, it would be imagined that he would not prove either a very humane or patient judge; but it is quite otherwise, and those who have had an opportunity of observing him in a judicial capacity upon circuit, concur in the desire that he should be permanently placed in a situation for which he has already displayed in its transitory occupation so many conspicuous qualities. It is not imVOL. V. No. 30.-1823. 62 possible, however, that his promotion may be retarded for some time. Lord Norbury, at eighty-six, has as little notion of resigning as if he were in the vigour of life; and Mr. Joy has a daily opportunity of seeing him gallop to court on a highly mettled horse with an alertness and activity which are not a little contrasted with his own slow and slouching gait. It is true that the government has long been anxious for the retirement of his Lordship. This desire is not very consistent upon their part, as he is in point of intellect and acquirement, as well qualified for the discharge of the public duty, as he was at the period of his original elevation to the Bench. There are those indeed who think that his Lordship's powers give symptoms of the apoplexy, but whatever be the case, it is certain that his friend Mr. Gerahty will not fol low the example of Gil Blas, nor warn him of the decay of his judicial faculties. It is therefore not improbable, that Mr. Joy, may upon his way to court, continue for some time to endure the jocular salutation of the Yorick of the Bench, and to hearken to the tantalizing clatter of his horse's hoofs, which are considered to have a peculiarly disagreeable effect upon the ears of the Solicitor-general. In the interval, I doubt not that he may be elected a member of the House of Commons, and represent the city of Dublin. The Roman Catholics are beginning to apprehend that the ambition of Master Ellis may not be preposterous enough to induce him to extend to their body the continued benefits of his opposition, and that they will lose the advantages of his hostility in parliament. When by the operation of a recent act, he will have been deprived of that ubiquity, by which he now contrives to discharge his official functions in Dublin, and to command the applause of listening senates at Westminister, it is likely that the learned Master may, in some lucid interval, relinquish the unprofitable honour of representing the corporation. In that event, his constituents will probably seek for consolation in the constitutional devotedness of Mr. Joy. They cannot indeed expect to meet in him that felicitous conjunction of attributes, which have rendered Master Ellis not only the becoming medium of their sentiments, but the still more appropriate emblem of their minds. They possess, in that learned gentleman, not only a vehicle, but a type. In habits, and in manners-in knowledge, in eloquence, and integrity, so fortunate a conformity has been established between them, that they may despair to "look upon his like again." Yet Mr. Joy is an unqualified supporter of the doctrine of exclusive emolument, by way of retaliation for the antiquated tenet of exclusive salvation; and for the earnestness of his antipathy to the Popish multitude, the corporators of Dublin will probably excuse those wide dissimilarities in temper and in intellect, which will leave him, whenever he is returned for the city of Dublin, at a long interval from the distinguished senator, from whom, although he may be next to him, he must always continue distant; and of whose genius, liberality, and public virtue, Doctor Duigenan himself was only a precursor, and gave but an intimation of a more glorions and perfect coming. SPANISH PATRIOTS' SONG. BY T. CAMPBELL. How rings each sparkling Spanish brand, And gay as for a saraband To the glorious revelry, And the death-shots whistle. Of rights for which our swords outspring, We 've pluck'd a bird of nobler wing- Shake the Spanish blade, and sing Shall yonder rag, the Bourbon's flag, In Spain the proud, be Freedom's shroud? Follow, follow, Follow to the fight, and sing Ever, ever, ever. Thrice welcome hero of the hilt! If the laurel'd tricolor No, ere they quell our valour's veins, Shake the Spanish blade, and sing SONG. WITHDRAW not yet those lips and fingers, And death seems in the word-farewell. |