338 The Newspaper Press of Ireland. fOci'. 



arguments urged by the gentlemen on the other side of the house, and 

 quoted the opinion of an eminent ' sergeant-major, 1 in support of his 

 view of the subject !" 



This was certainly the pis oiler ; but many instances of blundering 

 equally exemplary might be adduced, if it were to any useful purpose. 

 Suffice it, however, to state, that so incompetent were the " gentlemen of 

 the press" in these days found, that whenever any question of moment was 

 under discussion, and the government wished to preserve a record of tho 

 debate, a note-taker from London was despatched across the channel for 

 the purpose. Mr. Woodfall (of wonderful memory) reported the debate 

 on Mr. Secretary Orde's commercial propositions; and a Mr. Clarke (who 

 is still living) was employed by Mr. Pitt to record the debate on the 

 Union. On ordinary occasions, however, when a speech appeared in the 

 papers a degree superior to the professional reports, in point of style and 

 arrangement, it was always concluded that the note of it was furnished by 

 the speaker himself; and, indeed, several members of the Irish parliament 

 among others, Mr. Wm. Smith (now a Baron of the Exchequer in Ire- 

 land), Mr. C. K. Bushe, (now Chief Justice of the King's Bench), and 

 occasionally Mr. Grattan and Mr. Curran furnished reports of their own 

 speeches. In the observations that I have made respecting the general 

 incompetency of the reporters of these days, I would not be understood to 

 include all the class ; for I am aware that there were two or three of these 

 men of superior endowments. One of the persons thus honourably excepted 

 (Mr. Peter Finnerty) transferred himself to the English press ; and. after a 

 life of singular vicissitude and toil, he died as he had lived, fixed in those 

 principles of which in early life he had been the martyr. Mr. Finnerty 

 was, in truth, a man of the most vigorous intellect and the strongest sense. 

 His mind was at once logical, acute, and discriminating ; but his feelings 

 and his passions were untamed ; and he was but too often the victim of 

 the one, and the slave of the others. His stock of acquired knowledge was 

 but small, yet it was select ; and he was better acquainted with great prin- 

 ciples, than familiar with facts. He was not of the Scotch utility school, 

 nor did he make his mind the storehouse of fanciful theories, or of the 

 exploded lumber of literature. Neither was he a mere Irishman all fancy 

 and fury, " signifying nothing ;" but all that was best in the Irish an*d 

 English character he combined. He was strong without being dull, and 

 fanciful without being weak ; copious without redundancy, and argumen- 

 tative without being scholastic. But all these attributes were " dashed 

 and brewed" with the waywardness of a will which was sometimes wild, 

 oftener capricious, and almost always arbitrary ; and the sway of passions, 

 whose imperfect mastery he had suffered to grow, even in mature age, to 

 absolute dominion. Hence his follies and his faults, by which a " noble 

 mind was here o'erthrown." 



Another of the gentlemen to whom I alluded is now a distinguished 

 member of the Irish bar, one of his Majesty's council at law, and lately 

 elected a member of parliament. In power of mind, he is altogether 

 inferior to the late Mr. Finnerty ; but the application of the one was sot- 

 tied that of the other, desultory. Mr. Finnerty was prodigal ; his rival 

 was prudent. The one will die in ermine ; the other has already died 

 in- . 



But I am wandering. The daily paper at this epoch the most in the 

 confidence of the patriots of the time was the Freeman s Journal. This 

 paper was originally instituted by Dr. Lucas, a celebrated member of the 

 Irish parliament, who, having served his country faithfully, died, leaving 



