about for the very fittest person, pressed the
office on the eminent conveyancer, Mr. Christie,
who first hesitated, then declined. "But," said
the eminent conveyancer, "I could name a
young man, whom nobody yet knows, who is
a first-rate mathematician and a first-rate lawyer,
who would be just the person:" and to the
young man whom nobody knew, plodding
laboriously in chambers, toiling at his legal
plough, deputies came to offer the crown. Law,
then, has its flower-beds and its flowers; and
the young man whom nobody knew, left his
mortgages and his draughting, to have and to
hold prematurely, all that and those the dignity
and powers of office, with all the rights, profits,
easements thereunto appertaining.

To this Act, too, should etymologists be grateful.
During the earlier debates that first syllable
fluctuated uneasily betwixt en and in. But now
the omnipotence of parliament has decreed that
incumhered estates shall be sold; but not
encumbered.

These high judicial auctioneers set up their
rostrum in an old-fashioned street of red brick, of
the last century's pattern, in a collapsed nobleman's
house, where the mammoth marble chimney-
pieces and the arabesques on the ceiling seemed
much out of keeping with its new functions.
Nearly opposite, was the mansion of the husband
of Marguerite Countess of Blessington, whose
ample estates shall, by-and-by, be submitted to
their manipulation. With an unprecedented
despatch, an admirable code of orders and
regulations was framed in about six weeks; and
on the twenty-fifth of October, eighteen hundred
and forty-nine—one of the greatest days of all
the great days for Ireland—the first petition
was presented. The name of this courageous
postulant should be known; still more, that
of the first victim, the protomartyr of the law
revolution, who, even in his dissolution, must
have been soothed by the sweet sense of an
enviable priority. The petitioner, then, was
Joseph Walker; the protomartyr was one James
Balfe, Esquire, or as it was always put, with
a generous delicacy on the part of these tribunals
—In re, or in the matter of James Balfe,
Esquire, of Southpark, Owner. Beatified Balfe!
shortly shall you receive your crown!

Take it that we are now a famished mortgagee;
let us give instructions to Doolin and
Company, the eminent firm of Bachelor's-walk, and
proceed to sell our incumbered estate in the
regular way. Our relations are somewhat after
this fashion:

About five-and-thirty years ago, it came to
pass that the Right Honourable Charles Henry
DEELISH, Baron SAVOURNEEN, and Earl of
TUMBLETOWERS, of Tumbletowers, Co. Mayo, and
of Kilgollagher Lodge, Co. Galway, and of
Lower Dominick-street, Dublin, happened to be
pressed for money, and was prevailed on to give
the preference to the English market. The sum
was contemptible—fifty thousand pounds—a
mere fleabite, as his lordship's solicitor
humorously put it; so, the security being
substantial, we, or our trustees—for we were then
minor—agreed to advance the fleabite, and took
a mortgage for the amount. For three years, as
we find from unpublished data, "favours"
continued to reach us with extraordinary punctuality
from T. Shine Murphy, Esq., his lordship's
agent over the Kilgollagher property; and it was
then remarked that they began to arrive in an
irregular and fitful way: the intervals, however,
lengthening in a steadily increasing ratio.
By-and-by the communications of T. Shine Murphy,
Esquire, began to be less and less satisfactory,
taking the shape of fragmentary payments, wholly
disproportioned to the amount due; the balance
being filled in with a cheque for promises to a
very handsome amount. It grieves me to state
that some time after things came to be upon
this footing, all communication with T. Shine
Murphy, Esquire, ceased abruptly; and from
that time no notice was taken of letters,
protests, or even gentle legal remonstrances. The
only resource, then, was the eminent firm of Doolin
and Company, of Bachelor's-walk; and we
were presently aboard a slow and heavy hulk,
putting out to Chancery with the traditional
speed. Then, too, it was discovered that we were
but part of a sort of convoy; consort to some
dozen or so of hulks with similar sea-going
qualities, all proceeding contemporaneously.
My lord was abroad in foreign parts with his
son, Lord Savourneen, and the Honourable
Miss Deelish; and curious to say, was deriving
a comfortable income out of an arm which had
been considered hopelessly "bad," and of a
"standing" that dated back beyond the Chancery
suit, but which had been restored by means
of a patent lotion.

Pursuant to our instructions, the eminent
firm of Doolin and Co. have presented a petition
humbly praying that the estates of the Right
Hon. the Earl of Tumbletowers may be
submitted to public competition, and the proceeds
applied to satisfy the claims of your petitioner.
This document is laid before us, and we are
astonished to find that it is utterly illegal—so
far as being outrageously brief and succinct,
and setting out in plain intelligible English
what it means to express. We see, too, that
the eminent firm has been at the trouble of
collecting into one focus, as it were, all the other
charges on our nobleman's estate: presenting
thus, in a very handy shape, a pretty little
narrative of his liabilities. These exceeding half
our nobleman's rental (with a very handsome
margin in the present instance), there is found to be
no impediment to a sale. It will be matter of
surprise how the eminent firm came into possession
of such private details, without prying into the
tin cases, where lie stored up the mortgages,
deeds, settlements, and muniments, of the
Incumbered Nobleman. But, since the reign of
Queen Anne, every such instrument has been
exactly registered; and all lenders applied to for
moneys, have only to diligently thumb over
this huge dictionary of incumbrances. No one
lends without being himself entered in the lexicon;
and no one lends without seeing who has lent.
In this fatal ledger, therefore, is focused the