Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/494

 490 PONSONBY. own emoluments. Mr. Curran disclaimed this arrange ment, which had never been committed to paper, and Mr. Ponsonby generously paid the salary out of his own purse to Mr. Ridgeway, but closed his friendship with Mr. Curran. The Fox and Grenville administration, though it com prised a constellation of talents, was but of short continu ance. They immortalized their memory, however, by the abolition of the slave trade. They projected much good for Ireland, but they never acquired the cordial confidence of his late majesty; and they retired, at last, in consequence of the king's refusal to sanction them in the concession of Catholic emancipation, which was understood to have been a stipulated condition with that portion of the people of Ireland, as the price of their acceding to the Union. Mr. Ponsonby now retired, of course, from the Irish chancery bench, with the pension of 4000l. a-year, uni formly granted in such cases; a large remuneration, as his opponents remarked, for so short a period of judicial service. The brevity of that period, however, was not his fault, but that of the established usage, by which, a change of administration always produces the retirement of the chancellor; which creates a bonus for the new cabinet, while it is a serious grievance to the suitors in the chancery court. Mr. Ponsonby, in consideration of his appointment, had relinquished a professional practice much more productive than his judicial emoluments; and he could not recede to the situation of an advocate in that court where he had presided as the judge. Mr. Ponsonby now repaired to England to take his seat as a member of the Imperial Parliament; and, as the death of his friend, Mr. Fox, had deprived the country party of a leader in the senate, Mr. Ponsonby was chosen to take the direction of the Opposition ranks. His talents in that capacity were undoubtedly respectable; and, al though he was removed from that scene, where his poli tical knowledge had most experience, where the peculiar topics of his eloquence were still prevalent, where he