Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/495

 458

a French invasion. Jackson committed sui cide in the dock as the death-sentence was about to be pronounced. Much local history is connected with the place, not all in accord with its sacred posi tion. The Courts were entered through a narrow passage having on its walls the singular legend, " Hell." This was no nickname, but one properly authorized, and finished by a representation of his Satanic Majesty, rampant, crowning the arched

entrance. The newspapers of the time advertise it with a cynical ap preciation of its frequenters. Not even the enterpris ing blacking-man ufacturer who, on the authority of Rogers, " kept a poet " for the pur pose, ever evolved a more taking ad vertisement than that which ap peared in a Dublin newspaper of the time, — "To be let, furnished apartments in Hell. N. B. They are well suited to a Lawyer."

DUBLIN

We doubt if merely their proximity to the Courts prompted that addition. There lurks in it a suggestion of an action for non payment of rent, a vanished lodger, or an unsuccessful suit. To-day every vestige of the Courts and the passage is gone. His Majesty has left for a less variable climate, and the dignita ries of the Church may once again lay claim to Pope's sarcastic encomium, and " never mention Hell to ears polite." In the latter end of the eighteenth century another move was made. Within two minutes' walk of the old Courts, just on the other

side of the river Liffey, the present stately pile was raised, at a cost of two hundred thousand pounds. In a city famous for the magnificence of its buildings the Four Courts may vie with the best. On the river bank it rears a square-set lofty front of cut stone over a hundred yards in length. The centre pile, crowned by a dome, divides off the various law-offices to east and west. This middle structure contains the Hall (immediately under the dome), and what were in old days the four Courts of Judica ture of the Chan cery, Queen's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, — the quartette which gave to the building its name. On the pediment over the portico stands a statue of Moses, — a happy combination of the law and the pro phets, — with Mer cy on the one side and Justice on the CASTLE. other. Passing under the portico from the Quays, we enter the Hall, — a circular court with a diameter of about seventy feet. It is ornamented with frescos, medallions of famous law-givers, and various emblematic statues in high relief. Over the entrances to the Courts which open out of the Hall are bas-reliefs of historic scenes such as James I. abolishing the Brehon laws — the first legal code of the country, — more honored in the breach than the observance. Statues of Sheil, Plunket, O'Loghlen, Joy, Whiteside, and O' Hagan stand round the floor of the Hall. The symmetry of the whole is perfect, and