_Tuesday, Jan. 31._--I lunched to-day with Sir Michael Morris, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, whom I had last seen in Rome at the Jubilee Mass of His Holiness. Sir Michael is one of the recognised lights of social life and of the law in Dublin. While he was in Rome some one highly commended him in the presence of that staunch Nationalist the Archbishop of Dublin, who assented so far as to say, "Yes, yes, there are worse fellows in Dublin than that Morris!" It would be hard to find a more typical Irishman of the better sort than Sir Michael, a man more sure, in the words of Sheridan, to "carry his honour and his brogue unstained to the grave." The brogue of Sir Michael, it is said, made his fortune in the House of Commons. It has hardly the glow which made the brogue of Father Burke a memory as of music in the ears of all who heard it, and differs from that miraculous gift of the tongue as a ripe wine of Bordeaux differs from a ripe wine of Burgundy. But to the ordinary brogue of the street and the stage, it is as is a Brane Mouton Rothschild of 1868 to the casual Médoc of a Parisian restaurant. "Do you know Father Healy?" said one of the company to whom I spoke of it; "he was at a wedding with Sir Michael. As the happy pair drove off under the usual shower of rice and old slippers, Sir Michael said to the Father, 'How I wish I had something to throw after her!' 'Ah, throw your brogue after her,' replied the Father." This brogue comes to Sir Michael lawfully enough. He belongs to one of the fourteen tribes of Galway. His father, Mr. Martin Morris, was High Sheriff of the County of Galway City in 1841, being the first Catholic who had served that office since the time of Tyrconnel. His mother was a Blake of Galway, and the family seat, Spiddal, came to them through a Fitzpatrick. "Remember these things," said one of the guests to me, a Catholic from the south of Ireland, "and remember that Sir Michael, like myself, and, so far as I know, like every Irish Catholic in this room to-day, is a thoroughgoing Unionist, who would think it midsummer madness to hand Ireland over to the 'Home Rule' of the 'uncrowned king,' Mr. Parnell, who hasn't a drop, I believe, of Irish blood in his veins, and who, whatever else he may be, is certainly not a Catholic. Didn't Parnell vote at first against religion and in favour of Bradlaugh? and didn't he do this to force the bargain for the clerical franchise at the Parliamentary conventions?" "But there are some good Catholics, are there not," I answered, "and some good Christians, and of Irish blood too, among the associates of Mr. Parnell?"