'He had a shrill, full, good bar voice,' writes Barrington, in bestowing other praise. Sir Jonah occupied the judgment seat, and was famous for his power of discerning character; but, although he impugns the good name of many men, he does not distrust McNally. According to Barrington, 'Mac' was 'good-natured, hospitable, and talented.'[459] It is to be feared that hospitality with the popular barrister was but a means to an end. 'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly. McNally, in some of his letters to the Government when requesting money, urges as an extra reason the necessity of entertaining friends in order to get at new information. Without money [he writes] it is impossible to do what is expected. Those Spartans wish to live like Athenians in matters of eating and drinking. They live so among each other, and without ability to entertain I cannot live with them, and without living with them I cannot learn from them.[460] McNally knew human nature quite as well as Bishop South, who says of the bacchanal that his 'heart floats upon his lips, and his inmost thoughts proclaim and write themselves upon his forehead;' and he adds that, just 'as a liar ought to have a good memory, so a person of guilt ought to be also a person of great sobriety.'[461] McNally's dinner in honour of unfortunate 'Parson Jackson' and of the man who shadowed him to the grave, suggests that it was not the only occasion when death sat at the table. In midsummer 1798 the clangour of battle filled the air. 'Fear prevails, and all jovial intercourse has ceased, so far as my experience goes,'[462] he writes; but when hostilities ceased, amenities were renewed. After he had ceased to produce 'masques' at Covent Garden, and entered on his new career of a barrister and a spy, one great effort of his energetic life was to divert suspicion and puzzle posterity. He saw the wisdom of the proverb, 'Show me your company,' and thus he had a double object to gain by cultivating touch with patriotic men. In 1790 he was admitted a Freeman for--as the address to him said--his services to his country. In 1802 he published 'The Rules of Evidence, or Pleas of the Crown.' It is dedicated to John Philpot Curran, 'from an affectionate attachment,' writes McNally, and from a proud wish to make known to posterity that a reciprocal and an uninterrupted amity subsisted between the Author and the man whose transcendent genius and philosophic mind soar above all competition--whose honest and intrepid heart was never influenced in the Senate, nor intimidated at the Bar, from exerting, with zeal, independence, and spirit, his love to his country and his duty to his client.