“Do I not remember it!--Ay, as a student, young, ardent, and high-hearted, when I was summoned before the visitors of the university, and sternly asked by the dark-browed Lord Chancellor if I belonged to a society called the 'Friends of Ireland,' and on my acknowledging the fact, without inquiry, without examination, deprived of my scholarship, and sent back to my chambers, admonished to be more cautious, and menaced with expulsion. I had very little to live on in those days; my family had suffered great losses in fortune, and I disliked to be a burden to them. I took pupils, therefore, to assist me in my support. The Vice-Provost stepped in, however, and interdicted this. 'Young men,' he said, 'ran a greater chance of coming out of my hands followers of Paine than disciples of Newton.' I starved on till I was called to the bar. There fresh insults and mortifications met me. My name on a brief seemed a signal for a field-day against Jacobinism and infidelity. The very bench forgot its dignity in its zeal. I remember well one day, when, stung and maddened by these outrages, I so far forgot myself as to reply, and the Court of King's Bench was closed against me for twelve long years,--ay, till I came back to it as the first man in my profession. It was a trumpery cause,--I forget what; a suit about some petty bill of exchange. I disputed the evidence, and sought to show its invalidity. The Chief Justice stopped me, and said, 'The Court is aware of the point on which you rely; we have known evidence of this nature admitted in cases of trial for treason,--cases with which Mr. Repton, we know, is very familiar. I stopped; my blood boiled with indignation, my temples throbbed to bursting, to be thus singled out amongst my brethren--before the public--as a mark of scorn and reprobation. 'It is true, my Lord,' said I, with a slow, measured utterance, 'I am familiar with such cases. Who is there in this unhappy land that is not? I am aware, too, that if I stood in that dock arraigned on such a charge, your Lordship would rule that this evidence was admissible; you would charge against me, sentence, and hang me; but the present is an action for eleven pounds ten, and, therefore, I trust to your Lordship's lenity and mercy to reject it.' “That reply, sir, cost me twelve years of exile from the court wherein I uttered it. Those were times when the brow-beating judge could crush the bar; nor were the jury always safe in the sanctuary of the jury-box. Now, such abuses are no longer in existence; and if we have made no other stride in progress, even that is considerable.” “In all that regards the law and its administration, I am sure you are correct, sir,” said Nelligan, submissively.