ion!" When associated with swearing, it shines
in its brightest colors. What, for instance, is calculated to produce
the best and purest of the moral virtues so beautifully, as the swearing
an alibi? Here are fortitude and a love of freedom resisting oppression;
for it is well known that all law is oppression in Ireland.

There is compassion for the peculiar state of the poor boy, who,
perhaps, only burned a family in their beds; benevolence to prompt the
generous effort in his behalf; disinterestedness to run the risk of
becoming an involuntary absentee; fortitude in encountering a host
of brazen-faced lawyers; patience under the unsparing gripe of a
cross-examiner; perseverance in conducting the oath to its close against
a host of difficulties; and friendship, which bottoms and crowns them
all.

Paddy's merits, however, touching the alibi, rest not here. Fiction on
these occasions only teaches him how to perform a duty. It may be,
that he is under the obligation of a previous oath not to give evidence
against certain of his friends and associates. Now, could anything in
the whole circle of religion or ethics be conceived that renders the
epic style of swearing so incumbent upon Paddy? There is a kind of moral
fitness in all things; for where the necessity of invention exists, it
is consolatory to reflect that the ability to invent is bestowed along
with it.

Next to the alibi comes Paddy's powers in sustaining a
cross-examination. Many person thinks that this is his forte; but we
cannot yield to such an opinion, nor compromise his originality
of conception in the scope and plan of an alibi. It is marked by a
minuteness of touch, and a peculiarity of expression which give it every
appearance of real life. The circumstances are so well imagined,
the groups so naturally disposed, the coloring so finished, and the
background in such fine perspective, that the whole picture presents you
with such keeping and _vraisemblance_, as could be accomplished only by
the genius of a master.

In point of interest, however, we must admit that his ability in a
cross-examination ranks next to his skill in planning an alibi. There
is, in the former, a versatility of talent that keeps him always ready;
a happiness of retort, generally disastrous to the wit of the most
established cross-examiner; an apparent simplicity, which is quite as
impenetrable as the lawyer's assurance; a _vis comica_, which puts the
court in tears; and an orig