Baron Fitzgerald, the other Irish Judge of that name, has
re- signed his seat on the Bench, rather than remain liable to the duties likely to be cast upon him by the Bill now passing through Parliament, of trying criminals without a jury. He has always been a Judge of the highest and most delicate sera- ples,—having refused, for instance, to go Circuit with his own son-in-law, Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, lest there should seem to be too little independence on a Bench occupied, by father-in- law and son-in-law,—so that he is a Judge precisely of the type whom we should have preferred to see charged with the duties from which he shrinks. That he should dread them is most honourable to him ; that he should dread them so much as to repudiate them, even in case the country finds it necessary to impose them on him, is hardly so honourable ; though it is natural enough for a man of fine scruple and fastidious con- science to decide so.
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