Phineas Finn | Page 2

sisters by reason of certain early successes at college. His father, whose
religion was not of that bitter kind in which we in England are apt to
suppose that all the Irish Roman Catholics indulge, had sent his son to
Trinity; and there were some in the neighbourhood of
Killaloe,--patients, probably, of Dr. Duggin, of Castle Connell, a
learned physician who had spent a fruitless life in endeavouring to
make head against Dr. Finn,--who declared that old Finn would not be
sorry if his son were to turn Protestant and go in for a fellowship. Mrs.
Finn was a Protestant, and the five Miss Finns were Protestants, and the
doctor himself was very much given to dining out among his Protestant
friends on a Friday. Our Phineas, however, did not turn Protestant up in
Dublin, whatever his father's secret wishes on that subject may have
been. He did join a debating society, to success in which his religion
was no bar; and he there achieved a sort of distinction which was both
easy and pleasant, and which, making its way down to Killaloe,
assisted in engendering those ideas as to swanhood of which maternal
and sisterly minds are so sweetly susceptible. "I know half a dozen old
windbags at the present moment," said the doctor, "who were great
fellows at debating clubs when they were boys." "Phineas is not a boy
any longer," said Mrs. Finn. "And windbags don't get college
scholarships," said Matilda Finn, the second daughter. "But papa
always snubs Phinny," said Barbara, the youngest. "I'll snub you, if you
don't take care," said the doctor, taking Barbara tenderly by the
ear;--for his youngest daughter was the doctor's pet.
The doctor certainly did not snub his son, for he allowed him to go over
to London when he was twenty-two years of age, in order that he might
read with an English barrister. It was the doctor's wish that his son
might be called to the Irish Bar, and the young man's desire that he
might go to the English Bar. The doctor so far gave way, under the

influence of Phineas himself, and of all the young women of the family,
as to pay the usual fee to a very competent and learned gentleman in
the Middle Temple, and to allow his son one hundred and fifty pounds
per annum for three years. Dr. Finn, however, was still firm in his
intention that his son should settle in Dublin, and take the Munster
Circuit,--believing that Phineas might come to want home influences
and home connections, in spite of the swanhood which was attributed
to him.
Phineas sat his terms for three years, and was duly called to the Bar;
but no evidence came home as to the acquirement of any considerable
amount of law lore, or even as to much law study, on the part of the
young aspirant. The learned pundit at whose feet he had been sitting
was not especially loud in praise of his pupil's industry, though he did
say a pleasant word or two as to his pupil's intelligence. Phineas
himself did not boast much of his own hard work when at home during
the long vacation. No rumours of expected successes,--of expected
professional successes,--reached the ears of any of the Finn family at
Killaloe. But, nevertheless, there came tidings which maintained those
high ideas in the maternal bosom of which mention has been made, and
which were of sufficient strength to induce the doctor, in opposition to
his own judgment, to consent to the continued residence of his son in
London. Phineas belonged to an excellent club,--the Reform Club,--and
went into very good society. He was hand in glove with the Hon.
Laurence Fitzgibbon, the youngest son of Lord Claddagh. He was
intimate with Barrington Erle, who had been private secretary,--one of
the private secretaries,--to the great Whig Prime Minister who was
lately in but was now out. He had dined three or four times with that
great Whig nobleman, the Earl of Brentford. And he had been assured
that if he stuck to the English Bar he would certainly do well. Though
he might fail to succeed in court or in chambers, he would doubtless
have given to him some one of those numerous appointments for which
none but clever young barristers are supposed to be fitting candidates.
The old doctor yielded for another year, although at the end of the
second year he was called upon to pay a sum of three hundred pounds,
which was then due by Phineas to creditors in London. When the
doctor's male friends in and about Killaloe heard that he had done so,

they said that he was doting. Not one of the Miss Finns was as yet
married; and, after all that had been said