Charles Phillips (barrister)

He joined the Connaught circuit, and made a reputation by his florid oratory, which, though disliked by colleagues, was effective with juries.

[1] Phillips died in Golden Square, London, on 1 February 1859, aged 70, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Sir James Mackintosh declared, on the other hand, that his style was "pitiful to the last degree", suggesting he should be driven from the bar.

[1] Phillips was nicknamed "Counsellor O'Garnish" and his conduct of the defence of Courvoisier, a valet charged with the murder of his master Lord William Russell, in 1840, damaged his reputation.

The satire has the form of an elegy of praise for the subject Curran and his Contemporaries (1818) showed Phillips's writing to advantage.