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were sources of endless pleasure to him; while the purest modern classics in the English and French literature became equally familiar to him; and in short, he may be described to be a scholar of the first order, like Wolsley, an early, an apt, and a good one. To these stores he added some theological reading, and the Bible was often the subject of his most serious consideration; possibly, as well to examine the grounds of revelation, as to drink from the fountain of those fine and frequently sublime passages of Oriental poetry, in which it abounds, particularly in Isaiah and the Psalms. His allusions to these were frequent and felicitous; and as he once said, “It would be a reproach not to examine the merits and subject of a work in which all mankind are so much engaged, and have taken so deep an interest." Be the inducement what it may, be his own private opinions on the mysteries of revelation what they may, it was a topic he little dwelt upon, and on which when he spoke, he never did so with the irreverence of a Voltaire, or the studied and occasion-seeking sarcasm of a Gibbon*.

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* There is a beautiful illustration in Mr. Curran's speech for the Rev. Charles Massy v. the Marquis of Headfort, of the happiness of his allusion to the Scripture. In speaking of the impossibility of a perfect security in the possession of Mrs. Massy, he says, "She is giving to you at this moment a pledge of her infidelity by deserting her husband. You are a married man; she also is married. Ere you can bind her in that sacred union, you yet have two sepulchres to pass."

Mr. Burke, in giving the history of the House of Convocation as it existed in the early constitu tion of England, was equally fortunate; he ob served, that though in later times it had fallen into practical disuse, yet it still lived in the records of the country, and he concluded his account of it by saying, for Lazarus "is not dead, but sleepeth."

Of the same class was an anecdote related of Lord Chatham. He had occasion in the House of Lords to censure those who were the advisers of the king, and looking round among the benches, he asked, "Was it you, my lord?" and to another, "Was it you?" Some symptom of fear having manifested itself in the countenance of Lord Mansfield, Lord Chatham quickly perceiving it, he exclaimed,

"Now Festus trembleth."

We now approach the luminous period of Mr. Curran's life, when the difficulties which had obscured his early dawn began rapidly to pass away, and by their departure to permit his powers to shine forth in burning brilliancy, with a force of conception, a novelty and variety of combination, and a copiousness and richness of expression, in which the English language actually broke down under him, and in all of which the illustrious men of his own times looked upon him as unrivalled.

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His destin placed him in his proper sphere; most other men form erroneous judgements of their fitness for the particular pursuits in which they are about to engage, many are called, but few are. chosen; few are found altogether fortunate in that momentous election.

When we consider the peculiar adaptation and cast of Mr. Curran's mind for all the enterprize and activity of the profession he adopted, his spirit, capacity, and energy, probably few men in the history of the law approached that temple with more powerful pretensions. We accordingly find him called to the Irish bar in 1775; a race of illustrious men had then preceded him, and were sinking on the horizon. The late chief baron Burgh, whose persuasive eloquence made an æra at the Irish bar and in the senate, equally distinguished for the grace and harmony of his style, and the sweetness and fulness of his voice; of him it may be said, as of the Greek orator, he was the Bee. Of Mr. Burgh the following anec dote is related: Mr. Burgh and Mr. Yelverton: being both engaged on opposite sides in some great and important cause, all the powers of their talents were called forth, as well by the interest the case excited, as by a competition for fame:: in speaking of the effect of Mr. Burgh's oration, Mr. Yelverton observed to a friend, that he would have been satisfied that he had obtained

the victory; "But," said he," when I perceived an old case-hardened attorney sitting in a distant corner of the court, and saw the tears silently coursing down his iron cheeks, and these wrung from him by the touching eloquence of Mr. Burgh, I confess," said Mr. Yelverton, "I felt myself vanquished."

Barry Yelverton, afterwards Lord Avonmore, probably possessed more of the vehemence of masculine intellect than most others of his countrymen. Comprehensive and luminous, of a copious wit and extensive erudition, he was among the order of talent which Mr. Curran was to succeed. Lord Clonmell had a coarse jocularity, which was received as an useful talent. Mr. Burgh had the majesty of Virgil, and Duquery the elegance of Addison. The eldest Emmet possessed the vigour of a great and original mind; he was certainly a person of singular natural and acquired endowments; a man who read Coke on Littleton in his bed, as others do Tom Jones or the Persian Tales. Of the chaste, accomplished and classic Duquery, it is related on his own authority, that he read Robertson on the day before his best displays, to catch his unrivalled style, and to harmonize his composition by that of the master of historic eloquence. He had also to contend with the wit of Mr. Keller, and the unbending stubbornness of Hoare, a person in whom,

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if but one wreck was left behind, you discern the marks of what genius, unaided as it was, could achieve in the figure of the Cornish plunderer.

“But if a sickly appetite cannot be controlled, and must be fed with perpetual supplies of dearly purchased variety, let the wealth he commands and abuses, procure it, without breaking in upon the peace and honour of respectable families. The noble lord proceeded to the completion of his diabolical project, not with the rash precipitancy of youth, but with the most cool and deliberate consideration. The Cornish plunderer, intent on spoil, callous to every touch of humanity, shrouded in darkness, holds out false lights to the tempest-tost vessel, and lures her and her pilot to that shore upon which she must be lost for ever, -the rock unseen, the ruffian invisible, and nothing apparent but the treacherous signal of security and repose; so this prop of the throne, this pillar of the state, this stay of religion, the ornament of the peerage, this common protector of the people's privileges, and of the crown's prerogatives, descends from these high grounds of character, to muffle himself in the gloom of his own base and dark designs, to play before the eyes of the deluded wife and the deceived husband, the falsest lights of love to the one, and of friendly and hospitable regards to the other, until she is at length dashed upon that hard bosom, where her

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