Imatges de pàgina
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unlimited credit to the most improbable imputations which exaggeration may cast upon it.

It so happened, that in very many instances of greatness, this alloy may be found to have intermixed itself. We confine ourselves to the instances familiar in the lives of Demosthenes and of Cicero. Mr. Curran certainly encroached much less on this female property than other men similarly circumstanced: he was not always speaking of Catiline or of Clodius; nor did he exact the homage of flattery: when it came, he received it with hospitality; and it was a welcome guest when it flowed with spontaneity and sincerity, he took intoxicating draughts of it. There were a few of his early country friends with whom he continued in habits of affectionate intimacy. One of them he had on frequent visits at the Priory. He was a mighty hunter, and a very good-natured and well-tempered man; devoted to Mr. Curran with the sincerity of an early attachment. On the chase he was eloquent ; but after that subject became exhausted, he scarcely had one other left him: yet in this gentleman's society Mr. Curran found himself very happy. Some friends asked him, how it was that his taste did not revoltat passing so many dull nights with him. "I am very much gratified by those recollections he always brings me back to,

and it is with his heart I hold communion; nor can you imagine what pleasure his good humour and singularities afford me. He is an excellent man." I once asked him, said Mr. Curran, how he, who was not fond of books or of music, could amuse himself in the country on a wet day, confined within doors, as he frequently was; and his account I will give you in his own way: "Music and books, by J-s, I have both, and I amuse myself wid um; I have an ould rum of a fiddle, and I rasps that till I bodders myself, and then I falls asleep." "Well, and when you awake, how are you amused?" "Why then I takes up a book, I think they call it Tom Jones, and I reads that till I falls asleep again; and its always new to me, for I forgets it as fast as I reads it." After this specimen of companionship, said Mr. Curran, do you think my friend so dull as you conceived him to be?

Mr. Curran was much delighted with hunting; and from this friend he had the pure classic of the chase, with all the Western twang.

Mr. Curran was a lover of his country; and in his writings, speeches, and conversation, uniformly held out its people as a race greatly gifted with all the qualities of head and of heart. If he loved England, he certainly loved Ireland

better; and he seemed to have thought in the words of the poet,—

"Though England's our father, and Ireland's our mother, "Yet one side, we know, is much surer than t’other.”

In seriousness or in mirth he passed no occasion where he could advance the character of his country. He spoke his opinions with sincerity; and he acted uniformly upon them.

Of some person who voted for the Union, and owed his elevation to his vote, he observed, "that he was the foulest bird that ever perched upon the ruins of a broken constitution.'

To illustrate the humour of his countrymen, he frequently condescended to relate anecdotes of their peculiar turn of thought and expression; and his imitations were unequalled. A body of Irish chairmen were basking in the sun, in Pall Mall, as he was passing by; one of them, with great seriousness, asked his companions, do you know, boys, what was now running in my head? I was just this moment ruminating on the reason why it is, that you always see a dog turning round ánd round and round before he lies down. Another of them paused, and replied, I was often thinking about that self-same thing myself; and there can be no other reason for it but this, that

the fellow is always looking round and round, till he finds out the head of his bed.

A country friend of his had planted an orchard on a light surface, with a stiff cold clay subsoil. He took his wise man to see the trees, when out in full blossom in the month of May, and asked his opinion, if it was not one of the most thriving orchards, and the most promising set of trees he had seen; the other replied, "do not say a word to them for a while, they will too soon find out where they are."

A steady church-going Protestant, an elderly gentleman, married a Popish lady, who made her terms, that he would turn over to her religion. For years after, he abstained from going to church. However, he was met by an old friend, on a Sunday about church-time, who pressed him to come and hear the service; at the same moment came up a catholic friend; and he also expostulated with him, and requested him to come to mass but what either urged had no effect. Ashamed to go back, or to go forward, and pressed for his reasons for deserting the word of God, both at church and at mass, he excused himself by saying, "It is so long since I had the old prayers that I forget them, and I never learned the new. So where is the use of my going to hear either one or the other of them ?"

An old barrister, probably second to none in worth, in wit, and in humour, being suspected of having an early attachment to Popery, was attacked by the clumsy jests of a gay young gentleman, who did not measure his distance or his danger; he was forward and assuming; and the sun shone bright that morning to every person in the hall but to him. It was Saturday. He placed his unhallowed hands upon the sides of his acquaintance, and said, "Yesterday being Friday, you must have fared sumptuously; and I dare say you have now a great deal of the Pope in your belly." The other looked wickedly; and, surveying him, said, “Be that as it may, it is quite certain you have a d~~d deal of the Pretender in your head."

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In one of the stages of our good King's malady, it was announced in one of the bulletins of health, that his Majesty had been so far recovered, as to be able to take the air on horseback. Then," said Mr. Curran, "all this work about appoint ing a regent is gone for nothing. What happiness will be diffused among his Majesty's subjects, when they learn that he is now able to take the reins !"

He was told a story of a dull fellow who prided himself very much on the rare accomplishments of peeling the skin from an apple without break

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