deeds of men are visited upon them, and that such are spurned at with contempt, and are hissed from the great theatre of human acting, we then see opinion, the greatest sanction of virtue, in full activity; there, the agremens are not permitted to rise above, and gild the vice, as in France, where, too often, virtue is flung into the back ground, and what is agreeable is brought forward into relief. While this truly British sentiment gives honour to a nation, it also gives vigour and permanency to all its social establishments: the moment a people lose this fine tact, and cạn breathe the impurity of a corrupting atmosphere, the vitality even of its liberties becomes endangered; its soundness rapidly runs into decay, and its main timbers begin to rot. Whenever public delicacy can once endure to be tainted, so as not indignantly to repel the first approaches of irreverence to modesty, the great land-marks of propriety soon become effaced, and all that a proud and fastidious people justly value themselves upon, begin to perish. The conversation over the bottle, too indulgent on such topics, is happily found not to stray beyond its own confines; society suffers little by it. The hot-bed by which it is produced consumes itself in its own fermentation, but the wit produced by this indulgence is frequently of such a character that it often possesses the most pointed allusions, and touches of novelty and of nature, which those who

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have curiosity in this way, may seek in the polluted pages, in the licentious records of the Second Charles, in the impious wit of a Rochester, and the disgraceful anecdotes of a Nell Gwynne; but such have found little encouragement in the reign of George the Third; nor in this island of saints will any Irishman be found to regret omissions, which, if transmitted, might diminish the fame of their countryman.

It is related of Dryden, that in conversation he was sluggish and saturnine, and his biographer remarks, "There are men whose powers operate only at leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigour deserts them in conversation, whom merriment confuses and objection disconcerts, whose bashfulness restrains their exertions, and suffers them not to speak till the time of speaking be past, and whose attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been considered, and cannot be recalled."

Mr. Curran was the reverse of all this,-seldom silent, never barren; had he never uttered one piece of eloquence, had no one of his orations been preserved, such was the curious felicity of his conversation, (and he could also be a good listener,) that by it alone he might have secured his immortality. In the most animated and cap

tivating flow of his wit and humour, he well knew what was due to others; amidst the glow of his most brilliant effusions in private company, no sting remained on the wounded nerve of any person perfectly unoffending, he left no one pained by his poignancy; but all who heard him retired, as from a feast, in admiration of the entertainment.

The foregoing reflections on the nature of his mind may furnish some solution of the inequality between the written and spoken productions of Mr. Curran; the habits of public speaking, and the excitements of universal admiration before noticed, called forth all the energies of his soul: these elicited all the fire of his genius; but in solitude and retirement he courted repose; there he became unambitious, and, seeking amusement alone, he stretched his intellects and his limbs : the coolness of the grotto, the silence of the shade, were seldom invaded by the irradiations of his own splendor.

In some of his sombre moods, when he became the moralising Jacques, whether he sketched the views of life, of manners, or of nature, there was something delightful, though frequently mixed with the bizarre.

Walking one evening in autumn, in Saint James's Park, accompanied by Mr. Charle

Philips, celebrated equally for his eloquence as for his poetry, there suddenly came on a violent tempest, which rived the gnarled oak, and shook the leaves, and strewed them over the walks, as thick as those in Vallombroso, which Mr. Curran. remarking, said, " My dear friend, observe here ; we are desired by philosophy to take lessons from Nature; yet how foolishly does she seem to act on the present occasion; she flings away her blessings and her decorations; she is at this moment very busy in stripping those defenceless trees, at the approach of winter and of cold, at that very season when they most want covering."

An instance of his attractions in conversation occurred in passing over the ferry at Conway to Caernarvon; two ladies were seen riding down the hills, on ponies, attended by a servant, all hastening to the boat; the morning was fine, the tide full in, and the towers and lofty battlements of the birth-place of Richard Cœur de Lion, gilded with the morning sun, seized upon the imagination, and filled it with all the raptures of romance. Mr. Curran was accompanied by two friends, his countrymen and fellow travellers, on a journey to London*. One of the ladies, who was Irish, had sought shelter in retirement, from matrimonial strife, amidst the mountains of Wales, much injured, for ladies will have it so.

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By placing seas and mountains between her and her husband, as safer boundaries of separation than fiddle cases, or deeds indented and enrolled; she felt security in those wilds. Alighting hastily, she soon after joined, and came into the boat with her friend; the former, who was a native of the county of Down, was struck very much by Mr. Curran's observations, and turning round, asked one of his companions, who that agreeable gentleman was; on being informed, she lifted her eyes upward, and said, "Good God! have I the good fortune to be in the company of that extraordinary person, of whom I have all my life been hearing so much?" On the passage to the inn, she was observed to hold some private conversation with her companion, and it appeared from what had afterwards taken place, that she wished her friend to enjoy the freak of the first stage, and of Mr. Curran's pleasantries; the latter declined it, and staid back, waiting the return of her friend. The other of Mr. Curran's companions, (a wicked wit, and who was well qualified to play a second part, and enjoy his own joke,) threw open to the orator's vanity the allurement to exertion, by a disclosure of the motive of her accompanying him. Breakfast, and the exhilarating restorative of tea, had no such power of excitement on him, as the assurance and conviction that she followed the ark from the happiness she derived from being in the