to be zealously affected to the Protestant succession, and members of the established church, to be disapproved, on pretence that alderman Robert Constantine, as senior alderman who had not been mayor, had a right to be elected lord mayor.

"4th. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the senior alderman who had not served as mayor, had not any right by charter, usage, or by law in force in the city of Dublin, as such, to be elected lord mayor.

5th. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the said Sir Constantine Phipps, and his accomplices, being unable to support the pretended right of seniority, did, in the year 1713, set up a pretended custom or usage for the mayor in being, to nominate three persons to be in election for lord mayor, one of whom the aldermen were obliged to choose lord mayor."

Lord Chancellor.-" Can you think, Mr. Curran, that these resolutions of a committee of the House of Commons, can have any relation whatsoever to the present subject ?".

Mr. Curran." I hope, my lords, you will think they have much relation indeed to the subject before you. The weakness of the city was the mischief which occasioned the act of parliament in question; to give the city strength, was the remedy. You must construe the law so as to suppress the former, and advance the latter. What topics then, my lords, can bear so directly upon the point of your inquiry, as the perils to be apprehended from that weakness, and the advantages to be derived from that strength? What argument then can be so apposite, as that which is founded on undeniable facts? Or what authority so cogent as the opinion of the repre

sentative wisdom of the nation, pronounced upon those facts, and transmitted to posterity upon record? On grounds like these, for I can conceive no other, do I suppose the rights of the city were defended, in the time to which I have alluded; for it appears by the records which I have read, that the city was then heard by her counsel; she was not denied the form of defence, though she was denied the benefit of the law. In this very chamber did the chancellor and judges sit, with all the gravity and affected attention to arguments in favour of that liberty and those rights which they had conspired to destroy. But to what end, my lords, offer arguments to such men? A little and a peevish mind may be exasperated, but how shall it be corrected by refutation? How fruitless would it have been to represent to that wretched chancellor, that he was betraying those rights which he was sworn to maintain, that he was involving a government in disgrace, and a kingdom in panic and consternation; that he was violating every sacred duty, and every solemn engagement that bound him to himself, his country, his sovereign, and his God! Alas, my lords, by what argument could any man hope to reclaim or to dissuade a mean, illiberal, and unprincipled minion of authority, induced by his profligacy to undertake, and bound by his avarice and vanity to perseyere? He would probably have replied to the most unanswerable arguments, by some curt, contumelious, and unmeaning apophthegm, delivered with the fretful smile of irritated self-sufficiency and disconcerted arrogance; or even, if he could be dragged by his fears to a consideration of the question, by what miracle could the pigmy capacity of a stunted pedant be enlarged to a reception of the subject? The endeavour to approach it would have only removed him to a greater distance than he was before, as a little hand that strives to grasp a mihgty globe, is thrown back by the re-action of its own effort to comprehend. It may be given..

to an Hale, or an Hardwicke, to discover and retract a mis take; the errors of such men are only specks that arise for a moment upon the surface of a splendid luminary; consumed by its heat, or irradiated by its light, they soon purge and disappear; but the perversenesses of a mean and narrow intellect, are like the excrescences that grow upon a body naturally cold and dark; no fire to waste them, and no ray to enlighten, they assimilate and coalesce with those qualities so congenial to their nature, and acquire an incorrigible permanency in the union with kindred frost and kindred opacity. Nor indeed, my lords, except where the interest of millions can be affected by the folly or the vice of an individual, need it be much regretted, that to things not worthy of being made better, it hath not pleased Providence to afford the privilege of improvement."

Lord Chancellor. Surely, Mr. Curran, a gentleman of your eminence in your profession, must see that the conduct of former privy councils has nothing to do with the question before us. The question lies in the narrowest compass; it is merely whether the commons have a right of arbitrary and capricious rejection, or are obliged to assign a reasonable cause for their disapprobation. To that point you have a right to be heard, but I hope you do not mean to lecture the council."

Mr. Curran.-"I mean, my lords, to speak to the case of my clients, and to avail myself of every topic of defence

* From the frequent interruptions experienced by Mr. Curran in this part of his speech, it would appear that Lord Clare perceived that the description of Sir Constantine Phipps was intended for himself. Those who best knew his lordship can judge of the justness of the representation.

which I conceive applicable to that case. I am not speaking to a dry point of law, to a single judge, and on a mere forensic subject; I am addressing a very large auditory, consisting of co-ordinate members, of whom the far greater number is not versed in law; were I to address such an audience on the interests and rights of a great city, and address them in the hackneyed style of a pleader, I should make a very idle display of profession, with very little information to those that I address, or benefit to those on whose behalf I have the honour to be heard. I am aware, my lords, that truth is to be sought only by slow and painful progress; I know also that error is in its nature flippant and compendious, it hops with airy and fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and perches upon assertion, which it calls conclusion."

[Here the Lord Chancellor moved to have the chamber cleared; after some time the doors were opened*.]

"My lords, I was regretting the necessity which I am under of trespassing so much on that indulgent patience with which I feel I am so honoured; let me not, however, my lords, be thought so vainly presumptuous, as to suppose that condescension bestowed merely upon me; I feel, how much more you owe it to your own dignity and justice, and to a full conviction that you could not be sure of deciding with justice, if you did not hear with temper.

* During the exclusion of strangers, it was understood that Lord Clare moved the council, that Mr. Curran should be restrained by their lordships' authority from proceeding further in that line of argument he was then pursuing; but his lordship being overruled, Mr. Curran proceeded.

66.

As to my part, my lords, I am aware that no man can convince by arguments which he cannot clearly comprehend, and make clearly intelligible to others; I consider it there fore, not only an honour, but an advantage, to be stopped when I am not understood. So much confidence have I in the justice of my cause, that I wish any noble lord in this assembly would go with me, step by step, through the argument; one good effect would inevitably result, I should either have the honour of convincing the noble lord, or the public `would, by my refutation, be satisfied they are in the wrong: with this wish, and if I may presume to say so, with this hope, I will proceed to a further examination of the subject."

The following furnishes an illustration of the rapid transition of Mr. Curran's mind from the grave and serious, to the witty and the ludicrous : it will be found in the same speech:

"But, my lords, it seems all these defects in point of accusation, of defence, of trial, and of judgement, as the ingenious gentlemen have argued, are cured by the magical virtue of those beans, by whose agency the whole business must be conducted.

"If the law had permitted a single word to be exchanged between the parties, the learned counsel confess that much difficulty might arise in the events which I have stated; but they have found out that all these difficulties are prevented or removed by the beans and the ballot. According to these gentlemen, we are to suppose one of those unshaven demagogues, whom the learned counsel have so humorously described, rising in the commons when the name of alderman James is sent down; he begins by throwing out a torrent of