mountains; and though its elevation is considerable and commanding, it is relatively a plain or flattening on the mountain's side; its prospects are delightful. It was, as he said, a toilette, at which one might dress and shave for eternity. Situated about four miles from Dublin, and a sort of centre between the seats of his friend Mr. Grattan in the county of Wicklow, and the late Mr. George Ponsonby in the county of Kildare, and about eight miles from each.

The country surrounding it is enchanting, and the neighbourhood populous and good. Within the short distance of two miles on the city side, was Lord Avonmore's seat of Fortfield, the residence of the present Master of the Rolls, Sir William M'Mahon. The houses of many other gentlemen of his friendship and of his profession were thickly crowded round him. Here it was he chose to pass in study, or in society, those hours which were not devoted to business; and here he generally entertained his friends. He brought nothing from his former country residence but its name, (the Priory). His table was frugal; plain, yet comfortable; but his wines were the best and choicest, in which he did not generally more indulge, than in the ordinary manner of a gentleman. His deviations from sobriety were not frequent, and made but exceptions to his usual habits of temperance. Here it was, like

Achilles in his tent, he delighted his heart with his harp; the violoncello was his instrument, and from this he did not desire reputation for skill in that delightful art.. He sought no more than to feel the pleasure it imparted; nor am I apprized that he ever aspired to the glory of exhibiting even at a concert. An Irish giant used to come from the mountains to play upon it, and said it was the biggest fiddle he ever met; but that it was very awkward with but three strings, for so he sometimes found it.

Here also it was that he composed much more than as yet has met the eye. Still it may be hoped, that a criticism of Milton's Paradise Lost may survive the wreck of works which a fastidious and refined taste may have too rapidly condemned. Leisure and revision may give a finish which may not satisfy himself, yet the efforts of such a mind, however carelessly flung off, must always be gratifying to curiosity.

At his dinners two peculiarities appeared: one constantly, that of having dinner served to the minute of five o'clock. This was frequently inconvenient to others, but as he defined a good dinner to be two dishes and five o'clock, it some, times occurred, that there were no other terms to be included in this definition. He drank a few glasses of port at dinner, "to keep," as he said,

the wet of the claret out of his stomach." The second peculiarity was, that you frequently met at his table persons seldom undistinguished, though often unknown to each other. And in this he often resembled his friend John Horne Tooke, who at his feasts at Wimbledon had persons of all tongues, nations, characters, and qualities. His own habits were plain and frugal, though the pomp and parade of good living did not appalhim. He sustained through life a preference of the comforts to the luxuries of the table. Liqueurs being served after dinner, noyeau, persico, and every thing recherché; malmsey, Madeira, hock, &c. Mr. Curran being asked which he would prefer, seized a bottle of the latter, and said, Hoc erat in votis. A young gentleman who sat near him observed that the liqueurs were much better, and importunately recommended persico, adding that he who was fond of the Medes, should love the Persians also: to which Mr. Curran instantly replied, Persicos odi` puer.

It was in this neighbourhood, and in the surrounding society of Dublin, all that was precious in the genius of this country; all it could collect was occasionally brought together; and the image of it is preserved in one of those speeches which Mr. Curran, to soften down some differences between him and that illustrious man, Lord Chief Baron Avonmore, has, with such admirable art,

with such successful skill, spread upon the canvass in all the glowing colours of a master.

Lord Avonmore was one of the brightest ornaments of his country; to a masculine understanding, immense capacity, great and profound learning, he added a powerful wit, and an overwhelming eloquence. His wit, though not so frequently exercised as Mr. Curran's, yet was a gem of the first water. A great susceptibility in his temperament subjected him to great gusts of impatience. Mr. Curran, with intent to cure his friend of this imperfection, and also to relieve himself from its effects, coming one day rather late to dinner, to shelter himself from the storm which he found gathering about him, observed on entering the room, that he was delayed by a melancholy circumstance which took place in Clarendon market, through which he was passing. It was a butcher and a child; the butcher with a bloody knifeLord Avonmore could not be patient; his extreme feeling took the alarm. What," he exclaimed, 66 my God! has the villain murdered the child? Oh good heavens!" His feelings were so wound up, that he, by this dreadful anticipation, had neither eye nor ear. He at length perceived a laugh in the room, and looking at Mr. Curran, "What! did you not say that the butcher had stabbed the infant to the heart?" "No, my Lord, I said he plunged the bloody blade into the throat of a pig."

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- A lawyer pleading before Lord Avonmore, having to oppose some principles urged against him on the authority of Judge Blackstone, treated the works of that great commentator in terms of disrespect; at which Lord Avonmore was so provoked, that he instantly burst forth into the following beautiful compliment to that eminent writer: "He first gave to the law the air of science; he found it a skeleton, and clothed it with flesh, colour, and complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew into life, sense, and beauty. His great works survive the vagaries which pass through the crude minds of each giddy innovator, and which every packet imports in the form of a blue paper report."

When the late Sir Michael Smith, afterwards Master of the Rolls, was at bar, though a lawyer of great talents, yet his manner was so cold, that any glow of warmth was little expected from him. As a member of the House of Commons, he distinguished himself in the debate on the bill for preventing and annulling marriages between Protestants and Catholics. On that occasion he delivered a speech abounding in elegance and warmth, and dwelt on the alluring topics of love, beauty, and conjugal felicity, and most happily contrasted them with a law at once unnatural, cruel, and unjust, and which precluded the intermarriage of subjects of the same country, of the same king, and wor