woman from Smyrna, I must leave you for a moment to see her." Shortly after returning, he found Mr. Curfán, who said, "Well, my friend, what say you, Quid tibi visa Chios, quid Smyrna ?”

In selecting some of the foregoing passages from the speeches of Mr. Curran, perhaps I may be thought to have given them too copiously. If I have been led into error from the admiration of their excellencies, or from the impressions I received at their delivery, having had the good fortune to have heard most of them spoken with that accompanying force of energy and of action, such was the effect produced, that in taking the note of his speech in the case of Massy and Headfort, in which I was of counsel with him, I became suspended; the hand forgot its office, and, till roused from the delicious transport by some friend near me, I was not conscious that I left the paper unstained by any one note. On observing this circumstance to Mr. Curran in a few days after, he said, "Possibly at that very moment you were taking the best impression, perhaps then drinking deeply. It is probable it was then you were doing to me and yourself the greatest justice." On reflection, I believe it was as he had remarked. This

in some degree tends to demonstrate, how much of their effect, beauty, and sublimity, must have been lost in the delight, how much by the rapidity of his flights, where much depended on a word.

His speeches, as now before the public, do not afford the just standards by which to measure their merits as delivered. One thing was always observable, that he never exhausted his subject; he never became languid, either by repetition or by barrenness. When another might be supposed to have ran the fountain dry, so productive were his powers, that he rose with fresh supplies, and came to the contest with renovated animation, with more vigorous reinforcements. He never forced the note of his mind too high, so as to deprive it of its tone, power, variety, or effect. His orations were peculiarly adapted to an Irish audience, and though he may have adapted his mind to the taste of his country, and it was wisdom to have done so, it was capable of expansion and adaptation to any audience: he was, attic, in the truest sense,

Under whatever imperfections these speeches have been sent abroad, they still afford manifest indications in many of their passages, (and I may add) proofs of the purest elegance. What invective has exceeded that delivered before the

lord lieutenant and council in the case of Alderman Howison? Humanity is apt to throw itself into the condition of the abused, thinking the severity too much for man to endure. Its acerbity had a vigour and boldness which one should conceive to have been justified by the occasion. In part of the invective in defence of Hamilton Rowan, you meet something in the same style of conception, but rather on a lower key. Nothing can surpass the art and eloquence, the soothing and the softness of the address to Lord Avonmore, on the case of Judge Johnson-the tenderness in Massy versus Headfort; but when he comes to pay the tribute of respect to British freedom, and sounds the trumpet note, EMANCIPATION, its echo rings on the ear till its reverberation, and its sound, passing through the sense, strike on the heart, and there remain in eternal concord. All those who have heard him, lament the inattention he always manifested to his own fame, and those who best knew him, have made remarks upon the different effect produced by the reading and the speaking. In the combination of all his animal and intellectual powers, you had a full perception of all he could do; but the fire of the eye, the action which spoke before the lips were opened, these accompaniments are lost. His dialogue, in which he had a peculiar excellence, is lost. Possibly he was the only actor and dialoguist who succeeded in both. Many of those

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turns, points, and phrases, have been effaced or disfigured they do not live; they are not retained. That death which has removed him from envy, may open to enquiry the nature of his claims to immortality, as a person of unrivalled genius. Even the superstitious admiration of antiquity, now that his ashes are in the grave of all the Capulets, cannot fail to rank him with the greatest names. In the torrent of praises which issued from the press on the event of his demise, it is a remarkable coincidence, that in three of those eloquent productions, coming from the pens of the most distinguished writers of this age, though written almost simultaneously, without concert or communication one with the other, they concur on all the material points of his excellence, and differ but little. Were it merely for the purpose of proving this, these valuable records, as well of friendship as of eloquence, are now preserved: they differ but little from the views here given; and from the continued authority of these concurrent testimonies, one irresistible truth a appears, namely, that whatever may be otherwise said of him, (a subject with which I have early professed myself to have had no concern,) yet all agree in this, that he was endowed with richer and rarer gifts of genius than in general fall to the lot of man to witness and to enjoy. If I have enthusiasm, it is in the admiration of that mind which was unequalled in its own peculiar character.

To other parts of his forensic speeches I might have adverted with advantage. In Ireland they are so familiar that it would be unbecoming to give to them an attention which has been already satisfied; but to England it might be a source of pleasure. I will not say that all of them, nor all parts of each will suit a taste, which, to enjoy, should come to an Irish level; but as they are before the public, and have been, those who are curious may recur to them not without plea

sure.

Mr. Curran, strange to say, had some difference of opinion with some of his friends as to their comparative merits. He did occasionally flirt and coquette about them, and therefore it became difficult to ascertain his own exact opinion concerning them. He would freakishly put forward the merit of some one (little and seldom as he spoke of them) to examine the opinion of others upon them; and he sometimes selected the inferior samples, as well to judge of the character of the observer, as to see if they contained the excellence which they assentingly ascribed to them. Thus he often fought in ambush, and his doublebarrelled gun seldom missed its mark.

Mr. Curran entertained opinions on many subjects which he expressed with openness. I have heard him some time after he was appointed