inequality. The latter were of a much inferior stamp; but if Mr. Addison could pass down to future ages with the merited praise of being the greatest ornament to his own as a writer, and that of being an equally distinguished orator was denied to him, so it may content the ambition of Mr. Curran that his mind was not confined to one track of excellence. To few are given that enlargement, so as to embrace all, or to march at the head of separate grand divisions of intellect. There are many mansions in that house.

The two persons who best combined the extraordinary qualities of great action and of great reflection, belonging to distinct ages and at immense distances, were probably Cicero and Edmund Burke. The elasticity of Mr. Curran's mind was always bounding, when excited by praise or competition. It was early accustomed to admiration; and a crowded theatre, and the vastness of the occasion, drew forth all the energies of his productive mind, and all its best acting and its best exertions, when ignited by his subject, and by these appliances. It was not in the cave of Trophonius, but at Delphi he set forth his oracles.

Such was the food he banqueted upon, and without some of these, his wing soon tired: yet he

was but inferior to himself. Without these adventitious aids in his study, he became, comparatively with himself, tame and languid; and though his poetry affords some proofs of taste and marks of genius, it is feared his immortality must rest on some more solid basis. It was in conversation when he was properly in his own climate; when in high tone, and harmonised by fit accompaniments, that he "discoursed most excellent music." Often happiest when his subject was gravest, or when letters, men, taste, past, or passing events were touched. On these topics he entered with a curious felicity, so as to swell the listener's mind to participate in the proud consciousness of human superiority, of which he could be scarcely apprized till he heard him. And whether he courted the mournful muse, or were his even the sallies of gaiety and mirth, such was the sombre of his pencil, or such the playfulness and airiness of his imagery; and so surprising were the rapid transitions to the most exquisite comedy, that days and nights passed thus with him were truly in his own phrase (on some other occasion) "the refections of the gods."

His quotations, though frequent, were never pedantic he melted down the classic sentiment, and it became more pure, and you felt the allusion or illustration in all the freshness of its original force. It was on these occasions his soul resem

bled a finely-toned instrument, which a rude or clumsy touch flung into disorder: it was the harp which played to the zephyr, and whose wildest were its sweetest notes!

To make a comparison with the ancients,to presume to say that modern wit or oratory equalled or surpassed that of Athens or of Rome, would be beyond the purpose of this narrative. To assert that all which Congreve wrote,-which Sheridan spoke or wrote,-all which Mr. Curran or Voltaire had ever given to the public, all with which they enriched, cherished, and delighted private social intercourse ;-that all these outstripped all the excellences of the Attic and Roman public and private, would be to presume upon a decision, which no one, as I can learn, has ever taken the trouble of bringing solemnly into the field for discussion.

The plays of Terence and Plautus, and of many others among the Romans; and of the celebrated ancient comedy among the Greeks, should with this view be ransacked and culled with great labour, taste, and judgement. It may possibly be, that among the Greeks and Romans may be found those who have surpassed the moderns in pure comedy and in oratory. A Barthelemy's genius could presume to determine that question, but the solution appears to be physically unat

tainable for want of juxta-position. From not possessing that standard, unconquerable difficulties for ever must impede the enquiry. Beside the unprofitableness of the investigation, the immensity of the research, the variety of idiom, and the topical application of points and turns never to be recovered, and perhaps never to be duly appre ciated, fling the hope into despair. Without presuming on any such fearful parallel, take a view of the frequent smart sayings, of the wit and epigram of two of their illustrious men, as retained by Plutarch," how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable" are they? How short of the salt and poignancy, and of the grace, of some of those here recorded. And thus it may have been with Shakespear, had not the gigantic and stupendous powers of his genius given a stamp and circulation to the language of his own time, and transfused it into vernacular use. It is by this magic, the humour of Falstaff is now familiar and understood, while the language of Chaucer, of Cowley, and of Spenser, is fallen nearly into disuse.

In the extracts here given, it would be unjust to propose them as exact criterions. In the works of the ancients, the best illustrations will be found more profusely scattered; and many are interspersed in Anacharse, in La Harpe, and in the good writers, critics, and historians of our

own country. And lest weariness may attend the repetition even of wit, ancient or modern; and lest this should swell into the size of a lumpish elegant extract, or assume the shape of an indifferent joke book, I shall be as sparing of these excerpta, as the object of their introduction may properly admit*.

The humour of Horace is always agreeable, but Mr. Curran has much more wit, and as a satirist is equally pleasant. As severe as Juvenal, he is at once the comic and the tragic satirist; and when he comes to lash vice, his sentiments are manly and elevated. In cross-examining an old Clergyman whose evasions of truth were disgraceful to him, he closed with this question, "Doctor, when you last put your spectacles in the Bible, give me leave to ask you, did you close it on that passage which says Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour?"

In Ireland they have a good-natured, familiar, open manner of friendly intercourse, which enters frequently into the most serious and solemn affairs. A gentleman of the age of thirty, about four feet high, and quite a boy in appearance, for want of accommodation in a very crowded court, in the county of Kerry, got into the jury

* See extracts from Plutarch in note B.