Chapter III: Part 3

"Gentlemen, let me suggest another observation or two, if still you have any doubt as to the guilt or the innocence of the defendant. Give me leave to suggest to you what circumstances you ought to consider, in order to found your verdict. You should consider the character of the person accused; and in this your task is easy. I will venture to say, there is not a man in this nation more known than the gentleman who is the subject of this persecution, not only by the part he has taken in public concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, but still more so by that extraordinary sympathy for human affliction which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a number. There is not a day that you hear the cries of your starving manufacturers in your streets, that you do not also see the advocate of their sufferings--that you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered head soliciting for their relief: searching the frozen heart of charity for every string that can be touched by compassion, and urging the force of every argument and every motive, save that which his modesty suppresses--the authority of his own generous example. Or if you see him not there, you may trace his steps to the abode of disease, and famine, and despair; the messenger of Heaven--bearing with him food, and medicine, and consolation. Are these the materials of which we suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatize from every principle that can bind him to the State--his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, if you agree with his prosecutors in thinking there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such an occasion, and upon the credit of such evidence you are to convict him, never did you, never can you, give a sentence consigning any man to public punishment with less danger to his person or to his fame; for where could the hireling be found to fling contumely or ingratitude at his head whose private distress he had not labored to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not labored to improve?"

Speaking of the liberty of the press, he says--

"What, then, remains? The liberty of the press only; that sacred Palladium, which no influence, no power, no government, which nothing but the folly or the depravity, or the folly or the corruption, of a jury ever can destroy. And what calamities are the people saved from by having public communication kept open to them! I will tell you, gentlemen, what they are saved from; I will tell you also to what both are exposed by shutting up that communication. In one case, sedition speaks aloud and walks abroad; the demagogue goes forth; the public eye is upon him; he frets his busy hour upon the stage; but soon either weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bears him down, or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does the work of sedition go forward? Night after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, and casts another brand upon the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will apply the flame. If you doubt of the horrid consequences of suppressing the effusion of even individual discontent, look to those enslaved countries where the protection of despotism is supposed to be secured by such restraints. Even the person of the despot there is never in safety. Neither the fears of the despot, nor the machinations of the slave, have any slumber--the one anticipating the moment of peril, the other watching the opportunity of aggression. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon both; the decisive instant is precipitated without warning, by folly on the one side, or by frenzy on the other; and there is no notice of the treason till the traitor acts. In those unfortunate countries--one cannot read it without horror--there are officers whose province it is to have the water which is to be drank by their rulers, sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched miscreant should throw poison into the draught. But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and a more interesting example, you have it in the history of your own Revolution; you have it at that memorable period, when the monarch found a servile acquiescence in the ministers of his folly--when the liberty of the press was trodden under foot--when venal sheriff's returned packed juries to carry into effect those fatal conspiracies of the few against the many--when the devoted benches of public justice were filled by some of those foundlings of fortune, who, overwhelmed in the torrent of corruption at an early period, lay at the bottom like drowned bodies while sanity remained in them, but at length, becoming buoyant by putrefaction, they rose as they rotted, and floated to the surface of the polluted stream, where they were drifted along, the objects of terror and contagion and abomination.

"In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone! As the advocate of society therefore--of peace, of domestic liberty, and the lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the State, that grand detector of public imposture: guard it, because when it sinks, there sink with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the subject and the security of the Crown.

"Gentlemen, I am glad that this question has not been brought forward earlier. I rejoice for the sake of the court, the jury, and of the public repose, that this question has not been brought forward till now. In. Great Britain, analogous circumstances have taken place. At the commencement of that unfortunate war which has deluged Europe with blood, the spirit of the English people was tremblingly alive to the terror of French principles; at that moment of general paroxysm, to accuse was to convict. The danger loomed larger to the public eye from the misty region through which it was surveyed. We measure inaccessible heights by the shadows they project, when the lowness and the distance of the light form the length of the shade.

"There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights in catching at the improbabilities of a case as its best ground of faith. To what other cause, gentlemen, can you ascribe that, in the wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel for publishing those resolutions to which the present minister of that kingdom had already subscribed his name? To what other cause can you ascribe, what in my mind is still more astonishing, in such a country as Scotland--a nation, cast in the happy medium between the spiritless acquiescence of submissive poverty, and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth--cool and ardent, adventurous and persevering, winging her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye that never winks, and a wing that never tires; crowned, as she is, with the spoils of every art and decked with the wreath of every muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic, morality of her Burns--how, from the bosom of a country like that, genius and character and talents [Muir, Margarot, &c.,] should be banished to a distant and barbarous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice, and base-born profligacy, twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life! But I will not further press any idea that is painful to me, and I am sure must be painful to you; I will only say, you have now an example of which neither England nor Scotland had the advantage; you have the example of the panic, the infatuation, and the contrition of both. It is now for you to decide whether you will profit by their experience of idle panic and idle regret, or whether you meanly prefer to palliate a servile imitation of their frailty by a paltry affectation of their repentance. It is now for you to show that you are not carried away by the same hectic delusions, to acts of which no tears can wash away the fatal consequences or the indelible reproach."

He thus speaks of the Volunteers of Ireland:--

"Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney-General has thought proper to direct your attention to the state and circumstances of public affairs at the time of this transaction: let me also make a few retrospective observations on a period at which he has but slightly glanced. You know, gentlemen, that France had espoused the cause of America, and we became thereby involved in a war with that nation.

'_Heu, nescia mens hominum futuri_!'

"Little did that ill-fated monarch know that he was forming the first cause of those disastrous events that were to end in the subversion of his throne, in the slaughter of his family, and the deluging of his country with the blood of his people. You cannot but remember that a time when we had scarcely a regular soldier for our defence--when the old and young were alarmed and terrified with apprehensions of a descent upon our coasts--that Providence seemed to have worked a sort of miracle in our favor. You saw a band of armed men at the great call of nature, of honor, and their country; you saw men of the greatest wealth and rank; you saw every class of the community give up its members, and send them armed into the field to protect the public and private tranquility of Ireland; it is impossible for any man to turn back to that period, without reviving those sentiments of tenderness and gratitude which then beat in the public bosom; to recollect amidst what applause, what tears, what prayers, what benedictions, they walked forth amongst spectators, agitated by the mingled sensations of terror and of reliance, of danger and of protection, imploring the blessings of Heaven upon their heads, and its conquest upon their swords. That illustrious, and adored and abused body of men stood forward and assumed the title, which I trust the ingratitude of their country will never blot from its history--the Volunteers of Ireland."

He thus speaks of the national representation of the people;

"Gentlemen, the representation of our people is the vital principle of their political existence; without it, they are dead, or they live only to servitude; without it, there are two estates acting upon and against the third, instead of acting in co-operation with it; without it, if the people are oppressed by their judges, where is the tribunal to which the offender shall be amenable?--without it, if they are trampled upon and plundered by a minister, where is the tribunal to which the offender shall be amenable?--without it, where is the ear to hear, or the heart to feel, or the hand to redress their sufferings? Shall they be found, let me ask you, in the accursed bands of imps and minions that bask in their disgrace, and fatten upon their spoils, and flourish upon their ruin? But let me not put this to you as a merely speculative question: it is a plain question of fact. Rely on it, physical man is everywhere the same: it is only the various operation of moral causes that gives variety to the social or individual character or condition. How otherwise happens it, that modern slavery looks quietly at the despot on the very spot where Leonidas expired? The answer is, Sparta has not changed her climate, but she has lost that government which her liberty could not survive."

Speaking of universal emancipation, he says:--

"This paper, gentlemen, insists on the necessity of emancipating the Catholics of Ireland; and that is charged as part of the libel. If they had waited another year--if they had kept this prosecution pending for another year, how much would remain for a jury to decide upon, I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the progress of public information was eating away the ground of prosecution. Since its commencement, this part of the libel has unluckily received the sanction of the Legislature. In that interval our Catholic brethren have re-obtained that admission which, it seems, it was a libel to propose. In what way to account for this I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren? Has the bigoted malignity of any individual been crushed? Or has the stability of the government or that of the country been weakened? Or is one million of subjects stronger than four millions? Do you think that the benefit they have received, should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance. If you think so, you must say to them: You have demanded emancipation, and you have got it; but we abhor your persons; we are outraged at your success, and we will stigmatize by a criminal prosecution the adviser of that relief which you have obtained from the voice of your country. I ask you, do you think, as honest men anxious for the public tranquility, conscious that there are wounds not yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to speak this language at this time to men who are very much disposed to think that, in this very emancipation, they have been saved from their own Parliament by the humanity of their own sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare them for the revocation of these improvident concessions? Do you think it wise or humane at this moment to insult them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to stand forth as their advocate? I put it to your oaths: Do you think that a blessing of that kind--that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon it, by an ignominious sentence upon men bold enough and honest enough to propose that measure;--to propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it; giving, I say, in the so much censured words of this paper--giving 'universal emancipation.'

"I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil--which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced--no matter what complexion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burnt on him--no matter in what disastrous battle the helm of his liberty may been cloven down--no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery--the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in its own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, which burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation."

(Mr. Curran was here interrupted with the loud and irresistible acclamations of all within hearing. When, after a long interval, the enthusiasm had in some degree subsided, he thus modestly alluded to the incident).

"Gentlemen, I am not such a fool as to ascribe any effusion of this sort to any merit of mine. It is the mighty theme, and not the inconsiderable advocate, that can excite interest in the hearer: what you hear is but the testimony which nature bears to her own character; it is the effusion of her gratitude to that power which stamped that character upon her."

He concludes with this brilliant peroration:--

"Upon this subject, therefore, credit me when I say I am still more anxious for you than I can possibly be for him. Not the jury of his own choice, which the law of England allows, but which ours refuses, collected in that box by a person certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan--certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however you may be distressed, at the mournful presage with which an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, for the justice and honor of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipation. I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of his sufferings; and, however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family and the wishes of his country. But if, which Heaven forbid! it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into the furnace,--I do trust in God there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration."

After this brilliant speech, when Curran made his appearance outside the court, he was surrounded by the populace, who had assembled to chair him. He begged of them to desist, in a commanding tone; but a gigantic chairman, eyeing Curran from top to toe, cried out to his companion--"Arrah, blood and turf! Pat, don't mind the little darlin'; pitch him upon _my_ shoulder." He was, accordingly, carried to his carriage, and drawn home by the people.

ENCOUNTER WITH A FISHWOMAN.

There was a fishwoman in Cork who was more than a match for the whole fraternity of her order. She could only be matched by Mrs. Scutcheen, of Patrick-street, Dublin--the lady who used to boast of her "bag of farthin's," and regale herself before each encounter with a pennorth of the "droppin's o' the cock." Curran was passing the quay at Cork where this virago held forth, when, stopping to listen to her, he was requested to "go on ou' that." Hesitating to retreat as quick as the lady wished, she opened a broadside upon Curran, who returned fire with such effect as to bring forth the applause of the surrounding sisterhood. She was vanquished for the first time, though she had been "thirty years on the stones o' the quay."

CURRAN AND LORD ERSKINE.

Dr. Crolly, in speaking of the two great forensic orators of the day, draws a comparison between the circumstances under which both addressed their audiences:--

"When Erskine pleaded, he stood in the midst of a secure nation, and pleaded like a priest of the temple of justice, with his hand on the altar of the constitution, and all England waiting to treasure every deluding oracle that came from his lips. Curran pleaded--not in a time when the public system was only so far disturbed as to give additional interest to his eloquence--but in a time when the system was threatened with instant dissolution; when society seemed to be falling in fragments round him; when the soil was already throwing up flames. Rebellion was in arms. He pleaded, not on the floor of a shrine, but on a scaffold; with no companions but the wretched and culpable beings who were to be flung from it, hour by hour; and no hearers but the crowd, who rushed in desperate anxiety to that spot of hurried execution--and then rushed away, eager to shake off all remembrance of scenes which had torn every heart among them."

HIS DUEL WITH BULLY EGAN.

When Curran and Bully Egan met on the ground, the latter complained of the advantage his antagonist had over him, and declared that he was as easily hit as a turf stack, while, as to firing at Curran, he might as well fire at a razor's edge. Whereupon, Curran waggishly proposed that his size should be chalked out upon Egan's side, and that "every shot which hits outside that mark should _go for nothing_!"

MASSY VERSUS HEADFORT.

The following extract is from his celebrated speech against the Marquis of Headfort:--

"Never so clearly as in the present instance, have I observed that safeguard of justice which Providence has placed in the nature of man. Such is the imperious dominion with which truth and reason wave their sceptre over the human intellect, that no solicitation, however artful--no talent, however commanding--can seduce it from its allegiance. In proportion to the humility of our submission to its rule, do we rise into some faint emulation of that ineffable and presiding Divinity, whose characteristic attribute it is to be coerced and bound by the inexorable laws of its own nature, so as to be _all-wise_ and _all-just_ from necessity rather than election. You have seen it in the learned advocate who has preceded me, most peculiarly and strikingly illustrated. You have seen _even_ his great talents, perhaps the first in any country, languishing under a cause too weak to _carry_ him, and too heavy to be _carried_ by him. He was forced to dismiss his natural candor and sincerity, and, having no merits in his case, to take refuge in the dignity of his own manner, the resources of his own ingenuity, from the overwhelming difficulties with which he was surrounded. Wretched client! unhappy advocate! what a combination do you form! But such is the condition of guilt--its commission mean and tremulous--its defence artificial and insincere--its prosecution candid and simple--its condemnation dignified and austere. Such has been the defendant's guilt--such his defence--such shall be my address to you--and such, I trust, your verdict. The learned counsel has told you that this unfortunate woman is not to be estimated at forty thousand pounds. Fatal and unquestionable is the truth of this assertion. Alas! gentlemen, she is no longer worth anything; faded, fallen, degraded, and disgraced, she is worth less than nothing! But it is for the honor, the hope, the expectation, the tenderness, and the comforts that have been blasted by the defendant, and have fled forever, that you are to remunerate the plaintiff by the punishment of the defendant. It is not her present value which you are to weigh; but it is her value at that time when she sat basking in a husband's love, with the blessing of Heaven on her head, and its purity in her heart; when she sat amongst her family, and administered the morality of the parental board. Estimate that past value--compare it with its present deplorable diminution--and it may lead you to form some judgment of the severity of the injury, and the extent of the compensation.

"The learned counsel has told you, you ought to be cautious, because your verdict cannot be set aside for excess. The assertion is just; but has he treated you fairly by its application? His cause would not allow him to be fair; for why is the rule adopted in this single action? Because, this being peculiarly an injury to the most susceptible of all human feelings, it leaves the injury of the husband to be ascertained by the sensibility of the jury, and does not presume to measure the justice of their determination by the cold and chilly exercise of its own discretion. In any other action it is easy to calculate. If a tradesman's arm is cut off, you can measure the loss he has sustained; but the wound of feeling, and the agony of the heart, cannot be judged by any standard with which I am acquainted. And you are unfairly dealt with when you are called on to appreciate the present sufferings of the husband by the present guilt, delinquency, and degradation of his wife. As well might you, if called on to give compensation to a man for the murder of his dearest friend, find the measure of his injury by weighing the ashes of the dead. But it is not, gentlemen of the jury, by weighing the ashes of the dead that you would estimate the loss of the survivor.

"The learned counsel has referred you to other cases and other countries, for instances of moderate verdicts. I can refer you to some authentic instances of just ones. In the next county, £15,000 against a subaltern officer. In Travers and Macarthy, £5,000 against a servant. In Tighe against Jones, £1,000 against a man not worth a shilling. What, then, ought to be the rule, where rank and power, and wealth and station, have combined to render the example of his crime more dangerous--to make his guilt more odious--to make the injury to the plaintiff more grievous, because more conspicuous? I affect no levelling familiarity, when I speak of persons in the higher ranks of society--distinctions of orders are necessary, and I always feel disposed to treat them with respect--but when it is my duty to speak of the crimes by which they are degraded, I am not so fastidious as to shrink from their contact, when to touch them is essential to their dissection. However, therefore, I should feel on any other occasion, a disposition to speak of the noble defendant with the respect due to his station, and perhaps to his qualities, of which he may have many to redeem him from the odium of this transaction, I cannot so indulge myself here. I cannot betray my client, to avoid the pain of doing my duty. I cannot forget that in this action the condition, the conduct, and circumstances of the parties, are justly and peculiarly the objects of your consideration. Who, then, are the parties? The plaintiff, young, amiable, of family and education. Of the generous disinterestedness of his heart you can form an opinion even from the evidence of the defendant, that he declined an alliance which would have added to his fortune and consideration, and which he rejected for an unportioned union with his present wife--she too, at that time, young, beautiful and accomplished; and feeling her affection for her husband increase, in proportion as she remembered the ardor of his love, and the sincerity of his sacrifice. Look now to the defendant! Can you behold him without shame and indignation? With what feelings can you regard a rank that he has so tarnished, and a patent that he has so worse than cancelled? High in the army--high in the state--the hereditary counsellor of the King--of wealth incalculable--and to this last I advert with an indignant and contemptuous satisfaction, because, as the only instrument of his guilt and shame, it will be the means of his punishment, and the source of his compensation."

THE SERENADING LOVER.

In the very zenith of Curran's professional career, he was consulted in a case of extremely novel character, which arose out of the following circumstances:--

Not many doors from Eden Quay, in Upper Sackville-street, lived a young lady of very fascinating manners, and whose beauty had attracted considerable attention wherever she made her appearance. Amongst the many gentlemen whose hearts she had touched, and whose heads she had deranged, was one young Englishman, a graduate of Trinity College, and about as fair a specimen of the reverse of beauty as ever took the chair at a dinner of the Ugly Fellows' Club. Strange to say, he above all others was the person on whom she looked with any favor. Men of rank and fortune had sought her hand--lords and commoners had sought the honor of an introduction; but no!--none for her but the ugly man! In vain did the ladies of her acquaintance quiz her about her taste--in vain did her family remonstrate upon the folly of her conduct, in refusing men of station for such an individual--no go! none for her but the ugly man! Her dear papa only seemed to take the affair in a quiet way; not that he was indifferent about the matter, but he loved her too much to throw any obstacle in the way of her happiness. Not so, however, with her brother--a splendid young fellow, whose mortification was intense, especially as the whole affair was the theme of ridicule among his fellow-students in Old Trinity. He, though sharing in all the love and tenderness of the father, could not understand his quiet resignation. What is it to be thought of that one who was the butt of the University--one on whom nature had played her fantastic tricks, should be the person who held the key to his lovely sister's heart? No! the father might resign himself to his quiet philosophy, but _he_, at least, would have none of it. It should never be said within the college walls that he looked tamely on while a farce of this kind was being played out, especially as some of his most intimate fellow-students, and a beloved one in particular, took more than a common interest in the matter.

On a summer morning, in the middle of July, he was coming out of his hall-door, when the postman handed him two letters, one of which was directed to his sister. Suspecting the party from whom it came, and that a knowledge of its contents might lead to some discovery useful to him in frustrating the writer's designs, he opened it, and found that his suspicion was correct, and that himself was the object of complaint for his manner towards him in college; and further, that, as he was about to leave for England on the following day, and would not return for some weeks, he would do himself the honor of serenading her at twelve o'clock that night. After reading the letter, his first thought was to look to the condition of his horsewhip; but, after a little quiet reflection, he resolved upon another plan of action.

Breakfast over, he proceeded to the kitchen, summoned all the servants to his presence, to whom he related the whole story from beginning to end, and proposed that they should drench him with water when he made his appearance under the window. But there happened to be among them a corpulent lady called Betty Devine, who entered a plea of objection to that mode of proceeding on the ground of "waste of water;" that in _Edinburgh_, where she had served for seven years, they wouldn't think of such waste; and that, if the young master would only leave the matter in _her_ hands, she would _drown_ the musician in a chorus, the like of which was not to be heard outside the boundaries of bonnie Scotland. To this proposition on the part of Betty the young gentleman gave a hearty assent; adding, at the same time, a hope that her want of practice since she left _Edinburgh_ would be no obstacle to her success. To which Miss Devine replied, by asking him to name the window out of which she was to present her _compliments_ to the English minstrel. "As to that, Betty," said he, "I leave you to select your own ground; but take care that you don't miss fire"--an observation which took the stable-boy, Bill Mack, by the greatest surprise, as, from Betty's powers of administration in his regard, a _faded_ dark-brown coat the master gave him had been restored to its original color.

For once in her life-time Betty found herself mistress of her situation, and having made her arrangements, despatched Bill Mack with an invitation to some of her sable friends of the Quay to witness the forthcoming concert at twelve o'clock that night.

Scarcely had the hour arrived, however, when the serenader made his appearance, dressed in the pink of fashion; and, placing himself under his lady's window, proceeded to play the guitar in the best style. The performance hadn't well commenced, when, throwing

"his eye
To her lattice high,"

he beheld a female figure at the two-pair window, which she opened gently. Then commenced his best efforts in the "art divine." No doubt it was the lady of his love that was there, about to reward him with

"Nature's choice gifts from above,"

----not the wax artificials of these days, but the _real gems_, which he hoped to preserve on his passage to England!

That he saw a female figure was but too true: it was Miss Betty Devine, who had been arranging that portion of her toilet which might endanger the free exercise of her right arm. This done, Miss Devine stood forward, and, grasping a certain utensil of more than ordinary proportions, with one bound, not only "returned its _lining_ on the night," as Tom Moore says, but also on the head of the devoted serenader, who was so stunned by Betty's favor, that it was some time before he realized the nature of the gift. His nasal organ having settled all doubt in that respect, he made his way from the crowd, vowing law and vengeance. "What is the matter?" asked a popular commoner, on his way from the parliament house, to one of the boys of the Quay; "It's a consart, yer honor, given by Betty de Scotch girl; de creature's fond o' harmony; and for my part, de tung is stickin' to de roof of my mout from de fair dint of de corus! I didn't taste a drop since mornin'. Ay boys, aint ye all dry?" This appeal having met with a favorable response, the gentlemen of the Quay retired to drink "his honor's health, and to wash down de music!"

Meanwhile, the next morning the serenading gentleman went in all haste to his brother-in-law, one of the leading merchants of the city, to whom he communicated the occurrence of the previous night. He had scarcely finished, when the merchant took him off to his attorney who, without further delay, went with them to the residence of Curran, to have his opinion on the case. When they had finished, Curran at once gave his opinion. "Gentlemen," said he, "in this country, when we go to see a friend or acquaintance, all we ever expect is--pot luck!"

* * * * *

Carew O'Dwyer was the first who had the honor of proposing that Curran's remains should be brought over from England and laid in Glasnevin.

* * * * *

Charles Phillips' first introduction to Curran took place at the Priory, a country villa about four miles from Dublin. Curran would have no one to introduce him, but went and took him by the hand.

* * * * *

Lundy Foot, the tobacconist, was on the table, under examination, and, hesitating to answer--"Lundy, Lundy," said Curran, "that's a poser--a devil of a pinch."

EMPLOYMENT OF INFORMERS.

"I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the pillory; I speak of what your own eyes have seen, day after day, during the course of this commission, from the box where you are now sitting; the number of horrid miscreants who avowed, upon their oaths, that they had come from the seat of government--from the Castle--where they had been worked upon by the fear of death and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows; that the mild and wholesome councils of this government are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up a witness. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him after his resurrection from that tomb, after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked, when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of life and death--a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote preserve? There was an antidote--a juror's oath; but even that adamantine chain, which bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and molten in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth; conscience swings from her mooring, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of his victim.--Informers are worshipped in the temple of justice, even as the devil has been worshipped by pagans and savages--even so, in this wicked country, is the informer an object of judicial idolatry--even so is he soothed by the music of human groans--even so is he placated and incensed by the fumes and by the blood of human sacrifices."

CURRAN AND THE FARMER.

A farmer attending a fair with a hundred pounds in his pocket, took the precaution of depositing it in the hands of the landlord of the public-house at which he stopped. Next day he applied for the money, but the host affected to know nothing of the business. In this dilemma the farmer consulted Curran. "Have patience, my friend," said the counsel; "speak to the landlord civilly, and tell him you are convinced you must have left your money with some other person. Take a friend with you, and lodge with him another hundred, and then come to me." The dupe doubted the advice; but, moved by the authority or rhetoric of the learned counsel, he at length followed it. "And now, sir," said he to Cumin, "I don't see as I am to be better off for this, if I get my second hundred again; but how is that to be done?" "Go and ask him for it when he is alone," said the counsel. "Ay, sir, but asking won't do, I'ze afraid, without my witness, at any rate." "Never mind, take my advice," said Curran; "do as I bid you, and return to me." The farmer did so, and came back with his hundred, glad at any rate to find that safe again in his possession. "Now, sir, I suppose I must be content; but I don't see as I am much better off." "Well, then," said the counsel, "now take your friend with you, and ask the landlord for the hundred pounds your friend saw you leave with him." It need not be added, that the wily landlord found that he had been taken off his guard, whilst the farmer returned exultingly to thank his counsel, with both hundreds in his pocket.

CURRAN AND THE JUDGE.

Soon after Mr. Curran had been called to the bar, on some statement of Judge Robinson's, the young counsel observed, that "he had never met the law, as laid down by his Lordship, in any book in his library." "That may be, sir," said the Judge; "but I suspect that your library is very small." Mr. Curran replied, "I find it more instructive, my Lord, to study good works than to compose bad ones.[1] My books may be few; but the title-pages give me the writers' names, and my shelf is not disgraced by any such rank absurdities, that their very authors are ashamed to own them." "Sir," said the Judge, "you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." "Dignity!" exclaimed Mr. Curran; "My Lord, upon that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority, with which you are, perhaps, not unacquainted." He then briefly recited the story of Strap, in _Roderick Random_, who having stripped off his coat to fight, entrusted it to a bystander. When the battle was over, and he was well beaten, he turned to resume it, but the man had carried it off. Mr. Curran thus applied the tale:--"So, my Lord, when the person entrusted with the dignity of the judgment-seat lays it aside for a moment to enter into a disgraceful personal contest, it is in vain when he has been worsted in the encounter that he seeks to resume it--it is in vain that he tries to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." "If you say another word, I'll commit you," replied the angry Judge; to which Mr. C. retorted, "If your Lordship shall do so, we shall both of us have the consolation of reflecting, that I am not the worst thing your Lordship has committed."

CURRAN'S QUARREL WITH FITZGIBBON.

Curran distinguished himself not more as a barrister than as a member of parliament; and in the latter character it was his misfortune to provoke the enmity of a man, whose thirst for revenge was only to be satiated by the utter ruin of his adversary. In the discussion of a bill of a penal nature, Curran inveighed in strong terms against the Attorney-General, Fitzgibbon, for _sleeping on the bench_ when statutes of the most cruel kind were being enacted; and ironically lamented that the slumber of guilt should so nearly resemble the repose of innocence. A challenge from Fitzgibbon was the consequence of this sally; and the parties having met, were to fire when they chose. "I never," said Curran, when relating the circumstances of the duel,--"I never saw any one whose determination seemed more malignant than Fitzgibbon's. After I had fired, he took aim at me for at least half a minute; and on its proving ineffectual, I could not help exclaiming to him, 'It was not your fault, Mr. Attorney; you were deliberate enough,'" The Attorney-General declared his honor satisfied; and here, at least for the time, the dispute appeared to terminate.

Not here, however, terminated Fitzgibbon's animosity. Soon afterwards, he became Lord Chancellor, and a peer of Ireland, by the title of Lord Clare; and in the former capacity he found an opportunity, by means of his judicial authority, of ungenerously crashing the rising powers and fortunes of his late antagonist. Curran, who was at this time a leader, and one of the senior practitioners at the Chancery Bar, soon felt all the force of his rival's vengeance. The Chancellor is said to have yielded a reluctant attention to every motion he made; he frequently stopped him in the middle of a speech, questioned his knowledge of law, recommended to him more attention to facts, in short, succeeded not only in crippling all his professional efforts, but actually in leaving him without a client. Curran, indeed, appeared as usual in the three other courts [of the "Four Courts" at Dublin]; but he had been already stripped of his most profitable practice, and as his expenses nearly kept pace with his gains, he was almost left a beggar, for all hopes of the wealth and honors of the long-robe were now denied him. The memory of this persecution embittered the last moments of Curran's existence; and he could never even allude to it, without evincing a just and excusable indignation. In a letter which he addressed to a friend, twenty years after, he says, "I made no compromise with power; I had the merit of provoking and despising the personal malice of every man in Ireland who was the known enemy of the country. Without the walls of the court of justice, my character was pursued with the most persevering slander; and within those walls, though I was too strong to be beaten down by any judicial malignity, it was not so with my clients, and my consequent losses in professional income have never been estimated at less, as you must have often heard, than £30,000."

HIGH AUTHORITY.

Curran was once engaged in a legal argument; behind him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who had originally intended to take holy orders. The Judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law,--"Then," said Curran, "I can refer your Lordship to a high authority behind me, who was intended for the church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple."

USE OF RED TAPE.

Curran, when Master of the Rolls, said to Mr. Grattan, "You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you would buy a few yards of red tape, and tie up your bills and papers."

CURRAN AND THE MASTIFF.

Curran used to relate with infinite humor an adventure between him and a mastiff, when he was a boy. He had heard somebody say that any person throwing the skirts of his coat over his head, stooping low, holding out his arms, and creeping along backwards, might frighten the fiercest dog, and put him to flight. He accordingly made the attempt on a miller's animal in the neighborhood, who _would never let the boys rob the orchard_; but found to his sorrow that he had a dog to deal with which did not care what end of a boy went foremost, so that he could get a good bite out of it. "I pursued the instructions," said Curran, "and as I had no eyes save those in front, fancied the mastiff was in full retreat; but I was confoundedly mistaken; for at the very moment I thought myself victorious, the enemy attacked my rear, and having got a reasonably good mouthful out of it, was fully prepared to take another before I was rescued. Egad, I thought for a time the beast had devoured my entire centre of gravity, and that I should never go on a steady perpendicular again." "Upon my word," said Sir Jonah Barrington, to whom Curran related this story, "the mastiff may have left you your centre, but he could not have left much gravity behind him, among the by-standers."

ARTHUR O'LEARY.

Arthur O'Leary was born in the year 1729, at Acres in the parish of Fanlobbus, near Dunmanway, in the western part of the County of Cork. His parents were undistinguished amongst the industrious and oppressed peasantry, who at the time of his birth suffered under the operation of the penal laws. The family from which he descended was early distinguished in Irish history; but if his immediate ancestors ever enjoyed a higher rank in the social scale than that which is derived from successful industry, their circumstances had changed long before his birth, as a name which excited the respect of his countrymen, and a mind worthy the possessor of such a name, were the only inheritance of which he could boast.

In the year 1747, after having acquired such share of classical literature as the times he lived in would permit, O'Leary went to France, with the intention of devoting himself to the service of the Catholic Church.

A convent of Capuchin Friars at St. Malo in Brittany, was the school where O'Leary imbibed the principles of the learning, virtue, and philanthropy, which during a long life formed the prominent traits in his character. After having received holy orders, he continued to live in the monastery for some time.

In the year 1771 he returned to Ireland, and became resident in the city of Cork. Shortly after his arrival there, he contributed to the erection of a small chapel, in which he afterwards officiated, and which was generally known in Cork as "Father O'Leary's Chapel." Here he preached on the Sundays and principal festivals of the year to persons of different religious persuasions who crowded it to excess when it was known that he was to appear in the pulpit. His sermons were chiefly remarkable for a happy train of strong moral reasoning, bold figure, and scriptural allusion.

HIS CONTROVERSY WITH AN INFIDEL.

Some time in the year 1775, a book was published, the title of which was--"Thoughts on Nature and Religion," which contained much gross blasphemy. Its author, a Scottish physician of the name of Blair, residing in Cork, undertook to be the champion of free-thinking in religion; and, under the plausible pretext of vindicating the conduct of Servetus in his controversy with Calvin, this writer boldly attacked some of the most universally received articles of the Christian Creed. The work attracted some share of public attention. A poetical effusion in verse was addressed to Blair in reply by a minister of the Protestant Church; and an Anabaptist minister also entered the lists with a pamphlet nearly as sceptical as the one he professed to answer.

Father O'Leary's friends thought his style of controversy better suited to silence the Doctor than that of either of the tried opponents, and persuaded him to enter the lists. They were not disappointed. His reply crushed Blair; while his wit and logic and grand toleration raised him to the esteem and gratitude of his fellow-men. His first letter opens with this beautiful introduction:

"Sir--Your long expected performance has at length made its appearance. If the work tended to promote the happiness of society, to animate our hopes, to subdue our passions, to instruct man in the happy science of purifying the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to confirm him in his exalted notion of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire him with sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of his origin, the public would be indebted to you; your name would be recorded amongst the assertors of morality and religion; and I myself, though brought up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to offer my incense at the shrine of merit. But the tendency of your performance is to deny the divinity of Christ and the immortality of the soul. In denying the first, you sap the foundations of religion; you cut off at one blow the merit of our faith, the comfort of our hope, and the motives of our charity. In denying the immortality of the soul, you degrade human nature, and confound man with the vile and perishable insect. In denying both, you overturn the whole system of religion, whether natural or revealed; and in denying religion, you deprive the poor of the only comfort which supports them under their distresses and afflictions; you wrest from the hands of the powerful and rich the only bridle to their injustices and passions, and pluck from the hearts of the guilty the greatest check to their crimes--I mean this remorse of conscience which can never be the result of a handful of organized matter; this interior monitor, which makes us blush in the morning at the disorders of the foregoing night; which erects in the breast of the tyrant a tribunal superior to his power; and whose importunate voice upbraids a Cain in the wilderness with the murder of his brother, and a Nero in his palace with that of his mother."

Deploring the folly of him who thinks "his soul is no more than a subtile vapor, which in death is to be breathed out in the air," he holds that such a person should "conceal his horrid belief with more secrecy than the Druids concealed their mysteries. * * In doing otherwise, the infidel only brings disgrace on himself; for the notion of religion is so deeply impressed on our minds, that the bold champions who would fain destroy it, are considered by the generality of mankind as public pests, spreading disorder and mortality wherever they appear; and in our feelings we discover the delusions of cheating philosophy, which can never introduce a religion more pure than that of the Christian, nor confer a more glorious privilege on man than that of an immortal soul."

HIS INTERVIEW WITH DR. MANN.

Before he entered into a controversy with Doctor Blair, he deemed it prudent, owing to the state of sufferance in which Catholic priests then lived in Ireland, to obtain the sanction of the Protestant bishop of the diocese. To this end he waited on Doctor Mann at the episcopal palace. The interview is said to have been humorous in the extreme. O'Leary's figure, joined to an originality of manner, sterling wit, and an imagination which gave a color to every object on which it played, made him a visitor of no common kind; and as the bishop was not cast in the mould of "handsome orthodoxy," the meeting was long remembered by both parties. After some explanation, Doctor Mann gave his consent to the undertaking; in consequence of which the public were soon gratified by the appearance of his letters to Blair, whose discomfiture was so complete that he never wrote a public letter afterwards.

CONTROVERSY WITH JOHN WESLEY.

Wesley published in January, 1786, what he called, "A Letter containing the Civil Principles of Roman Catholics;" also, "a Defence of the Protestant Association." In these letters he maintained that Papists "ought not to be tolerated by any government--Protestant, Mohometan, or Pagan." In support of this doctrine, he says--

"Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope, can give no security of their allegiance to any government; but all Roman Catholics acknowledge this: therefore they can give no security for their allegiance."