proudest Briton saw that his liberty was defended in what he would call a provincial court, and by a provincial advocate.

"Such, my lords, are the strange and unnatural monsters that may be produced by the union of malignity and folly. I cannot but own that I feel an indignant, and, perhaps, illnatured satisfaction, in reflecting that my own country cannot monopolize the derision and detestation that such a production must attract. It was originally conceived by the wisdom of the east; it has made its escape, and come into Ireland under the sanction of the first criminal judge of the empire: where, I trust in God, we shall have only to feel shame or anger at the insolence of the visit; without the melancholy aggravation of such an execrable guest continuing to reside or to be among us. On the contrary, I will not dismiss the cheering expectation from my heart, that your decision, my lords, will shew the British nation, that a country having as just and as proud an idea of liberty as herself, is not an unworthy ally in the great contest for the rights of humanity; is no unworthy associate in resisting the progress of barbarity and military despotism; and in defending against its enemies that great system of British freedom, in which we have now a common interest, and under the ruins of which, if it should be overthrown, we must be buried in a common destruction.

"I am not ignorant, my lords, that this extraordinary construction has received the sanction of another court, nor of the surprise and dismay with which it smote upon the general heart of the bar. I am aware that I may have the mortification of being told in another country of that unhappy decision, and I foresee in what confusion I shall hang down my head when I am told of it. But I cherish too the consolatory hope, that I shall be able to tell them that I had

an old and learned friend, whom I would put above all the sweepings of their hall*, who was of a different opinion; who had derived his ideas of civil liberty from the purest fountains of Athens and of Rome; who had fed the youthful vigour of his studious mind with the theoretic knowledge of their wisest philosophers and statesmen; and who had refined that theory into the quick and exquisite sensibility of moral instinct, by contemplating the practice of their most illustrious examples; by dwelling on the sweet soul'd piety of Cimon; on the anticipated christianity of Socrates; on the gallant and pathetic patriotism of Epaminondas; on that pure austerity of Fabricius, whom to move from his integrity would have been more difficult than to have pushed the sun from his course. I would add, that if he had seemed to hesitate, it was but for a moment; that his hesitation was like the passing cloud that floats across the morning sun, and hides it from the view, and does so for a moment hide it by involving the spectator without even approaching the face of the luminary. And this soothing hope I draw from the dearest and tenderest recollections of my life, from the remembrance of those attic nights and those refections of the gods which we have spent with those admired and respected and beloved companions who have gone before us;-over whose ashes the most precious tears of Ireland have been shed; yes, my good lord, I see you do not forget them; I see their sacred forms passing in sad review before your memory; I see your pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meetings, when the innocent enjoyment of social mirth expanded into the nobler warmth of social virtue, and the horizon of the board became enlarged into the horizon of man;-when the swelling heart conceived and communicated

* Lord Avonmore, he has certainly a strong likeness to the picture. Those who know him perceive and acknowledge it.

the pure and generous purpose,-when my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrowed light from the more matured and redundant fountain of yours. Yes, my lord, we can remember those nights without any other regret than that they can never more return, for

'We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine:

But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poesy;

Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine."

It has been remarked by Locke, in a short metaphysical work on the "Conduct of the Human Understanding," that let a man be much engaged in the contemplation of one sort of knowledge, that becomes every thing to him. The mind will take such a tincture from a familiarity with that object, that every thing else, how remote soever, will be brought under the same view: a metaphysician will bring ploughing and gardening immediately to abstract notions; an alchymist, on the contrary, shall reduce divinity to the maxims of his laboratory, explain morality by sal, sulphur, and mercury, and allegorize the Scripture itself, and the sacred mysteries thereof, into the philosopher's stone; and I heard once a man who had a more than ordinary excellency in music, seriously accommodate Moses' seven days of the first week, to the notes of music, as if from thence had been taken the measure and method of creation.

Such was the transcendency of Mr. Curran's imagination over the other powers of his mind, that law, politics, literature, and all other subjects noticed by him, were tinctured with it. On these, as on a mighty river flowing through rich meadows enamelled with flowers, you saw on its bosom the reflected image of the hyacinth and the asphodel, whilst the beholder gazed enraptured, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers and the freshness of the waters.

Amidst the contentions with Lord Clare, many incidents must have arisen; this, however, is well known: Lord Clare was frequently accompanied by a large dog; he came on the bench to him one day when Mr. Curran was engaged in an argument, and the judge's attention was diverted from the advocate to the dog, which he began to fondle and pat; Mr. Curran perceiving this, suddenly stopped, and when the judge awoke to a fresh hearing by the cessation of sound, and looked to Mr. Curran to resume, he apologized for his unwillingness to disturb his lordship, as he conceived he might have been engaged in a consulta, tion.

Going to dine in the country with the now Judge Fletcher, he had arrived early enough to take a walk in the garden; Mr. Fletcher's

country seat is separated from a public road by a stone wall, which having fallen in during a severe winter, the gardens were thereby left open to the dust of the road: it was now the month of April, and Mr. Fletcher was observing on the rows of brocoli, which he said were very backward, and scarcely to be seen, though they had been carefully drilled. On which Mr. Curran observed,

"It is very true, but consider, they have been much exposed to the dust, and look as if they had been after a long march." This sally is said to have cost the judge more than he calculated upon, as he immediately raised the wall six feet higher.

Lord Avonmore supported the measure of the Union, it is probable, as the result of his judgement; Mr. Curran opposed it. It was said, in gratitude for this the lord obtained from the crown an office of considerable emolument. When the draught of the patent was sent to him for his approbation, he called into his study a few of his friends, among the rest, Mr. Curran, to see if all was right. The wording ran in the usual form; "To all to whom these letters patent shall come, greeting, &c. &c. we of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, king, &c. &c.;" Mr. Curran, when the reader came to this part, exclaimed, "Stop, stop!" "My God!" said Lord Avonmore impatiently,