314 CURRAN. for a moment: that bis 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 involv- ing 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 reflections 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 for- get 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 tbe horizon of the board became enlarged into the horizon of man;-when the swelling heart conceived and communicated the pure and generous purpose,-when my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrowed light from the more matured and redundant fountain of yours. o 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." But, my lord, to return to a subject from which to have thus far departed, I think, may not be wholly without excuse. As soon as the court rose, the tipstaff informed Mr. Curran, he was wanted immediately in the chamber by one of the judges of the exchequer, He obeyed the man- date; and the moment he entered, the venerable Lord Avonmore, whose cheeks were still wet with tears extorted by this heart-touching appeal, clasped him to his bosom, and from that moment all cause of difference was oblite- rated.
