monks were amused with his playful sally, and a few days were pleasantly passed among them. In the next year he visited Holland. His views of both France and Holland were unfavourable. The next year, 1789, was a remarkable one in the history of the empire. The king's illness led to different arrangements as to a regency in England and Ireland, and more than inconvenience might have arisen had. the illness continued.
Curran ceased to practise in the court of chancery. Fitzgibbon was now chancellor. The solicitors thought it unsafe to send business to a man who lost no opportunity of saying offensive things to the presiding judge; and it is probable that the judge had no wish to hear more frequently than was unavoidable so rash an advocate. The first recorded speech of Curran's in any court of judicature was at the privy council, where Fitzgibbon (now Lord Clare) presided, and Curran took the opportunity of describing Lord Clare, under the pretence of giving the imaginary portrait of the former chancellor. The circumstances of Ireland now called Curran to practise in the criminal courts. In 1794 he defended Mr. Hamilton Rowan, accused of circulating a seditious libel. His client was convicted and sentenced to a lengthened imprisonment. While in prison a charge of high treason was brought against him. He was fortunate enough to make his escape, and some years after obtained a free pardon. This was the first of a series of state trials, some for libel, some for high treason, in which Curran was engaged for the defence. In most of these trials there were convictions. In all, or almost all, the few topics of defence were necessarily the same. The guilt. was undeniable, and all the advocate could do was to see that the forms of law were not violated. A good many of Curran's speeches are preserved. We are more struck by the occasional law arguments in which he addressed the court, which are generally put forward with great simplicity and propriety of language, and which, in some cases, seem to us to have deserved more success than they met. The strong language which Curran was fond of using, and which, in an English court of justice, could scarcely have been uttered, often disguised the real strength of his arguments.
Curran's zeal for his clients in these disastrous times made him an object of suspicion with government. Persons less obnoxious were at the time often thrown into prison, detained there for a long time, and then discharged without trial. From such dangers it is probable that Curran was only saved through the friendship of Wolfe (afterwards Lord Kilwarden), during part of the period attorney-general, and then chief-justice, Wolfe, who saw the madness of the people, whose official position perhaps gave him information of dangers unsuspected by Curran, entreated him in the year 1794 or 1795 to separate himself from a hopeless cause and a desperate party—"My office," he added "will be soon vacant for you, and then the way will be clear." Curran told him he knew the men with whom he acted; that they were not a desperate party, and that his fortunes were linked with theirs. This is his son's narrative, who, however, could not have heard what he states from either of the parties, and does not give any authority.
Curran did not sit in parliament after 1797. When the union was carried, he seemed to feel it as a private grief. He spoke of leaving the country—of going to America—of practising at the English bar. It was impossible for a man of Curran's age to break the ties that continued to bind him to what he now called "the dead soil." In 1802 he visited France, and disliked everything he saw. In 1803 Emmett's mad insurrection took place. Emmett had been attached, if not engaged, to a daughter of Curran. Letters of his led to suspicion and to the search of Curran's house, and to his being summoned before the privy council. He regarded this as an insult, and ascribed it, no doubt unjustly, to the enmity of Lord Clare. In 1806, Fox being prime minister, he was made master of the rolls. The office of the master of the rolls did not then incapacitate the person holding it from sitting in parliament, and Curran in 1812 was an unsuccessful candidate for the representation of Newry. In 1814 he retired from the bench in broken health and spirits. In 1814 he visited Paris; in 1815 he resided in the neighbourhood of London, between Brompton and Chelsea. Moore at the time lived not far from him. Curran's health now gradually declined. There was more than one paralytic attack. He lived in great seclusion. He had parted with his carriage; a single man-servant attended him. His apartments were small and inexpensive. A few friends now and then dined with him. In the spring of 1817 he felt his death approaching, and with gloomy resignation would frequently say, "I wish all was over." He died in London in the following October. A public funeral was suggested; but the thought was soon relinquished, and the body was interred in one of the vaults of Paddington church, a few friends attending. Twenty-three years afterwards his remains were removed to Glasnevin cemetery in the neighbourhood of Dublin. Curran, towards the close of his life, often spoke of writing the history of his times, and he also meditated a novel. He used to repeat a few sentences as if from each, but we believe nothing was actually committed to paper.
Curran amused himself with writing verses and with music. He is said to have played well, on the violin and violoncello, and while so engaged to have meditated, the brilliant passages of his speeches. He denied the possibility of anything worth hearing ever being produced without study. All his own striking passages—his "white horses," as he called them—were prepared. He was fond of the society, of young men, with whom he conversed with entire unreserve. When master of the rolls he would stroll into the hall of the four courts, try to meet a few acquaintances, and arrange a small dinner-party for the day. These parties are still remembered with delight by the few survivors.
It is probable that the highest praise to be found of Curran is in a letter from Byron to Moore—"I never met his equal. . . His imagination is beyond human. . . . He has fifty faces and fifty voices when he mimics." Curran sat for Charles Matthews. As Matthews entered the room, Curran said you are a first-rate artist, and, since you are to do my picture, allow me to give you a sitting; and in his latter and feeble days, addressed him with—"Dont speak to me, you are the only Curran now." Curran's speeches are described as inaccurately reported. No doubt many of them are; but the principal passages—those which are most often referred to for praise or blame—are faithfully given. Mr. Phillips, in his life of Curran, tells us that "it is a mistake to suppose that he either trusted to the impulse of the moment, or was careless as to the graces of composition. A word cannot be displaced in any of his principal passages—such as the description of an informer, or that on universal emancipation—without destroying the euphony of the whole." He also says, that "the speeches on Rowan's and Finnarty's trials, and in the case of Massey and Headfort, and the argument in the cases of Judge Johnson and the corporation of Dublin were corrected by himself." We should have inferred this from an examination of the speeches. The lives of Curran by his son, by Mr. Phillips, and that by Mr. Davis prefixed to the best edition of his speeches, are each in their way works of great interest. Each contains a good deal not found in the others; but everything we have heard of him confirms the estimate of Byron, who met him in 1813:—"Curran—Curran's the man who struck me the most. Such imagination! there never was anything like it I ever saw or heard of. I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have ever seen written, though I saw him but seldom; and occasionally I saw him presented to madame de Stael at Mackintosh's. It was the grand confluence of the Rhone and the Saone; and they were both so d__d ugly, that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and Ireland could have taken up respectively such residences."
Before concluding we must refer to Dr. Croly's character of Curran, written with very great power and consummate beauty of style. Croly had heard Curran in some of his greatest displays. The essay to which we refer was originally printed in one of the London journals a few days after Curran's death. It is fortunately preserved in the appendix to Curran's life by his son.—J. A., D.
CURRIE, James, M.D., was born on the 31st of May, 1756, at Kirkpatrick-Fleming in Dumfriesshire, of which parish his father was the clergyman. Being originally intended for a mercantile life, as soon as he had received the rudiments of a general education he went to Virginia, but upon the breaking out of the American war in 1776, he returned home, and soon after commenced the study of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. He took his degree of doctor of medicine at Glasgow in 1780, and immediately proceeded to London. His intention was to go out to Jamaica, but a sudden attack of illness preventing this, he commenced practice in Liverpool in 1781. Here he soon met with great success in his profession. In 1785 he wrote a biographical memoir of a deceased friend, which appeared in the Transactions of the Manchester Philosophical Society. This was his first literary attempt. He contributed a paper on tetanus
