country's friends to the noose of his coun try's enemies. Judges were prosecutors. Juries were either bought by gold or in timidated by power. In some instances, as in the case of Orr, whiskey was introduced into the jury-room and verdicts of death were written while in a state of semi-sensi bility. During the progress of the farcical trial, armed troops were stationed within the court to intimidate, if possible, the juror and advocate, while the galleries were ofttimes packed with drunken ruffians, who howled maledictions upon the head of the prisoner and his counsel. At this period, when the purest of patriots were targets for accusation, one man stood forth from the body 'of the bar and, with an eloquence that was as commanding then as it is immortal now, plead the cause of Ire land, in the courts, as brilliantly as ever did Grattan in parliament or O'Conncll on the hustings — John Philpot Curran. I have before me a copy of his picture, painted by Sir T. Lawrence. It is a picture of animation. Those splendid eyes, clear, sharp, yet beautiful and generous, dancing on the verge of every passion, the coal-black hair, half covering the noble forehead with rebellious locks, the sweet poetic mouth, the mirth-provoking brows, all speak of elo quence. Born of lowly parentage, the early days of his life were spent meandering about the streets of the uncouth village of Newmarket. By his marked superiority to his playmates, he early attracted the attention of the resi dent minister, who drilled him in the classics, and furnished the necessary material aid with which to enter Trinity College, Dublin. Devoting himself while there to the classics and metaphysics, with an occasional mid night orgy at the shrine of Bacchus, he graduated in his twenty-third year, and im mediately entered as a student of law at the Middle Temple, London. Here, a victim of the most abject poverty, he sustained him self poorly by contributions to periodicals
which brought him neither fame nor fortune. That which was wanting in material comfort, however, was made up in mental exhilara tion, and his stomach played the miser that the gormandizing longing of his mind might be realized. From his letters home we catch a glimpse of the life he lived, sinking ofttimes into the gloom of constitutional mel ancholy, dining ofttimes " upon a whistle in the park," studying until his exhausted mind would receive no more, and then sinking to rest and dreaming of his beloved Ireland, all bound in chains. His life flowed fast. Suffice itto say that his fearlessness and eloquence soon elevated him to a position of opulence and power, and that he stood supreme among the advo cates of the land when the series of state trials called him into the fierce light of universal renown. To discard minute historic particulars it is our intention to analyze the qualities which make him the rival of Lord Erskinc. A great many scholastic critics have adjusted their nose-glasses and in the calm seclusion of their studies have analyzed the orations, and most profoundly heralded the discov ery of an adjective too strong — a figure somewhat exaggerated. To understand and appreciate Curran we must know that he was not declaiming set pieces before a critical assembly. Nor did he care a rap what might be the verdict of Professor A. concerning the rhetorical propriety of his sentences. Upon his utterance rested per haps the life of a fellow-man, and it was for the verdict of the jury and not the favor of posterity that he exerted all his splendid powers. He fought desperate battles, took advan tage of every opportunity that lay in the way of his client's cause, advanced, retreated, fought, sometimes the guerrilla fight, and, from the intensity of his heart, permitted the torrent of passionate appeal and denunci ation to flow, unscanned for minor defects. If he used strong words, there existed strong
