Contento d'involarti un qualche sguardo La fiamma, di cui pieno il cor trabocca Si, che uscir possa di tua rosea bocca ; Sul labbro tuo; nè avrei sperato indarno Vidi tai cose; e cio di che altra s'orna Te dentro e fuor sol di te stessa adorna. Foglio, che a me dalla tua madre viene, Di quel, che in te ritrova, alto suo bene! Non so si grande e si leggiadra cosa Tu non andrai; che nè tua voce intende, Creder mai cio, che in te di lei s'apprende A Miracol non visto e raro data. ENGLISH VERSION OF THE FOREGOING POEM BY MRS J. H. Too lovely girl! in life's wild devious way Thy unsuspicions feet securely stray, Oh! may no murky clouds of future care Alas! on thee the world can ne'er bestow Such bright and blooming sweets, as round thee blow, And that it cannot well the world must know. While doom'd to wander in this vale of. tears, Superior charms, a fatal magnet wears, I would not from thy innocence receive The slightest favour woman's love can give, But ever would behold thee, as thou art, Pure as the flame first kindl'd in my heart; For I should dread the image to impair Which love has form'd so exquisite and rare; Nor would I, if I might, that breast inspire With the soft cares, of passions fitful fire, Or though in mine its hopeless ardour glows, E'er form a wish, to trouble thy repose, To teach thee torments, to thy thoughts unknown, And make thy slumbers restless as my own. No, still resolv'd my wishes to control, And cherish thy chaste accents in my soul; Content to steal a glance, and blest remain, Though thou must never know my bosom's pain. Fate do thy worst! while those blue laughing eyes Beam on their faithful slave, unconscious of his sighs. If thus I venture freely to complain Of what I suffer, but must ne'er explain, It is because the language is my own, My native tongue, as yet to thee unknown; More sweet, more rich, its mellow tones would be, If from those roseate lips address'd to me. Then I, perhaps, might not have hop'd in vain, To bear the treasure I have wish'd to gain, From the green banks of Thames to Arno's flow'ry plain. It is not the fair hands, that careless play Swift o'er the ivory keys less white than they, Or on the canvass vivid forms can spread, Nor the light feet, the graceful dance that tread, Or rounded throat whose dulcet notes control The list'ning sense, and bind the captive soul, I praise. (gifts seen in others,) but confess, Though found in thee, they now delight n.e less, Than thy own native artless loveliness. Within, without the latent charm I trace, Thy voice is harmony, thy steps are grace, REMARKS ON THE LIFE OF CUR- THESE Volumes are extremely interesting; they contain not only the authentic memoirs of a person of extraordinary genius and eminence, but combine together, with a short and candid review of the history of the period in which he lived, a variety of curious particulars with regard to the most noted of his contemporaries. They are written, on the whole, with considerable talent, and the author, in many passages, shows a vigour and an eloquence not unworthy of his race. It is quite impossible to form any thing like a just estimate of Mr Curran, without bearing constantly in The Life of the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, late Master of the Rolls in cland. By his Son, William Henry Curran, Barrister at Law. Volumes. London, 1819. Two mind the extraordinary circumstances in which his country was placed during the greater part of his career. His character was moulded by the times. Born with a vivid imagination and keen feelings, his compassion for his suffering and degraded countrymen could not fail to be powerfully excited, and his indignation roused against the tyranny of their oppressors. His patriotism had of course a strong tinge of enthusiasm, and his eloquence was vehement, figurative, and pathetic, the true language of impassioned feeling. During the earlier part of Mr Curran's life, the political state of Ireland was humiliating and deplorable in the extreme. We give the following rapid sketch in the words of his biographer. This "It was immediately after the revolution of 1688, that era of glory and freedom to England, that Ireland became the victim of this systematic plan of debasement. Her adherence to the deposed monarch and its result are familiar to all. James's party having been crushed, Ireland was treated as a conquered country, that merited nothing but chastisement and scorn. was not the policy of the English king; it was that of the English whigs, the framers of the Bill of Rights, the boasted champions of liberty at home. By these men, and by their successors, (who, of whatever political denomination, agreed with them in their intolerance,) was Ireland, without shame or pity, dismantled of her most precious rights. Laws were made to bind her, without consulting the Irish parliament, which, when it remonstrated, was charged with riot and sedition. Ireland's commerce was openly discouraged: a code more furious than bigotry had hitherto penned was levelled against the mass of the nation, the Roman Catholics. They were successively excluded from the right to sit in parlia ment, to acquire land, to hold any employment under the crown, to vote in elections of members of parliament, to intermarry with Protestants, to exercise religious worship; in short, by a kind of constructive annihilation, the laws did not presume a papist to exist in the kingdom, nor could they breathe without the connivance of government.' "This state of national humiliation last ed almost a century. Viceroy succeeded viceroy with no other rule of government than to continue the system as he found it. A race of subordinate ministers sprang up within the land, of no public virtue, no expanded thought, utterly unconscious that man can be improved; exhibiting in their heartless measures that practical ferocity 4. for which jailors or keepers would be selected, rather than those mild and sanative qualities that might have soothed the distempers of the times. Hence it is,' said Mr Curran, speaking of this period, that the administration of Ireland so often presents to the reader of her history, not the view of a legitimate government, but rather of an encampment in the country of a barbarous enemy, where the object of an invader is not government but conquest; where he is of course obliged to resort to the corrupting of clans, or of single individuals, pointed out to his notice by public abhorrence, and recommended to his confidence only by a treachery so rank and consummate as precludes all possibility of their return to private virtue or to public reliance, and therefore only put into authority over a wretched country, condemned to the torture of all that petulant unfeeling asperity with which a narrow and malig nant mind will bristle in unmerited elevation; condemned to be betrayed, and disgraced, and exhausted by the little traitors that have been suffered to nestle and grow within it; who make it at once the source of their grandeur and the victim of their vices; reducing it to the melancholy necessity of supporting their consequence and of sinking under their crimes, like the lion perishing by the poison of a reptile that finds shelter in the mane of the noble animal, while it is stinging him to death.'* Thus it continued for many years; with all the miseries of despotism without its repose: commerce extinguished, the public spirit broken, public honour and private confidence banished, and bigotry and faction alone triumphant." pp. 161167. At length, about the year 1767, the English Cabinet began to show some symptoms of relenting; it resolved to inquire, and, if necessary, to redress. The principal reform effected at that time was the passing the Octennial bill, and, of course, disbanding what Mr Curran calls a "banditti of perpetual dictators;" for till then the House of Commons had no limit to its duration. Further relief was certainly in the contemplation of Lord North, but he was anticipated by events that were above his control." The American war bore particularly hard upon Ireland; the linen trade with these colonies, the chief source of her commercial wealth, was suddenly checked, which, together with the prohibition of the exportation of provision, produced unusual distress, Mr Curran's speech in Howison's case. YOL. V. which was aggravated by the dangers. of war; the enemy's fleets were sailing in triumph through the Channel, and daily expected on the unprotected coasts; for the regular forces did not exceed 5000 men in the whole kingdom, the rest having been sent off to recruit the army in America. In this emergency, the town of Belfast having in vain applied to Government for military protection, "had the honour of first raising that warning voice which awoke the nation to confidence and strength. She called upon her citizens to arm in their defence, and a corps of volunteers was immediately established." The country at large ardently followed her example. Forty thousand volunteers were on foot with incredible rapidity "You cannot but remember,' said Mr Curran, describing this scene, of which he had been a witness, that at a time when we had scarcely a regular soldier for our defence, when the old and young were alarmed and terrified with apprehensions of descent upon our coasts, that Providence seemed to have worked a sort of miracle in our favour. You saw a band of armed men come forth at the great call of nature, of honour, 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 tranquillity 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.'" * pp. 173-174. These associations, which afterwards became so formidable, had originally certainly no other object than defence against foreign invasion. "They had armed to protect the crown -no invader appeared; another and a more precious object of protection now remained. Ireland was at their disposal, and they unanimously determined that, to Speech in Hamilton Rowan's case. H consummate their work, they should continue under arms until they saw her free. "The demands of the volunteers were altogether unlike a mere sudden ebullition of popular discontent. They were the result of deep convictions, the splendid signs of the improved opinions of the age. The example of America was before them, and the cry for redress in Ireland was but the echo of that voice which shouted to liberty there. The mode of their constitution, too, was peculiarly fortunate and authoritative. They were not a regular military force, mutinously dictating measures to the state; they were not a band of insurgents, illegal in their origin and objects. The circumstances of the times had invested the volunteers with a constitutional character. The government had recognised them, and aided their formation; the House of Commons voted them a formal declaration of thanks for their public services; the people looked up to them with admiration and respect, as a brave, united, and zealous body, combining the intelligence and moderation of loyal citizens, with the influence and resources of a powerful army. "The effects of the firmness and wisdom of their proceedings were soon apparent. The demand of the nation for a free trade, and the memorable declaration in parlia ment, 'that no power on earth, save the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, had a right to make laws for Ireland,' + were no longer disregarded. The case of America had just shewn how a struggle for principle might terminate. • British supremacy had fallen there like a spent thunderbolt.' The bigotry, and servility, and disunion, which so long supported it in Ireland, had for the moment disappeared. Ireland declared, and England felt, that no other policy remained, but to do justice to a people, who were otherwise determined to do justice to themselves.' § The British ministry, whose infatuated counsels had lost America, and whose tardiness and insincerity with respect to Ireland had been encouraging the spirit of resistance there, were removed, and successors appointed with instructions to make such honourable concessions as were due to the services, the strength, and the just pretensions of the Irish people. The principal restrictions upon the trade of Ireland had been previously taken off. Under the Marquis of Rockingham's administration, the great leading grievance, that included in its principle so many more, was redressed. Eng An expression of Mr Flood's. The words of Mr Grattan's motion, April 19, 1780. Mr Grattan's speech, Nov. 13, 1781. § Mr Grattan's speech, April 19, 1780. land resigned her legislative pretensions, and recognised Ireland to be a free nation.' "This signal event, so justly denominated by Mr Burke the Irish revolution, was the work of the Irish volunteers." pp. 175–179. These efforts were powerfully aided for a short time by the Irish House of Commons, but in many of its members this spirit evaporated with the occasion; a few continued to struggle for the public good with constancy and zeal; the merits of their illustrious leader Mr Grattan require no new attestation. Mr Curran, from his honourable band. Great domestic aentrance into Parliament, joined this buses continued to prevail; the corrupt state of the Legislature; its consequences, an enormous and increasing pension list; and, above all, the exclusion of the Roman Catholics from the most valuable privileges of the constitution. These were the chief abuses against which the party with whom he acted, during the fourteen years that he was a senator, incessantly but vainly struggled. The courage and zeal with which Mr Curran devoted himself to the cause could not be exceeded; and afterwards, when those fearful times arrived, when the stoutest heart was appalled, he fearlessly and steadily pursued his course in the senate and at the bar as the ardent and undaunted defender of the people's rights. No allurement of personal ambition could detach him from his party. The following anecdote should not be suppressed. "About this time, when the general panic was daily thinning the ranks of the opposition, his most intimate and attached friend, the late Lord Kilwarden, (then the attorney-general,) frequently urged him to separate himself from a hopeless cause, and to accept the rewards and honours that were so open to him. Upon one occasion, when Mr Curran was confined by illness to his bed, that gentleman visited him, and renewing the subject, with tears in his eyes implored him to consult his interest and his 1782. Several important constitutional acts were passed in Ireland during this short administration. A habeas corpus act, the repeal of the perpetual mutiny bill, the act for the independence of the judges, an act in favour of dissenting Protestants. A slight relaxation of the penal code had taken place in 1778. safety: I tell you, (said Mr Wolfe,) that you have attached yourself to a desperate faction, that will abandon you at last; with whom you have nothing to expect but danger and disappointment. With us, how different would be your condition-I ask for no painful stipulations on your part, only say that you would accept of officemy situation will probably soon be vacant for you, and after that, the road would be clear before you.' This proof of private affection caused Mr Curran to weep, but he was unshaken; he replied, that he knew, better than his friend could do, the men with whom he was associated; that they were not a desperate faction; that their cause was that of Ireland, and that, even though it should eventually be branded with the indelible stigma of failure, he should never regret that it was with such men, and such a cause, that he had linked his final destinies.'" pp. 319-321. The state of the country at the period immediately preceding the catastrophe of 1789, is described in the most interesting manner, in the volumes before us, and we should be tempted to quote largely from this part of the work, were not our limits so confined, that we must content ourselves at present with laying before our readers some specimens of Mr Curran's eloquence at the bar. The trial of Mr Finnerty for a libel on the government and person of the Viceroy (Lord Cambden) took place in December 1797. The subject of the libel was the trial and execution of William Orr, which had taken place a little before. Orr, who had been committed on a charge of high treason, was arraigned on an indictment under the Insurrection Act, for administering unlawful oaths, and convicted. "The prisoner was recommended by the jury to mercy, but, after receiving no less than three respites, was finally executed. He died, protesting his innocence; and though such a declaration be very doubt ful evidence of the fact, (for who, about to suffer for a political crime, would not prefer to be remembered as a martyr,) still there were, in the case of Orr, some corroborating circumstances, which render it a matter of surprise and regret that they should have been disregarded. His previous life and character had been irreproachable: subsequent to his trial, it appeared that the informer, upon whose evidence he had been convicted, had, according to his own confession, perjured himself on a former occasion, and had been in other particulars a person of infamous conduct and reputation; but, above all, the circumstances under which the verdict was found against Orr, pointed him out, if not as an object constitutionally entitled to mercy, at least as one to whom it would have been an act of salutary mildness to have extended it. The jury had continued from seven o'clock in the evening till six on the following morning considering their verdict; in the interval, spirituous liquor had been introduced into the jury-room, and intimidation used to such as hesitated to concur with the majority. To these latter facts two of the jury made a solemn affidavit in open court, before the judge who tried the cause. "Upon these proceedings, a very severe letter of remonstrance to the viceroy appeared in the Press newspaper, of which Mr Finnerty was the publisher; and the letter being deemed a libel, the publisher was brought to immediate trial. "Mr Curran's address to the jury in finest, at least the most surprising specithis case must be considered, if not the men of his oratorical powers. He had no time for preparation; it was not till a few minutes before the cause commenced that his brief was handed to him. During the progress of the trial he had occasion to speak at unusual length to questions of law that arose upon the evidence; so that his speech to the jury could necessarily be no other than a sudden extemporaneous exertion; and it was, perhaps, a secret and not unjustifiable feeling of pride at having so acquitted himself upon such an emergency that inclined his own mind to prefer this to any of his other efforts. "The following is his description of the scenes which attended and followed the trial of William Orr. "Let me beg of you for a moment to suppose that any one of you had been the writer of this strong and severe animadversion upon the lord lieutenant, and that you had been the witness of that lamentable and never to be forgotten catastrophe let me suppose that you had known the charge upon which Mr Orr was apprehended-the charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and disgraced his country, of pledging himself to restore the people to their place in the constitution, and of binding himself never to be the betrayer of his fellow-labourers in that enterprise; that you had seen him upon that charge torn from his industry and confined in a gaol; that through the slow and lingering progress of twelve tedious months, you had seen him confined in a dungcon, shut out from the common use of air and of his own limbs; that day after day you had marked the unhappy captive, cheered by no sound but the cries of his family or the clanking of his chains; that you had seen him at last brought to his trial; that you had seen the vile and perjured informer deposing |