indeed, proved as impotent as it was pitiful; for the spirit and talent which the young counsellor had displayed through the whole scene, not only brought him into unbounded popularity with the lower orders, but instantly raised him to a distinguished place in the ranks of his profession.

In 1783 Mr. C. got a silk gown, and was brought into Parliament; and here properly commences the Political part of the work. Nothing can be so deplorable as the history of Ireland up to this epoch-except perhaps a part of its history since. But nothing can at the same time be more pregnant with warning and instruction, both as to the utter hopelessness of repressing Discontent by Severity, and as to the inefficacy of Parliaments that do not really represent the sense and the interests of the people.

In the year 1803, the rooted discontent of Ireland broke out in a second insurrection. From want of concert and patience, it assumed the form but of a brief and unpremeditated tumult; but it appeared, on investigation, and is proved by the original plan in Emmet's handwriting, appended to these volumes, that a simultaneous rising had been organized in the counties of Wicklow, Wexford, and Kildare, as well as in remoter districts—and that it was prevented only by the neglect or misunderstanding of the signals and instructions. As it was, comparatively few lives were lost; but among these was the lamented Lord Kilwarden, the most venerated of all the Judges of his country-the wisest, because the gentlest in her councils. His death formed no part of the plan of the insurgents, and was either an unpremeditated act of savage fury, or of private malignity and revenge.

This wild and desperate project, was the work of an individual of distinguished abilities, gentle dispositions, and kindly affections; and nothing can show more strongly the effect that had been produced on the feelings of the nation at large, by the wrongs she had suffered, and the means that had been used to stifle their expression, than that they should have seduced a person of such a character into such a proceeding. This part of the public story is unfortunately but too closely connected with Mr. C.'s private history, and forms the most striking and romantic portion of it. The individual to whom we have alluded, was Mr. Robert Emmet; a young man of good family and high prospects, who had been a frequent visiter in Mr. C.'s family, and had, without his knowledge, formed an attachment to his youngest daughter. He never gave, even to her, the remotest hint of the projects in which he was engaged; and it was only a short time before its failure that he ventured to speak to her of his passion. It was to this attachment, however, that his fate was owing; for he escaped after the miscarriage of the insurrection, and might have got out of the kingdom.

had he not lingered near her abode, where he was at last discovered and apprehended. It was then that Mr. C. first discovered the correspondence that had passed between him and his daughter; and thought it necessary to wait on the Attorney General with all the papers that he had recovered. His own innocence never was brought into question; but the fate of Emmet was instantly decided-and he suffered the last rigour of the law. There are two very striking letters introduced, both written in the short interval between his condemnation and execution-one to Mr. Curran himself, the other to his son. The editor says very feelingly- There 'was a time when the publication of them would have excited 'pain; but that time is past. The only persons to whom such a proceeding could have given a pang, the father and the child, are now beyond its reach; and their survivor, who from a sense of duty permits them to see the light, does so under a full persuasion, that all those who, from personal knowledge, or from report, may sometimes recall their memories with sentiments of tenderness or esteem, will find nothing in the contents of those documents 'which can provoke the intrusion of a harsher feeling.' (II. pp. 230-231.) The first is chiefly apologetical; and we can only afford to give a part of it. After confessing that he did wrong in writing to his daughter subsequent to the insurrection, he says,—

6

"Looking upon her as one, whom, if I had lived, I hoped to have had my partner for life, I did hold the removing her anxiety above every other consideration. I would rather have had the affections of your daughter in the back settlements of America, than the first situation this country could afford without them. I know not whether this will be any extenuation of my offence-I know not whether it will be any extenuation of it to know, that if I had that situation in my power at this moment, I would relinquish it to devote my life to her happiness-I know not whether success would have blotted out the recollection of what I have done--but I know that a man, with the coldness of death on him, need not be made to feel any other coldness, and that he may be spared any addition to the misery he feels, not for himself, but for those to whom he has left nothing but sorrow." II. pp. 235, 236.

The other was finished just before he was summoned to the scaffold. We shall give the concluding part of it, and the short comment of the editor.

"If there was any one in the world in whose breast my death might be supposed not to stifle every spark of resentment, it might be you-I have deeply injured you--I have injured the happiness of a sister that you love, and who was formed to give happiness to every one about her, instead of having her own mind a prey to affliction. Oh! Richard, I have no excuse to offer, but that I meant the reverse; I intended as much happiness for Sarah as the most ardent love could have given her. I never did tell you how much I idolized her :--it was not with a wild or unfounded passion, but it was an attachment increasing every hour, from an admiration of the purity of her mind, and respect for her talents. I did dwell in secret upon the prospect of our union. I did hope that success, while it afforded the opportunity of our union, might be the means of confirming an attachment, which misfortune had called forth. I did not look to honours for myself-praise I would have asked from the lips of no man;

but I would have wished to read in the glow of Sarah's countenance that her husband was respected. My love, Sarah! it was not thus that I thought to have requited your affection. I had hoped to be a prop round which your affections might have clung, and which would never have been shaken; but a rude blast has snapped it, and they have fallen over a grave.

"This is no time for affliction. I have had public motives to sustain my mind, and I have not suffered it to sink; but there have been moments in my imprisonment when my mind was so sunk by grief on her account, that death would have been a refuge. God bless you, my dearest Richard. I am obliged to leave off immediately.

"ROBERT EMMET."

'This letter was written at twelve o'clock on the day of Mr. Em'met's execution; and the firmness and regularity of the original hand writing contain a striking and affecting proof of the little 'influence which the approaching event exerted over his frame. The same enthusiasm which allured him to his destiny, enabled him to support its utmost rigour. He met his fate with un'ostentatious fortitude; and although few could ever think of jus'tifying his projects or regretting their failure; yet his youth, his 'talents, the great respectability of his connexions, and the evident ' delusion of which he was the victim, have excited more general 'sympathy for his unfortunate end, and more forbearance towards 'his memory, than is usually extended to the errors or sufferings of 'political offenders.' II. pp. 237-239.

The public life of Mr. C. was now drawing to a close. He distinguished himself in 1804 in the Marquis of Headfort's case, and in that of Judge Johnson in 1805; but, on the accession of the Whigs to office in 1806, he was appointed to the situation of Master of the Rolls, and never afterwards made any public appearance. He was not satisfied with this appointment; and took no pains to conceal his dissatisfaction.

We

There is a very able and eloquent chapter on the character of Mr. Curran's eloquence-encomiastic of course, but written with great temper, talent, and discrimination. Its charm and its defects, the learned author refers to the state of genuine passion and vehement emotion in which all his best performances were delivered; and speaks of its effects on his auditors of all descriptions, in terms which can leave no doubt of its substantial excellence. cannot now enter into these rhetorical disquisitions-though they are full of interest and instruction to the lovers of oratory. It is more within our province to notice, that he is here said to have spoken extemporé at his first coming to the Bar; but when his rising reputation made him more chary of his fame, he tried for some time to write down, and commit to memory, his more important pleadings. The result, however, was not at all encouraging: and he soon laid aside his pen so entirely, as scarcely even to make any notes in preparation. He meditated his subjects, however, when strolling in his garden, or more frequently while idling over

Life of Curran.

his violin ; and often prepared, in this way, those splendid passages and groups of images with which he was afterwards to dazzle and enchant his admirers. The only notes he made were often of the metaphors he proposed to employ-and these of the utmost brevity. For the grand peroration, for example, in H. Rowan's case, his notes were as follows-Character of Mr. R.-Furnace-Rebellion smothered-Stalks-Redeeming Spirit.' From such slight hints he spoke fearlessly-and without cause for fear. With the help of such a scanty chart, he plunged boldly into the unbuoyed channel of his cause, and trusted himself to the torrent of his own eloquence, with no better guidance than such landmarks as these. It almost invariably happened, however, that the experiment succeeded; that his own expectations were far exceeded; and that when his 'mind came to be more intensely heated by his subject, and by 'that inspiring confidence which a public audience seldom fails to 'infuse into all who are sufficiently gifted to receive it, a multitude ' of new ideas, adding vigour or ornament, were given off; and it 'also happened, that, in the same prolific moments, and as almost their inevitable consequence, some crude and fantastic notions escaped; which, if they impeach their author's taste, at least 'leave him the merit of a splendid fault, which none but men of 'genius can commit.' (pp. 403-4.)

The learned author closes this very able and eloquent dissertation with some remarks upon what he says is now denominated the Irish school of eloquence; and seems inclined to deny that its profusion of imagery implies any deficiency, or even neglect of argument. As we had some share, we believe in imposing this denomination, we may be pardoned for feeling some little anxiety that it should be rightly understood; and beg leave therefore to say, that we are as far as possible from holding that the greatest richness of imagery necessarily excludes close or accurate reasoning; on the contrary, it is frequently its appropriate vehicle and natural exponent-as in Lord Bacon, Lord Chatham, and Jeremy Taylor. But the eloquence we wished to characterize, is that where the figures and ornaments of speech do interfere with its substantial object-where fancy is not ministrant but predominant -where the imagination is not merely awakened, but intoxicated -and either overlays and obscures the sense, or frolics and gambols around it, to the disturbance of its march, and the weakening of its array for the onset:-And of this kind, we still humbly think, was the eloquence of Mr. C.-The author says, indeed, that it is a mistake to call it Irish, because Swift and Goldsmith had none of it-and Milton and Bacon and Chatham had ;-and moreover, that Burke and Grattan and Curran had each a distinctive style of eloquence, and ought not to be classed together. How old the style may be in Ireland, we cannot undertake to say-

though we think there are traces of it in Ossian. We would observe too, that, though born in Ireland, neither Swift nor Goldsmith were trained in the Irish school, or worked for the Irish market; and we have already said, that it is totally to mistake our conception of the style in question, to ascribe any tincture of it to such writers as Milton, Bacon, or Taylor. There is fancy and figure enough certainly in their compositions; but there is no intoxication of the fancy, and no rioting and revelling among figures --no ungoverned and ungovernable impulse--no fond dalliance with metaphors--no mad and headlong pursuit of brilliant images and passionate expressions--no lingering among tropes and melodies-no giddy bandying of antitheses and allusions-no craving, in short, for perpetual glitter, and panting after effect, till both speaker and hearer are lost in the splendid confusion, and the argument evaporates in the heat which was meant to enforce it. This is perhaps too strongly put; but there are large portions of Mr. C.'s Speeches to which we think the substance of the description will apply.

[Here a passage is quoted from his argument in Judge Johnson's case.]

In his happier moments, and more vehement adjurations, Mr. C. is often beyond all question a great and commanding orator; and we have no doubt was, to those who had the happiness of hearing him, a much greater orator than the mere readers of his speeches have any means of conceiving:-But we really cannot help repeating our protest against a style of composition which could betray its great master, and that very frequently, into such passages as those we have extracted. The mischief is not to the master-whose genius could efface all such stains, and whose splendid successes would sink his failures in oblivion-but to the pupils, and to the public, whose taste that very genius is thus instrumental in corrupting.....It is not difficult to imitate the defects of such a style-and of all defects they are the most nauseous in imitation. Even in the hands of men of genius, the risk is, that the longer such a style is cultivated, the more extravagant it will grow,-just as those who deal in other means of intoxication, are tempted to strengthen the mixture as they proceed. The learned and candid author before us, testifies this to have been the progress of Mr. C. himself--and it is still more strikingly illustrated by the history of his models and imitators. Mr. Burke had much less of this extravagance than Mr. Grattan-Mr. Grattan much less than Mr. Curran-and Mr. Curran much less than Mr. Phillips.-It is really of some importance that the climax should be closed somewhere.

There is a concluding chapter, in which Mr. C.'s skill in crossexamination, and his conversational brilliancy, are commemorated; as well as the general simplicity and affability of his manners, and