est and tenderest recollections of my life-from the remembrance of those attic nights, and those refections 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. [Here Lord Avonmore could not refrain from bursting into tears.] Yes, my good Lord, I see you do not forget them. I see their sacred forms passing in sad review before your memory. I see your pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meetings, where the innocent enjoyment of social mirth be came expanded into the nobler warmth of social virtue, and the horizon of the board became enlarged into the horizon of man-where the swel ing heart conceived and communicated the pure and generous purpose-where my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrowed light from the more matured and redundant fountain of yours.' I. 139-148.

Now, we must candidly confess, that we do not remember ever to have read any thing much more absurd than this—and that the puerility and folly of the classical intrusions is even less offensive, than the heap of incongruous metaphors by which the meaning is obscured. Does the learned author really mean to contend, that the metaphors here add either force or beauty to the sentiment; or that Bacon or Milton ever wrote any thing like this upon such a topic? 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 just 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. If young lawyers are taught to consider this as the style which should be aimed at and encouraged, to render the Judges benevolent,-by comparing them to the sweet-souled Cimon,' and the gallant Epaminondas; or to talk about their young and slender tapers, and the clouds and morning sun, '--with what precious stuff will the Courts and the country be infested! 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

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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 cross-examination, and his conversational brilliancy, are commemorated; as well as the general simplicity and affability of his manners, and his personal habits and peculiarities. He was not a profound lawyer, nor much of a general scholar, though reasonably well acquainted with all the branches of polite literature, and an eager reader of novels-being often caught sobbing over the pathos of Richardson, or laughing at the humour of Cervantes, with an unrestrained vehemence which reminds us of that of Voltaire. He spoke very slow, both in public and private, and was remarkably scrupulous in his choice of words: He slept very little, and, like Johnson, was always averse to retire at night-lingering long after he arose to depart—and, in his own house, often following one of his guests to his chamber, and renewing the conversation for an hour. He was habitually abstinent and temperate; and, from his youth up, in spite of all his vivacity, the victim of a constitutional melancholy. His wit is said to have been ready and brilliant, and altogether without gall. But the credit of this testimony is somewhat weakened by a little selection of his bons mots, with which we are furnished in a note. The greater part, we own, appear to us to be rather vulgar and ordinary; as, when a man of the name of Halfpenny was desired by the Judge to sit down, Mr C. said, I thank your Lordship for having at last nailed that rap to the counter; or, when observing upon the singular pace of a Judge who was lame, he said, 'Don't you see that one leg goes before like a tipstaff, to make room for the other?'—or, when vindicating his countrymen from the charge of being naturally vicious, he said, ' He had never yet heard of an Irishman being born drunk.' The following, however, is good-' I can't tell you, Curran,' observed an Irish nobleman, who had voted for the Union, how frightful our old House of Commons ap pears to me. 'Ah! my lord,' replied the other, it is only 'natural for Murderers to be afraid of Ghosts; '-and this is at least grotesque. 6 Being asked what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in England, could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue? Answer-" I suppose he's trying to catch the "English accent." In his last illness, his physician observing in

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the morning that he seemed to cough with more difficulty, he answered, that is rather surprising, as I have been practising all night.'

But these things are of little consequence. Mr Curran was something much better than a sayer of smart sayings. He was a lover of his country-and its fearless, its devoted, and indefatigable servant. To his energy and talents she was perhaps indebted for some mitigation of her sufferings in the days of her extremity-and to these, at all events, the public has been indebted, in a great degree, for the knowledge they now have her wrongs, and for the feeling which that knowledge has excited, of the necessity of granting them redress. It is in this character that he must have most wished to be remembered, and in which he has most deserved it. As to any flaws or lapses in his private life, we agree, with the excellent author before us, that his death should consign them to oblivion; and that, as his claims to distinction were altogether of a public nature, nothing should be allowed to detract from them that is not of the same description: At the same time, that our readers may know all that we know, and that their uncharitable surmises may not go beyond the truth, we cannot do better than conclude with the following passage from this most exemplary biography, in which, as in all the rest, the author has observed the tenderness which was due to the relationship in which he stood to his subject, without violating, in the least degree, that manly fairness and sincerity, without which he would have been unworthy of public confidence.

But the question will be asked, has this been a faithful picture? -Have no shades been designedly omitted?-Has delicacy or flattery concealed no defects, without which the resemblance cannot be true? To such inquiries it is answered, that the estimable qualities which have formed the preceding description, have not been invented or exaggerated; and if the person, who has assumed the duty of collecting them, has abstained from a rigorous detail of any infirmities of temper or conduct, it is because a feeling more sacred and more justifiable than delicacy or flattery has taught him, and should teach others. to regard them with tenderness and regret. In thus abstaining from a cruel and unprofitable analysis of failings, to which the most gifted are often the most prone, no deception is intended. It is due to that public to whom Mr Curran's merits have been here submitted as deserving their approbation, to admit with candour, that some particulars have been withheld which they would not have approved: But it is also due to his memory to declare, that in balancing the conflicting elements of his character, what was virtuous and amiable will be found to have largely preponderated. He was not perfect; but his imperfections have a peculiar claim upon our forbear

ance, when we reflect that they sprung from the same source as his genius, and may be considered as almost the inevitable condition upon which that order of genius can be held. Their source was in his imagination. The same ardour and sensibility which rendered him so eloquent an advocate of others, impelled him to take too impassioned and irritating views of questions that personally related to himself. The mistakes of conduct into which this impetuosity of temperament betrayed him cannot be defended by this or by any other explanation of their origin; yet it is much to be able to say that they were almost exclusively confined to a single relation, and that those who in consequence suffered most, but who, from their intimate connexion with him, knew him best, saw so many redeeming qualities in his nature, that they uniformly considered any exclusion from his regard, not so much in the light of an injustice, as of a personal misfortune.

There was a time when such considerations would have failed to appease his numerous accusers, who, under the vulgar pretext of moral indignation, were relentlessly taking vengeance on his public virtues by assiduous and exaggerated statements of private errors, which, had he been one of the enemies of his country, they would have been the first to screen or justify. But it is hoped, that he was not deceiving himself when he anticipated that the term of their hos tility would expire as soon as he should be removed beyond its reach. "The charity of the survivors (to use his own expressions) looks at the failings of the dead through an inverted glass; and slander calls off the pack from a chase in which, when there can be no pain, there can be no sport; nor will memory weigh their merits with a niggard steadiness of hand." But even should this have been a delusive expectation should the grave which now covers him prove an unrespected barrier against the assaults of political hatred, there will not be wanting many of more generous minds, who loved and admired him, to rally round his memory, from the grateful conviction that his titles to his country's esteem stand in d: fiance of every imperfection of which his most implacable revilers can accuse him. As long as Ireland retains any sensibility to public worth, it will not be forgotten, that (whatever waywardness he may have shown towards some, and those a very few) she had, in every vicissitude, the unpurchased and most unmeasured benefit of his affections and his virtues. This is his claim and his protection-that having by his talents raised himself from an humble condition to a station of high trust and innumerable temptations, he held himself erect in servile times, and has left an example of Political Honour, upon which the most scrutinizing malice cannot detect a stain. II. pp. 475–479.

ART. II. Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men. Collected from the Conversation of Mr Pope, and other eminent Persons of his time; By the Rev. JOSEPH SPENCE. Now first published from the Original Papers, with Notes, and a Life of the Author: By SAMUEL WELLER SINGER. Carpenter, London. Constable & Co., Edinburgh. 1820.

THE HERE is no species of composition, perhaps, so delightful as that which presents us with personal anecdotes of eminent men: And if its chief charm be in the gratification of our curiosity, it is a curiosity at least that has its origin in enthusiasm. We are anxious to know all that is possible to be learnt of those who have at any rate so honoured a place in our remembrance. It is not, merely, that every circumstance derives value from the person to whom it relates: but an apparently insignificant anecdote often throws an entirely new light on the history of the most admired works, or the most brilliant actions. Intellectual discoveries, or heroic deeds, though they shed a broad and lasting lustre round the memory of those that have achieved them, yet occupy but a small part of the life of any individual: And we are not unwilling to penetrate the dazzling glory, and to see how the remaining intervals are filled up;-to look into the minute details, to detect incidental foibles, and to be satisfied what qualities they have in common with ourselves, as well as distinct from us, entitled to our pity, or raised above our imitation. The heads of great men, in short, are not all that we want to get a sight of: we wish to add the limbs, the drapery, the background. What would we not give to any modern Cornelius who would enable us to catch a glimpse of Pope through a glass door, leaning thoughtful on his hand, while composing the Rape of the Lock, or the Epistle of Eloisa; or riding by in a chariot with Lord Bolingbroke, or whispering to Petty Blount, or doing the honours of his grotto to Lady Wortley Montague! How much, then, are we not bound to the writer who gives us a portrait of him, with any thing like tolerable fidelity and exactness, in all these circumstances!-We like to visit the birthplace or the burial-place of famous men, to mark down their birth-day, or the day on which they died. Cicero's villa, the tomb of Virgil, the house in which Shakespeare was brought up, are objects of romantic interest, and of refined curiosity to the lovers of genius; and a poet's lock of hair, a fac-simile of his handwriting, an ink-stand, or a fragment of an old chair belonging to him, are treasured up as relics of literary devotion. These things are thus valued, only because they bring