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few, but the title-pages give me the writers' names, and my shelf is not disgraced by any such rank absurdities that their very authors are ashamed to own them." Sir," said the judge, "you are forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." "Dignity!" exclaimed Mr. Curran: " my lord, upon that point I shall cite you a casefrom a book of some authority, with which you are, perhaps, not unacquainted." He then briefly recited the story of Strap, in Roderick Random, who having stripped off his coat to fight,. entrusted it to a bystander. When the battle was over, and he was well beaten, he turned to resume it, but the man had carried it off. Mr. Curran thus applied the tale :-" So, my lord, when the person entrusted with the dignity of the judgment-seat lays it aside for a moment to enter into a disgraceful personal contest, it is in vain when he has been worsted in the encounter that he seeks to resume it-it is in vain that he tries to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." "If you say another word I'll commit you," replied the angry judge; to which Mr. C. retorted, "If your lordship shall do so, we shall both of us have the consolation of reflecting, that I am not the worst thing your lordship has committed."

CURRAN CALLED TO THE BAR.

At this time Curran was without friends, without connections, without fortune; conscious of talents far above the mob by which he was elbowed, and his sensibility rendering him painfully alive to the mortifications he was fated to experience. After toiling for very inadequate recompense at the sessions of Cork, and wearing, as he said himself, his teeth almost to the stumps, he proceeded to Dublin, toiling for his wife and family at miserable lodgings on Hog Hill. Term after term, without any profit or professional reputation, he paced the hall of the Five Courts; yet even thus, he was not altogether undistinguished. If his pocket was not heavy, his heart was light; he was young and ardent, buoyed up not less by the consciousness of what he felt within, than by the encouraging comparisons with those who were successful around them; and he took his station among the crowd of idlers, whom he amused with his wit, or amazed with his eloquence. Many even who had emerged from that crowd, did not disdain occasionally to glean from his conversation the

rich and varied treasures which he squandered with unsparing prodigality; and some there were who observed the brightness of the infant luminary struggling through the obscurity which clouded its commencement. Amongst those that had the discrimination to appreciate, and the heart to feel for him, luckily for Mrs. Curran, was Mr. Arthur Wolfe, afterwards the unfortunate but respected Lord Kilwarden.

In speaking of a learned serjeant, who gave a confused and elaborate explanation of some point of law, Curran observed, "that whenever that grave counsellor endeavoured to unfold a principle of law, he put him in mind of a fool whom he once saw try to open an oyster with a rolling-pin."

CURRAN'S QUARREL WITH FITZGIBBON.

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Curran distinguished himself not more as a barrister than as a member of Parliament; and in the latter character it was his misfortune to provoke the enmity of a man whose thirst for revenge was only to be satiated by the utter ruin of his adversary. In the discussion of a bill of a penal nature, Curran inveighed in strong terms against the Attorney-General Fitzgibbon, for sleeping on the bench when statutes of the most cruel kind were being enacted; and ironically lamented that the slumber of guilt should so nearly resemble the repose innocence. A challenge from Fitzgibbon was the consequence of this sally; and the parties having met, were to fire when they chose. "I never," said Curran, when relating the circumstances of the duel,-"I never saw any one whose determination seemed more malignant than Fitzgibbon's. After I had fired, he took aim at me for at least half a minute; and, on its proving ineffectual, I could not help exclaiming to him, 'It was not your fault, Mr. Attorney; you were deliberate enough.'" The Attorney-General declared his honour satisfied, and here, at least for the time, the dispute appeared to terminate.

Not here, however, terminated Fitzgibbon's animosity. Soon afterwards, he became Lord Chancellor, and a peer of Ireland, by the title of Lord Clare; and in the former capacity he found an opportunity, by means of his judicial authority, of ungenerously crushing the rising powers and fortunes of his late antagonist. Curran, who was at this time a leader, and one of the senior practitioners at the Chancery bar, soon felt all the force of his rival's vengeance. The chancellor is

said to have paid a reluctant attention to every motion he made; he frequently stopped him in the middle of a speech, questioned his knowledge of law, recommended to him more attention to facts, in short, succeeded not only in crippling all his professional efforts, but actually in leaving him without a client. Curran, indeed, appeared as usual in the three other courts [of the "Four Courts," at Dublin]; but he had been already stripped of his most profitable practice, and, as his expenses nearly kept pace with his gains, he was almost left a beggar, for all hopes of the wealth and honours of the long robe were now denied him. The memory of this persecution embittered the last moments of Curran's existence; and he could never even allude to it without evincing a just and excusable indignation. In a letter which he addressed to a friend, twenty years after, he says, "I made no compromise with power; I had the merit of provoking and despising the personal malice of every man in Ireland who was the known enemy of the country. Without the walls of the court of justice my character was pursued with the most persevering slander; and within those walls, though I was too strong to be beaten down by any judicial malignity, it was not so with my clients, and my consequent losses in professional income have never been estimated at less, as you must often have heard, than £50,000."

ANONYMOUS DEPRECIATION.

In an action brought by a priest of the Church of Rome against Lord Doneraile, at the Cork assizes, Mr. Curran had to cross-examine Mr. St. Leger, brother to the defendant; and, as it was his object to depreciate his evidence, he had described him in very gross and insulting language in his speech. In doing so, he had, however, not mentioned his name. When Mr. St. Leger came to the table, and took the Testament in his hand, the plaintiff's counsel, in a tone of affected respect, addressed him, saying, “Oh, Mr. St. Leger, the jury will, I am sure, believe you without the ceremony of swearing you; your character will justify us from insisting on your oath." The witness, deceived by this mild and complimentary language (his irritation evidently diverted his attention from the very palpable trap laid for him), replied, with mingled surprise and vexation, "I am happy, sir, to see you have changed the opinion you entertained of me when you

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were describing me awhile ago." "What, sir! Then you confess it was a description of yourself! Gentlemen, act as

you please; but I leave it to you to say whether a thousand oaths could bind the conscience of the man I have just described." A duel followed, in which Mr. Curran evinced very great intrepidity.

CURRAN'S DUEL WITH BULLY EGAN.

John Egan, Judge for the county of Dublin, had a heart to match with his mighty sire, and was as prone to cry over any pitiable circumstance as Mrs. Gummidge herself, notwithstanding his bullying demeanour. He was as ready at handling the pistols as he was at handing relief to the distressed. It seems strange that out of the numerous duels arising from quarrels in the House of Parliament and the law courts, so few deaths ensued. All were men of undoubted courage, and all good shots. It can scarcely be accounted for, except on the ground of the combatants being free from deadly hate when they came to the ground, and avoiding to take aim at the vital parts. Most of them went through the process in compliance with the quasi-call of honour, and were ready to shake hands with their opponents the moment it could be done without injury to their reputation.

Egan and the Master of the Rolls meeting at Donnybrook, the man of law expressed his honour satisfied after discharging his pistol, and was walking away. But Egan cried out that he was not satisfied without having shot at his honour. The intended victim returned to his place, and Egan looked at him with attention. "After all," said he, "I won't honour you, nor be bothered killing you. Come and shake hands, or go to old Nick."

Previous to his exchanging shots with Curran, he directed the attention of the seconds to the odds which his opponent had over him. "He may hit me as easily as he would a haystack, and I might as well be aiming at the edge of a knife as at his thin carcass." "Well," said Curran, "let the gentlemen chalk the size of my body on your side, and let every ball hitting outside of that go for nothing." Lord Clare was far from being under the influence of the chivalrous spirit which prevailed among his brothers of the courts, or the Parliament. In his duel with Curran, he took the most deliberate aim.

CURRAN DUMB-FOUNDED.

Mr. Rogers relates that he once dined with Curran in the public room of the chief inn at Greenwich, when he talked a great deal, and as usual, with considerable exaggeration. Speaking of something which he would not do on any inducement, he exclaimed vehemently, "I had rather be hanged upon twenty gibbets !" "Don't you think, sir, that one would be enough for you?" said a girl, a stranger, who was sitting at a table next to Mr. Rogers, who adds, "I wish you could have seen Curran's face he was absolutely confounded— struck dumb." Sir Jonah Barrington relates: "I never saw Curran's opinion of himself so much disconcerted as by Mr. Godwin, whom he had brought, at the Carlow assizes, to dine with Mr. Byrne, a friend of ours, in whose cause he and I had been specially employed as counsel. Curran, undoubtedly, was not happy in his speech on this occasion; but he thought he was. Nevertheless, we succeeded; and Curran, in great spirits, was very anxious to receive a public compliment from Mr. Godwin, as an eminent literary man, teasing him (half jokingly) for his opinion of his speech. Godwin fought shy for a considerable time; at length Curran put the question home to him, and it could no longer be shifted. 'Since you

will have my opinion,' said Godwin, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair with sang froid, 'I really never did hear anything so bad as your prose, except your poetry, my dear Curran !'"

CURRAN AND ABERNETHY.

He

Curran is known to have subjugated that rough potentate, Abernethy, in his own study. The patient was subject to bodily ills, and a settled melancholy in his latter years, when renown and worldly competence were secured. called on the rough surgeon eight different times, stated his ailments, but still remained convinced that the abrupt man had not got a clear idea of his condition. On the ninth visit he fixed his dark, piercing eyes on the doctor, and thus addressed him: "Mr. Abernethy, I have paid eight different visits, and paid you eight different guineas, yet I am persuaded you are still ignorant of the nature of my complaints. Now I am determined that you shall listen while I communicate the symptoms as well as I can." Abernethy, interested, and somewhat overawed, assumed the attitude of a patient listener, and cried, "Go on. Disclose not only your symptoms, but