not seen, from the abstract of the record subjoined to the speech, that it received the sanction of the Jury, who, in spite of the high place and terrible influence of the defendant, yet found a verdict of damages and costs for the plaintiff. It is impossible to state the case more clearly and concisely than in the passages which we should quote at any rate, as specimens of Mr Curran's eloquence.

About the year 1798, it seems, a man of the name of M'Guire was prosecuted for some offence against the state. Mr Hevey, the plaintiff, by accident was in court: he was then a citizen of wealth and credit, a brewer in the first line of that business. Unfortunately for him, he had heretofore employed the witness for the prosecution, and found him a man of infamous character Unfortunately for himself, he mentioned this circumstance in court. The counsel for the prisoner insisted on his being sworn: he was so. The jury were convinced, that no credit was due to the witness for the crown, and the prisoner was accordingly acquitted. In a day or two after, Major Sirr met the plaintiff in the street, asked how he dared to interfere in his business? and swore by God he would teach him how to meddle with " his people." Gentlemen, said Mr Curran, there are two sorts of prophets; one that derives its knowledge from real or fancied inspiration, and who are sometimes mistaken. But there is another class, who prophecy what they are determined to bring about themselves. Of this second, and by far the most authentic class, was the Major; for heaven, you see, has no monopoly of prediction. On the following evening, poor Hevey was dogged in the dark into some lonely alley: there he was seized, he knew not by whom, nor by what authority; and became in a moment, to his family and his friends, as if he had never been. He was carried away in equal ignorance of his crime, and of his destiny,-whether to be tortured, or hanged, or transported. His crime he soon learned; it was the treason which he had committed against the majesty of Major Sirr. He was immediately conducted to a new place of imprisonment in the castle-yard, called the Provost. Of this mansion of misery, of which you have since heard so much, Major Sandys was, and I believe yet is, the keeper, a gentleman of whom I know how dangerous it is to speak, and of whom every prudent man will think and talk with all due reverence. He seemed a twin-star of the defendant-equal in honour, in confidence-equal also (for who could be superior?) in probity and humanity. To this gentleman was my client consigned, and in his custody he remained about seven weeks, unthought of by the world, as if he had never existed. The oblivion of the buried is as profound as the oblivion of the dead. His family may have mourned his absence, or his probable death. But why should I mention so paltry a circumstance? The fears or the sorrows of the wretched give no interruption to the general progress of things. The sun rose, and the sun set, just as it did be fore: the business of the government, the business of the castle,of the feast or the torture,-went on with their usual exactness and tranquillity.

tranquillity. At last, Mr Hevey was discovered among the sweepings of the prison, and was at last to be disposed of. He was at last honoured with the personal notice of Major Sandys." Hevey, (says the major), 1 have seen you ride, I think, a smart sort of a mare; you can't use her here; you had better give me an order for her." The plaintiff, you may well suppose, by this time, had a tolerable idea of his situation. He thought he might have much to fear from a refusal, and something to hope from compliance at all events, he saw it would be a means of apprizing his family that he was not dead :-he instantly gave the order required. The major graciously accepted it, saying, your courtesy will not cost you much; you are to be sent down to-morrow to Kilkenny to be tried for your life; you will most certainly be hanged; and you can scarcely think that your journey to the other world will be performed on horseback. The humane and honourable major was equally a prophet with his compeer. The plaintiff, on the next day, took leave of his prison, as he supposed, for the last time, and was sent under a guard to Kilkenny.' p. 342-345.

At Kilkenny, evidence was sought for against him him by proclamation; and on the testimony of an adjudged felon, he was 'condemed to death. The sentence, however, came to the eye of Lord Cornwallis;-with shame and indignation he dashed his pen across the record, and ordered Mr Hevey to be instantly set at liberty.

Hevey was now a man again; he shook the dust off his feet against his prison gate: his heart beat the response to the anticipated embrace of his family and his friends, and he returned to Dublin. On his arrival here, one of the first persons he met with was his old friend Major Sandys. In the eye of poor Hevey, justice and humanity had shorn the Major of his beams. He no longer regarded him with respect or terror: he demanded his mare; observing, that though he might have travelled to heaven on foot, he thought it more comfortable to perform his earthly journies on horseback. Ungrateful villain! says the Major; is this the gratitude you show to his Majesty and to me, for our clemency to you? You shan't get possession of the beast, which you have forfeited by your treason; nor can I suppose, that a noble animal, that had been honoured with conveying the weight of duty and allegiance, could condescend to load her loyal loins with the vile burden of a convicted traitor.' p. 34.

Mr Curran then tells another story of a still more atrocious robbery committed by this Major Sandys;-which, says he, 'I state at present because I see the Major in court, and I offer instantly to prove both the facts, either by his oath, or by the more credible modesty of his silence.'

Mr Curran then proceeds to the immediate cause of the action. in question.

On the 8th of September last, Mr Hevey was sitting in a public

coffee

coffee-house. Major Sirr was there. Mr Hevey was informed that the Major had at that moment said, that he (Hevey) ought to have been hanged. The plaintiff was fired at the charge; he fixed his eye on Sirr, and asked if he had dared to say so? Sirr declared that he had, and had said truly. Hevey answered, that he was a slanderous scoundrel. At the instant Sirr rushed upon him, and assisted by three or four of his satellites, who had attended him in disguise, secured him and sent him to the castle guard, desiring that a receipt might be given for the villain. He was sent thither. The officer of the guard chanced to be an Englishman, but lately arriv ed in Ireland; he said to the bailiffs, if this was in England, I should think this gentleman entitled to bail, but I don't know the laws of this country. However I think you had better loosen those irons on his wrists, or I think they may kill him.

'Here he was flung into a room of about thirteen feet by twelve; it was called the hospital of the provost; it was occupied by six beds, in which were to lye fourteen or fifteen miserable wretches, some of them sinking under contagious diseases. Here he passed the first night without bed or food. The next morning his humane keeper, the Major, appeared. The plaintiff demanded, "why he was so imprisoned?" complained of hunger, and asked for the gaol allowance. Major Sandys replied, with a torrent of abuse, which he concluded by saying "Your crime is your insolence to Major Sirr; however, he disdains to trample upon you; you may appease him by proper and contrite submission; but unless you do so, you shall rot where you are. I tell you this, that if Government will not protect us, by God, we will not protect them. You will probably (for I know your insolent and ungrateful hardiness) attempt to get out by an habeas corpus; but in that you will find yourself mistaken, as such a rascal deserves. " Hevey was insolent enough to issue an habeas corpus, and a return was made upon it; "that Hevey was in custody under a warrant from General Craig, on a charge of treason." This return was a gross falsehood fabricated by

Sirr. p. 350-352.

If it be the test of supreme genius to produce strong and permanent emotions, the passages which we have quoted must be in the very highest style of eloquence. There is not a subject of these kingdoms, we hope, that can read them, without feeling his blood boil, and his heart throb with indignation; and without feeling, that any government which could tolerate or connive at such proceedings, held out a bounty to rebellion, which it would almost be dastardly to reject. The eloquence of these passages is in the facts which they recite; and it is far more powerful than that which depends upon the mere fancy or art of the orator. There are passages, however, of this more ornate description in the speech before us, which deserve to be quoted. The following is among the most striking. Mr Curran is endeavouring to show, that the general publication of this transaction may

be

be of use, as the means of letting England know the real condition and state of government in Ireland; and that the detail of a single authenticated fact is more likely to make an impression, than a more comprehensive but general picture. He then says,

'If, for instance, you wished to convey to the mind of an English matron the horrors of that direful period, when, in defiance of the remonstrance of the ever to be lamented Abercromby, our poor people were surrendered to the licentious brutality of the soldiery, by the authority of the state; you would vainly endeavour to give her a general picture of lust, and rapine, and murder, and conflagration. Instead of exhibiting the picture of an entire province, select a single object; and even if that single object do not release the imagination of your hearer from its task, by giving more than an outline, take a cottage; place the affrighted mother of her orphan daughters at the door, the paleness of death upon her face, and more than its agonies in her heart; her aching eye, her anxious ear, struggle through the mists of closing day, to catch the approaches of desolation and dishonour. The ruffian gang arrives; the feast of plunder begins; the cup of madness kindles in its circulation. The wandering glances of the ravisher become concentrated upon the shrinking and devoted victim.-You need not dilate, you need not expatiate; the unpolluted mother, to whom you tell the story of horror, beseeches you not to proceed; she presses her child to her heart; she drowns it in her tears; her fancy catches more than an angel's tongue could describe; at a single view she takes in the whole miserable succession of force, of profanation, of despair, of death. So it is in the question before us. If any man shall hear of this day's transaction, he cannot be so foolish as to suppose that we have been confined to a single character, like those now brought before you. p. 358, 359.

The effect of the publicity and reprobation implied in a verdict for the plaintiff, he then states will be, to make the government - ashamed of employing such instruments as the present defendant. When the government of Ireland lately gave up the celebrated O'Brien to the hands of the executioner, I have no little reason to believe that they suffered as they deserved on the occasion. I have no doubt, but that your verdict of this day, if you act as you ought to do, will produce a similar effect. And as to England, I cannot too often inculcate upon you, that she knows nothing of our situation. When torture was the daily and ordinary system of the executive government, it was denied in London, with a profligacy of effrontery equal to the barbarity with which it was exhibited in Dublin; and, if the facts that shall appear to-day should be stated at the other side of the water, I make no doubt but very near one hundred worthy persons would be ready to deny their existence upon their honour, or, if necessary, upon their oaths.

p. 357. We are afraid of multiplying too far our citations from this unauthenticated volume. The following, however, is in a style somewhat different from any which we have yet exhibited. VOL. XIII. No. 25.

K

dissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the Hightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and death,--a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent. There was once an antidotea juror's oath-but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth; conscience swings from her moorings, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim :

Et quæ sibi quisque timebat,

Unius in miseri exitium conversa tulere. '

Upon the whole, though there is something extremely painful and oppresive in the subject of most of these speeches, we have read through the book with the liveliest interest, and laid it down ⚫ with the highest admiration for the genius of their author. Imperfectly as they are here reported, they are capable of affording great pleasure and important instruction. And while we feel, that, for this reason, we are conferring a favour on those to whose acquaintance we introduce them, we hope that the distinguished orator himself, or some of his more confidential friends, may be induced to gratify the public by a more copious and more authentic account of his appearances.

ART. X. The Life of George Washington, Commander in Chief of the American Forces during the War which established the Independence of his Country, and First President of the United States. Compiled under the Inspection of the Honourable Bushrod Washington, from original Papers bequeathed to him by his deceased Relative. To which is prefixed, an Introduction, containing a compendious View of the Colonies planted by the English on the Continent of North America. By John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, &c. &c. London, Phillips. 5 Vol. 4to. Vol. 1st published 1804. Vol. 5th, 1807.

The Life of George Washington. By David Ramsay, M. D. of Charleston, South Carolina, Member of Congress in 1782-34 & 5, and Author of the History of the American Revolution. London, Cadell & Davies. 8vo. 1807.

F we are to regard the history of a great man's life as a monument which literature erects to his memory, and to consider the magnitude of the intellectual structure as sufficient to insure its celebrity and duration, the Chief Justice of America must

certainly