in history, chronology, the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages, and in whatever may be connected with those stupendous masses of science and literature, where the human mind is wrought to whatever at so early a period it is supposed to be, in the proudest boast and expectation of our faculties, capable of, Mr. Curran attending with Mr. Egan, afterwards an eminent barrister and member of parliament, these gentlemen, not exactly attentive to the precise costume of the Parisian or New Bond-street beaux, were negligent of their appearance. That animal which ladies never see upon themselves, but often on miss's bonnet, was observed on the black ground of Mr. Curran's napless and unbrushed coat; Mr. Egan, a good-natured friend, quickly pointed to the distress, and asked Mr. Curran Cujum pecus? Mr. C. looking at Egan, archly replied, "Non meus, sed Egonis; nuper mihi tradidit Egon."

There was a wrong quantity pronounced by one of the candidates for scholarship, in reading this line in Horace

"Septimius, Claudi nimirum intelligit unus."

The candidate was much confounded at his mistake in pronouncing the word " nimirum." Mr. Curran observed, he should feel nothing for the error, as there was but one man in Rome,

even at that time, where the language was best understood, who knew the word; for it appeared by the testimony of Horace, that Septimius alone understood nimirum.

A barrister of the name of Going had, among other pleasantries, a favourite story, which he so agreeably exaggerated every time he told it, that at length it became too monstrous for belief. He was charged with this in presence of Mr. Curran, who observed, that the story was not the worse for being enlarged, that it was an excellent story, and had the merit of proceeding like Fame ;— "Nam vires acquirit eundo;" i. e." it gathers strength by going."

A gentleman of very ordinary countenance, whose forehead was so prominent on the one side that it rose like a rugged hill, while on the other it was depressed like a valley, being charged by one of his friends with an affair of gallantry, blushed exceedingly, and defended himself from the imputation by good humouredly offering his deformity as a proof of his innocence; on which Mr. Curran observed:-"On the first blush I should think you ought to be acquitted, but the maxim is still strong against you-Fronti nulla fides, nimium ne crede colori."

Some early and happy pieces of his wit were

bandied about, and were considered to rival some of Dryden's; of whose the best appears to have arisen from a theme given him at school, on the disputed question whether Brutus did well or ill in killing Cæsar. It ran in these terms; " An Brutus occiso Cæsare, aut bene fecit aut male fecit?” Dryden, too idle, forgot the task, and being suddenly called on, he immediately answered," Brutus occiso Cæsare, nec bene fecit nec male fecit, SED INTERFECIT." This is preserved in some of the fragments of the works of Addison.

In college, Mr. Curran's attention to the deeper and graver studies met with frequent interruptions from the vivacity of his own temperament. Highly qualified as he was to impart the richest pleasures to society, his company was earnestly solicited; still, however, he made considerable advances in science, particularly in metaphysics and morality, and he cultivated classic learning with great eagerness; and there it was he laid the foundation of a solid and intimate acquaintance. with the Greek and Latin authors; with those standard works of antiquity which ever after imparted a polish and taste, to be derived only from such great models, which shew out their simple and grand forces, in all the vigour of fresh feeling and hardihood. His favourite authors were Virgil, Homer, and Horace; these he never after laid down through the whole series of his life; they

were sources of endless pleasure to him; while the purest modern classics in the English and French literature became equally familiar to him ; and in short, he may be described to be a scholar of the first order, like Wolsley, an early, an apt, and a good one. To these stores he added some theological reading, and the Bible was often the subject of his most serious consideration; possibly, as well to examine the grounds of revelation, as to drink from the fountain of those fine and frequently sublime passages of Oriental poetry, in which it abounds, particularly in Isaiah and the Psalms. His allusions to these were frequent and felicitous; and as he once said, "It would be a reproach not to examine the merits and subject of a work in which all mankind are so much engaged, and have taken so deep an interest.' Be the inducement what it may, be his own private opinions on the mysteries of revelation what they may, it was a topic he little dwelt upon, and on which when he spoke, he never did so with the irreverence of a Voltaire, or the studied and occasion-seeking sarcasm of a Gibbon*.

* There is a beautiful illustration in Mr. Curran's speech for the Rev. Charles Massy v. the Marquis of Headfort, of the happiness of his allusion to the Scripture. In speaking of the impossibility of a perfect security in the possession of Mrs. Massy, he says, "She is giving to you at this moment a pledge of her infidelity by deserting her husband. You are a married man; she also is married. Ere you can bind her in that sacred union, you yet have two sepulchres to pass."

Mr. Burke, in giving the history of the House of Convocation as it existed in the early constitution of England, was equally fortunate; he observed, that though in later times it had fallen into practical disuse, yet it still lived in the records of the country, and he concluded his account of it by saying, for Lazarus "is not dead, but sleepeth."

Of the same class was an anecdote related of Lord Chatham. He had occasion in the House of Lords to censure those who were the advisers of the king, and looking round among the benches, he asked, "Was it you, my lord?" and to another, "Was it you?" Some symptom of fear having manifested itself in the countenance of Lord Mansfield, Lord Chatham quickly perceiving it, he exclaimed,

"Now Festus trembleth."

We now approach the luminous period of Mr. Curran's life, when the difficulties which had obscured his early dawn began rapidly to pass away, and by their departure to permit his powers to shine forth in burning brilliancy, with a force of conception, a novelty and variety of combination, and a copiousness and richness of expression, in which the English language actually broke down under him, and in all of which the illustrious men of his own times looked upon him as unrivalled,

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