these the materials, of which you suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man, on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatise from every principle that can bind him to the state; his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, Gentlemen of the Jury, if you agree with his prosecutors, in thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such an occasion; and upon the credit of such evidence, you are to convict him-never did you, never can you give a sentence, consigning any man to public punishment with less danger to his person or to his fame! For where could the hireling be found to fling contumely or ingratitude at his head, whose private distresses he had not laboured to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not laboured to improve?

"I cannot, however, avoid adverting to a circumstance that distinguishes the case of Mr. Rowan, from that of a late sacrifice in a neighbouring kingdom.*

"The severer law of that country, it seems, and happy for them that it should, enables them to remove from their sight the victim of their infatuation. The more merciful spirit of our law deprives you of that consolation; his sufferings must remain for ever before our eyes, a continual call upon your shame and your remorse. But those sufferings will do more; they will not rest satisfied with your unavailing contrition, they will challenge the great and paramount inquest of society: the man will be weighed against the charge, the witness, and the sentence; and impartial justice will demand,

* Scotland, from whence Mr. Muir, Palmer, and others, were transported for sedition.

why has an Irish Jury done this deed? The moment he ceases to be regarded as a criminal, he becomes of necessity an accuser: and let me ask you, what can your most zealous defenders be prepared to answer to such a charge? When your sentence shall have sent him forth to that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous; let me tell you, he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty pedestal, diminishing by elevation; but he will stand a striking and imposing object upon a monument, which, if it does not, (and it cannot,) record the atrocity of his crime, must record the atrocity of his conviction. Upon this subject, therefore, credit me when I that I am still more anxious for say, than I can posyou, sibly be for him. I cannot but feel the peculiarity of your situation. Not the jury of his own choice, which the law of England allows, but which ours refuses: collected in that box by a person, certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan, certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however you may be distressed at the mournful presage, with which an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, for the justice and honour of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipation, I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of his sufferings; and however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family, and the wishes of his country. But if, which Heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God, that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the con flagration,"

Upon the conclusion of this speech Mr. Curran was again for many minutes loudly applauded by the auditors; and upon leaving the court was drawn home by the populace, who took the horses from his carriage.

Undismayed by power, his course was still unbroken; between Lord Clare and him there existed an unextinguishable animosity; it began in the hall, and did not end in the field-they fought at an early period, and Lord Clare declared on the ground, after one fire, that he had satisfied his own honour; yet that did not diminish the odium, in longum jacens, it remained in their minds.

"And gath'ring their wrath like gath'ring storm,

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They nurs'd their wrath to keep it warm."

Of the two it is thought Mr. Curran was more inclined to forget, but the temperament of Lord Clare was not so manageable.

Mr. Curran's business rapidly declined in the court of Chancery, and fell off to the loss of many thousand pounds, for some years; in truth, he never after recovered it. The discouragement he then met in that court, for which he conceived himself best fitted, was marked by the agents, who would not hazard the great concerns of their clients with an unfavoured, and ill-attended-to advocate. They thought they read in the coun

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tenance of the Lord Chancellor, that which never should have been there; that which never yet was observed in his present noble successor; and what was said on a warmer subject by the Scotch poet, who frequently applied to Lord Clare,―with what truth I presume not to say:

"For who could bear the scorn of his ee;
"'Twas black, jet black, and like a Hawke;
"And wunna let a body be."

These causes wound up all the angry passions, and the soul of Mr. Curran blackened into the resolve of death or victory. The fortunes and fame of one person must fall; and in this strong state of phrenzied irritation, an occasion presenting itself, Mr. Curran was determined to sacrifice even life itself to the keen appetite of his revenge. His arrow was new feathered and pointed, and poisoned. To this maddened state of indignation do we owe one of the finest pieces of invective he' ever uttered. It was delivered in the case of Alderman Howison, before the privy council, and is preserved among his public speeches. Whatever may be the merit of these productions, probably very loosely reported among his speeches; whatever opinion future times may affix to them; however harshly or justly the reviewers may have treated them, their effect was surprising; and jurors were afraid to trust themselves to the magic

of his address. Let their merits, like the birthplace of Homer, be for ever disputed; yet all who were brought within the range of them, or of the natural circle of his society, agree, that at the festive board, or in the disengaged intercourses of life, as well as in some of those speeches, no other living man possessed equal powers of conversation or of persuasion, or was more gifted with every capability, with which to astonish and delight.

The following extracts are taken from the Speech of John Philpot Curran, Esq. on the Right of Election of Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin, delivered before the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland, 1790.

"Our ancestors must, therefore, have been sensible that the enslaved state of the corporation of the metropolis was a mischief that extended its effects to the remotest borders of the island. In the confederated strength and the united councils of great cities, the freedom of a country may find a safeguard which extends itself even to the remote inhabitant who never put his foot within their gates,

"But, my lords, how must these considerations have been enforced by a view of Ireland, as a connected country, deprived, as it was, of almost all the advantages of an hereditary monarchy; the father of his people residing at a distance, and the paternal beam reflected upon his children through such a variety of mediums, sometimes too languidly to warm them; sometimes so intensely as to consume; a succession of governors differing from one another in their tempers, in