to an Hale, or an Hardwicke, to discover and retract a mistake; the errors of such men are only specks that arise for a moment upon the surface of a splendid luminary; consumed by its heat, or irradiated by its light, they soon purge and disappear; but the perversenesses of a mean and narrow intellect, are like the excrescences that grow upon a body naturally cold and dark; no fire to waste them, and no ray to enlighten, they assimilate and coalesce with those qualities so congenial to their nature, and acquire an incorrigible permanency in the union with kindred frost and kindred opacity. Nor indeed, my lords, except where the interest of millions can be affected by the folly or the vice of an individual, need it be much regretted, that to things not worthy of being made better, it hath not pleased Providence to afford the privilege of improvement."

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Lord Chancellor." Surely, Mr. Curran, a gentleman of your eminence in your profession, must see that the conduct of former privy councils has nothing to do with the question before us. The question lies in the narrowest compass; it is merely whether the commons have a right of arbitrary and capricious rejection, or are obliged to assign a reasonable cause for their disapprobation. To that point you have a right to be heard, but I hope you do not mean to lecture the council *."

Mr. Curran.-"I mean, my lords, to speak to the case of my clients, and to avail myself of every topic of defence

From the frequent interruptions experienced by Mr. Curran in this part of his speech, it would appear that Lord Clare perceived that the description of Sir Constantine Phipps was intended for himself. Those who best knew his lordship can judge of the justness of the representation.

which I conceive applicable to that case. I am not speaking to a dry point of law, to a single judge, and on a mere forensic subject; I am addressing a very large auditory, consisting of co-ordinate members, of whom the far greater number is not versed in law; were I to address such an audience on the interests and rights of a great city, and address them in the hackneyed style of a pleader, I should make a very idle display of profession, with very little information to those that I address, or benefit to those on whose behalf I have the honour to be heard. I am aware, my lords, that truth is to be sought only by slow and painful progress; I know also that error is in its nature flippant and compendious, it hops with airy and fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and perches upon assertion, which it calls conclusion."

[Here the Lord Chancellor moved to have the chamber cleared; after some time the doors were opened *.]

My lords, I was regretting the necessity which I am under of trespassing so much on that indulgent patience with which I feel I am so honoured; let me not, however, my lords, be thought so vainly presumptuous, as to suppose that condescension bestowed merely upon me; I feel, how much more you owe it to your own dignity and justice, and to a full conviction that you could not be sure of deciding with justice, if you did not hear with temper,

* During the exclusion of strangers, it was understood that Lord Clare moved the council, that Mr. Curran should be restrained by their lordships' authority from proceeding further in that line of argument he was then pursuing; but his lordship being overruled, Mr. Curran proceeded.

"As to my part, my lords, I am aware that no man can convince by arguments which he cannot clearly comprehend, and make clearly intelligible to others; I consider it therefore, not only an honour, but an advantage, to be stopped when I am not understood. So much confidence have I in the justice of my cause, that I wish any noble lord in this assembly would go with me, step by step, through the argument; one good effect would inevitably result, I should either have the honour of convincing the noble lord, or the public would, by my refutation, be satisfied they are in the wrong: with this wish, and if I may presume to say so, with this hope, I will proceed to a further examination of the subject."

The following furnishes an illustration of the rapid transition of Mr. Curran's mind from the grave and serious, to the witty and the ludicrous : it will be found in the same speech:

"But, my lords, it seems all these defects in point of accusation, of defence, of trial, and of judgement, as the ingenious gentlemen have argued, are cured by the magical virtue of those beans, by whose agency the whole business must be conducted.

"If the law had permitted a single word to be exchanged between the parties, the learned counsel confess that much difficulty might arise in the events which I have stated; but they have found out that all these difficulties are prevented or removed by the beans and the ballot. According to these gentlemen, we are to suppose one of those unshaven demagogues, whom the learned counsel have so humorously described, rising in the commons when the name of alderman James is sent down; he begins by throwing out a torrent of

seditious invective against the servile proffigacy and liquorish venality of the board of aldermen-this he does by beans*; having thus previously inflamed the passions of his fellows, and somewhat exhausted his own, his judgement collects the reins that floated on the neck of his imagination, and he becomes grave, compressed, sententious, and didactic; he lays down the law of personal disability, and corporate criminality, and corporate forfeiture, with great precision, with sound emphasis and good discretion, to the great delight and edification of the assembly-and this he does by beans. He then proceeds, my lords, to state the specific charge against the unfortunate candidate for approbation, with all the artifice and malignity of accusation, scalding the culprit in tears of affected pity, bringing forward the blackness of imputed guilt through the varnish of simulated commiseration; bewailing the horror of his crime, that he may leave it without excuse; and invoking the sympathy of his judges, that he may steel them against compassion--and this, my lords, the unshaved demagogue doth by beans. The accused doth not appear in person, for he cannot leave his companions, nor by attorney, for his attorney could not be admitted, but he appears and defends by beans. At first, humble and deprecatory, he conciliates the attention of his judges to his defence, by giving them to hope that it may be without effect; he does not alarm them by any indiscreet assertion that the charge is false, but he slides upon them arguments to shew it improbable; by degrees, however, he gains upon the assembly, and denies and refutes, and recriminates and retorts -all by beans;-until at last he challenges his accuser to a trial, which is accordingly had; in the course of which the depositions are taken, the facts tried, the legal doubts proposed and explained-by beans; and in the same manner the law is settled, with an exactness and authority that remains a * A common mode of election in Ireland.

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record of jurisprudence for the information of future ages ; while at the same time, the harmony' of the metropolis is attuned by the marvellous temperament of jarring discord; and thegood will' of the citizens is secured by the indissoluble bond of mutual crimination and reciprocal abhorrence.

ઃઃ By this happy mode of decision, one hundred and fortysix causes of rejection (for of so many do the commons consist, each of whom must be entitled to allege a distinct cause,) are tried in the course of a single day, with satisfaction to all parties.

"With what surprise and delight must the heart of the fortunate inventor have glowed, when he discovered those wonderful instruments of wisdom and of eloquence, which, without being obliged to commit the precious extracts of science or persuasion to the faithless and fragile vehicles of words or phrases, can serve every process of composition or abstraction of ideas, and every exigency of discourse or argumentation, by the resistless strength and infinite variety of beans, white or black, or boiled, or raw; displaying all the magic of their powers in the mysterious exertions of dumb investigation and mute discussion, of speechless objection and tongue-tied refutation!

"Nor should it be forgotten, my lords, that this notable discovery does no little honour to the sagacity of the present age, by explaining a doubt that has for so many centuries perplexed the labour of philosophic inquiry, and furnishing the true reason why the pupils of Pythagoras were prohibited the use of beans; it cannot, I think, my lords, be doubted, that the great author of the metempsychosis found out, that those mystic powers of persuasion which vulgar naturalists supposed to remain lodged in minerals or fossils,