of their early days*, or enlivening his arguments on a grave question of law by humorous illustration. Yet was all

See Mr. Curran's apostrophe to Lord Avonmore, chap. iv.

† Of these, examples without number might be produced from Mr. Curran's law-arguments. His published speech in the Court of Exchequer, on Mr. Justice Johnson's case, is full of them. Equally striking instances occur in his argument on the same question before the Court of King's Bench. "The minister going to the House of Commons might be arrested upon the information of an Irish chairman, and the warrant of a trading-justice. Mr. Pitt might be brought over here in vinculis. What to do? to see whether he can be bailed or not. I remember Mr. Fox was once here-during the lifetime of this country-so might he be brought over. It may facilitate the intercourse between the countries, for any man may travel at the public expense; as, suppose I gave an Irishman in London a small assault in trust, when the vacation tomes, he knocks at the door of a trading-justice, and tells him, he wants a warrant against the counsellor.-What counsellor ?-Oh, sure every body knows the counsellor. -Well, friend, and what is your name?—Thady O' Flannigan, please your honour.-What countryman are you? -An Englishman, by construction.-Very well, I'll draw upon my correspondent in Ireland for the body of the counsellor."

For a more modern example of eloquence and humour

this listened to in Ireland with favour and admiration. It had, indeed, little influence upon the decisions of the bench. The advocate might have excited the smiles or tears of his hearers, but no legal concessions followed. The judges who showed the most indulgence and sensibility to these episodes of fancy were ever the most conscientious in preserving the sacred stability of law. Into the counsel's mirth or tenderness, no matter how digressive, they entered for the moment, more pleased than otherwise with irregularities that gratified their taste and relieved their labour; but with them the triumph of eloquence was but evanescent-the oration over, they resumed their gravity and firmness, and proved by their ultimate decision, that if they relaxed for an instant, it was from urbanity, and not from any oblivion of the paramount duties of their station. The effects, however, which such appeals to the passions

upon such questions, the Irish reader is referred to the argument of the present Solicitor-general (Mr. C. K. Bushe), in the case of the King against O'Grady.

produced (as they still continue to do) upon juries, was very different; and when the advocate transferred the same style into his addresses to the bench, it was not that his judgment had selected it as the most appropriate, but because he found it impossible to avoid relapsing into those modes of influencing the mind, which he had been long habituated to employ with so much success in another quarter.

In accounting for this adoption at the Irish bar of a style of eloquence so much more fervid and poetical than the severer notions of the English courts would approve, something must be attributed to the influence of the national character. From whatever cause it has arisen, the Irish are by temperament confessedly more warm and impetuous than their neighbours : their passions lying nearer the surface, their actions are more governed by impulse, and their diction more adorned by imagination, than it would be reasonable to expect in a colder, more advanced and philosophic people. In addressing persons

so constituted, the methods most likely to prevail are sufficiently obvious. The orator, who knows any thing of his art, must be aware that frigid demonstration alone is not the best adapted to men who take a kind of pride in regulating their decisions by their emotions, and that a far more certain artifice of persuasion must be to fill their minds with those glowing topics by which they habitually persuade themselves.

It may be observed, too, that although the habits of mind which must be cultivated, in order to succeed in such a style of eloquence, are altogether different from those involved in the study of the law; yet in Ireland they have never been deemed incompatible with legal occupations. The preparation for the bar there has never been so entirely technical as it usually is in England: a very general taste for polite literature and popular acquirements has been united with the more stern and laborious attainments of professional knowledge, and it is to this combination of pursuits, that invigorate the understanding with those

which exercise the imagination and improve the taste, that must be attributed that mass of varied and effective talent, which has so long existed among the members of the Irish bar.

But the immediate cause of that animated style of eloquence that has of late years prevailed there appears to have been the influence of the Irish House of Commons.

It was principally in the productions of the eminent leaders in that house, that originated the modern school of Irish oratory. In Ireland this popular style made its way from the senate to the bar; though at first view such a transition may not seem either necessary or natural. In England it has not taken place. At the time that the first Mr. Pitt, the pride of the English senate, was exalting and delighting his auditors by the majesty of his conceptions and the intrepid originality of his diction, Westminster Hall remained inaccessible to any contagious inspiration. At a later period, upon the memorable