solitary hours, and with the humble ambition that it

may do as much for others, I present it, without. further preface, to the reader.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

CURRAN,

&c.

THE title which I have prefixed to this volume strictly speaks what I intend it to be. No laboured detail-no tedious narrative-no ambitious display of either fine writing or critical investigation, but the simple, and, in some measure, the self-drawn picture of a man who was a great ornament to the country in which it was his misfortune to be born. Before I proceed one step in my progress, the reader has a right to know what claim there is on his credulity, or what are the qualifications for the execution of such an undertaking. Early in life, I had been so accustomed to hear the name of Curran mentioned with admiration long before I could understand the reason, that I began to make his character an absolute article in my literary creed, and to hold it in a kind of traditional reverence. As the mind strengthened, an inquiry naturally arose into the causes of such enviable celebrity. The bonvivant

referred me to his wit-the scholar to his eloquence -the patriot to his ardent and undeviating principle. The questions on which he had voted were connected with the best days of Ireland, and his vote was always on the side of his country-the causes which he had advocated were sometimes of the most personal, and sometimes of the most public interest; and in these his eloquence was without a parallel, while his innumerable pleasantries formed, as it were, the table currency of a people proverbially convivial. With such a complication of proofs, my judgment readily confirmed what my schoolboy faith had received his speeches became my manual-his name almost my adoration; and in a little poem* composed whilst at the Temple I gave him the rank which I thought he merited amongst the ornaments of his country. The subject of the poem gave it a circulation, and either fame or friendship soon brought it to the notice of Mr. Curran. When I was called to the bar he was on the bench; and not only bagless but briefless, I was one day, with many an associate, taking the idle round of the hall of the Four Courts, when a common friend told me he was commissioned by the Master of the Rolls to invite me to dinner that day at the Priory, a little country villa about two miles from Dublin. Those who recollect their first introduction to a really great man, may easily com

*The Emerald Isle.

prehend my delight and my consternation. Hour after hour was counted as it passed, and, like a timid bride, I feared the one which was to make me happy. It came at last, the important five o'clock, the ne plus ultra of the guest who would not go dinnerless at Curran's. Never shall I forget my sensations when I caught the first glimpse of the little man through the vista of his avenue. There he was, as a thousand times afterwards I saw him, in a dress which you would imagine he had borrowed from his tipstaffhis hands in his sides-his face almost parallel with the horizon-his under lip protruded, and the impatient step and the eternal attitude only varied by the pause during which his eye glanced from his guest to his watch, and from his watch reproachfully to his dining-room-it was an invincible peculiarity-one second after five o'clock, and he would not wait for the Viceroy. The moment he perceived me, he took me by the hand, said he would not have any one introduce me, and with a manner which I often thought was charmed, at once banished every apprehension, and completely familiarized me at the Priory. I had often seen Curran-often heard of him-often read him-but no man ever knew any thing about him who did not see him at his own table with the few whom he selected. He was a little convivial deity! he soared in every region, and was at home in all-he touched every thing, and seemed as if he had created it-he mastered the human heart with the same ease

that he did his violin. You wept, and you laughed, and you wondered, and the wonderful creature who made you do all at will, never let it appear that he was more than your equal, and was quite willing, if you chose, to become your auditor. It is said of Swift that his rule was to allow a minute's pause after he had concluded, and then, if no no person took up the conversation, to recommence himself. Curran had no conversational rule whatever; he spoke from impulse, and he had the art so to draw you into a participation, that, though you felt an inferiority, it was quite a contented one, Indeed nothing could exceed the urbanity of his demeanour. At the time I speak of he was turned of sixty, yet he was as playful as a child. The extremes of youth and age were met in him; he had the experience of the one and the simplicity of the other. At five o'clock we sat down to dinner, at three in the morning we arose from table, and certainly half the wish of the enthusiastic lover was at least conceded-"Time"-during that interval, was "annihilated." From that day till the day of his death, I was his intimate and his associate. He had no party to which I was not invited; and, party or no party, I was always welcome. He even went so far as to ask me to become his inmate, and offered me apartments in his town residence. Often and often he ran over his life to me to the minutest anecdote-described his prospects— his disappointments and his successes-characterized