honour and happiness are wrecked and lost for ever; the agonized husband beholds the ruin with those sensations of misery and of horror, which you can better feel than I describe; her, upon whom he had embarked all his hopes and all his happiness in this life, the treasure of all his earthly felicities, the rich fund of all his hoarded joys, sunk before his eyes into an abyss of infamy, or if any fragment escape, escaping to solace, tó gratify, to enrich her vile destroyer. Such, gentlemen, is the act upon which you are to pass your judgement; such is the injury upon which you are to set a price*."

Of the caustic acerbity of Mr. Hoare, this anecdote was related by himself to the Editor :In a notable conflict between him and the late judge Robinson, (suppose it so,) whose temper was so vitriolic that he became the object of universal dislike; the judge was small and peevish, Mr. Hoare strong and solemn; the former had been powerfully resisted by the uncompromising sternness of the latter; at length, the judge charged him with a desire to bring the king's commission into contempt. "No, my lord," said Mr. Hoare, "I have read in a book that when a peasant, during

*This is an extract from Mr. Hoare's speech on behalf of the Reverend Charles Massy, plaintiff, against the Marquis of Headfort.

the troubles of Charles the First, found the king's crown in a bush, he shewed to it all marks of reverence; but I will go a step farther, for though I should find the king's commission even on a bramble, still I shall respect it."

John Fitzgibbon, afterwards lord. Clare, and lord high chancellor of Ireland, was a competitor whose ardent and energetic decision of character, whose precision of mind and legal capacity, rendered him a formidable rival. They did not uniformly run the same course of competition: Mr. Curran was not early qualified to start for the hunter's plate, nor had he ever much taste for the Olympics of a Castle chase; for such, he said, he was short by the head. Yet Mr. Curran often repeated, that had not the father of Mr. Fitzgibbon pre-occupied the ground for his son, by one stage, he never should or could have gone beyond him. But whenever these high-mettled racers started fairly, and on an equal plain, Mr. Curran was always first at the winning post. So rapidly did his fame, spread, that shortly after he was called to the bar, he was employed (in one of those sanguinary elections for the county of Tipperary,) for Daniel Toler, Esq. (the eldest brother of Lord Norbury,) a person not to be passed without the notice of all respect due to a gentleman of exquisite wit, universally beloved, and who sat twice in parliament for that county. It was by the desire

of Lord Norbury, Mr. Curran was retained. When the messenger came to inform him, he was found playing in a Ball Court, in his native village of Newmarket; and the object being announced, he said, "I will take the ball at the first hop." He had to contend with all the violence and fierceness which then, and often since, have been exhibited on that angry stage, where nothing carries an election but the heaviest purse and the longest sword. On that occasion he manifested a spirit not to be reduced, address and ability not to be surpassed, and he brought into action his wit, and all the energies of a youthful and of an useful mind.

On his return to Dublin, he was moving on to dine with the now Lord Norbury, the present chief justice of the Common Pleas, a nobleman also equally distinguished for wit and urbanity, for the finest temper, and the greatest kindness to the bar and public; his dinner hours were late, which Mr. Curran always disliked. Mr. Toler was going to take his ride, and meeting Mr. Curran walking towards his house to dine, passingly said," Do not forget, Curran, you dine with me to day;"" I rather fear, my friend,” replied Mr. Curran," it is you who may forget it."

The motto to the first carriage he set up on the strength of his fees was, PER VARIOS CASUS, on

which some person observed, that he prudently omitted the latter part of the sentence, per tot discrimina rerum, which gave him, he said, a better opinion of his judgement than he was otherwise inclined to entertain. It being remarked to him that he might have still something more appropriate; he answered, "Why, yes, to be sure, Ore tenus, but the herald painter dissuaded ́me; he did not like the brevity of wit; and being then engaged about discovering amidst the bones of the crusaders, armorial bearings suitable to the 'motto, I left to him the profit of two syllables, and he counted out the letters; a course, since very wisely, I assure you, adopted in Chancery. Nay, I rather think also by the common law courts; and thus you perceive, my friend, from what small sources great rivers begin to flow. God knows they sometimes do inundate without fertilizing; but things being so, who can force back those noxious streams?"

Mr. Curran, in one of his early excursions to England, happened to travel in a public coach with a well fed, well dressed, well powdered, conceited young clergyman, fresh from Oxford. The world was new to him, and he furnished one of those lamentable instances of the influence of prejudice even over an educated mind. He had under his protection two beautiful young female relatives. Mr. Curran's figure, and the neglect

of his person, presented the reverse of every thing which could prepossess; and this aided to puff out the parson's pride. Mr. Curran, lean as Cassius, with an ill-fashioned Cork-cut coat (for which he once made this apology on going into a packet, then sailing for England, that no man in his senses should ever venture to sea, without a Cork-jacket,) was flung off at a mortifying distance by the reserve and pride of the company. Under this feeling he was smarting and much annoyed for the first forty miles of a long and unprómising journey to London. In this state of suppuration he reflected that this swell was nothing but like all other bubbles which break under the beam of superior intelligence; and that by letting out the gas of conceit, the balloon would rapidly descend.

Tired of this popinjay's stupid vanity and stilted affectation, and having a cheerless and dreary prospect before him, he reflected that every thing is worth something. Having read in Gulliver's Travels, that a philosopher condescended to extract sun-beams from cucumbers, he hit upon the project of relieving himself from this contemptible and oppressive incubus, which weighed him down like an overloaded atmosphere, by sacrificing something to his vanity; and by the master-key of making himself ridiculous in the first instance, he was sure to gain an introduction