sible. His last minutes were so placid, that those who watched over him could not mark the exact moment of expiration. Three of his children, his son-in-law, and daughter-in-law, and his old and attached friend, Mr. Godwin, surrounded his deathbed, and performed the last offices of piety and respect.

Mr. Curran's funeral did not take place till the 4th of November. His will, which it was supposed would have contained his own instructions upon the subject, having been left in Ireland, it was found necessary to await the examination of that document, and the directions of the executors. In the interval, Mr. Daniel O'Connel, who was at Bath, and on the point of setting out with his family for Dublin, having received information of Mr. Curran's death, very generously sacrificed every consideration of private convenience, and hastened up to London, to attend his deceased country man to the grave: an act of affectionate respect which was peculiarly honourable to that gentle

man, between whom and Mr. Curran a considerable misunderstanding had latterly existed upon the subject of catholic politics. It was the anxious desire of Mr. O'Connel, and of several other friends of Mr. Curran, who were upon the spot, that his remains should be transported to his own country, in order to give a people, with whose interests and destiny the departed advocate had so entirely identified his own, a final opportunity of publicly testifying their admiration and regret. Those who advised this measure were aware that he had himself (when he felt his end approaching) found a source of affecting consolation in the hope that, wherever it should be his fate to expire, Ireland would claim him. "The last duties (he pathetically observed in one of his latest letters) will be paid by that country on which they are devolved; nor will it be for charity that a little earth shall be given to my bones. Tenderly will those duties be paid, as the debt of well-earned affection, and of gratitude not ashamed

of her tears." But with this last wish it was now found impossible to comply. His will was altogether silent regarding his interment; and of the four executors whom he had appointed only one was present in Dublin. That excellent person (Mr. John Franks, of the Irish bar) had he been left to the exercise of his sole discretion, would have yielded to none in performing any act of honour or affection to the memory of his friend; but in consequence of the absence of the other executors, and from several legal considerations, he could not feel himself justified in authorising any departure from the ordinary course. Mr. Curran's remains were, therefore, privately interred in London, in one of the vaults of Paddington church*.

* The persons who attended his funeral were (besides the members of his own family) Mr. Tegart, Messrs. Lyne and Phillips, of the Irish bar, Mr. Finnerty, the late Mr. James Thompson, the Rev. George Croly, Mr. Thomas Moore, and Mr. Godwin. Mr. O'Connel's professional engagements had obliged him reluctantly to depart for Ireland before the day of Mr. Curran's inter

ment.

VOL. II.

C C

CHAPTER IX.

Observations on Mr. Curran's eloquence-Objections to his style considered-His habits of preparation for public speaking-His ideas of popular eloquence-His pathos-Variety of his powers-His imagination-Peculiarity of his images-His use of ridicule-Propensity to metaphor-Irish eloquence-Its origin-Mr. Curran's and Burke's eloquence compared.

For the last twenty years of his life, Mr. Curran enjoyed the reputation of being the most eloquent advocate that had ever appeared at the Irish bar; and if future times shall hold his genius in estimation, it is his eloquence which must entitle him to that distinction. His name may, indeed, derive a still more splendid claim to posthumous respect, from the purity and manliness of his public conduct, during times when the hearts and nerves of so many others were tried, and sunk beneath the proof. Divested of this, his eloquence would have been comparatively worthless.

Orators are common characters; but it is not so common to find a man, upon every occasion of his life, preferring his public duty to his personal advancement-conducting himself, amidst the shock of civil contentions, with danger and allurements on every side, so as to command the entire approbation of his own conscience, and the more impartial, though not more valuable, applause of that succeeding time which is a stranger to the particular interests and passions that might bias its decisions. This period has not yet come; but it may be asserted that it is approaching, and that when it shall actually arrive, Mr. Curran's memory has nothing to fear from its judgment. Before this tribunal it will be admitted that he, and the few who joined him, in making (in defiance of much momentary opprobrium) an undaunted stand against those sinister measures upon which the framers have subsequently reflected with shame, were but exercising the right of superior minds, whose privilege it is to discern, amidst the