CURRAN. 301 through life in his convivial hours, the soul of mirth, fre- quently declared that he never produced such an effect upon any audience as in the humble character of Mr. Punch's man. As years advanced, the chance of better fortune began to dawn, and the reader shall have the first auspicious in- cident in his own words:--“ I was at this time a little ragged apprentice to every kind of idleness and mischief: all day studying whatever was eccentric in those older, and half the night practising it for the amusement of those who were younger than myself. Heaven only knows where it would have ended; but, as my poor mother said, ' I was born to be a great man.' "One morning while playing at marbles with my ragged playmates in the village ball-court, the gibe and the jest, and the plunder went gaily round; those who won, laughed, and those who lost, cheated. Suddenly a stranger appeared amongst us of a venerable but cheerful aspect. His ap- pearance gave no restraint to our merry assemblage. But he seemed pleased and delighted. He was a benevolent creature, and the days of infancy (after all, the happiest of our lives) perhaps rose to his memory. God bless him! I think I see his form at the distance of half a century, just as he stood before me in the ball court. His name was Boyse; he was the rector of New-Market; to me he took a particular fancy I was winning, and full of wag- gery, thinking and saying every thing eccentric, and by no means a miser of my flashes. Every one was welcome to share them, and I had plenty to spare after freighting the company. Some sweet-cakes easily bribed me home with him; he seemed delighted with the casual acquirement of such a disciple; he undertook my tuition, taught me my grammar and classical rudiments; and having taught me all he had leisure to teach, he sent me to the classical school of a Doctor Carey, at Middleton, where my young capacity received the first stimulus of effective advance- ment, to which I am indebted for all my better fortune in life."
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