Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/318

This page needs to be proofread.

CURRAN. 807 It is therefore not so miraculous if a mind like Curran's, drinking from such a fountain, and nurtured amid such intercourse, should be readily susceptible of the polishing influence of classic literature, of which he was a master. A thousand gems of the same water are still to be found in the same mine, did they meet with the same skill to bring out their lustre. From the school at Middleton, young Curran was trans- planted to Trinity College, where he entered as a sizar on the 16th of June, 1767, under the tutorage of the learned Doctor Dobbyn, and obtained the second place on his entrance: but two years elapsed before he acquired his scholarship of the house, but this not owing to dullness or idleness, but by the number of senior candidates for the vacancies which occurred in the time. His cotemporaries at college recolleet nothing extraordinary to distinguish his progress there; he was never eminent for his apparent application to his studies, nor ambitious to obtain scho lastic degrees; but many causes may have existed to curb his ambition. His mind naturally resentful of indignity, and prone to eccentricity, was ill calculated to brook the frowns and insults of wealthier students, for whose society neither his purse nor his apparel qualified him as a com- petitor in expense or finery. His finances were extremely confined, and from boyhood to old age, he was never arn eminent votary of dress or fashion: indeed, his ambition seemed to point the other way; the jewel, and not the casket, was the object of his attention, and while the former dazzled by its lustre, the rusticity of his exterior seemed as a foil to the intellectual splendour it veiled:- As streans that run o'er golden mines,, With modest murmur glide, Within their gentle tide. Thy radiant genius shone, Seem'd worthless in thy own." Nor seem to know the wealth that shines O! veil'd beneath a simple guise, And that which charm'd all other eyex, MOORE. But however unambitious of collegiate distinctions, he