rise above, nor sink below, nor evade what legislation and precedent have wrought. Quite naturally this was not to Curran's taste, and he pined as with home-sickness for the excitement and glory of the bar. He stored his mind with the richest gems of literature and some few favorite works he read and re-read incessantly. Like all great masters of English, he never tired of Shake speare. Antony's oration he pronounced the greatest ever composed. To study his speeches is to be impressed by his familiar ity with Biblical lore. The Iliad was his constant companion, and it is related by the brilliant Phillips that, while at sea, in the midst of a furious storm, he wept over the misfortunes of Dido. Richardson's " Clarissa Harlowe " he considered a master work ¡n pathos. Who knows — perhaps the beautiful and pathetic speech in the case of the Mar quis of Headford may have been inspired by the perfidy of Lovelace and the sorrows of Clarissa? He had much in common with Burns. Phillips gives us a picture of Curran in the cabin of the poet, weeping like a child. After his country, literature was the pas sion of his life. For several years he had in contemplation a historical novel dealing with modern Ireland. Not infrequently he dashed off verses for the amusement of his friends, several of which, to the regret of his admirers, have been inserted in his son's biography. One, however, bearing the sanction of Moore, and not unworthy of his musical pen, is not at all unpleasing. It was written on returning a ring to a lady. The first verse is not bad : — •• Thou emblem of failli, thon sweet pledge of a passion By heaven reserved for a happier than me. On the hand of my fair, go resume thy loved station, Go bask in the beam that is lavished on thee! And if some past scene thy remembrance recalling Her bosom shall rise to the tear that is falling, With the transport of bliss may no anguish combine, Hut be hers all the bliss, and the suffering all mine!"
Curran, however, was essentially a prose poet, and no one familiar with his genius
but will regret his failure to carry out his conception of the novel. His Irish love of luxury manifested itself in the beauty of his home, " The Priory," where he surrounded himself with much that art and nature can bring. All the beauty of rustic scenery embraced the wooded grove wherein was nestled the con vivial seat and under whose spreading branches he meditated those noble senti ments which, in the heat of forensic fire, were to blossom into immortal eloquence. Here was buried the beloved daughter who carried to the grave so much of paternal affection. Here in hours of despondency and gloom he sought the sympathy of nature, and in the murmur of the trees, and the aroma of the field and forest, he found that consolation which no human agency can impart. And here he entertained his friends. Such friends! Here poets, orators, statesmen came — the greatest of all lands — artists, actors and ambitious youths — and here the dining-hall was illuminated day by day with all the brilliancy of unfettered genius. Upon resigning his judicial position and recuperating awhile amidst the swirl of London dissipation and the scandal of an English watering place, he crossed the channel for a farewell visit to Paris. In a letter he says, " Paris will think it graceful to be volatile as long as London considers it dignified to be dull." His letters from Paris were brilliant and amusing, familiar and glowing with humor, with an occasional overflow of eloquence. His character sketches were equal to Dickens's, his stage notes not unworthy of Winter, his wit and humor as irresistible as that of Sheridan. What a novel he could have written! What dialogue! what sketches! what beauty! But Nature had ordained that Curran should leave nothing to literature, save the volume of his speeches on which his reputa tion rests. One evening, while dining at the country seat of Tom Moore, a paralytic
