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HIS PARLIAMENTARY SPEECHES.

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spirit of the times in which he acted, leaving more ample developments of it to himself, in the specimens of his eloquence that will be found in the following pages.

Mr. Curran's Parliamentary speeches have been always, and justly, considered as inferior to his displays at the Bar. To this deficiency many circumstances contributed. Depending solely upon his profession for support, he was not only seldom able to give an undivided attention to the questions that were brought before the senate, but he perpetually came to the discussion of them, exhausted by the professional labours of the day. The greater number of the important questions that emanated from the Opposition were naturally introduced by the older leaders of that party; while he, whose talents were most powerful in reply, was reserved to combat the arguments of the other side. The debates, upon these occasions, were in general protracted to a very late hour, so that it often happened, when Mr. Curran rose to speak, that the note-takers were sleeping over their task, or had actually quitted the gallery. But, most of all, the same carelessness of fame, which has left his speeches at the Bar in their sent uncorrected state, has irretrievably injured his Parliamentary reputation. While other members sat up whole nights retouching their speeches for publication, he alınost invariably abandoned his to their fate, satisfied with having made the exertion that his sense of duty dictated; and deeming it of little moment that what had failed of success within the house should circulate and be applauded without.*

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Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, his career in Parliament supplies much that is in the highest degree honourable to his talents, spirit, and public integrity; of which the leading examples shall be adverted to as they occur in the order of time.

Another circumstance contributed greatly to the inaccuracy of the reported speeches of such opposition members as would not take the pains of correcting them. The most akaful note-takers, of whom the number was very small, were in the service of the Government, and considered it a part of their duty to suppress whatever it might not be agreeable to the Administration to see published.-C.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Flood's plan of Parliamentary Reform-Mr. Curran's contest and duel with Mr. Fitzgibbon (afterwards Lord Clare)-Speech on Pensions-His professional success-Mode of life-Occasional verses-Visits France-Letters from Dieppe and Rouen-Anecdote -Letters from Paris-Anecdote-Letter from Mr. Boyse-Anecdote of Mr. Boyse-Letters from Holland.

THE first occasion upon which Mr. Curran's name appears in the Parliamentary register, is in the tempestuous debate of November 29, 1783, upon Mr. Flood's proposition for a Reform in Parliament.* The Convention of Volunteers, by whom Mr. Flood's plan had been approved, was still sitting in Dublin. About four o'clock in the afternoon of the 29th of November, that gentleman rose in the Convention, and proposed that he, accompanied by such members of Parliament as were then present, should immediately go down to the House of Commons, and move for leave to bring in a bill exactly corresponding with the plan of reform approved of by them, and that the Convention should not adjourn till the fate of his motion was ascertained. Lord Charlemont's biographer, who, apparently with much reason, condemns the violence of this proceeding, describes the scene in the House of Commons as terrific: several of the minority, and all the delegates from the Convention, appeared in their military uniforms. As to the debate, "it was uproar, it was clamour, violent menace, and furious recrimination." In the little that Mr. Curran said, he supported Mr. Flood's motion.

This is an error. Curran's name first appears in the Parliamentary Debates on November 12, 1783, when he briefly objected to the issue of a new writ for Enniscarthy. Again, on November 18, he casually recommended immediate attention to the claims of some distressed manufacturers. Mr. Curran, as member for the borough of Kilbeggan, was then colleague of Henry Flood.-M.

↑ Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, page 270, where the particulars of this interesting scene are very strikingly detailed.-C.

Barry Yelverton, then Attorney-General, had made a damaging speech against

PERSONAL VINDICATION.

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In the following month he spoke more at length in prefacing a motion on the right of the House of Commons to originate money bills; but as neither this, nor any of his parliamentary speeches during the session of 1783 and 1784, contain much that is remarkable, it would be unnecessarily swelling these pages to dwell upon them in detail.

[Some notice of Curran's early parliamentary career may not be quite uninteresting. On December 16, 1783, on moving "that it is the sole and undoubted privilege of the Commons of Ireland to originate all bills of supply and grants of public money, in such manner, and with such clauses as they shall think proper," Curran spoke at some length, declaring that he was no party man, and entering into a history of the right of the Commons to originate and frame money-bills. He said, "I lament that a learned and honourable member, with whom I once had the pleasure of living on terms of friendship, is now absent; because I think I might rely upon his supporting the resolution I intend to propose; that support would, perhaps, renew the intercourse of our friendship, which has been lately interrupted. And I must beg the indulgence of the House to say, that that friendship was upon the footing of perfect equality, not imposed by obligation on the one side, or bound by gratitude by the other; for I thank God, when that friendship commenced, I was above receiving obligations from any man, and therefore, our friendship, as it was more pure and disinterested, as it depended on a sympathy of minds, and congeniality of sentiments, I trusted would have endured the longer. I think myself bound to make this public declaration, as it has gone forth from this House, that I am a man of ingratitude, and to declare, that for any difference

Flood's proposition; Langrishe, George Ponsonby, Fitzgibbon, Burke, and Hutchinson also opposed it. Then weakly but pertly, Hardy (afterwards Lord Charlemont's biographer) spoke in opposition, and Curran's speech, in which he cautioned the House not to make a public declaration against the Volunteers, was in reply to Hardy. Leave to bring in the bill was refused by a large majority; a counter resolution against interference by the Volunteers was then carried: and, soon after, the Convention dissolved.--M.

of opinion with my learned and right honorable friend, I cannot be taxed with ingratitude; for that I never received any obligation from him, but lived on a footing of perfect equality, save only so far as his great talents and erudition outwent mine."

Leonard MacNally's copy of Curran's speeches, a present from Curran himself, contains a note in which it is stated that the person thus referred to was Barry Yelverton-but their coolness was of a much later date. Besides, their friendship commenced in youth, when neither was in independent circumstances.

On February 14th, 1785, Curran supported an unsuccessful motion of Flood's, that the immediate and effectual retrenchment of the national expenses was necessary. On the same day, Curran delivered a panegyric on the Volunteers, and personally attacked Mr. Luke Gardiner, whom he called "the little advocate," for voting ministerially, in the hope of being rewarded by being raised to a higher rank. (In fact, he was created Lord Mountjoy at the Union.) This led to a wordy wrangle with Gardiner, whose defence was undertaken by Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare, who, assailing Curran as champion of the Volunteers, said, "As I feel myself in a very different situation from that honourable member, I shall ever entrust the defence of the country to gentlemen, with the King's commission in their pockets, rather than to his friends, the beggars in the streets."]

In the year 1785 took place his quarrel with the late Lord Clare, then Mr. Fitzgibbon, the Attorney-General* an event which deeply affected his future fortunes. During Mr. Curran's first years at the bar they had been on terms of polite and even familiar intercourse; but the dissimilarity of their public. characters, the high aristocratic arrogance of the one, and the

John Fitzgibbon was made Solicitor-General on November 9th, 1783, and on December 20th, 1788, succeeded Yelverton as Attorney-General. This latter office he retained until he was made Lord Chancellor, on August 12th, 1789, his place as leading law officer to the Crown, being then taken by Arthur Wolfe, afterwards Lord Kilwarden.--M.

The first bag that Mr. Curran ever carried was presented to him by Mr. Fitzgibbon, for good luck's sake.-C.

LORD CHANCELLOR CLARE.

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popular tenets of the other, soon separated them; even their private tastes and habits would have forbidden a lasting friendship. Lord Clare despised literature, in which Mr. Curran so delighted. The one in private as in public, disdained all the arts of winning; he was sullen or overbearing, and when he condescended to be jocular was generally offensive. The other was in all companies the reverse; playful, communicative, and conciliating. Mr. Curran never, like his more haughty rival, regulated his urbanity by the rank of his companions; or if he did, it was by a diametrically opposite rule; the more humble the person, the more cautiously did he abstain from inflicting pain. For all those lighter talents of wit and fancy which Mr. Curran was incessantly and almost involuntarily displaying, Lord Clare had a real or an affected contempt, and would fain persuade himself that they were incompatible with those higher powers which he considered. could alone raise the possessor to an equality with himself. Mr. Curran was perhaps equally hasty in underrating the abilities of his antagonist. Detesting his arbitrary principles, and disgusted with his unpopular manners, he would see nothing in him but the petty despot, ascending to a bad eminence by obvious and unworthy methods, and therefore meriting his unqualified hatred and invective.

With such elements of personal dislike and political hostility, it is not surprising that when they met they should clash, and that the conflict should be violent and lasting. The very destinies of the two men seemed to have placed them where their contrasted qualities and peculiar force might be most strikingly displayed. Lord Clare was fitted by nature to attain power and to abuse it. Many men of inferior capacity might have attained as much; but without his resources and perseverance, few could have continued so long to abuse it with impunity. Mr. Curran was either ignorant of, or despised the arts which led to station; his talent lay not in defending doubtful measures or selecting political expedients, but in exposing violated trust; in braving and denouncing public

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