Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

The author of this important and interesting volume, in a brief preface, states his object as being that of giving personal sketches of the leading Irish characters of his time, exactly as they appeared on the scenes of professional and public life – most of them being his acquaintance, some his intimates. He concludes by gracefully expressing his "hope, that the reader will rejoice in a more intimate acquaintance with them; and that, in endeavouring to elevate the land of his birth, he may make some return for the kindness bestowed on him by that of his adoption."

Here two objects are announced; and, whether the first was the elevation of his country by the characters of its eminent men; or, whether the country was the background for the figures of the national history-piece, he has given us a work which brings the patriots and orators of Ireland with singular force before the eye.

His introduction to Curran was sufficiently characteristic. When at the Temple, he had written a poem on the honours of his country, in which the great orator of her Bar was named with due admiration. The popularity of the verses excited the attention of their object, and the young barrister received an invitation to dine with Curran, then Master of the Rolls, at the Priory, his villa, a few miles from Dublin. The appointed hour was five, and it was a matter of importance to be punctual; for beyond that hour dinner was to wait for no man. His first view of his host is graphically described. He found him in his avenue.

"There he was; as a thousand times afterwards I saw him, in a dress which you would imagine he had borrowed from his tipstaff; his hands in his sides, his face almost parallel with the horizon – his under lip protruded, and the impatient step and the eternal attitude, only varied by the pause in which his eye glanced from his guest to his watch, and from his watch reproachfully to his dining-room."

However, it appears that the ominous hour had not struck, and they dined.

"I had often seen Curran, often heard of him, often read him, but no man ever knew anything about him who did not see him at his own table, with the few whom he selected… It was said of Swift, that his rule was, to allow a minute's pause after he had concluded, and then if no person took up the conversation to recommence. Curran had no conversational rule whatever: he spoke from impulse, and he had the art so to draw you into a conversation, that, though you felt an inferiority, it was a contented one. Indeed, nothing could exceed the urbanity of his demeanour."

If this description could be doubted, on the authority of the volume, it would be amply confirmed by the authority of his time. Curran was confessedly the wit of the day, and his witticisms were the more popular from their being, in general, harmless. No man could sting more keenly where he had a public culprit of his own class to sting, or a political adversary to combat; but no man was seldomer personal.

Curran's nature was playful. His taste was also dramatic, and he was fond of playing harmless tricks upon his friends. Of this taste Mr Phillips had a specimen, even on the day of his introduction: —

"When the last dish had departed, Curran totally confounded me with a proposal for which I was anything but prepared. 'Mr Phillips,' said he, 'as this is the first of, I hope, your very many visits to the Priory, I may as well at once initiate you into the peculiarities of the place. You may observe that, though the board is cleared, there are no preparations for a symposium; it all depends on you. My friends here generally prefer a walk after dinner. It is a sweet evening, but if you wish for wine, say so without ceremony.'

"Even now I can see Curran's star-like eyes twinkling at the disappointment no doubt visible in mine. I had heard, and heard truly, that he never was more delightful than with half-a-dozen friends after dinner over his bottle. The hope in which I had so long revelled was realised at last, and here came this infernal walk, and the 'sweet evening.' Oh, how I would have hailed a thunderstorm! But, to say the truth, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming and breathing so sweetly on that autumn eve, that, wondering not at the wish of my companions, I also voted for 'the walk.'

"We took the walk, no doubt, but it was only to the drawing-room; where, over a dessert freshly culled from his gardens, and over wines for which his board was celebrated, we passed those hours which seemed an era in my life."

All this is very well told, and very amusing in description, and was very innocent – when all was over. But it was exposed to the chance of being differently taken, and had but one advantage – that it could not be repeated on the individual.

Curran was born in 1760 at Newmarket, a village in the county of Cork. His parentage was humble, his father being only the seneschal of the manor. His mother seems to have been a woman of superior faculties, and her celebrated son always spoke of her with remarkable deference.

As it was a custom, among the oddities of Ireland, to teach Greek and Latin to boys who probably were to spend the rest of their lives at the spade, Curran had what in Ireland was called a classical education, but which his natural talent turned to better account than one in a million of those half-naked classicists. It enriched his metaphors in after life, and enabled him to talk of the raptures of antiquity. In the Irish University, he shared the fate of other celebrated men. Swift, Burke, and Goldsmith made no figure in their academic course. We certainly do not mention this failure to their praise, nor would they themselves have ever so mentioned it. We can easily conceive, that in their palmiest days they regretted their waste of time, or want of industry. Still, they may have found their palliative in the ungenial nature of the collegiate studies in their day. We should observe, that those studies have since been more advantageously adapted to the national necessity, and are of a much more general and popular description.

But in the last century, the whole bent of the collegiate education was mathematical: the only road to distinction was Euclid. The value of mathematics is unquestionable. As a science, it holds its head among the highest; but as a national education, it is among the most useless. The mind made for mathematical distinction is as rare as the mind made for poetic pre-eminence. One might as well make poetry a requisite, in a national education, as the mastery of mathematics. The plea that they invigorate the reason is contradicted by perpetual experience. Some of the feeblest, and even the most fanciful, and of course the silliest, managers of great principles, have been mathematicians of celebrity. Napoleon said of Laplace, the first mathematician of his day, to whom he gave a title and a seat in his Council of State, on the strength of his scientific renown, that "he could do nothing with him, – that as a public man he was useless – that his mind was full of his infinite littles." And this is the history of nearly all mathematical minds: beyond their diagrams, they are among the dullest, most circumscribed, and most incapable of mankind. The mind of a Newton is not to be ranged in this class of elaborate mediocrity: he was not the mole, whose merit consists in seeing his way in the dark by an organ which is blind in the broad light of nature; he was an eagle, and could dare the full effulgence of the sun. But this meagre and inapplicable acquirement was the chosen prize for the whole young mind of educated Ireland; her mathematical crutch was the only instrument of progress for all the salient spirits of a nation abounding in the most aspiring faculties of man, and the quiet drudge who burrowed his way through Cubics and Surds, or could keep himself awake over the reveries of the Meditationes Analyticæ, was the Coryphæus of the College; while men passed along unnoted, who were in future years to embody the national renown.

As Curran's determination was the Irish Bar, he of course made the customary visit to the English Inns of Court. Here, though his finances compelled him to live in solitude, he contrived to amuse himself by that study of which in life he was so great a master – the study of character. Some of his letters from London are curious indications of this early tendency of his mind. Curran was by nature a Tory. All men of genius are Tories, until they get angry with the world, or get corrupt, and sell themselves to Whiggism; or get disgusted, and think that both parties are equally worthless.

"Here," says Curran, "every coal-porter is a politician, and vends his maxims in public with all the importance of a man who thinks he is exerting himself for the public service. He claims the privilege of looking as wise as possible, and of talking as loud; of damning the Ministry, and abusing the King, with less reserve than he would his equal. Yet, little as those poor people understand the liberty they so warmly contend for, or of the measures they rail against, it reconciles me to their absurdity, by considering that they are happy, at so small an expense as being ridiculous."

This feeling was too true ever to have been changed. The language was changed, and no tongue could pour out more showy declamation on the multitude; but, when loosed from the handcuffs of party, no man laughed more loudly, or sneered more contemptuously, at the squalid idol to which he had so long bowed the knee.

Another fragment has its value in the illustration of his kindness of heart: —

"A portion of my time I have set apart every day for thinking of my absent friends. Though this is a duty that does not give much trouble to many, I have been obliged to confine it, or endeavour to confine it, within proper bounds. I have therefore made a resolution to avoid any reflections of this sort except in their allotted season, immediately after dinner. I am then in a tranquil, happy humour, and I increase that happiness by presenting to my fancy those I love, in the most advantageous point of view. So that, however severely I treat them when they intrude in the morning, I make them ample amends in the evening. I then assure myself that they are twice as agreeable, and as wise and as good, as they really are."

Whether the author of Tristram Shandy would have been a great orator, if he had begun his career at the Bar, may be a question; but that Curran could have written admirable Shandian chapters can scarcely be doubted by those who have observed the exquisite turns of his speeches from grave to gay; or perhaps even those who now read the few words which conclude the story of Dr du Gavreau. This man was one of his casual acquaintances, a French fugitive, who ran away with a Parisian woman of a different faith. Whether they married or not is dexterously veiled. The woman died, leaving a daughter; but, whether married or not, their child would have been illegitimate by the existing laws of France. The widower had often been pressed by his friends to return to France, but he determined never to return, where his child would be stigmatised.

"I did not know the particulars," says Curran, "till a few days since, when I breakfasted with him. He had taken his little child on his knee, and, after trifling with her for a few moments, burst into tears. Such an emotion could not but excite, as well as justify, some share of curiosity. The poor Doctor looked as if he were conscious I felt for him, and his heart was too full to conceal his affliction. He kissed his little 'orphan,' as he called her, and then endeavoured to acquaint me with the lamentable detail. It was the hardest story in the world to be told by a man of delicacy. He felt all the difficulties of it: he had many things to palliate, some that wanted to be justified; he seemed fully sensible of this, yet checked himself when he slided into anything like defence. I could perceive the conflict shifting the colours of his cheek, and I could not but pity him, and admire him for such an embarrassment. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he sometimes assumed all the gaiety of a Frenchman, and is a very entertaining fellow."

In all these breaks of the story, and touches of feeling, who but must recognise the spirit of Sterne?

The volume is a grave volume, and treats of high things with equal grace and gravity; but Curran was an eccentric being, and his true history must always be mingled with the comic.

"I have got acquainted," he says, "with a Miss Hume, who is also an original in her way. She is a relation of the celebrated David Hume, and, I suppose on the strength of her kindred, sets up for a politician as well as a sceptic. She has heard his Essays recommended, and shows her own discernment, by pronouncing them unanswerable, and talks of the famous Burke by the familiar appellation of Ned. Then she is so romantic, so sentimental! Nothing for her but goats and purling streams, and piping shepherds. And, to crown all, it sings like a nightingale. As I have not the best command of my muscles, I always propose putting out the candles before the song begins, for the greater romanticality of the thing."

Then, as to his relaxations —

"You will perhaps be at a loss to guess what kind of amusement I allow myself: why, I'll tell you. I spend a couple of hours every night at a coffee-house, where I am not a little entertained with a group of old politicians, who meet in order to debate on the reports of the day, or to invent some for the next, with the other business of the nation! Though I don't know that society is the characteristic of this people, yet politics are a certain introduction to the closest intimacy of coffee-house acquaintance. I also visit a variety of ordinaries and eating houses, and they are equally fertile in game for a character-hunter. I think I have found out the cellar where Roderick Random ate shin of beef for threepence, and have actually drunk out of the identical quart which the drummer squeezed together when poor Strap spilt the broth on his legs."

He visited Hampton Court, and though he seems to have passed through its solemn halls and stately galleries without peculiar remark, he seized on his game of living character.

"The servant who showed us the splendid apartments seemed to be a good deal pleased with his manner of explaining a suite of tapestry representing the Persian war of Alexander. Though a simple fellow, he had his lesson well by rote, and ran over the battles of Issus, Arbela, &c., with surprising fluency. 'But, where is Alexander?' cries Apjohn, (a young fellow-student, who had accompanied him.) 'There, sir, at the door of Darius's tent, with the ladies at his feet.' 'Surely,' said I, 'that must be Hephæstion, for he was mistaken by the Queen for Alexander.' 'Pardon me, sir, I hope I know Alexander better than that.' 'But, which of the two do you think the greater man?' 'Greater! – bless your soul, sir, they are both dead these hundred years.'"

Curran's observation on this official, or, as he would probably have called it, ministerial blunder, exhibits, even in these early days of his mind, something of the reflective spirit which afterwards gave such an interest to his eloquence.

"Oh, what a comment on human vanity! There was the marrow of a thousand folios in the answer. I could not help thinking at the instant, what a puzzle that mighty man would be in, should he appear before a committee from the Temple of Fame, to claim those laurels which he thought so much of, and to be opposed in his demands, though his competitor were Thersites, or the fellow who rubbed Bucephalus's heels!"

All this is showy if not new; yet, in defiance even of Curran's authority, its argument is practically denied by all human nature. What man ever acts for the praise of posterity alone? Present impulses, excited by present rewards, are the law of the living; and Alexander charging through the Granicus, and sweeping the royal Persian cavalry before him, had probably a heart as full of the most powerful impulses, as if he could have assured himself of the inheritance for ten thousand years of the plaudits of the globe. We are also to remember, that he has inherited the great legacy of fame, to this hour – that, to the minds of all the intelligent, he is still the hero of heroes; that clowns are not the clients of memory, or the distributors of renown; and that the man whose history has already survived his throne two thousand years, has exhibited in himself all the distinction between the perishableness of power and the immortality of fame.

In 1775 Curran returned to Ireland, and after anxiously pondering on the chances of abandoning Europe, and seeking fortune in America, as other eminent men – Edmund Burke among the number – had done before him, he fixed his fates at home.

This portion of the subject begins with a high panegyric on the difficult but attractive profession into which Curran now threw himself, without income, connection, or friend: —

"It is not to be questioned, that to the Bar of that day the people of Ireland looked up in every emergency, with the most perfect reliance on their talent and their integrity. It was then the nursery of the parliament and the peerage; there was scarcely a noble family in the land that did not enrol its elect in that body, by the study of law and the exercise of eloquence to prepare them for the field of legislative exertion. And there not unfrequently arose a genius from the very lowest of the people, who won his way to the distinctions of the Senate, and wrested from pedigree the highest honours and offices of the Constitution."

That the Bar was the first body in the country was incontestible, and that it often exhibited remarkable instances of ability is equally known. But those facts must not be understood as giving the author's opinion, that perfection lies in the populace. All the remarkable persons of their time in Ireland were men of education, many of birth, and many of hereditary fortune. Grattan was the son of a judge; Flood a man of old family and estate; Clare, the Chancellor, was the son of the leader of the Bar, and began the world with £4000 a-year – a sum probably now equal to twice the amount. The Ponsonbys, the leading family of Whiggism in Ireland, were among the first blood and fortune of the land. Hussey Burgh was a man of old family and fortune. The Beresfords were closely allied to nobility. Plunket and Curran were, perhaps, those among the leaders the least indebted to the Heralds' College; but Plunket was the son of a Presbyterian minister, and both had received the best education which Ireland could give – both were graduates of the University.

Of course, nature is impartial in the distribution of talents, but the true distinction is in their training. The Radicalism which fills public life with vulgarity and faction is wholly the work of that absence of all early training, which must be the fate of men suddenly gathered from the manual labours of life. We know the necessity of those labours, but intellectual superiority must be the work of another school. The men of eminence in Ireland were also men of accomplished general knowledge, and of classical acquirement, to an amount seldom found even in the English Legislature. There was not an assembly in the world where a happy classical quotation, or dexterous reference to antiquity, would be received with a quicker sense, or a louder plaudit than in the Irish Parliament.

When the well-known antagonist of the Romish claims, Dr Duigenan, a stern-looking and singularly dark-featured old man, had one night made a long and learned speech on the subject, Sir John Doyle wholly extinguished its effect, by the Horatian line, —

"Hic niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto."

The House shook with applause, and the universal laugh drove the doctor from the field.

On another evening, when the prince of jesters, Toler, then a chief supporter of Government, contemptuously observed, on seeing a smile on some of the Opposition faces —

"Dulce est desipere in loco;"

an Opposition member started up and retorted the quotation, by saying, "That it was much more applicable to the conduct and position of the honourable member and his friends, and that the true translation was, 'It is mighty pleasant to play the fool in a place.'"

The novelty and happiness of the translation disturbed the gravity of debate for a considerable time.

But those were the gay days of Ireland. Times of keen anxiety, of daring change, and of social convulsion, were already shaping themselves to the eye of the patriot, and the true debates on which the fate of the nation hung were transferred from parliament to the peasantry, from the council-room to the cabin, from the accomplished intelligence and polished brilliancy of the legislature to the rude resentment, fierce recollections, and sullen prejudices of the multitude. It was on the heath, that Revolution, like Macbeth, met the disturbing spirits of the land, and heard the "All hail, hereafter."

Curran's rapid professional distinctions were the more remarkable, that the Irish Bar was aristocratic, to a degree wholly unknown in England. If it is true, that this great profession often leads to the Peerage, in Ireland the course was reversed, and the Peerage often derived its chief honours from its connection with the Bar. The sons of the first families wore the gown, and the cedant arma togæ was more fully realised in Ireland than it ever was in Rome.

But few men of condition ever entered the Army; and in a nation of habitual passion for publicity, and proverbial love of enterprise, perhaps fewer officers were added to the British service than from the Channel Islands. This has since been largely changed, and Ireland, which in the last century but filled up the rank and file, has since nobly contributed her share to the names which register themselves in the memory of nations. To Ireland, glorious England and rescued Europe owe a Wellington!

The Church, the usual province of high families in England, was poor, feeble, and unpopular in Ireland. With a few positions of great wealth, all below was barren: livings of vast extent, with a meagre population, and still more meagre income; Romanism was hourly spreading with a population, itself spreading until it had nothing to eat, and embittered against Protestantism until conversion became more than a hopeless toil – an actual terror. Law was the only instrument of collecting the clerical income, and the collector and the clergyman were involved in one common obloquy, and often in one common danger – a condition of things which must have largely repelled all those who had the power of choice.

The mitres were chiefly bestowed on the Fellows of English colleges, and tutors of English noblemen. Every new Viceroy imported a succession of chaplains, and quartered them all upon the Irish Church. The majority of those men looked upon their position with the nervous alarm of settlers in the wilderness, thought only of the common-room of the colleges from which they had been torn, or of the noble houses in which they had been installed; and reproached the ill luck which had given them dignities which only excited popular disgust; and wealth, from which they could derive no pleasure, but in its accumulation. We can scarcely wonder that, through almost the whole of the eighteenth century, the Irish Church lay in a state of humiliation, repulsive to the public feelings. This, too, has changed; and the Church now possesses many able men.

Commerce, which plays so vigorous a part in the world, was then a swathed infant in Ireland, and swathed so tightly by provincial regulations, that there was scarcely a prospect of its ever stepping beyond the cradle. Manufactures – that gold-mine worth all the treasures of the Western World – were limited to the looms of the north; and the only manufacture of three-fourths of this fine country consisted in the fatal fabrication of forty-shilling voters.

The Squiredom of Ireland was the favourite profession of busy idleness, worthless activity, and festive folly. But this profession must have an estate to dilapidate, or a country to ride over, and English mortgagees to pamper its prodigality and accelerate its ruin. Gout, the pistol, broken necks, and hereditary disease, rapidly thinned this class. Perpetual litigation stood before their rent-rolls, in the shape of a devouring dragon; and, with a peasantry starving but cheerful, and with a proprietary pauperised, but laughing to the last, they were determined, though hourly sinking into bankruptcy, to be ruined like a gentleman.