proportion to the progress effected by the chemical and mechanical sciences in the working of metals. The reporter made honourable mention of the establishment for the construction of improved agricultural instruments, which is superintended by M. Molard. At this establishment, ploughs of cast iron have been manufactured, on which the jury bestowed unqualified approbation: they possess the advantage of being more durable than wooden ploughs, are less liable to go out of repair, and more manageable, without being less solid.

Our limits do not permit us to follow the reporter through his learned examination of the improvements that have taken place of late years in optical instruments, fine clock work, and astronomical clock-work. We must, however, notice a new invention which will form an epoch in the history of stringed instruments; namely, the violin of M. Chanot, which produces a tone as full and melodious as the old instruments which are so rare and highly valued.

The specimens of soda, alum, acids, ceruse, vermillion, scented soap for the toilette, indigenous sugar, gelatine, and all the alimentary products presented at the exhibi tion, exceeded the utmost expectations of the jury.

Curran's Oratory.-[It is a very curious fact that Curran was originally as remarkable for embarrassment and timidity, as he afterwards became distinguished for self possession and readiness. His own account of this change effected in his eloquence, is very characteristic: we extract it from the memoirs of his life published by his son W. H. Curran.]

"It was during his attendance at the Temple that Mr. Curran made the first trial of his rhetorical pow

low-students. His first attempt was unsuccessful, and for the moment quite disheartened him. He had had from his boyhood a considerable precipitation and confusion of utterance, from which he was denominated by his school-fellows' stuttering Jack Curran.' This defect he had laboured to remove, but the cure was not yet complete. From the agitation of a first effort he was unable to pronounce a syllable; and so little promise did there appear of his shining as a speaker, that his friend Apjohn said to him, I have a high opinion of your capacity; confine yourself to the study of law, and you will to a certainty become an eminent chamber-counsel; but depend upon it, Nature never intended you for an orator.' Fortunately for his fame, this advice was disregarded: he continued to attend the above and other debating clubs, at one of which, during a discussion, some personal and irritating expressions having been levelled at him his indignation, and along with it his talent, was roused. Forgetting all his timidity and hesitation, he rose against his assailant, and, for the first time, revealed to his hearers and to himself that style of original and impetuous oratory, which he afterwards improved into such perfection, and which now bids fair to preserve his name, He used often to entertain bis friends by detailing this event of his mind's having burst the shell.' The following was the manner in which he once related it; for one of the great charms of his colloquial powers was the novelty that he could give to the same facts upon every repetition:-he adorned a favourite anecdote, as a skilful musician would a favourite air, by an endless variety of unpremeditated ad libitum graces.

"One day after dinner an acquaintance, in speaking of his eloquence, happened to observe, that it must have been born with him. 'Indeed, my dear Sir,' replied Mr.

Curran, 'it was not; it was born three and twenty years and some months after me; and, if you are satisfied to listen to a dull historian, you shall have the history of its nativity.

When I was at the Temple, a few of us formed a little debating club-poor Apjohn, and Duhigg, and the rest of them! they have all disappeared from the stage; but my own busy hour will soon be fretted through, and then we may meet again behind the scenes. Poor fellows! they are now at rest; but I still can see them, and the glow of honest bustle on their looks, as they arranged their little plan of honourable association, [or, as Pope would say, 'gave their little senate laws,'] where all the great questions in ethics and politics [there were no gagging bills in those days] were to be discussed and irrevocably settled. Upon the first night of our assembling, I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the anticipated honour of being styled the learned member that opened the debate,' or 'the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down.' All day the coming scene had been flitting before my fancy, and cajoling it; my ear alrea dy caught the glorious melody of Hear him, hear him!' Already I was practising how to steal a cunning side-long glance at the tear of generous approbation bubbling in the eyes of my little auditory; never suspecting, alas! that a modern eye may have so little affinity with moisture that the finest gunpowder may be dried upon it. I stood up-the question was Catholic claims or the slave trade, I protest I now forget which, but the difference, you know, was never very obvious-my mind was stored with about a folio volume of matter, but I wanted a preface, and for want of a preface the volume was never published. I stood up, trembling through every fibre; but, remembering that in this I was but imitating Tully, I took courage, and

had acutally proceeded almost as far as Mr. Chairman,' when, to my astonishment and terror, I perceived that every eye was rivitted upon me. There were only six or seven present, and the little room could not have contained as many more; yet was it, to my panic-struck imagination, as if I were the central object in nature, and assembled millions were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I became dismayed and dumb; my friends cried

Hear him!' but there was nothing to hear. My lips, indeed, went through the pantomime of articulation, but I was like the unfortunate fiddler at the fair, who, upon coming to strike up the solo that was to ravish every ear, discovered that an enemy had maliciously soaped his bow; or rather, like poor Punch, as I once saw him, (and how many like him have I seen in our old House of Commons! but it is dead, and let us not disturb its ashes,) grimacing a soliloquy, of which his prompter behind had most indiscreetly neglected to administer the words. So you see, Sir, it was not born with me. However, though my friends, even Apjohn, the most sanguine of them, despaired of me, the cacoethes loquendi was not to be subdued without a struggle. I was for the present silenced, but I still attended our meetings with the most laudable regularity, and even ventured to accompany the others to a more ambitious theatre, the Devils of Temple Bar,' where truly may I say that many a time the devil's own work was going forward. Here, warned by fatal experience that a man's powers may be overstrained, I at first confined myself to a simple 'aye or no,' and, by dint of practice and encouragement, brought my tongue to recite these magical elements of parliamentary eloquence with 'such sound emphasis and good discretion,' that, in a fortnight's time, I had completed my education for the Irish senate.