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EUROPEAN MAGAZINE,

AND

LONDON REVIEW,

FOR FEBRUARY, 1818.

MEMOIR OF

THE RIGHT HON. JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN,

LATE MASTER OF THE ROLLS IN IRELAND."

[WITH A PORTRAIT, ENGRAVED BY HENRY MEYER, FROM AN ORIGINAL PAINTING BY ŠIH THOMAS LAURENCE. E.]

Ἐγὼ μὲν δή κατανοῶν τῷ ἀνδρος τήν τε βοφίαν καὶ τ' γενναιότητα, ἔτε μὴ μεμνήσθαι δυναμαι αυτὸ ἔτι μεμνημενός μὴ εκ ἐπαινεῖν.

ΞΕΝΟΦΩΝ. ΑΠΟΛΟΓ.

"Impressed as I am with the conviction of this man's intelligence of mind and ingenuous firmness of character, it is impossible that I should ever forget him, or cease to eulogise his memory.'

Thotte to this Memoir is in all its HE seutiment conveyed in the feeling acknowledged by every surviving friend of the excellent man who is thebject of it. The brilliancy of his talents delighted all who were so for tunate as to witness its display, either in the public sphere of his action, or within the private circle of his social intercourse. But, substantiated as it was by the most undeviating stedfastness of honorable principle, admiration became reverence, and friendship grew into affectionate esteem.

With a heart highly susceptible of friendly attachment, he justified by the integrity of his life, and the sincerity of his conduct, the partiality of those who felt the gratification, and acknowledged the honor of being numbered among his intimate associates. These consisted of the most celebrated political and literary characters of his time, and a Prince of the Royal Blood*, distinguished for his impartial and wise dis crimination of intrinsic genius, allowed himself to be called the friend of Cur

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To this exalted personage in the

valued and as deeply regret this highlysame degree with those who equally gifted son of Erin, the above passage of the Greek historian speaks the same interesting testimony of recollection as that which the intimate conviction of their own hearts suggests.

With these friends of his living fame we acknowledge the painful record that ranks him among the departed lights of the age; but, while we trace the luminous path of his life, we feel the cheering certainty that this humble tribute to his memory will not be subjected to the stigma of undeserved eulogium.

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, Esq. was born at Newmarket, a village in the county of Cork, in the year 1750. His parents may be classed among that large mass of the Irish population which, without any pretensions to affluence, maintain the respectability of social life by the prudent management of incomes barely competent to meet the anxious desire of putting their children in possession of the acquirements of educa tiou. This anxiety is well known to be

* H. R. H the Duke of Sussex

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which are, alas! sometimes found to act with an adverse influence upon the happiness of the married state. They may be lamented, but ought not to be recorded.

At this period Mr. Curran began to emerge from the embarrassments of a scanty ineome into the more promising condition of celebrity. His character developed itself in all its superior endowments, and the day of pros

a national feeling of the Irish; and to this it was owing that the most celebrated orator of the senate and bar of our sister isle received, in a small provincial school, the elements of that classical instruction which is universally comprehended in the education of a gentleman. The superior promptitude of his intellect soon qualified him for the more erudite pursuits of scholastic attainment; and, at an unusually early period, he was admitted at Trinity Col-perity dawned upon his prospects. He lege, Dublin, and obtained a scholarship, which, in that community is a sure mark of merit, and its certain re ward. Here he took the degree of A. B. But not feeling the course of study congenial with the energetic constitution of his mind, he resolved not to proceed for a fellowship, but left college, and turned his views towards the law,

On this wide field of emulous conflict for advancement, he entered, unprotected by alliance, and unassisted by pecuniary resource, but he knew it was path to reputation and promotion, which was accessible to industry and genius; however unsupported he felt himself to be, by the adventitious dis tinctious of birth, or the useful facilities of wealth. Thus decided as to his choice of a profession, he prepared him self for all the difficulties and repulses which he was well aware he had to expect, he came to London, and took his seat on the Irish side of the Bencher's table in the Middle Temple; and in the year 1775 was called" as an UtterBarrister.

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Soon after this event he returned to his native country, and practised at the sessions, ou the circuit, and in the four Courts, of Dublin. Under what circumstances he made his progress towards professional eminence and emolument we have no means of ascertain. ing; but this we may assume, as a warranted conclusion, that a mind, like his would easily surmount whatever obstacles might lay in his way to distinction; and it is no small advantage on the side of such a man, that he feels he must be the maker of his own fortunes-the impression gives energy to genius, and impulse to talents and seldom fails to work out the accomplishment of the object.

About this time Mr. Curran uuited himself in marriage with a young Irish lady, of the name of O'Dell, of respect. able, but by no means opulent con

Dexions.

To this union were attached results

proclaimed himself the advocate of his country, and, under the banner of patriotism, avowed himself the independent defender of her political rights.By a manly exertion of his talents a one of the counsel at an election contest; and, by a spirited resistance to the personal reflections, as well as the relative pretensions of the candidate on the other side, he convinced his adversary that Curran' the barrister was not an antagonist to be despised, whatever gifts of Nature or of fortune had been denied to his person or his purse. The contention between them terminated without recourse to that fallacious test of a factitious honour, a duel. The candidate who began it with sarcastic personalities, admitted the unwarrantable nature of his attack, and, with that good sense which is always open to the conviction of mature reflection, became the friend and patron of him whom he had so unjustifiably assailed with allusions which weakened his own cause, and gave to that of their object an accession of strength in the indignant sympathies of those who were the wit nesses of the altercation,

A short time after this, Mr. Curran became a member of the Irish House of Commons; in which he signalized himself among the most eloquent patriots of that day. During the adminis, tration of 1782, under the auspices of the then Lord Lieutenant, Willian Henry Cavendish, Duke of Portland, he accepted a silk gown. He was elected member for the borough of Kilbeggin, in the county of Westmeath; and, from 1783 to the dissolution which took place in 1789, he was conspicuous among the Irish Whigs for the zeal and oratory with which be engaged in the debates of the house.

In the new Parliament of 1790, Mr. Curran was returned for the borough of Rathcormuck in the county of Cork; which seat he held with the highest honour to the principles that he es

poused, and the talent with which he maintained them, until the next dissolution in 1797; but in the Parliament of 1800, which sanctioned the memorable union, we do not find the subject of this memoir to have been a member.

It would seem, that during this interval, he had employed himself with peculiar diligence and great lucrative advantage, in the higher paths of his profession. The silk gown which he had put on, gave him importance, and procured him a great accession of business, both in the King's Bench and at the Chancery Bar. The cases in which he. was principally employed, were such as required the exertion of all his oratorical qualifications, which he did not fail to display in all their peculiar charac. teristics of poignant irony and witty remark. In the mean time, it may be said of him, that he had arrived at the full accomplishment of his hopes-the increase of his income kept pace with the progress of his fame. But it unfortunately happened that although the latter was established, the former soon after became materially affected by the consequences of his former hostility to the Attorney-General," whom both in the House and at the Bar, he had invariably opposed with all the force of his eloquence and the acrimony of his wit. An hostility which produced a personal conflict in the field of honour. When this Gentleman ascended the woolsack, (under the title of the Earl of Clare,) he retained all his asperity of feeling towards Mr. Curran, and the frowns of power effected what the opposition of talent could not succeed in producing

à considerable diminution of his interest and emoluments in the Chancery Court. This enmity, however, although it was the cause of Mr. Curran's leaving that Court, did not prevent him from distinguishing himself in the other Courts, and in the ranks of opposition. Some of his speeches delivered in Parliament were recorded. That made in 1793, upon the question of right in the Gommons of Ireland to originate all Money Bills; and two others in 1755, one on the commercial intercourse be tween Great Britain and Ireland; and one upon the matter of Attachments. Two also, which he delivered in 1786, in support of a Bill for limiting Irish Pensions; and an address of cousum

Mr. Fitzgibbon.

mate ability and great legal knowledge, in favour of " Emancipation," ten years after. Many of his forensic speeches upon different occasions, which were of great interest both to his individual clients and the public in general, have been published, but, we believe, in no authenticated form.

These are ten in number:

1st. In behalf of Archibald Hamiltoo Rowan, Esq. for a libel.

2d.--In behalf of Mr. Patrick Finney, for high treason.

3d. In behalf of Mr. Peter Fingerty, for a libel.

4th. In behalf of Oliver Bond, Esq. for high treason.

5th-In behalf of Lady Pamela Fitzgerald and children, against the Bill of Attainder of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

6th.-Lu the action for false imprisonment, by Mr. John Hevey against Major Sirr.

7th. In the trial of Owen Kirwan, for high treason.

8th. In the action brought by the Rev. Charles Massey, against the Marquis of Headfort, for adultery.

9th. In the cause of the King against the Hon. Mr. Justice Johnson.

10th. In the cause of Merry versus the Right Rev. Dr. John Power, Roman Catholic Bishop of Waterford.

We have not room within that space of our miscellany usually allotted to the Memoir, to introduce, in this instance, any critical remarks upon these speeches, in a distinct form. But we are glad to avail ourselves of an opinion which has been given of these speeches by a Northern Review; and we quote it with the more pleasure, because it conveys a more liberal estimate of Irish oratory, than what that publication contained upon a subsequent occasion, when the speech of Charles Phillips, Esq. in the action of Guthrie versus Sterne, was the subject of their criticism:-"If (says the Review in question, of October, 1808,) it be the test of supreme genius to produce strong and perma nent emotions, the passages which we have quoted must be in the very highest style of eloquence." In a previous passage, they have declared," this style to be of Irish origin, and to have attained to its highest honours only in its na

tive soil."

The eloquence which is thus justly characterized, and which Mr. Carran certainly possessed in an eminent de

gree, gave a weight to his influence, which attracted the notice of those of his friends who formed the Administration of 1806. He was offered and accepted the appointment of Master of the Rolls, worth 50007. a-year. This he resigned in 1814, to his successor, the Right Hon. Sir William M Mahon, Bart. a relation of Sir John M'Mahon, Bart. the late respected Secretary to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. There is but one decision of Mr. Curran's, as Master of the Rolls, which has been printed, that of Merry v. the Right Rev. I. Power, D. D. the titular Bishop of Waterford. This decision is considered as intelligent and liberal-two qualities which might naturally be expected to form the prominent features of a Judge who, by their constant application to all his professional acts, had attained all his popularity. His resignation of this high office was accompa nied with a pension, on which, and the profits of his laborious exertions, he ved in affluent ease; until that period arrived which was to extinguish the last spark of an exalted genius, that had been for upwards of 40 years the ornament and boast of the Irish Bar, astonishing and delighting by its impassioned force of expression, its vivid power of imagery, and its classical allusions, thousands of enraptured auditors; vindicating the innocent, appalling the guilty, and confounding the corrupt, by a most impressive combination of talent. He had for some time previous to his death been in the habit of paying occa sional visits to his friends in England, and had at length fixed his residence at Brompton, where amid a select society of congenial minds he enjoyed the full possession of the olium cum dignitate.In those hours of festive association he was unequalled in the sound arguments of a vigorous understanding, in the bril liant sallies of a lively fancy, and in those superior powers of wit, which appeared to be habitual to him, and always at his command. Yet with all his information and powers of reasoning, he was never known to assume the importance of dogmatical wisdom, nor did he ever allow the shafts of his wit to inflict a wanton wound; and such was the urbanity of his manners, and the sweetness of bis converse, that few of his political adversaries allowed themselves to become his personal enemies; while he never expericuced the mortification of

losing by his conscious superiority of talent one of those numerous friends which the good qualities of his heart, as well as the bright endowments of his mind had secured to him. The natural generosity of his disposition induced him to rejoice in every opportunity of encouraging rising genius, and he never, refused his advice, or withheld his approbation, either in private or public, when he perceived the slightest probability of promoting the advantage and prosperous progress of any man of ability and desert.

Some months before his decease, his friends perceived a manifest, though. gradual decay of his mental and physi cal faculties; and at the house of Mr. Moore, the author of Lalla Rookh, he was first seized with an attack of para lysis, which after two other successive strokes, deprived him of existence. He breathed his last in the bosom of his family, on the 15th day of October, 1817; dying with great composure, and almost without a struggle.

In his person Mr. Curran was short and thin; but his countenance bore the physiognomy of cousiderable acuteness,, and his eyes possessed a remarkable dedegree of animation. He has left two daughters and three sons, and among them a large portion of hereditary genius. His eldest sou is in the navy, and his third has been called to the bar, distinguished by all those amiable traits of private character which endeared his celebrated father to society, and possessed of much of that professional ability, for which his revered parent was deservedly valued and admired, by all who had judgment sufficient to estimate it aright, and enough of ingenuous feeling to acknowledge it without any adverse bias of party prejudice or prepos session.

H. G. W.

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LETTER FROM M. COLBERT, MINISTER OF STATE, TO HIS SON, M. DE SEIGNELAY.

I AM sufficiently satisfied with your studies, but it is necessary to redouble your application, and to consider well what I have often said to you-that until you derive more gratification from study than from pleasure and amusement, I shall not be persuaded that you will ever have merit and virtue sufficient to follow my example. Again, in regard to your mauners, I am not quite satisfied; and wish that you would pay attention to four essential points, concerning which you have often heard me speak: The first is, the obedience and respect which you owe to your masters, with a perpetual application to the tasks which they set you; this obedience and this respect ought to be accompanied with a great docility, and you ought more particularly to submit to it, because your nature is disposed to resist it. The second is, the friendship and good nature which you ought to show your brother, taking care never to treat him ill; on the contrary, when he commits any fault, never reprove him with ill-nature, nor in the presence of any one, but admonish him in private, with gentleness and good-nature. The third, that when engaged in any sport, and on all other occasions, you learn, when in fault, to condemn. y self on the spot, without employing yourself in disputes, which are always wrong when you know that you are in fault. On the same subject I must add, that every time you doubt whether you have done wrong or not, it will always be better and more useful for you to condemn yourself, than to lose time in fruitless disputes. The fourth is, that you shall endeavour to receive all your companions with civility and good-nature; and that affability and politeness may be perceived in your conduct to all the world. Such are the qualifications that will render you be loved; instead of which, if you persevere in the roughness and incivility that is observed in you, you will be hated by every one. Do not fail seriously to consider these four points. I wish on every Saturday you would write to me, giving me an account of how you have executed these directions, and how you have corrected your faults.

To the Editor of the European Magazine.

I

SIR,

WISH to ask your mathematical readers, whether it has ever been observed, that, in the binomial theorem, the co-efficient of any term is always equal to the whole number of changes of order, that can be made in the letters denoting its quantities; and whether it is probable that any thing useful might result from the investigation of this truth.

Thus, in (ax) 5=a5+5a3x+10a3x 10x+5x++, the number of changes in as is equal to 7, its coefficient ; in may be made 5 changes, and 10 in 43o, and so on. Whence, it is obvious, that the young mathematician may easily find the coefficient of any term, independently of any other term, by dividing the continued product of a series, beginning with the index of the power of the binomial, and decreasing by unity to as many terms as there are units in the index of one of the letters, in that term of the binomial, by the continued product of another series, of the same number of terms, of the natural numbers from unity upwards;

it will, of course, be shorter to take the index of that letter which is least involved. In this manner, the co7.6.5. 1. 2. 3.

efficient of atr is found =

.your- 35.

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