Part 5 (1/2)
CURRAN AT A DEBATING SOCIETY.
Curran's account of his introduction and _debut_ at a debating society, is the identical ”first appearance” of hundreds. ”Upon the first of our a.s.sembling,” he says, ”I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the antic.i.p.ated honor 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 already caught the glorious melody of 'Hear him! hear him!' Already I was practising how to steal a sidelong glance at the tears 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; 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 actually proceeded almost as far as 'Mr. Chairman,' when, to my astonishment and terror, I perceived that every eye was riveted 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-stricken imagination, as if I were the central object in nature, and a.s.sembled 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, 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, grimacing a soliloquy, of which his prompter had most indiscreetly neglected to administer the words.” Such was the _debut_ of ”Stuttering Jack Curran,” or ”Orator Mum,” as he was waggishly styled; but not many months elapsed ere the sun of his eloquence burst forth in dazzling splendor.
CURRAN AND THE BANKER.
A Limerick banker, remarkable for his sagacity, had an iron leg. ”His leg,” said Curran ”is the _softest_ part about him.”
HIS DUEL WITH ST. LEGER.
Curran was employed at Cork to prosecute a British officer of the name of St. Leger, for an a.s.sault upon a Catholic clergyman. St. Leger was suspected by Curran to be a creature of Lord Doneraile, and to have acted under the influence of his lords.h.i.+p's religious prejudice. Curran rated him soundly on this, and with such effect that St. Leger sent him a challenge the next day. They met, but as Curran did not return his fire, the affair ended. ”It was not necessary,” said Curran, ”for me to fire at him, for he died in three weeks after the duel, of the _report of his own pistol_.”
THE MONKS OF THE SCREW.
This was the name of a club that met on every Sat.u.r.day during term in a house in Kevin-street, and had for its members Curran, Grattan, Flood, Father O'Leary, Lord Charlemont, Judge Day, Judge Metge, Judge Chamberlaine, Lord Avonmore, Bowes Daly, George Ogle, and Mr. Keller.
Curran, being Grand Prior of the order, composed the charter song as follows:--
When Saint Patrick our order created, And called us the Monks of the Screw, Good rules he revealed to our Abbot, To guide us in what we should do.
But first he replenished his fountain With liquor the best in the sky: And he swore by the word of his saints.h.i.+p That fountain should never run dry.
My children, be chaste till you're tempted-- While sober, be wise and discreet-- And humble your bodies with fasting, Whene'er you've got nothing to eat.
Then be not a gla.s.s in the convent, Except on a festival, found-- And this rule to enforce, I ordain it A festival--_all the year round_.
LORD AVONMORE.
Curran was often annoyed when pleading before Lord Avonmore, owing to his lords.h.i.+p's habit of being influenced by first impressions. He and Curran were to dine together at the house of a friend, and the opportunity was seized by Curran to cure his lords.h.i.+p's habit of antic.i.p.ating.
”Why, Mr. Curran, you have kept us a full hour waiting dinner for you,”
grumbled out Lord Avonmore. ”Oh, my dear Lord, I regret it much; you must know it seldom happens, but--I've just been witness to a most melancholy occurrence.” ”My G.o.d! you seem terribly moved by it--take a gla.s.s of wine. What was it?--what was it?”--”I will tell you, my Lord, the moment I can collect myself. I had been detained at Court--in the Court of Chancery--your Lords.h.i.+p knows the Chancellor sits late.” ”I do, I do--but _go on_.”--”Well, my Lord, I was hurrying here as fast as ever I could--I did not even change my dress--I hope I shall be excused for coming in my boots?” ”Poh, poh--never mind your boots: the point--come at once to the point of the story.”--”Oh--I will, my good Lord, in a moment. I walked here--I would not even wait to get the carriage ready--it would have taken time, you know. Now there is a market exactly in the road by which I had to pa.s.s--your Lords.h.i.+p may perhaps recollect the market--do you?” ”To be sure I do--_go on_, Curran--_go on_ with the story.”--”I am very glad your Lords.h.i.+p remembers the market, for I totally forget the name of it--the name--the name--” ”What the devil signifies the name of it, sir?--it's the Castle Market.”--”Your Lords.h.i.+p is perfectly right--it is called the Castle Market. Well, I was pa.s.sing through that very identical Castle Market, when I observed a butcher preparing to kill a calf. He had a huge knife in his hand--it was as sharp as a razor. The calf was standing beside him--he drew the knife to plunge it into the animal. Just as he was in the act of doing so, a little boy about four years old--his only son--the loveliest little baby I ever saw, ran suddenly across his path, and he killed--oh, my G.o.d! he killed--” ”The child! the child! the child!” vociferated Lord Avonmore.
”No, my Lord, _the calf_,” continued Curran, very coolly; ”he killed the calf, but--_your Lords.h.i.+p is in the habit of antic.i.p.ating_.”
HIS FIRST CLIENT.
When Curran was called to the bar, he was without friends, without connections, without fortune, conscious of talents far above the mob by which he was elbowed, and cursed with sensibility, which rendered him painfully alive to the mortifications he was fated to experience. Those who have risen to professional eminence, and recollect the impediments of such a commencement--the neglect abroad--the poverty, perhaps, at home--the frowns of rivalry--the fears of friends.h.i.+p--the sneer at the first essay--the prophecy that it will be the last--discouragement as to the present--forebodings as to the future--some who are established endeavoring to crush the chance of compet.i.tion, and some who have failed anxious for the wretched consolation of companions.h.i.+p--those who recollect the comforts of such an apprentices.h.i.+p may duly appreciate poor Curran's situation. After toiling for a very inadequate recompense at the Sessions of Cork, and wearing, as he said himself, his teeth almost to their stumps, he proceeded to the metropolis, taking for his wife and young children a miserable lodging on Hog-hill. Term after term, without either profit or professional reputation, he paced the hall of the Four Courts. Yet even thus he was not altogether undistinguished. If his pocket was not heavy, his heart was light--he was young and ardent, buoyed up not less by the consciousness of what he felt within, than by the encouraging comparison with those who were successful around him, and his station among the crowd of idlers, whom he amused with his wit or amused by his eloquence. Many even who had emerged from that crowd, did not disdain occasionally to glean from his conversation the rich and varied treasures which he did not fail to squander with the most unsparing prodigality; and some there were who observed the brightness of the infant luminary struggling through the obscurity that clouded its commencement. Among those who had the discrimination to appreciate, and the heart to feel for him, luckily for Curran, was Mr. Arthur Wolfe, afterwards the unfortunate, but respected Lord Kilwarden. The first fee of any consequence that he received was through his recommendation; and his recital of the incident cannot be without its interest to the young professional aspirant whom a temporary neglect may have sunk into dejection. ”I then lived,” said he, ”upon Hog-hill; my wife and children were the chief furniture of my apartments; and as to my rent, it stood much the same chance of its liquidation with the national debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a barrister's lady, and what was wanting in wealth, she was well determined should be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of any other gradation except that of pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence. I walked out one morning in order to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, with my mind, you may imagine, in no very enviable temperament. I fell into gloom, to which from my infancy I had been occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence--I returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study, where _Lavater_ alone could have found a library, the first object that presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty golden guineas wrapped up beside it, and the name of _Old Bob Lyons_ marked on the back of it. I paid my landlady--bought a good dinner--gave Bob Lyons a share of it; and that dinner was the date of my prosperity!”
CURRAN AND THE INFORMER.
The following is an extract from Curran's speech delivered before a committee of the house of Lords, against the Bill of attainder on Lord Edward's property:--
”I have been asked,” said he, ”by the committee, whether I have any defensive evidence? I am confounded by such a question. Where is there a possibility of obtaining defensive evidence? Where am I to seek it? I have often, of late, gone to the dungeon of the captive, but never have I gone to the grave of the dead, to receive instructions for his defence; nor, in truth, have I ever before been at the trial of a dead man! I offer, therefore, no evidence upon this inquiry, against the perilous example of which I do protest on behalf of the public, and against the cruelty and inhumanity and injustice of which I do protest in the name of the dead father, whose memory is sought to be dishonored, and of his infant orphans, whose bread is sought to be taken away. Some observations, and but a few, upon the evidence of the informer I will make. I do believe all he has admitted respecting himself. I do verily believe him in that instance, even though I heard him a.s.sert it upon his oath--by his own confession an informer, and a bribed informer--a man whom respectable witnesses had sworn in a court of justice, upon their oaths, not to be credible on his oath--a man upon whose single testimony no jury ever did, or ever ought to p.r.o.nounce a verdict of guilty--a kind of man to whom the law resorts with abhorrence, and from necessity, in order to set the criminal against the crime, but who is made use of for the same reason that the most obnoxious poisons are resorted to in medicine. If such be the man, look for a moment at his story. He confines himself to mere conversation only, with a dead man! He ventures not to introduce any third person, living or even dead! he ventures to state no act whatever done. He wishes, indeed, to asperse the conduct of Lady Edward Fitzgerald; but he well knew that, even were she in this country, she could not be called as a witness to contradict him. See therefore, if there be any one a.s.sertion to which credit can be given, except this--that he has sworn and forsworn--that he is a traitor--that he has received five hundred guineas to be an informer, and that his general reputation is, to be utterly unworthy of credit.”
He concludes thus:--”Every act of this sort ought to have a practical morality flowing from its principle. If loyalty and justice require that those children should be deprived of bread, must it not be a violation of that principle to give them food or shelter? Must not every loyal and just man wish to see them, in the words of the famous Golden Bull, 'always poor and necessitous, and for ever accompanied by the infamy of the father, languis.h.i.+ng in continued indigence, and finding their punishment in living, and their relief in dying?' If the widowed mother should carry the orphan heir of her unfortunate husband to the gate of any man who himself touched with the sad vicissitude of human affairs, might feel a compa.s.sionate reverence for the n.o.ble blood that flowed in his veins, n.o.bler than the royalty that first enn.o.bled it, that, like a rich stream, rose till it ran and hid its fountain--if, remembering the many n.o.ble qualities of his unfortunate father, his heart melted over the calamities of the child--if his heart swelled, if his eyes overflowed, if his too precipitate hand was stretched forth by his pity or his grat.i.tude to the excommunicated sufferers, how could he justify the rebel tear or the traitorous humanity? One word more and I have done. I once more earnestly and solemnly conjure you to reflect that the fact--I mean the fact of guilt or innocence which must be the foundation of this bill--is not now, after the death of the party, capable of being tried, consistent with the liberty of a free people, or the unalterable rules of eternal justice; and that as to the forfeiture and the ignominy which it enacts, that only can be punishment which lights upon guilt, and that can be only vengeance which breaks upon innocence.”