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330 which became afterwards his associate on the bench; and one day while Mr. Curran addressed his lordship in a most elaborate argument, the chancellor, as if to mark his utter disregard, amused himself, by fondling his dog, to which he paid much more attention than to the learned advocate, This gross indecency was observed by the whole bar. Mr. Curran stopped for some time, but the chancellor missing his voice, and twitched by his silence, to an effort of attention, said with an air of the coldest indifference, "Proceed, Mr. Curran, proceed." "I beg pardon, my lords," answered Curran, "I really thought your lordships were employed in consultation, but as your lordships are now at leisure, I will proceed,—then my lords, as I have already observed to your lordships."—The dog and his master were so aptly and so ludicrously conjoined in this allusion, that his lordship, with marked chagrin, thought fit to dismiss his shaggy vice-chancellor, and resume his attention, perhaps more to the symptoms of suppressed laughter that mantled on the countenances of the whole bar, than to the arguments of the learned advocate.

But although Mr. Curran was debarred of redress in that court where his ennobled adversary ruled paramount, an incident occurred in the city which gave him the opportunity of taking as ample a revenge before a higher tribunal, as the junction of his talents and indignation could suggest. In the year 1790, a dispute arose between hostile parties in the corporation about the choice of a lord mayor for the ensuing year. The sheriffs and common-council elected a popular alderman, named Harrison, but the board of aldermen refused their sanction to this choice, and elected a worshipful brother, of quite opposite principles, named James, as the chief magistrate next in rotation, but whom the commons on their part rejected. By certain rules long established by the privy council under the authority of an act of parliament, no man could be lord mayor unless first approved by the viceroy in council; and those rules directed, that in case of such