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 360 CURRAN. the massive were equal. We had the fortune to hear son of those speeches, and repeat it, that to feel the full geniu of the man, he must have been heard. His eloquence wa not a studiously sheltered and feebly fed flame, but a torc blazing only with the more breadth and brilliancy, a it was the more broadly and boldly waved: it was no a lamp, to live in his tomb. His printed speeches li before us, full of the errors that might convict him of a extravagant imagination and a perverted taste. But wher those are to be brought in iimpeachment against the grea orator, it must be remembered, that they were spoken for a triumph, which they gained; that we are now pausing over the rudeness and unwieldiness of the weapons of the dead, without reference to the giant's hand that with them drove the field. Curran's carelessness of fame has done this dishonour to his memory. We have but the frag ments of his mind, and are investigating those glorious reliques, separated and mutilated, like the sculptures of the Parthenon; while they ought to have been gazed on where the great master had placed them, where all their shades and foreshortenings were relief and vigour,-image above image, rising in proportioned and consecrated beauty ; as statues on the face of a temple. " His career in parliament was less memorable. But the cause lay in no deficieney of those powers which give weight in a legislative assembly. In the few instances in which his feelings took a part, he excited the same admi ration which had followed him through his professional efforts. But his lot had been cast in the courts of law, and his life was there. He came into the house of com- mons wearied by the day, and reluctant to urge himself to exertions rendered less imperious by the croud of able men who fought the battle of opposition-His general speeches in parliament were the sports of the moment, the irresistible overflow of a humorous disdain of his adversary. He left the heavy arms to the habitual combatants, and amused himself with light and hovering hostility. But his shaft was dreaded, and his subtilty was sure to insinuate