PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. It was formerly imagined that the study of the English law, from its nature, rendered its professors incapable of eloquence. Hume seems to have been a convert to the opinion; and though in one of his essays he almost prophesies, that at a future day eloquent orators would arise in the British Senate; yet with respect to the bar he does not even insinuate a similar prediction. At that time the notion appeared sanctioned by experience, and eloquent barristers not having previously existed, the thing was deemed impossible. The period of an Erskine and a Curran* will be hereafter considered a new era in the eloquence of the bar of these kingdoms. Before their time the publication of the state trials exhibit nothing of the orator in the pleadings of the lawyers; even the cause of the seven bishops, on the event of which depended the liberties of England, could not excite energy in their advocates. Their speeches are ex cellent in legal reasoning: they have no pretension to eloquence. The alteration of the law, at the revolution, by permitting an address to a jury in cases of high treason, enlarged the field of the barrister. Notwithstanding which, in the numerous prosecutions of the adherents of the pretender, the counsel for the accused were insensible to the valuable privilege, and their languid defences would warrant the conclusion, that the magnitude of the crime with which the client was charged, extinguished the talents of his advocate, and deprived him of the benefit afforded by the legislature. The genius of Erskine, after nearly the lapse of a century, called forth that inestimable statute into the full vigour of operation. On the trial of lord George Gordon, he seized the opportunity, and, with honour to himself and advantage to his country, laid the foundation of that high professional rank and character, which he has always so ably and independently maintained. It is much to be regretted that Mr. Erskine's speeches as an advocate have not yet been published in a separate volume. They are only to be found in the printed reports of the trials in which he was engaged. And from the difficulty which the editor of the present volume experienced in collecting those of Mr. Curran, it is probable in a few years to procure Mr. Erskine's may be impossible. From * Dunning and Burgh preceded them, and were for a short time their contempora ries; they were as inferior to these as Cotta and Hortensius to Cicero. + Since the second edition of this work came out, Mr. Erskine's speeches have been published. And either from more accurate notes of them having been taken at the time of their delivery, or from the revision of the advocate, that work is infinitely better edited than this. The present third edition is nothing more than the re-printing of the second edition. Imperfect as the former editions of this work have been, the a similar neglect, few memorials are now to be had of the professional eloquence of Dunning. And of the forensic exertions of Burgh, nothing remains except an imperfect note of the speech he delivered at the bar of the Irish house of lords in the Valentia cause. To prevent the same fate attending those efforts of the talents of Mr. Curran, the memorials of which time has not yet destroyed, the editor gives this volume to the public. It appears under the disadvantage of being neither revised nor corrected by himself. His professional avocations would have prevented him yielding to such an application had it been made; and had he even enjoyed leisure for the task, it is more than probable, the modesty of genius, which always undervalues its own productions, would have dictated a refusal. The editor determined not to request, what he apprehended would not have been granted. This collection is therefore offered to the public, extracted from the printed ephemeral reports of the trials in which the speeches were delivered. Mr. Curran is neither responsible for this publication, nor for its demerits. And the editor has studiously avoided the alteration of the most apparent inaccuracies, from the indelicacy that would attend encroaching on the privilege which should be left to every public man, of correcting his own production, if at any time, he should be disposed to exert it. His defences of Finny and Bond were considered by the bar as his ablest performances at the state trials of the year 1798. But, unfortunately, the imperfect reports, which from accident or design were given to the public, are rather memorandums of facts, than specimens of the talents of the advocate. If better could have been procured, the public should have had them. The anonymous editor of the volume of Edmund Burke's parliamentary speeches, which appeared long before the edition of his works, sanctioned by himself, did not labour under the same disadvantage. Each of them had been previously sent into the world, touched and retouched by the orator himself into the highest state of polish and improvement. Perhaps the anxiety of finish is too apparent, and notwithstanding many fine strokes of the sublime, they are rather elegant political essays, than eloquent harangues. The orations of Cicero are come down to us in a state much superior to what they were when delivered; and it is clearly ascertained that the one against Verres, that for Milo, and the second Phillippic, are not those which were spoken at the time, but the compositions of subsequent retirement and study. And if our Irish advocate, in the period of his old age, in that interval between finishing the business of one world and entering upon the other, that period to which we all look forward as the season of the noblest enjoyment, should have leisure and inclination to follow the example of the Roman orator, this volume, by imperfections of which, from the continuation of the causes assigned in the text, still exist. The editor has the satisfaction to know that he has by these imperfect labours contributed to extend the knowledge of Mr. Curran's talents not only to every part of Great Britain, but to the other side of the Atlantic. And it must be always a source of the highest gratification, that his humble endeavours to give a publicity as large as its merits, to the genius of his countryman, excited the editor of Mr. Erskine's forensic exertions to give them to the public in a separate work, before the lapse of time had rendered it impossible. bringing to his recollection what might otherwise have been irrecoverably lost, may afford him the opportunity of leaving to posterity a memorial worthy of himself. If the smallest fragments of the eloquence of Crassus, who directed the education of Cicero; of Cotta, and Hortensius, who were his contemporaries and rivals, could now be procured, at what expense would they be purchased, with what avidity would they be read by every lover of polite literature. This volume, going down to future times, even with all its manifold errors and imperfections, must be highly valuable. It will create a permanent interest in a name, which might only be known by tradition; and the eloquence of the Irish bar will be supported by better evidence than an "Audivi Hiberniam olim floruisse eloquentia," as nothing similar will then exist to induce a belief of the fact. Ireland has still to experience the advantage of the union. If any such now exists, it is "a speck not yet visible, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body;" but the extinction of an assembly, in which the liberty, the honour, and happiness of the country were the subjects of debate, must be the eternal mildew of the genius of the land. Such topics call forth every noble propensity of our nature, every generous affection of the heart, and stimulate every power of the mind. The splendid examples of parliamentary eloquence kindled the emulation of the bar. Flood preceded Burgh, Curran followed Grattan. England possessed a Pulteney, a Chatham, and a Fox, before she had a Dunning and an Erskine. They who fled for refuge against party squabbles, and civil dissensions, to the abolition of the parliament, were sadly mistaken. A spiritless tranquillity may be obtained; but the mind of man, to improve, must be agitated: and it is better occasionally to hear the dashing of the waves, than continually to exhale the pestilential effluvia of stagnant waters. The voices of the parliament were perishable, because man is not immortal. Had the institution remained, its virtues would have been permanent. For half a century before the union, we had been running a generous race of honourable friendly rivalship with England, in every thing great and good. We had acquired commerce and constitution. In the production of public character we were not inferior. If Britain boasted of Pulteney, Chatham, Townsend, Fox, Grey, Dunning, and Erskine, Ireland could enumerate Boyle, Malone, Perry, Flood, Grattan, Daly, Ponsonby, Burgh, and Curran. These men will have no successors-when but boys, their minds were expanded, and their honourable ambition was inflamed, with the growing grandeur of their country; and they came into the world fitted and prepared to discharge the duties imposed upon them by their station. Many of them are long since removed from the stage of life. Little did they imagine, that, from the tree which they had planted, withering almost ere it blossomed, no descendant of theirs shoula gather the fruit.-Little did they imagine, that Ireland was to rise only to fall; and but a moment of interval between her glory and her abasement. The physical and moral productions of man are governed by the same laws; the work of accomplishment is slow-the work of destruction is rapid. The skill of the architect and the labour |