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 excellent 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 contemporaries; 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 beer. 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 c 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 con. stitution. 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 should 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

of an age erect the majestic edifice a succession of talents, of wis dom, of integrity, form a constitution: the pick-axe of an ignorant workman levels the one with the dust, and the vote of a venal senate eternally annihilates the other. The Roman senate existed till the complete subversion of the western empire; but the parliament of Ireland yielded to the English minister, what Rome, in the days of her greatest degeneracy, never surrendered to the vices or the virtues of her emperors.

The only apology for this digression, if in truth it can be called such, is, that the writer is one, who, when not more than a child, has shed the tear of the heart, listening to the eloquence of a Flood and a Grattan, successfully contending for the rights of their native land. He was then of an age to understand such things, and cannot now forget that such things were:-whose feelings time has not yet sub dued-but who, wishing to prevent his children being miserable, will think it a parental duty to educate them in sentiments more congenial to the humbler fortunes of their country. It is only by degrees the mind of man is reconciled to his situation; and it is to be hoped that these observations will be patiently endured, when even the flatterers of Augustus could, without fear of offence, style the death of Cato nobile lethum, and call Brutus and Cassius ultimi Romanorum. These are neither the sentiments of a bad Irishman nor a bad sub ject. The man who deplores the extinction of the Irish Parliament, to be consistent with himself, must ardently wish success to England, in her present contest with France. The British empire, in the existing state of things, is the great bulwark of the liberties of Europe. And Ireland has still something well worth defending.

To enter upon a criticism of Mr. Curran's eloquence would exceed the limits of a preface. To assert that it is without defect would be absurd. The greatest orators of antiquity perceived and acknowledged their own deficiencies. The perusal of many of the following speeches, however inadequately reported, will enable the reader to form a better judgment than any elaborate critique. The editor, who has often observed him in the different branches of professional exertion, cannot omit, that in the cross-examination of a witness he is unequalled. The most intricate web that fraud, malice, or corruption ever wove against the life, fortune, or character of an individual, he can unravel. Let truth and falsehood be ever so ingeniously dovetailed into each other, he separates them with facility. He surveys his ground like a skilful general, marks every avenue of approach, knows when to attack, when to yield; instantly seizes the first inconsistency of testimony, pursues his advantage with dexterity and caution, till at last he completely involves perjury in the confusion of its contradictions. And while the bribed and suborned witness is writhing in the mental agony of detected falsehood, wrings from him the truth, and snatches the devoted victim from the altar. It is when in a case of this kind he speaks to a jury, that he appears as if designed by providence to be the refuge of the unfortunate, and the protector of the oppressed. In the course of his eloquence, the claseic treasures of profane antiquity are exhausted. He draws fresh

supplies from the sacred fountain of living waters. The records of holy writ afford him the sublimest allusions. It is then he stirs every principle that agitates the heart or sways the conscience, carries his auditory whither he pleases, ascends from man to the Deity, and again almost seems to call down to earth fire from heaven. While they who listen, filled with a sense of inward greatness, feel the high nobility of their nature in beholding a being of the same species gifted with such transcendant qualities, and, wrapt in wonder and delight, have a momentary belief,—that to admire the talents, is to participate in the genius of the orator.

Mr. Curran has, from his first mixing with the world, enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of many who hold the first rank, in England and Ireland, for private integrity, public spirit, fine genius and literary acquirement, and is connected with some of them (not the least distinguished) in the bonds of the strictest friendship. In private life, his manners are cheerful, sportive and good-natured, never overvaluing himself.

The most limited talents in private intercourse were never forced by him into a feeling of inferiority, nor has he ever, in the most unrestrained hours of social mirth, panged the heart of any who were present: so well is his wit tempered by the urbanity of his disposition. It is much superior to that species which must always have an object to ridicule, and, to amuse a company, render one of the party miserable. Nor is it of that second rate mongrel kind, which always dwells in anecdote, to create an opportunity of quoting itself, but is of the purest genuine nature, flowing spontaneously from the subject of conversation.

The descendants of Mr. Curran, to the remotest period, may pride themselves on being sprung from a man, who, during seventeen years of public life, never voted in parliament contrary to the interest or liberty of his country; who, governing his political conduct by the maxims of an English whig and an Irish patriot, showed himself a genuine friend to the British empire-from him who never on any occasion was frowned by power or seduced by mean ambition into an abandonment of his client, but in every situation intrepidly performed the duty of an advocate." Who, if he had been a man "quoque facinore properans clarescere," instead of disdaining to acquire honours by means which would have rendered him unworthy of wearing them, might early in life have attained the proudest professional situations. The bar of Ireland will long hold in affectionate recollection, the man who always lived in an ingenuous and honourable intercourse with his competitors for fame, as Cicero did with Hortensius; who cherished, with the kindest notice, every appearance of excellence in the junior part of the profession; who never ostentatiously displayed his superiority; who, conscious of his great talents, bestowed praise wherever it was deserved; and was incapable of meanly detracting

Mr. ERSKINE is entitled to similar praise, though he has never been placed in situations equally trying. The state of England in 1794, and that of Ireland in 1798, were very different.