“In Phillips’s ‘Life of Curran’ we have a vast deal, in that gentleman’s peculiar style, about the great uneasiness and the tender feelings of his hero, concerning his domestic circumstances. There is much fustian of the same kind in O’Regan’s ‘Memoirs of Curran,’ but I am very much inclined to think that no such sorrows existed. In Ireland it is very generally believed that Mrs. Curran was an extremely injured woman, and her family, a highly respectable one, received her with open arms after the verdict obtained against her supposed paramour. Many ugly stories are current with respect to the evidence adduced on the trial; and Curran was so anxious to hinder the proceedings on it from obtaining publicity, that he had notices served on all the newspapers of Dublin, enjoining them not to publish it, and accordingly it never was given to the public.

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“The reason that inclines me to think that he never felt very severely his matrimonial misfortune, is the great levity with which he was frequently in the habit of speaking about it. A couple of coarse jests on the subject have come to my knowledge, for the accuracy of the first of which I can positively vouch, and the second I have on tolerably good authority. He was a fine musician, and had frequently concerts in his house in Dublin. At one of these a young barrister of Cork, a distinguished amateur, bore a part. After the concert had concluded, Curran went up to him and said, ‘Well, H——, what do you think of that? Do you think it at least as good as any of your Cork concerts?’ ‘Why,’ replied his friend, ‘it was very fine; but in Cork we can procure military music much more readily than you can in Dublin. The want of it was very discernible in your concert; for instance,’ said he, repeating a passage, ‘would not the French horn have made a great improvement there?’ ‘Well, H——,’ said Curran, laughing, ‘you are the first who has complained of the want of horns in my house.’

“On another occasion, he and the late Sir Richard Musgrave, the historian of the ‘Rebellion in Ireland,’ whose lady’s frailties were numerous and notorious, met at the house of a common friend. They were decidedly hostile in politics to each other, and had even proceeded to personal altercations. On being summoned up stairs to the dining-room, they happened to arrive at the foot of the stairs together, and, as it is usual on such occasions when enemies meet, their behaviour was ceremoniously polite. Weary at length of alternately ceding the pas, Sir Richard, assuming an air of familiarity, took him by the arm, and said, ‘Well, well, let us settle the matter by walking up together.’ ‘Pardon me, Sir Richard,’ replied Curran, ‘that is impossible; our antlers would entangle.’

DR. MAGINN: CURRAN.

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“He that could jest thus could not feel deeply. I have heard also, that on the day of the trial in which his wife’s character was involved, he appeared in an obscure corner of the court, where, however, he could be seen by the opposing lawyer, and there diverted himself with putting him out during his speech, by erecting his fore fingers over his ears, making faces, and performing various droll gesticulations, for which he had a peculiar talent. Whether this be true or not I cannot say, but it is commonly believed; and I am sure that could he hear half the eloquence bestowed on his woes by Phillips he would laugh outright in his face. That he had not a very high opinion of his biographer, the following anecdote will evince. He came into Phillips’s room one day while he was writing, and inquired what he was about; ‘I am writing a speech, sir,’ was the reply, ‘and I can tell you that I intend to give your friend, Mr. Grattan, a rating in it.’ ‘Never mind, Charley,’ said Curran, ‘never mind it; it would only be a child throwing a stone at the leg of a Colossus.’

“Curran’s talents were of the very first order, but they were too often sadly misapplied, and the stern moralist would find much to censure both in his public and in his private life; but he was a highly fascinating man in conversation. His wit, his drollery, his eloquence, his pathos, were all irresistible. The only defect in him in this respect was a love of acting, which made his wit often degenerate into mere buffoonery, and his pathos into canting and overstrained sentiment.

“It must have been in some of these latter moods that his biographers observed his sensibility; but there never was anything real in it. It was often put on even to convey ill-natured remarks, and as my straggling letter (which has far outstripped the bounds I at first intended)

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has been little more than a vehicle of jests, I shall conclude by giving another, connected with this splenetic tenderness of heart. At a supper party in Brighton, I believe, he began to lament the desolation of his old age; ‘he was a solitary, unfortunate old man,’ he said, ‘who had not even a child he could call his own.’ His son was sitting at table with him at the very time! This observation created much disgust in the company, and a young barrister who was present, in relating it afterwards to an elder brother of his profession, added with much vehemence, ‘By God, if my father had said so in my presence, I would have forgotten all filial reverence and knocked him down.’ ‘Ay,’ said the senior, ‘that would certainly prove that you were not a natural son.’