Memoirs of the Legal, Literary, and Political Life of the Late the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, Once Master of the Rolls in Ireland:: Comprising Copious Anecdotes of His Wit and Humour; and a Selection of His Poetry. : Interspersed with Occasional Biography of His Distinguished Contemporaries in the Senate and at the BarJames Harper ... and Richard Milliken ... Dublin., 1817 - 315 pages |
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admiration advocate affected anecdote appeared asked barrister beautiful called Catholics character Charles Massy Cicero client Clonmell conceived court Curran defence delight Demosthenes Doctor Dublin eloquence eminent England Epimenides equal fame feel fortune frequently genius gentleman George Ponsonby give Grattan ground Gylippus heard heart honour hope human humour Ireland Irish John Horne Tooke JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN judge judgement jury justice labour ladies Lantern Fly lawyer learned liberty look Lord Avonmore Lord Chancellor Lord Clare Lord Moira ment mind moral nation nature never noble object observed occasion opinion orator parliament pass passion patriotism perceived perhaps person Philpot plaintiff Plutarch political Ponsonby praise principles profession Pytheas racter Rathfarnham Reynolds shew speak speeches spirit suffered supposed talents taste thing thou thought tion told trial truth United Irishmen verdict virtue words
Popular passages
Page 62 - No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced ; — no matter what complexion incompatible .with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him ; — no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down ; — no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; •the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the God sink together in the dust; his.
Page 178 - There are men whose powers operate only at leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigour deserts them in conversation ; whom merriment confuses, and objection disconcerts : whose bashfulness restrains their exertion, and suffers them not to speak till the time of speaking is past; or whose attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been considered, and cannot be recalled.
Page 63 - Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust ; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible Genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.
Page 65 - In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example ! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of society, therefore — of peace — of domestic liberty — and the lasting union of the two countries — I conjure you to guard the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the state, that grand detector of public imposture; guard it, because, when it sinks, there sinks with...
Page 67 - ... researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic morality of her Burns —how, from the bosom of a country like that, genius and character and talents should be banished to a distant, barbarous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and base-born profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life?
Page 69 - The moment he ceases to be regarded as a criminal, he becomes of necessity an accuser : and let me ask you, what can your most zealous defenders be prepared to answer to such a charge ? When your sentence shall have sent him forth to that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, let me tell you, he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty pedestal...
Page 64 - ... bears him down, or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does the work of sedition go forward ? Night after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, and casts another and another brand upon the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will apply the flame.
Page 62 - I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil ; which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the Genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.
Page 198 - He had the peculiar felicity that his attention never deserted him : he was present to every object, and regardful of the most trifling occurrences. He had the art of escaping from his own reflections, and accommodating himself to every new scene.
Page 125 - Honourable to himself was his unsuspecting confidence, but fatal must we admit it to have been, when we look to the abuse committed upon it ; but where was the guilt of this indiscretion ? He did admit this noble lord to pass his threshold as his guest. Now the charge which this noble lord builds on this indiscretion is...