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trace all the maternal features in the filial piety that delight to portray them. After her death he placed an humble mo ument over her remains, upon which he inscribed the follo ing memorial, as well as I can recollect it from his very fr quent recital:

"Here lieth all that was mortal of MARTHA CURRAN-a woman

many virtues-few foibles-great talents, and no vice. This tabl was inscribed to her memory by a son who loved her, and who she loved."

Indeed, his recurrences to her memory were continual. H often told me that, after his success at the bar, which happi she lived to see, and the fruits of which to her death she shared Mrs. Curran has said to him, " O Jacky, Jacky, what a preach er was lost in you!" The observation proved rather her sa gacity than her prudence. Had he directed his talents to th Church, there can be no doubt his success would have bee splendid: he would have been the poorest and the most pop ular preacher of the day. He was too independent to fawn and had too much genius to rise-he would have been adored by the congregation, hated by the bishops, starved on a curacy and buried perhaps by the parish! Such is often enough the history of such men in the Church. I remember him once in an action for a breach of promise of marriage, in which he was counsel for the defendant, a young clergyman, thus appealing to the jury: "Gentlemen, I entreat of you not to ruin this young man by a vindictive verdict, for, though he has talents and is in the Church, he may rise!" His mother, too patriotic not to have a large family, was of course too much occupied to attend to him exclusively. His father was divided between law and agriculture, and Master Jacky was left to his own devices. At the fairs, where wit and whisky provoked alternately the laugh and the fracture at the wake, where the living so mourned the dead that there was soon but little difference between them, he appeared now a mourner and now a mime, until the court of his father was quite scandalized, and the wit of his mother acknowledged to be hereditary.

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this period a circumstance occurred which he delighted to te, as he comically said it first proved his aptitude for or-y. The keeper of a street puppet-show arrived at Newcket, to the no small edification of the neighborhood; and feats of Mr. Punch, and the eloquence of his man, soon suseded every other topic. At length, however, Mr. Punch's n fell ill, and the whole establishment was threatened with mediate ruin. Little Curran, who had with his eyes and s devoured the puppet-show, and never missed the corner its exhibition, proposed himself to the manager as Mr. nch's man. The offer was gladly accepted; and for a time success of the substitute was quite miraculous. Crowds on crowds attended every performance; Mr. Punch's man Is the universal admiration. At length, before one of the ost crowded audiences, he began to expatiate upon the vilge politics; he described the fairs, told the wake secrets, cartured the audience; and, after disclosing every amour, and tailing every scandal, turned with infinite ridicule upon the ry priest of the parish! This was the signal for a general tery. Every man and maid who had laughed at their neighr's picture, and pretended not to recognize their own, were trageously scandalized at such familiarity with the clergy. eligion, as on larger theaters, was made the scape-goat; and ■ one and all, sentence of banishment was passed upon Mr. unch. He was honorable, however, in his concealment of ne substitute, whose prudence deprecated such dangerous cebrity. Curran, in after times, used often to declare that he ever produced such an effect upon any audience as in the umble character of Mr. Punch's man.

At this period of his life it was that an incident occurred which, molding, as it did, his future fortunes, the reader shall ave as nearly as possible as he related it. "I was then,” aid he, "a little ragged apprentice to every kind of idleness nd mischief, all day studying whatever was eccentric in those lder, and half the night practicing it for the amusement of hose who were younger than myself. Heaven only knows where it would have ended. But, as my mother said, I v born to be a great man. One morning I was playing at m bles in the village ball-alley, with a light heart and a ligh pocket. The gibe, and the jest, and the plunder went garound; those who won, laughed, and those who lost, cheate when suddenly there appeared among us a stranger of ve venerable and very cheerful aspect. His intrusion was r the least restraint upon our merry little assemblage; on t contrary, he seemed pleased, and even delighted: he was a l nevolent creature, and the days of infancy (after all, the ha piest we shall ever see) perhaps rose upon his memory. Go bless him! I see his fine form, at the distance of half a ce tury, just as he stood before me in the little ball-alley in th days of my childhood! His name was Boyse; he was the re tor of Newmarket. To me he took a particular fancy; I wa winning, and was full of waggery, thinking every thing tha was eccentric, and by no means a miser of my eccentricities every one was welcome to share them, and I had plenty t spare after having freighted the company. Some sweetmeat easily bribed me home with him. I learned from poor Boys my alphabet and my grammar, and the rudiments of the class ics: he taught me all he could, and then he sent me to the school at Middleton-in short, he made a man of me. I rec ollect, it was about five-and-thirty years afterward, when I had risen to some eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in Parliament, and a good house in Ely Place, on my return one day from court I found an old gentleman seated alone in the drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed on each side of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the consciousness of one quite at home. He turned roundit was my friend of the ball-alley! I rushed instinctively into his arms. I could not help bursting into tears. Words can not describe the scene which followed. 'You are right, sir; you are right: the chimney-piece is yours-the pictures are yours-the house is yours: you gave me all I have-my friend - my father!" He dined with me; and in the evening I

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at the tear glistening in his fine blue eye when he saw por little Jacky, the creature of his bounty, rising in the e of Commons to reply to a right honorable. Poor Boyse! now gone; and no suitor had a larger deposit of practienevolence in the court above. This is his wine-let us =to his memory." Such is a very faint and very humble ation of the manner in which Mr. Curran used to relate most interesting era in his history; and I never heard him to it without weeping. In this place, however, it may s well to remark, that neither his wit nor his eloquence receive any thing like justice from even the most gifted ator. It would be quite as easy to paint the waving of a d-the spell consisted in the very magic of the movement ; until the charm of manner can be conveyed in words, the er must fancy in vain the almost supernatural effect of

ran.

t the school of Mr. Carey, in the town of Middleton, he reed more than the common classical education of the coun

He owed much to the talent and attention of this gennan, and was always ready to acknowledge it. Indeed, -e were few men in any country, or of any class, who had nore general, if not profound acquaintance with the best lels of ancient literature. The Greek and Latin poets ht be said to be his companions, and his quotations from Em, both in conversation and at the bar, were apt and fremt. I remember him myself, in the cabin of one of the yhead packets, when we were all rolling in a storm, very berately opening his bag, taking out a little pocket Virgil, - sitting down con amore to the fourth book of the Eneid, which, he told me in the morning, he had been crying all ht. For my part, as I very unclassically remarked, Dido ght have hanged herself at the mast-head without exciting me, at the time, an additional emotion. Those who have r enjoyed the comforts of a ship's cabin in a storm, will ow how to excuse my Vandalism. There is a witty innce, current among his friends, of the instantaneous application of his classical knowledge. When he was in college Rev. Dr. Hailes, one of the fellows, during a public exar tion, continually pronounced the word nimirum with a w quantity: it was naturally enough the subject of conversa and his reverence was rather unceremoniously handled by s of the academic critics. Curran affected to become his a cate: "The doctor is not to blame," said he; "there was one man in all Rome who understood the word, and Ho tells us so

"Septimius, Claudi, nimirum intelligit unus.'

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At another time, when an insect of very high birth, but very democratic habits, was caught upon the coat, about appearance of which he was never very solicitous, his fri Egan, observing it, maliciously exclaimed from Virgil, "E Curran:

""Cujum pecus? an Melibœi?" "

at the same time turning with a triumphant jocoseness to spectators. But Curran, in the coolest manner taking up t line, immediately retorted,

"Non, verum Ægonis-nuper mihi tradidit Ægon."

It is unnecessary to say against whom the laugh was turne but we must not anticipate. While, however, we are on t subject of his classical witticisms, his bon mot upon a broth barrister of the name of Going certainly deserves a plac This gentleman fully verified the old adage that a story nevloses in the telling; he took care continually to add to ever anecdote all the graces which could be derived from his ow embellishment. An instance of this was one day remarked Curran, who scarcely knew one of his own stories, it had s grown by the carriage. "I see," said he, "the proverb is quit applicable- Vires acquirit eundo'-it gathers by Going." The records of a schoolboy's life afford but little for detai or observation. He could not have been very idle, and h

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