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your daughter, however lovely, without feeling | such reflections, he had innumerable difficulties that you are of a different sex. It is that which and obstacles to contend with. He could not enables you, in the same manner, to live familiarly with your nearest female relations, without those desires which are natural to man.

the principle

friendship.

but hear, in the first refusals of this unhappy lady, every thing to awaken conscience, and even to excite horror. In the arguments he must have employed to seduce her from her duty, he could not but recollect and willfully trample upon his own. He was a year engaged in the pursuit; he resorted repeatedly to his shameful purpose, and advanced to it at such intervals of time and distance, as entitle me to say, that he determined in cold blood to enjoy a future and momentary gratification, at the expense of every principle of honor which is held sacred among gentlemen, even where no laws interpose their obligations or restraints.

society in such

I call upon you, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, to consider well this case-for A jury the chief it is your office to keep human life vindicators of in tone; your verdict must decide cases. whether such a case can be indulgently considered, without tearing asunder the bonds which

Aggravations

Gentlemen, I am not preaching a religion which men can scarcely practice. I am not affecting a severity of morals in the present beyond the standard of those whom I am accustomed to respect, and with whom I associate in common life. I am not making a stalk

instance.

Next to the tie of blood (if not, indeed, before Application of it) is the sacred and spontaneous reto the case of lation of friendship. The man who comes under the roof of a married friend, ought to be under the dominion of the same moral restraint; and, thank God, generally is so, from the operation of the causes which I have described. Though not insensible to the charms of female beauty, he receives its impressions under an habitual reserve, which honor imposes. Hope is the parent of desire, and honor tells him he must not hope. Loose thoughts may arise, but they are rebuked and dissipated: "Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind."-Milton. Gentlemen, I trouble you with these reflections, that you may be able properly to appre-unite society together. ciate the guilt of the defendant, and to show you, that you are not in a case where large allowances are to be made for the ordinary infirmities of our imperfect natures. When a man does wrong in the heat of sudden passion-as, for instance, when, upon receiving an affront, he rushes into immediate violence, even to the dep-ing-horse of adultery, to excite exaggerated senrivation of life, the humanity of the law classes timent. This is not the case of a gentleman his offense among the lower degrees of homi- meeting a handsome woman in a public street or cide; it supposes the crime to have been com- in a place of public amusement; where, finding mitted before the mind had time to parley with the coast clear for his addresses, without interitself. But is the criminal act of such a person, ruption from those who should interrupt, he finds however disastrous may be the conse- himself engaged (probably the successor of anquence, to be compared with that of other) in a vain and transitory intrigue. It is the defendant? Invited into the house not the case of him who, night after night, falls of a friend-received with the open arms of af- in with the wife of another, to whom he is a fection, as if the same parents had given them stranger, in the boxes of a theater, or other rebirth and bred them-in THIS situation, this most sorts of pleasure, inviting admirers by indecent monstrous and wicked defendant deliberately dress and deportment, unattended by any thing perpetrated his crime; and, shocking to relate, which bespeaks the affectionate wife and mother not only continued the appearances of friendship of many children. Such connections may be of after he had violated its most sacred obligations, evil example; but I am not here to reform pubbut continued them as a cloak to the barbarous lic manners, but to demand private justice. It is repetitions of his offense-writing letters of re-impossible to assimilate the sort of cases I have gard, while, perhaps, he was the father of the alluded to, which ever will be occasionally oclast child, whom his injured friend and compan- curring, with this atrocious invasion of household ion was embracing and cherishing as his own! peace-this portentous disregard of every thing What protection can such conduct possibly re- held sacred among men, good or evil. Nothing, ceive from the humane consideration of the law indeed, can be more affecting than even to be for sudden and violent passions? A passion for called upon to state the evidence I must bring a woman is progressive; it does not, like anger, before you. I can scarcely pronounce to you gain an uncontrolled ascendency in a moment, that the victim of the defendant's lust was the nor is a modest matron to be seduced in a day. mother of nine children, seven of them females Such a crime can not, therefore, be committed and infants, unconscious of their unhappy condiunder the resist less dominion of sudden infirmi- tion, deprived of their natural guardian, separaty; it must be deliberately, willfully, and wickedly ted from her forever, and entering the world with committed. The defendant could not possibly a dark cloud hanging over them. But it is not have incurred the guilt of this adultery without in the descending line alone that the happiness often passing through his mind (for he had the of this worthy family is invaded. It hurts me to education and principles of a gentleman) the call before you the venerable progenitor of both very topics I have been insisting upon before you the father and the children, who has risen by exfor his condemnation. Instead of being sudden-traordinary learning and piety to his eminent rank ly impelled toward mischief, without leisure for in the Church; and who, instead of receiving,

Abuse of friendship by the defendant.

without parallel

such offenses.

Mr. Erskine's

have this made a criminal of fense.

unmixed and undisturbed, the best consolation | Why does he come here for money? Thank God, of age, in counting up the number of his de- gentlemen, IT IS NOT MY FAULT. I scendants, carrying down the name and honor of take honor to myself, that I was one exertions to his house to future times, may be forced to turn of those who endeavored to put an end aside his face from some of them that bring to his to this species of action, by the adopremembrance the wrongs which now oppress tion of a more salutary course of proceeding. him, and which it is his duty to forget, because I take honor to myself, that I was one of those it is his, otherwise impossible, duty to forgive who supported in Parliament the adoption of a them. law to pursue such outrages with the terrors of criminal justice. I thought then, and I shall always think, that every act malum in se directly injurious to an individual, and most pernicious in its consequences to society, should be considered to be a misdemeanor. Indeed, I know of no other definition of the term. The Legislature, however, thought otherwise, and I bow to its decis ion; but the business of this day may produce some changes of opinion on the subject. I never meant that every adultery was to be similarly considered. Undoubtedly, there are cases where it is comparatively venial, and judges would not overlook the distinctions. I am not a pretender to any extraordinary purity. My severity is confined to cases in which there can be but one sentiment among men of honor, as to the offense, though they may differ in the mode and measure of its correction.

Gentlemen, if I make out this case by eviIt is one almost dence (and if I do not, forget every in the history of thing you have heard, and reproach me for having abused your honest feelings), I have established a claim for damages that has no parallel in the annals of fashionable adultery. It is rather like the entrance of Sin and Death into this lower world. The undone pair were living like our first parents in Paradise, till this demon saw and envied their happy condition. Like them, they were in a moment cast down from the pinnacle of human happiness into the very lowest abyss of sorrow and despair. In one point, indeed, the resemblance does not hold, which, while it aggravates the crime, redoubles the sense of suffering. It was not from an enemy, but from a friend, that this evil proceeded. I have just had put into my hand a quotation from the Psalms upon this subject, full of that unaffected simplicity which so strikingly characterizes the sublime and sacred poet:

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It is not an open enemy that hath done me this dishonor, for then I could have borne it.

"Neither was it mine adversary that did magnify himself against me; for then, peradventure, I would have hid myself from him.

of mitigating

cases of this

It is this difference of sentiment, gentlemen, that I am alone afraid of. I fear you Dangerous may think there is a sort of limitation consequences in verdicts, and that you may look to damages in precedents for the amount of damages, kind. though you can find no precedent for the magnitude of the crime; but you might as well abolish the action altogether, as lay down a principle

"But it was even thou, my companion, my which limits the consequences of adultery to guide, mine own familiar friend." what it may be convenient for the adulterer to pay.

By the adoption of such a principle, or by any mitigation of severity, arising even from an insufficient reprobation of it, you unbar the sanctuary of domestic happiness, and establish a sort of license for debauchery, to be sued out like other licenses, at its price. A man has only to put money into his pocket, according to his degree and fortune, and he may then debauch the wife or daughter of his best friend, at the expense he chooses to go to. He has only to say to himself, what Iago says to Roderigo in the play,

Put money in thy purse-go to-put money in thy

purse.*

This is not the language of counsel, but the inspired language of truth. I ask you solemnly, upon your honors and your oaths, if you would exchange the plaintiff's former situation for his present, for a hundred times the compensation he requires at your hands. I am addressing myself to affectionate husbands and to the fathers of beloved children. Suppose I were to say to you, There is twenty thousand pounds for you: embrace your wife for the last time, and the child that leans upon her bosom and smiles upon you -retire from your house, and make way for the adulterer-wander about an object for the hand of scorn to point its slow and moving finger atthink no more of the happiness and tranquillity of your former state-I have destroyed them for-way, deprive the best men in the country of their ever. But never mind-don't make yourself uneasy-here is a draft upon my banker, it will be paid at sight—there is no better man in the city. I can see you think I am mocking you, gentlemen, and well you may; but it is the very pith and marrow of this cause. It is impossible to put the argument in mitigation of damages in plain English, without talking such a language, as appears little better than an insult to your understandings, dress it up as you will.

But it may be asked-if no money can be an adequate, or, indeed, any compensation, why is Mr. Markham a plaintiff in a CIVIL ACTION?

Persons of immense fortunes might, in this

domestic satisfactions, with what to them might be considered as impunity. The most abandoned profligate might say to himself, or to other profligates, "I have suffered judgment by default-let them send down their deputy-sheriff to the King's Arms Tavern; I shall be concealed from the eye of the public-I have drawn upon my banker for the utmost damages, and I have as much more to spare to-morrow, if I can find another woman whom I would choose to enjoy at such a price.” In this manner I have seen a rich delinquent, too

♦ Othello, Act i., Scene 3.

Mr. Phillips speaks of seeing him, late in life, on board a Holyhead packet in a storm, absorbed in the Æneid, while every one around was deadly sick; and in the last journey he ever took, Horace and Virgil were still, as in early life, his traveling companions. He was also distinguished at college for his love of metaphysical inquiries and subtle disquisition. He showed great ingenuity in the discussion of subjects; and his companions were so much struck with his dexterity and force on a certain occasion, that they declared, with one consent, that "the bar, and the bar alone, was the proper profession for the talents of which he had that day given such striking proof." "He accepted the omen," says his son, and never after repented of his decision."

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Having completed his college course, and qualified himself for the degree of Master of Arts, in 1773, he removed to London, and commenced the study of the law in the Middle Temple. Here he was supported in part by a wealthy friend, but his life in London was a hard one." He spent his mornings, as he states, "in reading even to exhaustion," and the rest of the day in the more congenial pursuits of literature, and especially in unremitted efforts to perfect himself as a speaker. His voice was bad, and his articulation so hasty and confused, that he went among his schoolfellows by the name of "stuttering Jack Curran." His manner was awkward, his gesture constrained and meaningless, and his whole appearance calculated only to produce laughter, notwithstanding the evidence he gave of superior abilities. All these faults he overcame by severe and patient labor. Constantly on the watch against bad habits, he practiced daily before a glass, reciting passages from Shakspeare, Junius, and the best English orators. He frequented the debating societies, which then abounded in London; and though mortified at first by repeated failures, and ridiculed by one of his opponents as Orator Mum," he surmounted every dif ficulty. He turned his shrill and stumbling brogue," says one of his friends, “into a flexible, sustained, and finely-modulated voice; his action became free and forcible; he acquired perfect readiness in thinking on his legs;" he put down every opponent by the mingled force of his argument and wit, and was at last crowned with the universal applause of the society, and invited by the president to an entertainment in their behalf. Well might one of his biographers say, His oratorical training was as severe as any Greek ever underwent."

Mr. Curran married during his residence in London, with but little accession to his fortune, and, returning soon after to Ireland, commenced the practice of the law in Dublin, at the close of 1775. He soon rose into business, because he could not do without it; verifying the remark of Lord Eldon, that some barristers succeed by great talents, some by high connections, some by miracle, but the great majority by commencing without a shilling." Within four years, he gained an established reputation and a lucrative practice; and at this time, 1779, he united with Mr. Yelverton, afterward Lord Avonmore, in forming a Society, called "The Monks of the Order of St. Patrick," embracing a large part of the wit, literature, eloquence, and public virtue of the metropolis of Ireland. From the title familiarly given its members of the "Monks of the Screw," it has been supposed by many to have been chiefly a drinking-club. So far was this from being the case, that, by an express regulation, every thing stronger than beer was excluded from the meeting. It was a union,"

1 Mr. Curran's feelings toward Mr. Boyse, who sent him to College, were expressed in a story he once told at his own table. "Thirty-five years after," said he, "returning one day from court, I found an old gentleman seated in my drawing-room, with his feet on each side of the marble chimney-piece, and an air of being perfectly at home. He turned-it was my friend of the ball-alley! I could not help bursting into tears. You are right, sir, you are right! The chimney-piece is yours, the pictures are yours, the house is yours: you gave me all—my friend, my father! He went with me to Parliament, and I saw the tears glistening in his eyes when he saw his poor little Jackey rise to answer a Right Honorable. He is gone, sir. This is his wine-let us drink his health!"

says one acquainted with its proceedings, "of strong minds, brought together like electric clouds by affinity, and flashing as they joined. They met, and shone, and warmed they had great passions and generous accomplishments, and, like all that was then good in Ireland, they were heaving for want of freedom." Nearly thirty years after, when the angry politics of the day had thrown Lord Avonmore and his friend into hostile parties, so that they were no longer on speaking terms, Mr. Curran adverted to the meetings of this society in arguing a case before Lord Avonmore, as Chief Baron of the Exchequer, in a manner which was deeply interesting to those who witnessed it. After delicately alluding to his Lordship, as differing from the Chief Justice of England on a point of law, and as having "derived his ideas from the purest fountains of Athens and Rome," Mr. Curran expressed his hope that such would be the decision of the court, embracing as it did members of the society referred to. "And this soothing hope," said he, "I draw from the dearest and tenderest recollections of my life-from the remembrance of those Attic nights, and those refections of the gods, which we have spent with those admired, and respected, and beloved companions who have gone before us; over whose ashes the most precious tears of Ireland have been shed. [Here Lord Avonmore became so much affected that he could not refrain from tears.] Yes, my good Lord, I see you do not forget them. I see their sacred forms passing in sad review before your memory. I see your pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meetings, where the innocent enjoyment of social mirth became expanded into the nobler warmth of social virtue, and the horizon of the board became enlarged into the horizon of man-where the swelling heart conceived and communicated the pure and generous purpose-where my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrowed light from the more matured and redundant fountain of yours. Yes, my Lord, we can remember those nights without any other regret than that they can never more return; for,

"We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine,

But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poesy,

Arts which I loved-for they, my friend, were thine."-COWLEY.

The space allowed to this sketch will not permit any minute detail of Mr. Curran's labors at the bar or in public life. Nor was there any thing in either which calls for an extended notice. He was a member of the Irish House of Commons from 1783 to 1797, and entered warmly into the cause of emancipation and reform; but he was never distinguished as a parliamentary orator. His education was forensic; his feelings and habits fitted him pre-eminently to act on the minds of a jury, and for more than twenty years he had an unrivaled mastery over the Irish bar. His speeches at state trials arising out of the United Irish conspiracy, were the most splendid efforts of his genius. He condemned insurrection; but he felt that the people had been goaded to madness by the oppression of the government, and for nearly six years he tasked every effort of his being to save the victims of misguided and unsuccessful resistance. He did it at the hazard of his life. As he drove to town at this period from his residence in a neighboring village, he was in daily expectation of being shot at. The court-room was crowded with troops during some of the trials, with a view, it was believed, of intimidating the jury or the advocates of the prisoners. "What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Curran, as a clash of arms was heard from the soldiery at the close of one of his bold denunciations of the course

2 Lord Avonmore, in whose breast political resentment was easily subdued by the same noble tenderness of feeling which distinguished Charles J. Fox upon a more celebrated occasion, could not withstand this appeal to his heart. The moment the court rose, his Lordship sent for his friend, and threw himself into his arms, declaring that unworthy artifices had been used to separate them and that they should never succeed in future.