into the organic structure of all matter, even to the brute inanimate substances which the foot treads on. Such a man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine to “look through nature, up to nature's God." Yet the result of all his contemplation was the most confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in contempt as despicable and drivelling superstition. But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the foundations of human judgment, and the structure of that understanding which God has given us for the investigation of truth. Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who was, to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, a Christian. Mr. Locke, whose office was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the fountains of thought, and to divert into the proper track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratiocination; putting a rein, besides, upon false opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of human judgment. But these men were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind. Gentlemen, in the place were you now sit to administer the justice of this great country, above a century ago Sir Matthew Hale presided, whose faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits in man; administering human justice with a wisdom and purity drawn from the pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, which has been, and will be in all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration. But it is said by Mr. Paine that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient superstition of the world, and may be easily detected by the proper understanding of the mythologies of the heathens. Did Milton understand these mythologies? Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world? No; they were the subject of his immortal song; and though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order as the illustration of that real and exalted faith, the unquestionable source of that fervid genius which cast a sort of shade upon all the other works of man. "He passed the bounds of flaming space, But it was the light of the body only that was extinguished, “the celestial light shone inward," and enabled him to "justify the ways of God to man.” The result of his thinking was, nevertheless, not the same as Mr. Paine's. The mysterious incarnation of our blessed Saviour, which the "Age of Reason" blasphemes in words so wholly unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear of a court of 1797.] JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. justice, that I dare not, and will not, give them utterance-Milton made the grand conclusion of Paradise Lost, the rest of his finished labours, and the ultimate hope, expectation, and glory of the world : "A virgin is his mother, but his sire, The power of the Most High; he shall ascend With earth's wide bounds, his glory with the heavens." The immortal poet having thus put into the mouth of the angel the prophecy of man's redemption, follows it with that solemn and beautiful admonition, addressed in the poem to our great first parent, but intended as an address to his posterity throughout all generations : "This having learned, thou hast attained the sum Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or splendid, or illustrious, among created beings-all the minds gifted beyond ordinary nature, if not inspired by their universal author for the advancement and dignity of the world, though divided by distant ages, and by the clashing opinions distinguishing them from one another, yet joining, as it were, in one sublime chorus to celebrate the truths of Christianity, and laying upon its holy altars the never-failing offerings of their immortal wisdom. TH JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. HIS celebrated Irish barrister was of humble origin, and was born near Cork in 1750. After being educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he came to London, and studied law in the Temple. On his being called to the bar his splendid talents soon made themselves known, and he rose to eminence as an advocate. He became a member of the Irish House of Commons in 1784, and was a powerful member of the opposition until the Whigs came into office in 1806, when he was made Master of the Rolls in Ireland. This office he held till 1814. His oratorial powers have been described as of the most splendid kind, his wit, pathos, and withering sarcasm being alike irresistible, and though mean in personal appearance, and not always using his intellectual weapons with good taste, he well supported the character of a popular advocate and an effective debater. He died in 1817. The following eloquent passage is from a speech delivered by Mr. Curran on the 29th of January, 1794, in behalf of Michael Hamilton Rowan, when indicted for the publication of a seditious libel. Rowan was a gentleman of wealth and position in Dublin, and secretary of the Society of United Irishmen for that city-a body whose views did not extend beyond a constitutional reform. Curran was engaged as counsel for Mr. Rowan, and received instructions from his client, not so much to obtain his acquittal, as to defend his principles. A Vindication of Irish Parliamentary Reform. GENTLEMEN,-The representation of your people is the vital principle of their political existence. Without it they are dead, or they live only in servitude. Without it there are two estates acting upon and against the third, instead of acting in co-operation with it. Without it, if the people are oppressed by their judges, where is the tribunal to which their judges can be amenable? Without it, if they are trampled upon and plundered by a minister, where is the tribunal to which the offender shall be amenable? Without it, where is the ear to hear, or the heart to feel, or the hand to redress their sufferings? Shall they be found, let me ask you, in the accursed bands of imps and minions that bask in their disgrace, and fatten upon their spoils, and flourish upon their ruin? But let me not put this to you as a merely speculative question. It is a plain question of fact; rely upon it, physical man is everywhere the same; it is only the various operations of moral causes that gives variety to the social or individual character and condition. How otherwise happens it that modern slavery looks quietly at the despot, on the very spot where Leonidas expired. The answer is easy; Sparta has not changed her climate, but she has lost that government which her liberty could not survive. I call you, therefore, to the plain question of fact. This paper recommends a reform in Parliament: I put that question to your conscience; do you think it needs that reform? I put it boldly and fairly to you; do you think the people of Ireland are represented as they ought to be? Do you hesitate for an answer? If you do, let me remind you that, until the last year, three millions of your countrymen have, by the express letter of the law, been excluded from the reality of actual, and even from the phantom of virtual representation. Shall we, then, be told that this is only the affirmation of a wicked and seditious incendiary? If you do not feel the mockery of such a charge, look at your country; in what state do you find it? Is it in a state of tranquillity and general satisfaction? These are traces by which good are ever to be distinguished from bad governments, without any very minute inquiry or speculative refinement. Do you feel that a veneration for the law, a pious and humble attachment to the Constitution, form the political morality of the people? Do you find that comfort and competency among 1794.] JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. your people which are always to be found where a government is mild and moderate, where taxes are imposed by a body who have an interest in treating the poorer orders with compassion, and preventing the weight of taxation from pressing sore upon them? Gentlemen, I mean not to impeach the state of your representation; I am not saying that it is defective, or that it ought to be altered or amended; nor is this a place for me to say whether I think that three millions of the inhabitants of a country, whose whole number is but four, ought to be admitted to any efficient situation in the State. It may be said, and truly, that these are not questions for either of us directly to decide; but you cannot refuse them some passing consideration, at least when you remember that on this subject the real question for your decision is, whether the allegation of a defect in your Constitution is so utterly unfounded and false, that you can ascribe it only to the malice and perverseness of a wicked mind, and not to the innocent mistake of an ordinary understanding; whether it may not be mistake; whether it can be only sedition? And here, gentlemen, I own I cannot but regret that one of our countrymen should be criminally pursued for asserting the necessity of a reform, at the very moment when that necessity seems admitted by the Parliament itself; that this unhappy reform shall, at the same moment, be a subject of legislative discussion and criminal prosecution. Far am I from imputing any sinister design to the virtue or wisdom of our Government; but who can avoid feeling the deplorable impression that must be made on the public mind when the demand for that reform is answered by a criminal information! I am the more forcibly impressed by this consideration, when I consider that when this information was first put on the file, the subject was transiently mentioned in the House of Commons. Some circumstance retarded the progress of the inquiry there, and the progress of the information was equally retarded here. On the first day of the session you all know that subject was again brought forward in the House of Commons, and, as if they had slept together, this prosecution was also revived in the Court of King's Bench, and that before a jury taken from a panel partly composed of those very members of Parliament who, in the House of Commons, must debate upon this subject as a measure of public advantage, which they are here called upon to consider as a public crime.* This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the necessity of emancipating the Catholics of Ireland, and that is charged as a part of the libel. If they had kept this prosecution impending for another year, how much would remain for a jury to decide upon, I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the progress of public reformation was eating away the ground of the prosecution. Since the commence * The jury was taken from a panel containing the names of a number of members of Parliament. ment of the prosecution this part of the libel has unluckily received the sanction of the Legislature. In that interval our Catholic brethren have obtained that admission which, it seems, it was a libel to propose. In what way to account for this I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren? Has the bigoted malignity of any individuals been crushed? Or has the stability of the Government, or has that of the country, been weakened? Or are one million of subjects stronger than four millions? Do you think that the benefit they received should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance? If you think so you must say to them, "You have demanded emancipation, and you have got it; but we abhor your persons, we are outraged at your success; and we will stigmatize, by a criminal prosecution, the relief which you have obtained from the voice of your country.” I ask you, gentlemen, do you think, as honest men anxious for the public tranquillity, conscious that there are wounds not yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to speak this language, at this time, to men who are too much disposed to think that in this very emancipation they have been saved from their own Parliament by the humanity of their sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare them for the revocation of these improvident concessions? Do you think it wise or human at this moment to insult them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to stand forth their advocate? I put it to your oaths, do you think that a blessing of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to propose that measure? To propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the Church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it; giving, I say, in the so-much-censured words of this paper, giving “universal emancipation!" 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 the 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!" 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 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 *In 1793, after the prosecution was commenced, the Irish Parliament passed a Bill giving the right of suffrage to Catholics, and conferring a large part of the rights and privileges desired. |