The author of this important and interesting volume, in a brief preface, states his object as being that of giving personal sketches of the leading Irish characters of his time, exactly as they appeared on the scenes of professional and public life--most of them being his acquaintance, some his intimates. He concludes by gracefully expressing his "hope, that the reader will rejoice in a more intimate acquaintance with them; and that, in endeavouring to _elevate the land of his birth_, he may make some return for the kindness bestowed on him by that of his adoption."
Here two objects are announced; and, whether the _first_ was the elevation of his country by the characters of its eminent men; or, whether the country was the background for the figures of the national history-piece, he has given us a work which brings the patriots and orators of Ireland with singular force before the eye.
His introduction to Curran was sufficiently characteristic. When at the Temple, he had written a poem on the honours of his country, in which the great orator of her Bar was named with due admiration. The popularity of the verses excited the attention of their object, and the young barrister received an invitation to dine with Curran, then Master of the Rolls, at the Priory, his villa, a few miles from Dublin. The appointed hour was five, and it was a matter of importance to be punctual; for beyond that hour dinner was to wait for no man. His first view of his host is graphically described. He found him in his avenue.
"There he was; as a thousand times afterwards I saw him, in a dress which you would imagine he had borrowed from his tipstaff; his hands in his sides, his face almost parallel with the horizon--his under lip protruded, and the impatient step and the eternal attitude, only varied by the pause in which his eye glanced from his guest to his watch, and from his watch reproachfully to his dining-room."
However, it appears that the ominous hour had not struck, and they dined.
"I had often seen Curran, often heard of him, often read him, but no man ever _knew_ anything about him who did not see him at his own table, with the few whom he selected.... It was said of Swift, that his rule was, to allow a minute's pause after he had concluded, and then if no person took up the conversation to recommence. Curran had no conversational _rule_ whatever: he spoke from impulse, and he had the art so to draw you into a conversation, that, though you felt an inferiority, it was a contented one. Indeed, nothing could exceed the urbanity of his demeanour."