the wild
horrors of barbaric tyranny, the fall of thrones, once dazzling the eye
and the mind with all the splendours of Oriental empire; himself the
chosen pleader for India, in the presence of the assembled rank,
dignity, and authority of England. There can be no question of the
genius which showed itself competent to so illustrious a labour. But the
materials were boundless; the occasion was a summons to all the energies
of the human intellect; never was the draught of human praise, the spell
of that enchantress which holds the spirit of men in most undisputed
sway, presented to the lip in a more jewelled goblet.

But Curran spoke almost wholly deprived of those resistless stimulants;
his topics were comparatively trivial--the guilt of provincial
conspiracy, incurred by men chiefly in the humbler ranks of life, and in
all instances obscure. No great principles of national right were to
live or die upon the success of his pleading; no distressed nation held
him as its advocate; no impregnable barrier against oppression in Europe
or Asia was to be inscribed with his name. He was simply the advocate in
the narrow courts of a dependent kingdom--humiliated by the hopeless
effort to rescue a succession of unfortunate beings whose lives were in
the grasp of justice--compressed on every side by localities of time,
habit, and opinion; and thwarted alike by the clamour of prejudice and
the frowns of authority. Yet his speeches at the bar are matchless, to
this hour. His creative powers seemed to rejoice in the very emptiness
of the space which they were to fill with life, lustre, and beauty. Of
all the great speakers, his images arose from the simplest conceptions;
while they rapidly wrought themselves into magnitude and splendour. They
reminded me of the vapours rising from the morning field--thin, vague,
and colourless, but suddenly seized by the wind, swelling into volume,
and ascending till they caught the sunbeams, and shone with the purple
and gold of the summer cloud. This trial of the unfortunate rebel leader
gave him a signal opportunity for the exertion of his extraordinary
faculties. It had excited the deepest interest throughout the country.
Thousands had flocked from all parts of the land to be present at a
crisis which involved the national feelings in the highest degree; which
involved the personal safety of individuals, perhaps of a much superior
rank to the accused; and, above all, which seemed to fix the stamp