ask "what in the world the young lady could have meant by such strange conduct?" to which he would only archly reply: "Come, come, your ladyship must know that there is but one thing in the world that it could have meant, and the meaning of that is so literal, that it does not require a commentator."

The name of Mr. Boyse occurred in his last letter; the friend of his childhood, between whom and Mr. Curran the most cordial intercourse continued, until death dissolved it." The delicacy of that gentleman's health had obliged him to reside, for several years past, upon the Continent, from which he regularly corresponded with his former pupil. One of his letters, written in this year, shall be inserted, as an example of the kind and confidential feeling that pervades them all.

"TO J. P. CURRAN, ESQ.-ELY PLACE, DUBLIN.

"DEAR JACK,

"BRUXELLES, Feb. 7, 1787.

"I hope my friend's affairs are going well, and flourishing as when I left him: mine, I suppose, are in the last stage of consumption, so that I almost dread to make inquiry about them. My health has been so good this winter, that I came from Aix here to escort a Mr. Low and family, my relations, who are on their road to England and Ireland. To-morrow, I return to Aixla-Chapelle, for the remainder of the winter. I hope you were paid the money I drew on you for, as I must soon draw on you again for £60. If I have no funds at Newmarket, I shall write to Dick Boyse to pay you, and shall always take care that you shall be no sufferer by me.

"Let me hear how you go on, and what chance you have of the bench. I wish you had realized seven or eight hundred a year for your family. Is your health good, and your life regular? I saw Grattan and Fitzgibbon at Spa; the former friendly and agreeable, the latter disagreeable to every one. I dined with

*Mr. Boyse died a few years after the date of this letter.-C.

him and Mr. Orde, at a club where we are members, but he was solemn and displeasing to us all. My compliments to Grattan and his wife, and ask him for her on my part; she is very amiable. What is to become of us with the White Boys? If I am not an absolute beggar, I will go home the latter end of the How go on all your children? An account of yourself and them will give me pleasure. With best wishes to you all, "I am, dear Jack, yours, sincerely,

summer.

"NAT. BOYSE."

Mr. Boyse came over to Ireland in the following year. Upon the morning of his arrival in Dublin, as he was on his way to Ely Place, he was met by his friend, who was proceeding in great haste to the Courts, and had only time to welcome him, and bid him defer his visit till the hour of dinner. Mr. Curran invited a number of the eminent men at the bar to meet Mr. Boyse; and on returning home at a late hour from court, with some of his guests, found the clergyman, still in his travelling dress, seated in a familiar posture at the fire, with a foot resting upon each side of the grate. 'Well, Jack," said he turning round his head, but never altering his position, "here have I been for this hour past, admiring all the fine things that I see around me, and wondering where you could have got them all." "You would not dare," returned Mr. Curran, deeply affected by the recollections which the observation called up, "to assume such an attitude, or use so little ceremony, if you were not conscious that every thing you see is your own. Yes, my first and best of friends, it is to you that I am indebted for it all. The little boy whose mind you formed, and whose hopes you animated, profiting by your instructions, has risen to eminence and affluence; but the work is yours; what you see is but the paltry stucco upon the building of which you laid the foundation."*

Mr. Phillips has worked up this incident into a very dramatic scene-but without

[In 1788, the Parliamentary Reports only gave one speech by Mr. Curran. It was on contraband trade, and bears date February 19, 1788. It is not without a touch of wit and quaintness. After saying that high duties were a premium to the contraband trader, he continued, "The conduct of the gentlemen who conduct the revenue department reminds me of a circumstance which happened in our University some time ago. The lads had got a custom of breaking the lamps. For a long time there could be found no remedy for this grievance, but mending them when broken, till at length a very sagacious member of the Board of Fellows hit upon a very extraordinary expedient. The lamps,' said he, 'cannot be well broken in the daytime without immediate detection, wherefore if they were taken down at nightfall every evening, and put up every morning, the mischief night be prevented! The learned doctor's argument has been adopted by the gentlemen of the revenue: they find that smuggling has risen to a great height, they then shut up the ports, thereby making them of no use."] .

This year (1788) Mr. Curran visited Holland, from which he writes as follows:

"HELVOETSLUYS, August 1, 1783.

"Just landed, after a voyage of forty-two hours, having left Harwich, Wednesday, at six in the evening. We are just setting out in a treckscuit for Rotterdam.

"I can say little, even if I had time, of the first impression that Holland makes on a traveller. The country seems as if it were swimming for its life, so miserably low does it appear; and from the little I have seen of its inhabitants, I should not feel myself much interested in the event of a struggle. We were obliged to put up an orange cockade on our entrance. We have just dined, and I am so disturbed by the settling the

improving it. Even as related here there is much coarseness in Curran's telling the old clergyman, his benefactor, that he would not dare to assume such an attitude, &c.-M.

bill, and the disputes about guilders and stivers, &c., that I must conclude.

"Yours ever,

"J. P. C."

"AMSTERDAM, August 5, 1788.

"You can't expect to find much entertainment in any letter from Holland. The subject must naturally be as flat as the country, in which, literally, there is not a single eminence three inches above the level of the water, the greater part lying much below it. We met Mr. Hannay, a Scotchman, on the passage, who had set out on a similar errand. We joined accordingly. A few moments after my letter from Helvoetsluys was written, we set out in a treckscuit for Rotterdam, where, after a voyage of twenty-four hours easy sail, we arrived without any accident, notwithstanding some struggle between an adverse wind and the horse that drew us. We staid there only one day, and next day set out for the Hague, a most beautiful village, the seat of the Prince of Orange, and the residence of most of the principal Dutch. Yesterday we left it, and on going aboard found four inhabitants of Rouen, and acquaintances of my old friend Du Pont. We were extremely amused with one of them, a little thing about four feet long, and for the first time in his life a traveller. He admired the abundance of the waters, the beauty of the windmills, and the great opulence of Holland, which he thought easy to be accounted for, considering that strangers paid a penny a mile for travelling, which was double what a French gentleman was obliged to pay at home; nor could it otherwise be possible for so many individuals to indulge in the splendor of so many country villas as we saw ranged along the banks of the canals, almost every one of which had a garden and menagerie annexed. The idea of the menagerie he caught at the instant from a large poultry coop, which he spied at the front of one of those little boxes, and which contained half a dozen turkeys and as many hens.

"The evening, yesterday, brought us to Amsterdam. We had an interpreter who spoke no language. We knew not, under heaven, where to go; spoke in vain to every fellow-passenger, but got nothing in return but Dutch; among the rest to a person in whom, notwithstanding the smoke, I thought I saw something of English. At length he came up to me, and said he could hold out no longer. He directed us to an inn; said he sometimes amused himself with concealing his country, and that once at Rotterdam he carried on the joke for five days, to the great annoyance of some unfortunate Englishmen, who knew nobody, and dined every day at the table d'hôte he frequented. Last night we saw a French comedy and opera tolerably performed. This day we spent in viewing the port, stad-house, &c., and shall depart to-morrow for Rotterdam or Utrecht, on our way to Antwerp.

"You cannot expect much observation from a visitor of a day : the impression, however, of a stranger, cannot be favourable to the people. They have a strange appearance of the cleanliness, for which they are famous, and of the dirt that makes it necessary their outsides only have I seen, and I am satisfied abundantly with that. Never shall I wish to return to a country that is at best dreary and unhealthy, and is no longer the seat of freedom; yet of its arbitrariness I have felt nothing more than the necessity of wearing an orange riband in my hat. My next will be from Spa, where I hope to be in six or seven days; till then farewell.

"Yours ever,

"J. P. C."