The chief justice faintly smiled, and thanked the bar for their consideration.
In 1812, Curran dined at my house in Brookstreet, London. He was very dejected: I did my utmost to rouse him—in vain. He leaned his face on his hand, and was long silent. He looked yellow and wrinkled; the dramatic fire had left his eye, the spirit of his wit had fled, his person was shrunken, his features were all relaxed and drooping, and his whole demeanour appeared miserably distressing.
After a long pause, a dubious tear standing in his dark eye, he on a sudden exclaimed, with a sort of desperate composure, “Barrington, I am perishing! day by day I’m perishing! I feel it: you knew me when I lived—and you witness my annihilation.” He was again silent.
I felt deeply for him. I saw that he spoke truth: his lamp was fast approaching its last glimmer: reasoning with him would have been vain, and I therefore tried another course—bagatelle. I jested with him, and reminded him of old anecdotes. He listened—gradually his attention was caught, and at length I excited a smile; a laugh soon followed, a few glasses of wine brought him to his natural temperament, and Curran was himself for a great part of the evening. I saw, however, that he would soon relapse, and so it turned out: he began to talk to me about his family, and that very wildly. He had conceived some strange prejudices on that head, which I disputed with him, until I was wearied. It was a subject he seemed actually insane on: his ideas were quite extraordinary, and appeared to me steeled against all reason. He said he felt his last day approaching; his thoughts had taken their final station, and were unchangeable.
We supped together, and he sat cheerful enough till I turned him into a coach, at one o’clock in the morning.
Mr. Curran had a younger brother, who was an attorney—very like him, but taller and better-looking. This man had a good deal of his brother’s humour, a little wit, and much satire; but his slang was infinite, and his conduct very dissolute. He was, in fact, what may be termed the best blackguard of his profession (and that was saying a great deal for him). My friend had justly excluded him from his house, but occasionally relieved his finances, until these calls became so importunate, that, at length, further compliance was refused.
“Sir,” said the attorney to me one day, “if you will speak to my brother, I am sure he’ll give me something handsome before the week is out!” I assured him he was mistaken, whereupon he burst into a loud laugh!
There was a small space of dead wall, at that time, directly facing Curran’s house, in Ely Place; against which the attorney procured a written permission to build a little wooden box. He accordingly got a carpenter (one of his comrades) to erect a cobbler’s stall there for him; and having assumed the dress of a Jobson, he wrote over his stall, “Curran, Cobbler:—Shoes toe-pieced, soled, or heeled, on the shortest notice:—when the stall is shut, inquire over the way.”
Curran, on returning from court, perceived this worthy hard at work, with a parcel of chairmen lounging round him. The attorney just nodded to his brother, cried, “How do you do, Jack?” and went on with his employment.
Curran immediately despatched a servant for the spendthrift, to whom having given some money, the show-board was taken down, the stall removed, and the attorney vowed that he would never set up again as a cobbler.