When the well-known antagonist of the Romish claims, Dr Duigenan, a stern-looking and singularly dark-featured old man, had one night made a long and learned speech on the subject, Sir John Doyle wholly extinguished its effect, by the Horatian line,—
"Hic niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto."
The House shook with applause, and the universal laugh drove the doctor from the field.
On another evening, when the prince of jesters, Toler, then a chief supporter of Government, contemptuously observed, on seeing a smile on some of the Opposition faces—
"Dulce est desipere in loco;"
an Opposition member started up and retorted the quotation, by saying, "That it was much more applicable to the conduct and position of the honourable member and his friends, and that the true translation was, 'It is mighty pleasant to play the fool in a place.'"
The novelty and happiness of the translation disturbed the gravity of debate for a considerable time.
But those were the gay days of Ireland. Times of keen anxiety, of daring change, and of social convulsion, were already shaping themselves to the eye of the patriot, and the true debates on which the fate of the nation hung were transferred from parliament to the peasantry, from the council-room to the cabin, from the accomplished intelligence and polished brilliancy of the legislature to the rude resentment, fierce recollections, and sullen prejudices of the multitude. It was on the heath, that Revolution, like Macbeth, met the disturbing spirits of the land, and heard the "All hail, hereafter."
Curran's rapid professional distinctions were the more remarkable, that the Irish Bar was aristocratic, to a degree wholly unknown in England. If it is true, that this great profession often leads to the Peerage, in Ireland the course was reversed, and the Peerage often derived its chief honours from its connection with the Bar. The sons of the first families wore the gown, and the cedant arma togæ was more fully realised in Ireland than it ever was in Rome.
But few men of condition ever entered the Army; and in a nation of habitual passion for publicity, and proverbial love of enterprise, perhaps fewer officers were added to the British service than from the Channel Islands. This has since been largely changed, and Ireland, which in the last century but filled up the rank and file, has since nobly contributed her share to the names which register themselves in the memory of nations. To Ireland, glorious England and rescued Europe owe a Wellington!