Old Hecate! thou wast pure pomegranate also, and not banana, wonder most wonderful of all—words which must remain hieroglyphics upon these pages—and whose explication must be sought in Egypt, as they must come hither who would realize the freshness of Karnak.
Slow, sweet singing followed. The refrain was plaintive, like those of the boat songs—soothing, after the excitement of the dancing, as nursery lays to children after a tired day. "Buono," Kushuk Arnem! last of the Arnems, for so her name signified. Was it a remembering refrain of Palestine, whose daughter you are? "Taib," dove Xenobi! Fated, shall I say, or favored? Pledged life-long to pleasure! Who would dare to be? Who but a child so careless would dream that these placid ripples of youth will rock you stormless to El Dorado?
O Allah! and who cares? Refill the amber nargileh, Xenobi—another fingan of mellow mocha. Yet another strain more stirring. Hence, Hecate! shrivel into invisibility with the thundering tár, and the old husband with his diabolical rabáb. Waits not the one-eyed first officer below, with a linen lantern, to pilot as to the boat? And the beak of the Ibis points it not to Syene, Nubia, and a world unknown?
Farewell, Kushuk! Addio, still-eyed dove! Almost thou persuadest me to pleasure. O Wall-street, Wall-street! because you are virtuous, shall there be no more cakes and ale?
CURRAN, THE IRISH ORATOR.[3]
The next year after the exertions of Grattan had secured the independence of the Irish legislature, and just as the great question of reform began to loom up in the political horizon, there entered parliament another man, whose name is imperishably connected with the history of Ireland, John Philpot Curran. Of a slight and ungainly figure, there was nothing about him to overawe a legislative assembly. Grattan was the Colossus of debate. Curran, like a skillful gladiator, played round the arena, and sometimes thrusting himself into the lists in the lighter armor of his wit, carried off the victory where his giant ally would have been less successful. But, in truth, this was not his proper theatre. He came into the Parliament-house in the evening, after having been all day in court. He was then jaded in body and mind, and chose rather to listen than to speak. As Grattan was most at home in parliament, Curran was most in his element at the bar. It was in the Four Courts that he rose above all other men; that he won the reputation of being the most eloquent advocate that Ireland had ever produced.
But it is on other accounts that Curran deserves a more minute sketch in this history. He represents, perhaps more than any of his celebrated countrymen, the Irish character—a nature compounded of imagination and sensibility. Though of less kingly intellect than Grattan, he was of a warmer temperament, and more fitted to be a popular idol.
Curran sprang from the people. He was born at Newmarket, an obscure town in the county of Cork, in 1750—being thus four years younger than Grattan. On the father's side he was descended from one of Cromwell's soldiers. Passing his childhood in the country, he was thrown much among the people. He loved to recall the days when he played marbles in the street of Newmarket, or assumed the part of Punch's man at a country fair. He loved to visit the peasantry in their cabins, and to listen to their tales. There he saw the Irish character—its wit, its humor, its sensibility to mirth and tears. There too, in those rough natures, which appear so sullen and savage, when brought face to face with their oppressors, he found the finest and tenderest affections of the human heart. There too he found a natural poetry and eloquence. He was a constant attendant at the weddings and wakes of his neighborhood. It was customary at that time to employ hired mourners for the dead, and their wild and solemn lamentations struck his youthful imagination. In after-years, he acknowledged that his first ideas of eloquence were derived from listening to the laments of mourners at the Irish burials.
When transferred to Trinity College in Dublin, he became distinguished chiefly for his social powers. Full of the exuberant life of youth, overflowing with spirits, and fond of fun and frolic, he was always a welcome companion among the students.