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    elegant taste , is yet nearly allied to the eloquence of nature , and seldom fails to arouse the strongest feelings of

    the human heart . The following account of Mr . CurrauV eloquence , which is itself no bad specimen of the faculty it describes , will form a suitable preface to the extracts :

    "In the cross examination of a witness , he ( Mr . C ., ) is unequalled . The most intricate web that fraud , malice or corruption ever wove against the life , fortune or character of an individual , he can unravel . Let truth

    and falsehood be ever so ingeniously dovetailed into each other , he separates them with facility . He surveys his ground like a skilful general , marks every avenue of approach , knows when

    to attack , when to yield ; instantly seizes the first inconsistency of testimony , pursue * his advantage with dexterity and caution , till at lest he completely involves perjury in the confusion of its contradictions . And

    while the bribed and suborned witness is writhing in the agony of detected falsehood , he wrings from him the truth , and snatches the devoted victim from the altar . It is when in a case

    of this kind be speaks to a jary , that he appears as if designed by Providence to be the refuge of the unfortunate , the protector of the oppressed . In the course of his eloquence the classic treasures of profane antiquity are exhausted . He draws fresh supplies

    from the sacred fountain of living water . The records of Holy Writ afford him the sublimest allusipns . It i& then he stirs every principle that agitates the heart or sways the conscience , carries his auditory whither

    be pleases , ascends from man to the Deity , and again almost seems to call down fire from heaven ; while they who listen , filled with a sense of inward greatness , feel the high nobility of

    their nature , in beholding a being of the * same species gifted with such transcendent qualities , and wrapt in wonder and delight have a momentary belief , that to admire the talents , is to participate in the genius of the orator . *'

    Pref p . 10 . B * G . I . A Detail of a single Fact , often more impreuive than * general De * geription . I& for instance , you wished to cock rev t 9 tbo mind of mi English matron ,

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    the horrors of that direful period , wheat in defiance of the remonstance of the ever-to-be-lamented Abercrombie , our people were surrendered to the licentious brutality of the soldiery , by the authority of the state : vou would

    vainly endeavour to give her a general picture of lust and rapine stud murder and conflagration . Instead of exhibiting the picture of a whole province , select a single object , and even in that single object , do not release the ima * gination of your hearer from its task ,

    by giving more than an outline . Take a cottage , place the affrighted mother of her orphan daughters » t the door , the paleness of death upon her face , and more than its agonies in her heart , her aching eye , her anxious ear , struggling through the mists of the closing

    day to catch the approaches of desolation and dishonour . The ruffian gang arrives ; the feast of plunder begins ; the cup of madness kindles in its circulation ; the wandering glances of the ravisher become concentrated upon the shrinking and devoted victim . You need not dilate , you need not

    expatiate ; the unpolluted mother to whom you tell the story of horror , beseeches you not to proceed ; she presses her child to her heart , she drowns it in her tears ; her fancy catches more than an angel ' s tongue can describe ; at a single view she takes in the whole miserable succession of force , of profanation , of despair , of death .

    2 . A Slave cannot breathe in England . The spirit of British law makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil ; it proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner the moment he sets his foot on- British

    earth , that Hie ground on which he treads is holy , and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation . No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced ; nomatter what complexion incompatible with

    freedom , an Indian or an African sui > may have burnt upon him ; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cioveivdown y no matter with what solemnities lie niay hav * been devoted upou the alia r of slavery > the first moment he touchea the sacred

    soil of Britain , the altar and the God sink together in the dust * h ^* son ) walks abroad in her own majesty ; hit body awelb beyond the wwaute of hk

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    544 Specimens of Mr . Curran 8 Eloquence * ~~

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1818, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2480/page/8/