hy do _I_ jest? and why do _you_ smile?
Or, are we for ever to be the victims of our national propensity, to be
led away by trivialties? We tickle ourselves with straws, when we should
be arming for the great contests of national minds. We are ready to be
amused with the twang of the Jew's harp, when we should be yearning for
the blast of the trumpet. You remind me, and I remind myself, of the
scene at one of our country-wakes. It is the true portrait of our
fruitless mixture of levity and sorrow. We come to mourn, and we are
turned to merriment by the first jest. We sit under the roof of death,
yet we are as ready to laugh as ever. The corpse of Ireland is before
our eyes: we fling a few flowers over its shroud, and then we eat,
drink, and are merry. Must it be for ever pronounced--that we are a
frivolous and fickle race--that the Irishman remains a voluntary beggar,
with all the bounties of nature round him; unknown to fame, with genius
flashing from his eyes; humiliated, with all the armoury of law and
liberty open to his hands; and laughing, laughing on, when the only echo
is from the chambers of the grave?"

The orator dropped his head on his clasped hands as he spoke the words;
and there was an universal silence for a while. It was interrupted by a
groan of agony from the prisoner. All eyes were instantly turned to the
dock, and the spectacle there was startling. He seemed writhing under
intolerable torture. His hands clung eagerly to the front of the dock,
as if to sustain him; his lips were as colourless clay, but his features
and forehead were of the most feverish crimson. At first the general
impression was, that he had been overcome by a sense of his perilous
state; but it was soon evident that his pangs were more physical than
moral. Curran now flung his brief upon the table, and hurried to his
side. A few words passed between them, inaudible to the court; but they
had the unexpected effect of apparently restoring the sufferer to
complete tranquillity. He again stood erect; his brow, and it was a
noble one, resumed its marble smoothness; his features grew calm, and
his whole aspect returned to the stern and moveless melancholy of an
antique statue.

The advocate went back to his place, and commenced a singularly
dexterous attempt to avert the sentence, by an appeal to the national
feelings. "If," said he, "my client had been charged with any of those
crimes which effect their object by individual injury, I