should disdain
to offer a defence, which could be accomplished only by confounding the
principles of right and wrong. But here is an instance in which the
noblest mind might err, in which the highest sagacity might be
perplexed, in which the most self-denying virtue might discover nothing
but a voluntary sacrifice." The problem before his client was "the
proudest that had ever occupied the mind of ancient or modern times. It
was, by what means a patriot might raise his country to the highest
possible elevation. What are the essentials for such a purpose?
Intrepidity, independence of heart, the steadiest perseverance, the
manliest fortitude; all the great qualities of the head and the heart.
Those are the tributes which he must bring to the altar of his country.
But the priest must be prepared himself to be the sacrifice. Is it the
hands of his countrymen that are to bind him to the horns of the altar?"

A sense of this hazardous line of observations, however, soon struck the
keen understanding of the great pleader; and he admitted in all its
fulness the necessity of respecting public tranquillity, of
relinquishing doubtful projects of good, and of studying the prosperity
of a nation, rather through the "microscope of experience" than by
"vague, though splendid, telescopic glances" at times and things beyond
our power. "The man," said he, "who discovers the cause of blight in an
ear of corn, is a greater benefactor to the world than the man who
discovers a new fixed star." From the glow on his countenance, and the
sudden brightness of his eye, I could see that he was about to throw
himself loose on some new current of rich and rapid illustration, when
he was suddenly stopped by a shriek from the dock; the prisoner had
fallen with his head over its front, and seemed gasping in the last
pangs. The drops of torture stood thick on his brow, his eye was glazed,
and his lips continued to quiver, without the power of utterance. The
advocate approached him; the dying man caught him by the hand; and, as
if the touch had restored his faculties at the instant, said, with a
faint smile, and in a low tone, yet so clear as to be audible to the
whole assembly, in the words of Pierre--"We have deceived the senate!"
In the utterance he fell back and died. To escape the ignominy of the
scaffold, the unhappy man, before he came into court, had swallowed
poison!

I speak of Curran, only as I see him through the lapse of years. Time
has ha