cess of his campaign of Austerlitz was in a great measure neutralized. The remains of Lord Nelson were buried at St. Paul's on the 9th of January, 1806. It is needless to add, that all the honors which a grateful country could bestow were heaped on the memory of the man who had achieved this unequalled victory. 66 Hamilton and his "adopted daughter Horatia Nelson Thompson," the British nation saw fit to utterly disregard. The one he left, in a codicil to his will written a few hours before his fall, "a legacy to my king and country;" and the other "to the beneficence of my country." These" continues the document, "are the only favors I ask of my king and country at this moment, when I am going to fight their battle;" yet this codicil was virtuously concealed by the hero's reverend brother until the parliamentary grant to himself was duly completed. Lady Hamilton died at Calais in extreme poverty and great distress on the 6th January, 1814. Nelson's daughter Horatia, was married in February, 1822, to the Rev. Philip Ward, an English Lord Nelson's brother, the Rev. William Nelson, D. D., was created Earl Nelson of Trafalgar and of Merton on the 20th November, 1805, with an annual grant of £6000, and with permission from his majesty to inherit his deceased brother's Sicilian dukedom of Bronté. Besides £100,000 for the purchase of an estate, £10,000 were voted to each of the hero's sisters. His dying request in behalf of Lady clergyman. JOHN IN PHILPOT CURRAN, the wittiest and most eloquent lawyer of his day, was born at Newmarket, a small village of the county of Cork, Ireland, on the 24th of July, 1750. He was thus four years younger than his great associate in fame, Henry Grattan. Much has been said about his humble origin; but his ancestry was respectable, and though he rose in life by the exertion of his own talents with little aid from fortune, he can hardly be classed with those who have had to contend in the pursuit of knowledge with extraordinary difficulties. His father, James Curran, descended, we are told, from one of the soldiers who came over from England to assist in the ruthless subjugation of Ireland, in Cromwell's army, held the position of seneschal of a manor court at Newcastle and possessed some acquirements above his station, having some acquaintance with the Greek and Roman classics. Phillips in his animated work on "Curran and his Contemporaries" speaks rather slightingly of these attainments, saying that "Old James Curran's ed. ucation was pretty much in the ratio of his income," which, he tells us, "besides the paltry revenue of his office, was very moderate." All parties agree, however, in their tributes to the bright intellectual qualities of the mother, which conquered all defects of education. This lady, whose maiden name was Philpot, belonged to a respectable family and was noted for the impres sion made by her character upon those about her. She was witty, humorous, renowned in her neighborhood for her good stock of legendary lore. "The only inheritance," Curran would say in after life," that I could boast of from my poor father, was the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to me something more valuable than face or person, or than earthly wealth, it was that another and a dearer parent gave her child a portion from the treasure of her own mind."* She lived to witness her son's success at the bar, and, when she died about the year 1783 at the age of eighty, her son recorded his sense of his obligations to her in this monumental inscription, "Here lies the body of Sarah Curran. She was marked by many years, many talents, many virtues, few failings, no * Life of Curran, by his son, William Henry Curran. crime. This frail memorial was placed here by a son whom she loved.". ing into tears. Words cannot describe the scene which followed. You are right, sir; you are right; the chimney-piece is yours-the pictures are yours-the house is yours; you gave me all I have my friend-my father!' He dined with me; and in the evening I caught the tear glistening in his fine blue eye when he saw his poor little Jacky, the creature of his bounty, rising in the House of Commons to reply to a right honorable. Poor Boyse! he is now gone; and no suitor had a larger deposit of practical benevolence in The young Curran was fortunate in finding an appreciator of his boyish talents in the resident clergyman at Newcastle, the Rev. Nathaniel Boyse, who had such regard for his parents, and who was so pleased with the child that he took him into his own house and personally instructed him in the rudiments of a classical education. With this encouragement of his powers, the boy, with the further assistance of a pecuniary grant from his benefactor, was sent to the school at Middleton, the court above. This is his winewhere he was prepared for admission to Trinity College, Dublin. Curran never forgot his obligation to Boyse. In his social hours he used to relate, with his mingled humor and feeling, to his biographer Phillips, how the kind clergyman had one day found him, a light-hearted, waggish boy, playing in the village ball-alley, and in pursuit of his benevolent intentions had seduced him to his home by a gift of sweetmeats, and in due time sent him forth on the high road to learning, having made a man of him. "I recollect, "I recollect," said Curran," "it was about five-andthirty years afterwards, when I had risen to some eminence at the bar, and When Curran entered college it when I had a seat in parliament, and was with the expectation, at least on a good house in Ely Place, on my re- the part of his family and friends, that turn one day from court I found an he would one day take orders in the old gentleman seated alone in the draw church. There was a prospect of a ing-room, his feet familiarly placed on small living in the gift of a distant each side of the Italian marble chimney- relative; and the idea, at the outset, piece, and his whole air bespeaking seems to have had some encouragement the conciousness of one quite at home. from his tastes and disposition. It He turned round-it was my friend of was soon, however, dissipated, much to the ball-alley! I rushed instinctively the regret of his mother, who, witnessinto his arms. I could not help bursting the effect of his eloquence at the let us drink to his memory." Curran entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizer in 1769. He was now, at the age of nineteen, a lively imaginative youth, with wit apparently at will, or rather an instinctive faculty with him, turning to ready account the felicities of Horace, already a favorite author, and to be cherished with Virgil as the companion of his life. He became celebrated in his professional career for his ready humorous application of verses from the classic poets, which was highly valued as an accomplishment in his day in the courts and in parliament. |