The Sumter banner. [volume] (Sumterville, S.C.) 1846-1855, 1851-04-23
Curran, The Orator.

Curran sprang from tho people.
He was born at Newmarket, an ob-
scnrc town in the county of Cork, in
1750-being thus four years young.
CT thnn Grattan. On the fathers
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 New
market, or assumed the part Of
Punch's man Mt country fair. He
loved to visit the peasautry 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. i'll those
rough natures, which appear so sul.
len and savage, when brought, face
to face. with their opprcssors, he
found the finest and tendcrest affcc.
tions of the human heart. There,
too, he found a natural poetry and
cloquence. Hc was constan. at
tendant at the weddings and wakes of
his neighborhood. It was customary
at that time to employ hired mourn
crs for the dead, and their wild and
solemn lamentations struck his youth
fu' imagination. In after years, he
acknowledged that his FIRST ideas Of
eloquencc were derived from listening
to the laments Of mourners ut the
Irish burials.
When transferred to Trinity Col
legc, in Dublin, he became distin-
guishcd chiefly for his social powers.
Full Of the cxuberant life Of youth,
overHowiug with spirits, and fond of
fun and frolic, he was always q wei
come companion among the students.
His mother had designed him for
the church. When he came out of
college, his tastes tock another turn.
But his mother never got ovey her
disappointment at his not hcing q
preacher. Not even his brilliant re.
ll;spinta,ien NJ the bar and in rlparliament
couid oatisFy I'er nssst ~"sai hsslst. SSpn
lived to SEQ the nation hanging on
the lips ofthis almost inspired orator.
Yet even then she would lament over
him. 80 Jacky, Jacky, what q
preacher was lost in you!'
Her friends reminded her that she
had lived TO see her son one of the
judges Of the land. Don't speak to
me ofjudges,' she would reply, John
was fit for anything: and had he but
| followed our advice, it might hcreai:
ter be written upon my tomb that
died the mother of q bishop,
But no one as yet knew that he
had extraordinary talent for clio.
qucnce. Indeed he did not suspect
it himself. In his boyhood he had a
confusion in his uttcrance, from which
he was called by his school.fellows
suffering Jack Curran.'
1t was not until many years after,
while studying law at the Temple,
that he found out that lie could speak.
After his fame was established, a
friend dining with him one day,
could not reprcss his admiration of
Curran's eloquencc, and remarked
that it must have hccn born with him.
Indeed, my dear SIR replied Curran,
it was not, it was born twenty-thrce
years and som months after me-.
But when he had made the important
discovery Of this concealed power,
he employed every means to render
his elocution pefcct. He accustomed
himself to speak very slowly to cor
ret his precipitate utterance. He
practiced before a glass to make his
gestures graceful. He spoke aloud
the most celebrated orations. One
piece he was never weary Of repeat.
ing, the speech Of Antony over the
body Of Caesar. This he recolDmen.
dcd to his young friends at the bar
as model of cloqucncc.
And while he thus used art to smooth
channel for his thoughts to flow in,
no mans elo1uence ever issued more
freshly and spontaneously from the
heart. 1t was always the heart of
the man that spoke. 1t was because
his own emotions were so intense,
that he possessed such power over
the feelings of others.
His natural sympathies were strong.
Like every truly great man, he was
as simple Us child. He had all
those tastes which mark a genuine
man. lie loved nature. He loved
children. lie sympathized with the
poor, 1t was perhaps from these pop
ular sympathics that he preferred
Rousseau among the French writer's,
and that his friendship was SO strong
with Mr.. Goodwin.
His nature was all sensibility. He
was most keenly alive to gay, or to
mournfnl scenes. IIc had q boyish
love Of fun and frolic. He entered