“I’m quite of your mind:  though these Pats cry aloud,
      That they’ve got too much Church, tis all nonsense and stuff;
    For Church is like love, of which Figaro vowed,
      That even too much of it’s not quite enough.”

Nor was his letter to the Duke of Newcastle, who was an obstinate opposer of Catholic Emancipation, less witty, or less in point at the present time, for the Lords would not emancipate, whatever the Commons might do: 

    “While intellect, ’mongst high and low,
      Is hastening on, they say,
    Give me the dukes and lords, who go,
      Like crabs, the other way.”

Curran had been called to the bar a few years earlier.  He was the son of a poor farmer in the county of Cork, and won his way to fame solely by the exercise of his extraordinary talent.  Curran was a Protestant; but he did not think it necessary, because he belonged to a religion which professed liberty of conscience, to deny its exercise to every one but those of his own sect.  He first distinguished himself at a contested election.  Of his magnificent powers of oratory I shall say nothing, partly because their fame is European, and partly because it would be impossible to do justice to the subject in our limited space.  His terrible denunciations of the horrible crimes and cruelties of the soldiers, who were sent to govern Ireland by force, for those who were not wise enough or humane enough to govern it by justice—­his scathing denunciations of crown witnesses and informers, should be read at length to be appreciated fully.[570]

Swift’s career is also scarcely less known.  He, too, was born in Dublin of poor parents, in 1667.  Although he became a minister of the Protestant Church, and held considerable emoluments therein, he had the honesty to see, and the courage to acknowledge, its many corruptions.  The great lesson which he preached to Irishmen was the lesson of nationality; and, perhaps, they have yet to learn it in the sense in which he intended to teach it.  No doubt, Swift, in some way, prepared the path of Burke; for, different as were their respective careers and their respective talents, they had each the same end in view.  The “Drapier” was long the idol of his countrymen, and there can be little doubt that the spirit of his writings did much to animate the patriots who followed him—­Lucas, Flood, and Grattan.  Lucas was undoubtedly one of the purest patriots of his time.  His parents were poor farmers in the county Clare, who settled in Dublin, where Lucas was born, in 1713; and in truth patriotism seldom develops itself out of purple and fine linen.  Flood, however, may be taken in exception to this inference; his father was a Chief Justice of the Irish King’s Bench.  When elected a member of the Irish House, his first public effort was for the freedom of his country from the atrocious imposition of Poyning’s Law.  Unfortunately, he and Grattan quarrelled, and their country was deprived of the immense benefits which might have accrued to it from the cordial political union of two such men.