The Life of the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, Late Master of the Rolls in Ireland, Volume 2

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A. Constable and Company, 1819 - Lawyers
 

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Page 142 - For they that led us away captive, required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness : Sing us one of the songs of Sion. 4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?
Page 331 - This mischief had not then befall'n, And more that shall befall, innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares, And strait conjunction with this sex: for either He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain Through her perverseness, but shall see her...
Page 107 - ... man I know ; for such a man I do not pray a pardon, for that is not in the power of the court ; but I pray a respite for such time as the court, in its humanity and discretion, shall think proper.
Page 226 - I find I have but a few hours to live, but if it was the last moment, and that the power of utterance was leaving me, I would thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous expressions of affection and forgiveness to me. If there was any one in the world in whose breast my death might be supposed not to stifle .every spark of resentment, it might be you — I have deeply injured you — I have injured the happiness of a sister that you love, and who was formed to give hap* The original,...
Page xii - Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat, And vapour as the Libyan air adust, Began to parch that temperate...
Page 93 - Our adjudications have condemned the application of torture for the extraction of evidence. When a wild and furious assassin had made a deadly attempt upon a life of much public consequence, it was proposed to put him to the torture in order to discover his accomplices. I scarcely know whether to admire most the awful and impressive lesson given by Felton, or the doctrine stated .by the judges of the land.
Page 411 - ... physician baffled by the wayward excesses of a dying patient, retires indignantly from the bed of an unhappy wretch, whose ear is too fastidious to bear the sound of wholesome advice, whose palate is too debauched to bear the salutary bitter of the medicine that might redeem him; and therefore leaves him to the felonious piety of the slaves that talk to him of life, and strip him before he is cold.
Page 225 - I know not whether this will be any extenuation of my offence — I know not whether it will be any extenuation of it to know, that if I had that situation in my power at this moment, I would relinquish it to devote my life to her happiness — I know not whether success would have blotted out the recollection of what I have done — but I know that a man, with the coldness of death on him, need not be made to feel any other coldness, and that he may be spared any addition to the misery he feels,...
Page 268 - Events have shown you that what they thought was just, and that what they did was indispensable. They thought they ought to govern themselves — they thought that at every hazard they ought to make the effort — they thought it more eligible to perish than to fail — and to the God of heaven I pray that the authority of so splendid an example may not be lost upon Ireland.
Page 131 - I have often of late gone to the dungeon of the captive ; but never have I gone to the grave of the dead to receive instructions for his defence — nor in truth have I ever before been at the trial of a dead man? I offer therefore no evidence upon this inquiry ; against the perilous example of which, I do protest on behalf of the public, and against the cruelty and injustice of which I do protest in the name of the dead father, whose memory is SOUGHT to be dishonoured, and of his infant orphans,...

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