From the vivacity of his conversation, one would hardly have suspected the depth and seriousness of his character. In talking with ladies or with young persons, his mind was remarkable for its constant playfulness. A gleam of sunshine illumined his whole being. Yet those who knew him intimately were aware that he was subject all his life to constitutional melancholy. Like many other men celebrated for their wit, his gayety alternated with deep depression. The truth was that he sympathized too intensely with the scenes of real life, to be uniformly gay. In his country he saw so much to sadden him, that his feelings took a melancholy tone. The transition was often instantaneous from humor to pathos. His friends, who saw him in his lighter moods, were surprised at the sudden change of his countenance. "In grave conversation, his voice was remarkable for a certain plaintive sincerity of tone"--a sadness which fascinated the listener like mournful music. In his eloquence appeared the same transitions of feeling and variety of talent. He could descend to the dryest details of law or evidence. Thomas Addis Emmet, who, though younger, practiced at the same bar, says that Curran possessed a logical head. From this he could rise to the highest flights of imagination, and it was here, and in appeals to the feelings, that he was most at home. Sometimes his wit ran away with him. His fancy was let off like a display of fireworks. It flew like a thousand rockets, darting, whizzing, buzzing, lighting up the sky with fantastic shapes. By turns he could use the lightest or the heaviest weapon, as suited the object of his attack. Where ethereal wit or playful irony were likely to be thrown away upon some gross and insensible subject, he could point the keenest edge of ridicule, or the coarsest invective, or the most withering sarcasm. When dissecting the character of a perjured witness, he seemed to delight in making him feel the knife. His victim, at such a time, appeared like an insect whom he had lanced with a needle, and was holding up to the laughter and scorn of the world. Thus, when treating the evidence of O'Brien, a hired informer, who had come on the stand to swear away the lives of men whom the government had determined to sacrifice, Curran apostrophized the patriotic individual, "Dearest, sweetest, Mr. James O'Brien," exposing the utter rottenness of his character in a tone of irony, until the man, who had a forehead of brass, was forced to slink back into the crowd, and to escape from the court.