After toiling for a very inadequate recompense at the sessions of Cork, and wearing, as he said himself, his teeth almost to their stumps, Curran proceeded to the metropolis, taking for his wife and young children a miserable lodging upon _Hay Hill_. Term after term, without either profit or professional reputation, he paced the hall of the Four Courts. Among those who had the discrimination to appreciate, and the heart to feel for him, luckily for Curran, was Mr. Arthur Wolfe, afterward the unfortunate but respected Lord Kilwarden. The first fee of any consequence which he received was through his recommendation; and his recital of the incident can not be without its interest to the young professional aspirant whom a temporary neglect may have sunk into dejection. "I then lived," said he, "upon Hay Hill; my wife and children were the chief furniture of my apartments; and as to my rent, it stood pretty much the same chance of liquidation with the national debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a barrister's lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was well determined should be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, with my mind, you may imagine, in no very enviable temperament. I fell into the gloom to which, from my infancy, I had been occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence--I returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study, where _Lavater_ alone could have found a library, the first object which presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty golden guineas wrapped up beside it, and the name of _Old Bob Lyons_ marked upon the back of it. I paid my landlady--bought a good dinner--gave Bob Lyons a share of it--and that dinner was the date of my prosperity." Such was his own exact account of his professional advancement. SINGULAR ATTEMPT UPON CURRAN'S LIFE.