William Henry Curran knew not very much of his father, whose biographer he became. John Philpot Curran had excluded him from his domestic circle, and the letters to his son which appear in the book were addressed to Richard. Who can doubt that much detail which lends interest to the ever popular 'Life, by his Son,' was supplied to the youth by the practised old scribe Leonard McNally? Curran's gratitude to him for help afforded is freely expressed. McNally wrote a style clear as rock water and full of classic strength. Nothing can be finer than his secret letters to Pelham and Cooke--three of which he often despatched in one day. The wonderful anecdotes which made Curran's Life, by his son, almost a classic have been quoted over and over, including the dinner scene at McNally's, when the ill-fated Rev. Mr. Jackson was entertained. Curran's son tells how the talk had been getting imprudent, when the butler, beckoning his master to the door, warned him to be careful; 'for, sir, the strange gentleman who seems to be asleep is not so, but listening to everything said: I see his eye glistening through the fingers with which he is covering his face.' Cockayne was, of course, a spy of Pitt's; but some of the sensational anecdotes which McNally told of him, as also of Reynolds and Armstrong, may have been overcharged to divert suspicion from himself. These are not the only instances in which the embellishments of the professional advocate seem traceable. As regards Jackson's death in the dock, we are told that he made an effort with his cold and nerveless hand to squeeze McNally's, muttering a quotation from Addison's 'Cato'; but the lines and the adjuncts would be more likely to occur at such a moment to an old playwright like McNally than to the dying clergyman. Emmet's revolt took place on July 23, 1803, but was soon quelled. He remained in concealment at Harold's Cross, and chose that position in order that he might see Sarah Curran, with her father, pass daily to Dublin. On August 25 he was arrested by Major Sirr. Popular confidence in McNally had now reached its height. A special commission for trying the insurgent leaders began on August 24, 1803. 'Most of the prisoners chose Mr. McNally as their counsel, and Mr. L. McNally, junior, as their agent,' records the 'Evening Post' of the day. McNally had long had his eye on the gifted young orator Robert Emmet: 'Emmet, junior, gone on business to France--probably to supersede Lewins,'[481] he writes to Cooke three years previous to the insurrection of 1803. On September 3, in the latter year, McNally sends one of his secret letters to Cooke, saying that he is authorised to treat on behalf of a person privy to the whole conspiracy.[482]