was mean and decrepit; very slight, very shapeless--with nothing of the gentleman about it; on the contrary, displaying spindle limbs, a shambling gait, one hand imperfect, and a face yellow, furrowed, rather flat and thoroughly ordinary. Yet his features were the very reverse of disagreeable; there was something so indescribably dramatic in the eye and the play of his eyebrow, that his visage seemed the index of his mind, and his humour the slave of his will. ... [H]is rapid movements, his fire, his sparkling eye, and fine and varied intonations of his voice, these conspired to give life and energy to every company he mixed with.Lord Byron said, after the death of Curran, "I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have seen written", and, in a letter to Thomas Moore, 1 October 1821, "I feel, as your poor Curran said, before his death, 'a mountain of lead upon my heart, which I believe to be constitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the same remedy'". An engraved portrait of Curran by J.J. Wedgwood was published in volume one of the first Irish biographical dictionary, Biographia Hibernica, a Biographical Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland, from the earliest periods to the present time, (London, 1819: Richard Ryan (biographer)). In Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon includes an illustrative poem to the engraved portrait therein, this being by Sir Thomas Lawrence. She describes Curran as being 'Gifted with all the mighty strength of words'. Karl Marx, recommending to Friedrich Engels the speeches of Curran in a letter of 10 December 1869 ("You will find quoted there all the sources for the United Irishmen"), accounted Curran "the only great lawyer (people's advocate) of the eighteenth century and the noblest personality". Henry Grattan, by comparison, was a mere “parliamentary rogue". Quotations and legacy "I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost." - A retort to a unionist MP who spoke of how he shuddered each time he passed the now-empty Parliament House, Dublin. The MP had voted in favour of the Act of Union which abolished the Irish Parliament. "Assassinate me you may; intimidate me you cannot." "His smile is like the silver plate on a coffin." "In this administration, a place can be found for every bad man." "Twenty four millions of people have burst their chains, and