The earlier pages of the history of Ireland teem with so many glorious instances of distinguished heroes, combining in themselves the united characters of warriors and statesmen, that we have been desirous of passing them over in silence, lest their number should add too much to the bulk of our volume. In an undertaking, however, of this nature, it would be an unpardonable negligence to omit

“Brien - the glory and grace of his age.”

A short sketch of whose life will no doubt. be acceptable {114} to the reader, though far beyond the power of the writer to do justice to his merits.

Brien Boirumhe, the son of Cineidi, is computed to have been born in the year 926; and passed through the usual course of education appropriated to the sons of the Irish kings, in which war, literature, and politics, formed the necessary basis on which to ground the instruction of the future ruler. A course of studies so peculiarly adapted to his disposition, took firm possession of the soul of our hero, and his future life was devoted to the practice of those excellent lessons he had imbibed in his youth.

His first essay in arms was in the capacity of general to his brother Mahon, King of North Munster, when he entirely routed a numerous and almost overwhelming body of the Danes, who had dared to make an incursion, with the design of plundering the country under his protection. Soon after this victory, on an insurrection among his subjects, Mahon was deprived of his throne, and basely murdered; but his brother Brien took such effectual measures that he succeeded to the throne, in which his first object was to be revenged on the murderers of his brother. This he speedily and completely effected, though his enemies had called the Danes to their assistance. Victory again sat om his sword, and peace crowned his exertions. He became, in 968, King of both Munsters, which he cleared from the invaders, and re-established in their former privileges. He gave new vigour to the laws, by summoning a feis or parliament at Cashell; and he caused the ruined churches and monasteries to be rebuilt, and the bishops and the clergy to be restored to their livings. His annual revenue, as King of Munster, was immense, and is calculated to give a magnificent idea of the riches of Ireland in his time; a particular account of it is contained in the Leabhar na Cleart [sic for Ceart], or Book of Rights, and which O’Halloran has translated.

Domnald, monarch of Ireland, tired of the pageantry of royalty, quitted the throne in 980, and Malachie was chosen his successor. The jealousy with which he re{115}garded the glory of Brien was hereditary, and the knowledge of this probably induced O’Felan to form a powerful confederacy against the King of Munster. Near Waterford the armies engaged; Brien, with his usual fortune, obtained a complete victory; and the attempts of his enemies to ruin his power, terminated in the reduction of the whole of southern Ireland under his power, by which he became King of Leath Mogha.

So signal a success irritated the envious Malachie; and, in/982, he invaded Munster, and carried off considerable plunder. The next year, having taken into his pay a numerous body of Danes, he made a fresh incursion into Leinster. This repeated insult roused the indignation of Brien; he prepared to wreak a signal vengeance on the head of? Malachie, who, terrified at the prospect of so speedy and severe a retribution, offered him peace, in which he engaged to make restitution for all the damages he had committed.

Continually in arms against the plundering and oppressive Danes, he reduced them from a state of independency to absolute subjection; and so benefited the country at large, that a convention of the states of Connaught and Munster, contrasting his power, magnanimity and justice with the passive temporising spirit of Malachie, agreed to request Brien to assume the monarchy, and engaged to support him to their utmost. Deputies were dispatched to Malachie to inform him of their intention, and to desire him to resign a throne he was so ill qualified to fill. He received the proposal with surprise and indignation, declaring, as he lived, he would die - Monarch of Ireland. Brien was prepared for such an answer: at the head of a large army of veterans he marched to Tara; but Malachie representing that he had not had time to collect his troops, and requesting a month for that purpose, Brien granted him his wish, on the condition, that, if, at the end of that time, he were not able to defend the crown, he should resign it into his hands. All the exertions, {116} however, of Malachie were useless; the Princes of Leath Cuin were either too much attached to Brien, or dreaded his power, and refused to answer the summons of Malachie.

On the day appointed, he appeared before Brien, and surrendered to him the insignia of royalty; but Brien with generous humanity, allowed him twelve months longer to take measures to preserve them.

So liberal a behaviour excited no corresponding sentiments in the breast of Malachie; it rather increased his envy of that virtue which he could not emulate. After employing in vain every art to form a party against Brien, he had the meanness, to offer to surrender his crown to O Niall, on condition that he should defend it against the pretender. His. offer was rejected, and he was again compelled to pass through the same humiliating ceremony of surrendering his crown into the hands of his enemy; and, having given hostages for his peaceable behaviour, he retired to the private situation, for which alone he was adapted.

The reign of Brien, which commenced in the year 1001, presents a bright assemblage of every virtue which can endear the heart, and every talent which can adorn the reason. In war, victory pursued his path; in peace, the arts embellished his repose. Property respected, oppression punished, religion venerated, invasion crushed, literature encouraged, and law maintained, were the sacred characteristics of an age which the historian records with delight, and the monarch may study with improvement. A fresh irruption of the Danes called the venerable hero again into action, and the sanguinary achievement of Clontarf closed, at the age of eighty-eight, the glorious career of a sovereign, whose “hand was bent on war, but whose heart was for the peace of Erin.”

O’Halloran gives the following curious description of the battle of Clontarf:

“At the head of 30,000 men highly appointed, Brien marched into Leinster, about the beginning of April 1014, {117} in three divisions, and was joined by Malachie, King of Meath. He encamped, as he had done the year before, near Kilmainham., And, after both armies viewing each other for some time, it was agreed on to determine the fate of Ireland by a general battle on the plains of Clontarf. Early on the 23rd of April, being Good-Friday, the Danes appeared formed in three separate bodies for battle, and by their dispositions Brien regulated his own. The auxiliaries from Sweden and Denmark, consisting of 12,000 men, among whom 2000 were heavy armed, commanded by Brodar and Airgiodal, formed the right division. The left, of nearly an equal: number, commanded by Sitric, com. posed of the Danes of Ireland and their associates, and the centre composed of the flower of Leinster, under the direction of Maol-Mordha, who acted as general in‘ chief, formed the enemy’s disposition of battle. It was judged that, by placing the troops in this manner, under their own leaders, it would raise a spirit of generous emulation ~ among them, and that they would vie with each other in feats of bravery. The right wing of the imperial army was composed of the household troops, filled up by the prime nobility of Munster. The invincible tribe of Dalgais, with all the princes of Brien’s blood, were also of this division, and, Malachie with the forces of Meath. \This was to be commanded. by Morrogh, and Sitric, Prince of Ulster. In. the left wing, commanded by the King of Connaught, all the Conacian troops were placed; but, as it did not form so extended a line as the enemy’s, several detachments were added to it. The troops of South Munster, under their different chiefs, with those of the Deasies, formed the central division: Brien rode through the ranks with his crucifix in one hand, and his drawn sword in the other. He exhorted them as they passed along to “do their duty as christians and soldiers in the cause of religion and their country. He reminded them of all the distresses their ancestors were reduced to by the perfidious and sanguinary Danes, strangers: to religion and humanity. That these, {118} their successors, waited impatiently to renew the same scenes of devastation and cruelty, and by way of anticipation (says he) they have fixed on the very day on which Christ was crucified to destroy the country of his greatest votaries: But that God, whose cause you are to fight, will be present with you, and deliver his enemies into your hands.” So saying, he proceeded towards the centre to lead his troops to action, but the chiefs of the army with one voice requested he would retire from the field of battle on account of his extreme age, and leave to the gallant Morrogh the chief command. At eight in the morning the signal for slaughter was given. The Dalgais with the whole right wing marched to attack, sword in hand, the Danes commanded by Brodar and Airgiodal: but an uncommon act of cowardice or treachery had like to have destroyed the whole army, for, at this very critical moment, Malachie with his Meathians retired suddenly from the field of battle, leaving the rest of this body exposed to a far greater number of enemies. But Morrogh, with great presence of mind, called out to his brave Dalgais, “that this was the time to distinguish themselves, as they alone would have the unrivalled glory of cutting off that formidable body of the enemy.” And now, while close engaged with battle-axe, sword, and dagger on the right, the left, under the command of the King of Connaught, hasten to engage the Danes of Leinster and their insular levies, whilst the troops of South Munster attack the apostate Maol-Mordha and his degenerate Lagenians. Never was greater animosity, perseverance, and intrepidity displayed in any battle than this, as every thing depended on open force and courage. The situation of the ground admitted of no ambuscade, and none were used. They fought man to man, and breast to breast, and the victors in one rank fell victims in the next! The officers and generals performed prodigies of valour. Morrogh, his son Turlogh, his brethren and kinsmen, flew from place to place, and every where left the sanguinary traces of their {119} courage and their fortitude. The fortitude displayed by Morrogh determined Carolus and Conmaol, two Danes of distinction, to attack in conjunction this prince, and both fell by his sword, It was observed, that he, with other chiefs, had retired from the battle more than once, and after each return seemed to be possessed of redoubled force, It was to slake their thirst and cool their hands, swelled with the use of the sword and battle-axe, in an adjoining brook, over which a small guard was placed, and this the Danes soon destroyed. On rejoining his troops the last time, Sitric-Mac-Lodair, with a body of Danes, was making a fresh attack on the Dalgais - him Morrogh singled out, and with a blow of his battle-axe divided his body in two through his armour! The other Irish commanders in like manner distinguished them; selves, though their exploits are not so particularly narrated; and it would seem, from the number of prime nobility that fell on both sides, that, besides its being a general battle, the chiefs on each side every where singled out each other to single combat. The courage of the Irish was not to be subdued. Till near four o’clock in the afternoon did the issue of the day remain doubtful, and then it was that they made so general an attack upon the enemy that its force was not to be resisted. Destitute of leaders, and of course of order, the Danes gave way on every side. Morrogh, at this time, through the uncommon use and exertion of the sword -arm, had both his hand and arm so swelled and pained as to be unable to lift them up. In this condition he was assailed sword in hand, by Henry, a Danish prince; but Morrogh, closing in upon him, seized him with the left hand, shook him out of his coat of .mail, and prostrating him, pierced his body with his sword by. forcing its pummel on his breast, and pressing the weight of his body on it. In this dying situation of Henry, he nevertheless seized the dagger which hung .by Morrogh’s side, and with it -gave him, at the same instant, a mortal wound. The Dane {120} expired on the spot, but Morrogh lived till next morning, employing the intermediate time in acts of piety and devotion; in making, says my manuscript, a general confession, receiving the eucharist, and dying as a hero and a christian should die.

The confusion became general through the Danish army, and they fled on every side. Corcoran, one of the monarch’s aides-de-camp, seeing the standard of Morrogh struck, for this notified the fall of the chief, and in the, general déroute unable to distinguish friend from foe, concluded that the imperial army was defeated. He hastily entered the tent of Brien, who was on his knees before a crucifix, and requested he would immediately mount his horse and escape, for all was lost. “Do you,” said the hero, “and my other attendants fly. It was to conquer or die I came here, and my enemies shall not boast the killing of me by inglorious wounds.” So saying, he seized his sword and battle-axe, his constant companions in war, and resolutely waited the event. In the general confusion, Brodar and a few of his followers entered the royal tent. He was armed from head to foot, and yet the gallant old chief pierced his body through his coat of mail! two more of his attendants met the same fate, and Brien received his death by a fourth.

The intrepid Sitric, Prince of Ulster, the faithful companion of Brien in all his wars, was witness to the death of Morrogh, and revenged it by that of Plait, a Danish knight of great intrepidity, and by others of less note. Eagerly pursuing Brodar and his party, he saw them enter the tent of Brien, and cut to pieces the remains of them. But when he beheld the aged monarch extended on the ground his grief was extreme. He threw himself. on the dead body, the many wounds he had received in the battle burst forth afresh - he refused every assistance, and expired in the arms of his friend and faithful ally.

Thus fell the immortal Brien, one of the most uniformly perfect characters that history can produce. In twenty {121} five different rencontres, and twenty-nine pitched battles, did he engage his Danish and other enemies, and victory always attended his standard! But if he was terrible to his enemies in the field, he was mild and merciful to them in the cabinet, and, during his whole reign, a single act of cruelty or injustice cannot be laid to his charge.”

We intended here to have concluded this sketch of Brien, but the following poetic effusion from the pen of Moore claimed its insertion:

* Munster. †The palace of Brien.
‡This alludes to an interesting circumstance related of the Dalgais, the favourite troops of Brien, when they were interrupted in their return from the battle of Clontarf, by Fitzpatrick Prince of Ossory. The wounded men entreated that they might be allowed to fight with the rest: “Let {122} stakes,” (they said) “be stuck in the ground; and suffer each of us, tied to and supported by one of these stakes, to be placed in his rank by the side of a sound man.” - ”Between seven and eight hundred wounded men,” (adds O’Halloran) “‘ pale, emaciated, and supported in this manner, appeared mixed with the foremost of the troops! - Never was such another sight exhibited.” - History of Ireland, book xii. ch. 1. {122}

OF this skilful physician and celebrated historian so few particulars are known, that we should have been inclined to have passed him over in silence, had not his interesting account of the great rebellion in 1641, claimed our peculiar notice. He was the son of Sir John Borlase, master of the ordnance, and one of the lords justices of Ireland. He was born in Dublin, and received his education in the university of that city, and afterwards travelled to Leyden, his inclination for medicine leading him to prefer finishing his studies at that place, which was then the best school to acquire a knowledge of that art. He remained there for some years, and took his degree as doctor of physic in 1650, soon after which he returned to England, and was admitted to the same degree at Oxford. At length he settled at Chester, where he continued till his death in 1682, practising his profession with great reputation and success. The following may be enumerated among his productions; “Latham Spaw in Lancashire; with some remarkable Cases and Cures effected by it,” London, 1670, dedicated to Charles, Earl of Derby. “The Reduction of Ireland to the Crown of England; with the Governors, since the Conquest by king Henry II. anno 1172, and some Passages in their Government. A brief Account of the Rebellion Ann. Dom. 1641.” Also the [“]Original of the University of Dublin, and the College of Physicians.” “Brief Reflections on the Earl of Castlehaven’s Memoirs of his Engagement and Carriage in the War of Ireland. By which the Government of that time, and the Justice of the Crown since, are vindicated from {123} Aspersions cast upon both.” And lastly, his most extensive and celebrated work, “The History of the execrable Irish Rebellion, traced from many preceding Acts to the Grand Eruption, October 23, 1641; and thence pursued to the Act of Settlement 1672.” Wood informs us that much of this is taken from “The Irish Rebellion; or, the History of the beginning and first Progress of the General Rebellion raised within the Kingdom of Ireland, October, 23, 1641,” which was written by Sir John Temple, master of the rolls, and one of his majesty’s privy council in Ireland, and father of the’celebrated Sir William Temple.

The following observations on this work are by Dr. Nalson, who says, “That besides the nearness of his relation to one of the lords justices, and his being avowedly a favourer of the faction, men, and actions of those times, he is an author of such strange inconsistency, that his book is rather a paradox than a history. And it must needs be so; for I know not by what accident the copy of a MS. written by the Earl of Clarendon, happening to fall into his hands, he has very unartfully blended it with his own rough and unpolished heap of matter; so that his book looks like a curious embroidery, sowed with coarse thread upon a piece of sackcloth. And truly had he no other crime than that of a plagiary, it is such a sort of theft to steal the child of another’s brain, that may well render him suspected not to be overstocked with honesty and justice, so necessary to the reputation of an unblemished historian; but it is far more unpardonable to castrate the lawful issue of another man’s pen, and thereby disable it from propagating truth, and to teach it to speak a language which the parent never intended. And yet this is the exact case of Dr. Borlase’s history, in which he has taken great pains to expunge some, and alter many passages, which he thought were too poignant against his favourites, or spoke too much in vindication of his late “majesty and his ministers!” {124}

AN ingenious author, but who, according to his infatuated biographer, the late Laurence Dundas Campbell, possessed talents of sufficient magnitude to have illuminated any age or nation. He was the second son of Alexander Macauley, Esq. of the county of Antrim, and was born in October 1746, at Ballycastle, in the same county. Several anecdotes to prove the miraculous precocity of his talent are related by Campbell, and we are gravely told “He began to pun while he was yet in his childhood; and he often punned so aptly, that he both surprised and amused his friends.” At the age of fourteen, he was placed in Trinity College, Dublin, during which period, a Mr. Marten, a gentleman of similar perceptions with Mr. Campbell, used to characterise him by saying, “that he united the meekness of the lamb with the spirit of the lion.” In 1765, he took his degree of master of arts, and his grandfather wished him to enter the church; this however, he declined, as the natural gallantry of his nature induced him to prefer the army; but his father being desirous that he should go into the infantry, and he giving an undutiful preference to the more elevated service of the cavalry, some delay in consequence took place, and Mr. Macauley’s death terminated the dispute. He left no will, and Mr. Boyd was. consequently unprovided for. Disappointed in the dream of becoming a general, he consoled himself with the expectation of being a judge, - in other words, he quitted the army for the law, and shortly after visited London, where he was patronised by Mr. Richard Burke; and, amongst the countless individuals who were delighted with his wit and the excessive splendour of his talents, might be enumerated the celebrated Mrs, Macauley, to whose husband he was related. But we are told “the inborn generosity of his mind, together with his exquisite sensibility, prompted him to acts of bene{125}volence which his scanty. and precarious income was ill suited to supply; and before he had been a year in London, he was involved in pecuniary entanglements, from which, alas! he was not at any period of his life to be entirely released.” But the same magnanimity which induced him to expend what he did not possess, led him to despise the inconveniencies resulting from such conduct. His creditors, it seems, became impatient; but he retained his tranquillity, determined to keep his temper, although he should lose his liberty.

This habitual thoughtlessness his biographer gallantly insinuates, rendered him a distinguished favourite among the ladies; nor was he insensible of their admiration, as he returned the compliment by marrying a Miss Morphy, a young lady worthy of his super-human qualifications; and, as the merest trifle about truly great characters is interesting, his biographer informs us, the courtship lasted a year and some weeks. By this marriage his circumstances were rendered somewhat easier, as Miss Morphy’s amiable qualities and good sense, restrained that “inborn generosity and exquisite sensibility” which he was possessed of in so eminent a degree. He, however, suffered many relapses, and “frequently plunged himself into difficulties to save the credit or relieve the distresses of the man he loved.” His friends, however, began to think it was high time this period of capacious philanthropy should come to a full stop; he was therefore recommended to his countryman, Lord Macartney, and on his lordship’s nomination to the government of Madras, he appointed Boyd his second secretary. He sailed accordingly with the embassy, and arrived at Madras in the autumn of 1781. After undergoing several vicissitudes, he went for a few months to Calcutta, where “his talents, wit, and humour, together with the superlative sprightliness of his convivial qualities will be long remembered with pleasure.” In February 1794, he advertised proposals for publishing, by subscrip {126} tion, his “Embassy to Candy;” but owing to a want of taste wholly unaccountable, the subscription did not increase quite so rapidly as might have been expected. He, however, unappalled by this adverse circumstance, undertook the work with zeal, and confidently hoped to finish it within six months, but this hope (unfortunately for posterity) was never realised, on account of his decease, which occurred on the 19th of October, 1794, and he was interred in the new burying ground at Madras.

“Of his person,” we are told, “he was tall and graceful, formed with the most exact symmetry, his mien noble and elevated, his countenance animated and commanding, and his deportment exceedingly elegant.”

Such is the life of Boyd, as written by Laurence Campbell, and we would have made a few more extracts from it, had we not arrived at a chapter on his “Intellectual Elements” (as his biographer is pleased to term them), we therefore thought it high time to close the volume, with the belief, that if any element resided in his intellect, it was - air.

That Boyd was an author possessed of some ingenuity, we are not disposed to deny, but that he was any thing more would be somewhat difficult to prove; and we beg the reader (if he imagines we have treated Boyd with undue levity) to remember, that this sketch is taken from a life written by one of his most intimate friends, every line of which renders both conspicuously ridiculous.

Boyd’s Political Tracts were reprinted in one octavo volume, with a view to establish an assertion, that Almon is supposed to have been the first to have made, purporting Mr. Boyd to be the author of Junius. - We certainly have heard the letters of Junius attributed to several individuals, whose incomparable vacuity of head seemed their only claim to the distinction; but never before Boyd was mentioned did we see a feeble imitator mistaken for an original writer. {127}

Should, however, any of our readers not be convinced that Mr. Boyd was not the author of Junius, we take the liberty of subjoining the following letter, which appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine of March 1814.

“Sir John Macpherson, Bart. of Brompton Grove, is both a sound scholar and a gentleman of sterling abilities; and Sir John once was a governor-general of India. His exemplary courtesy, liberal hospitality, and communicative disposition, are well known. From his own lips I have myself been positively and distinctly informed, that (not Mr. Walter Boyd, of dubious fame, but) Hugh Boyd, Esq. declared, entre deux vins, at Sir John’s table, when the worthy host had temporarily retired, that “Sir John Macpherson little knew he was entertaining in his mansion a political writer, whose sentiments were once the occasion of a chivalrous appeal from Sir J. to arms,” immediately adding, “I AM THE AUTHOR OF JUNIUS.”

Amidst all the circles of our jocular acquaintance, we have heard but one witticism attributed to Mr. Boyd, which (as it is our wish to be as amusing as possible) we take the liberty of inserting: Mr. Boyd was once dining with a large party of natives of “The Land of Saints,” all admirers of good dinners, good jokes, and good wines, when, after having partaken in some slight degree of the former, they proceeded to take in a more wholesale proportion of the latter, which having done, one of the company, by way of being more amusing than the rest, took up a decanter, and (sans ceremonie) flung it at the head of the person that sat facing him; Boyd, however, seeing the missile thrown, dexterously stretched forth his hand, and caught it, exclaiming at the same time, “Really, gentlemen, if you send the bottle about in this way, there will not be one of us able to stand presently.” {128}

CELEBRATED for, his attachment to the unfortunate family of the Stuarts in all their distresses, was born at the college of Youghall, on the 20th of October, 1612. He was the second son of Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Corke, and Catherine, the only daughter of Sir Jeffery Fenton, master of the rolls for Ireland; of whose courtship the following account is so curious, that we cannot avoid inserting it: One morning, paying a visit to Sir Jeffery Fenton on some business of consequence, that gentleman, being very busy in looking over some papers, did not come down so soon as usual. Finding, however, when he came down, that Mr. Boyle had waited for him, he apologizes for his neglect very handsomely, saying, that had he known he was waiting, he would have come down immediately. Mr. Boyle smiled, and told Sir Jeffery, that he did not by any means think the time long, having been diverting himself with his pretty little daughter, (who was then in arms, and about two years old) and added, that he had been courting her to become his wife. On this, Sir Jeffery told him pleasantly, that so young a widower would be loth to stay so long for a wife; but Mr. Boyle seriously affirmed he would, if Sir Jeffery would give his consent; which he accordingly did; and they both fulfilled their promises. This curious and apparently trifling incident gave rise to a connection which afterwards formed the principal happiness of the life of that great man; and from her are descended the whole of the numerous family of the Boyles, which bas since shone with so much lustre both in the field and in the senate.
His earlier years were passed in the acquirement of useful knowledge under the care of Mr. Marcombes, in which he made considerable progress, as is evident from the qualities he afterwards displayed; as well as from his receiving the honour of knighthood from the hands of Lord {129} Falkland, then deputy-general of Ireland, when he was under twelve years of age, he being then Viscount Dungarvan, in consequence of the death of his elder brother Roger, at nine years of age. Having attained his twentieth year, he was sent abroad to finish his education, under the care of his able and intelligent tutor, with an allowance of £1000 per annum. He passed two years in his travels, having visited Flanders, France, and Italy, and returned home furnished with every agreeable accomplishment. On his return, the unfortunate Lord Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, struck with his graceful appearance and manly qualifications, proposed to his father to form an alliance between his son and the Lady Elizabeth, daughter and sole heiress of Henry, Lord Clifford, afterwards. Earl of Cumberland. This alliance, which was at first retarded through some unforeseen difficulties, was at length concluded, and their marriage took place on July 5, 1635. By this connection he increased his fortune and extended his interest: it introduced him to the familiar acquaintance of many of the first persons at court, and consequently paved the way fora favourable reception, which was nota little increased by his graces and accomplishments! He was favourably received by Charles I; and having been educated in the strictest loyalty and attachment to his sovereign, he strongly adhered to the interest of that unfortunate monarch. In the troubles of the North, he raised a troop of horse which he intended to head, under the command of the Earl of Northumberland; an action which gained for him the friendship of many persons of the greatest consideration; and when the rebellion broke out in Ireland, he was one. of the first in arms, to support the establishment. He not only commanded troops, but raised them himself, and following the noble example of his father, paid them from the produce of his own estate. He did not, however, on this account, treat them as his slaves; he used them as if they had claimed a nearer relation to him than that created by service; as if they had {130} formed a portion of his family. His exhortations to them were manly and kind, and he often reminded them, that they should consider themselves not as soldiers of fortune, but as men who had taken up arms solely for the protection of their country from her internal foes. At the head of these troops he was present at several sieges and battles, particularly in the celebrated action at Liscarrol; and such was the effect produced by his kindness to his men, that they always distinguished themselves in every service in which they were engaged.

He always differed strongly from she who thought that the most successful way of carrying on the war was by irritating the catholics; and the cessation was in a great measure owing to the excellent advice which he gave to the Marquis of Ormond. This affair being completed in September 1643, he exerted himself in endeavouring to procure for the king that assistance which he expected as the consequence of his agreement to this measure; and so great was his zeal on this occasion, that, at his own request, his regiment was part of the Irish brigade sent to the relief of his majesty, and was commanded by his lordship in person. On his arrival at Oxford, he was received by Charles I with every mark of favour and attention; and even his enemies admired the firmness of his attachment to the fortunes of his sovereign. He was now raised to the dignity of Baron Clifford, of Lanesborough, in consideration, as the patent expresses it, of his timely and effectual services. He constantly attended his majesty with his troops, as long as any part of the kingdom afforded reception to him; but was at length forced to compound for his estates, with the then existing government for the sum of £1,631. Having, however, crossed the seas before the composition was completed, the House of Commons taking advantage of his absence, appointed a committee to consider of the debt owing by the Earl of Cork (a title to which he had now succeeded) which involved him in considerable difficulties. He was {131} however, fortunately enabled to satisfy their demands, and in order to secure his property, returned to Ireland, where he lived in a retired manner upon his own estates, which were considerably encumbered in consequence of his late exertions in favour of Charles I and the heavy composition he had just been compelled to pay.

During his residence in Ireland, which continued until the restoration of Charles II his generous disposition exerted itself in relieving those who had suffered from their attachment to the late king. He also endeavoured to support his establishment in the same state and magnificence in which his father had lived, in consequence of which he was at length so much embarrassed, that his countess was reduced to the necessity of applying to the Protector for relief, which was liberally granted through the intercession of his brother, the Lord Broghill. No sooner had he received this assistance, than he applied a considerable portion of it to relieve the wants of Charles If. then in exile; a circumstance, which certainly, however it may evince his loyalty, does not tend to set his gratitude in the most favourable light. He also constantly laboured, as much as his property and interest would allow, to procure the restoration of that prince to the throne of his fathers; in consequence of which, in the sixteenth year of his reign, that monarch created him by letters patent, Earl of Burlington, or Bridlington, in the county of York. He also possessed the office of lord high treasurer of Ireland, which had been rendered, through the interest of his father when in that situation, hereditary in the family.

On June 3, 1665, his second son, Richard, then a volunteer on board the fleet commanded by his royal highness the Duke of York, was killed by a cannon-shot in the engagement off Solebay. This melancholy accident afforded his majesty another opportunity of testifying his affection for his lordship, by appointing him, in 1666, lord lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and of the city {132} York. In 1679, he was also appointed custos rotulorum for that country.

These honours he held till after the death of Charles II; but when his successor intimated to him his wish that he should sacrifice the duties of his office to the private inclinations of his majesty, and consequently assist in subverting the constitution of his country, he decidedly declared against so infamous a project, and magnanimously resigned: his trusts, rather than consent to betray them. In consequence of this, the situations he had filled for so many. years with the greatest honour to himself, and benefit to his country, were bestowed on Lord Thomas Howard, a zealous catholic, and one who was thought more fitted for the great design then projected against our religion and liberty.

On the arrival of the Prince of. Orange, he zealously concurred in all the measures which were then adopted for resettling the constitution; but he neither sought for, nor accepted, any place; notwithstanding his great talents and qualifications, which rendered him adequate to the most active and important stations. He contented himself with a peaceful and less pompous retirement, gaining the esteem of his equals, the love of his sovereign, and the admiration of his inferiors, which were warmly expressed on his decease, which took place on January 15, 1697-8, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

The character of this great man may be summed up in a few words. In all the polite and elegant accomplishments of his age, he excelled; as a soldier, his skill and courage cannot be questioned; and his attachment to an unfortunate sovereign and his descendants, though warm and energetic while he regarded their government as connected with the welfare of his country, could not induce him to consent to an attempt against its liberties. This. he abhorred from whatever quarter it might arise; and he rejoiced in the re-establishment of its constitution, though accompanied with the downfall of the family he revered; {133} and with a truly noble spirit preferred the benefit of his country at large to the gratification of his private inclinations... In private life, his virtues were as great as his talents in public; he was beloved by his servants and his tenants, and. regretted by all. His generosity was unbounded; and although he might. be conceived, from the difficulties under. which he at one time laboured, to have justly incurred the charge of imprudence, we cannot but feel inclined to pardon this weakness, when we consider the cause of his distress, - that it was. occasioned by relieving the wants of those, who, deprived of their all from their attachment to their prince, had none but him to look up to for assistance.

This celebrated individual, who united the greatest abilities in the field, with the most consummate judgment in the cabinet, and whose reputation as an author was equalled but by few of his contemporaries, was born on the 26th of April, 1621. He was the third son of Richard, the first Earl of Cork. When seven years of age, he was invested with the title of Baron Broghill, of the kingdom of Ireland, and at the age of fifteen was sent to Trinity College, where he remained for some time in the pursuit of his studies. He afterwards travelled under the care of Mr. Marcombes, visiting the court of France, and then proceeded to Italy. In this country he remained under the care of his learned and friendly preceptor, and imbibed an inclination for poetry, which he afterwards cultivated with great success. On his return to England, the reputation of his father procured him an introduction at court, and his personal merits and cultivated talents ensured him the approbation of all who were acquainted with him. Such abilities as he possessed soon attracted general attention, and his friendship and assistance were earnestly courted by the Earl of Strafford and the Earl of Northumberland. In {134} the expedition which was undertaken by this latter nobles man into the north of England against the Scotch, he entrusted the Lord Broghill with the command of his own troop, in which situation this young nobleman acquitted himself to his commander’s satisfaction; and soon after his return, he married the Lady Margaret Howard, sister to the Earl of Suffolk.

He now returned to Ireland with his lady, and arrived on the very day on which the great rebellion commenced. This circumstance, however, was not then known in Munster, so that he proceeded in safety to his father’s at Lismore. A few days after his arrival, going with his father to dine with his brother-in-law, the Earl of Barrymore, at Castle Lyons, the Earl of Cork was called out to a messenger, who informed him, that an open rebellion had commenced, and that the insurgents were masters of the country, and were committing the most horrid barbarities on the English settlers. The Earl of Cork returned to the company without shewing any emotion, and did not communicate this dreadful intelligence till after din+ ner, when the Earl of Muskerry, who was then ona Visit at Castle Lyons, treated the story as a mere fabrication, and employed the whole force of his wit in turning it into ridicule. The company, however, were alarmed, and soon separated, returning to their homes, where the first intelligence they received was, that the Lord Muskerry had appeared at the head of some thousands of rebels.

The insurrection now became universal, and was attended with circumstances of such atrocious barbarity and unexampled cruelty, that the English were thrown into the greatest alarm. The Earl of Cork, without delay, summoned his tenants, and formed a body of five hundred men, giving the command of a troop of horse to Lord Broghill. They were soon ordered to join the lord-president St. Leiger, and Lord Broghill, on many occasions, evinced the greatest courage and conduct; the success of the contest remaining for a long time doubtful, owing to {135} the overpowering numbers of the insurgents. When the cessation of arms was concluded in 1643, Lord Broghill went over to England, where he represented the treachery of the rebels in so strong a light to his majesty, as to convince him that they did not mean to adhere to the terms which had been agreed on. In consequence of this, his majesty dispatched to Lord Inchiquin, then president of Munster, a commission to prosecute the rebels, and Lord Broghill employed all his interest to assist him in the exercise of his ardaous task. Soon after this, the government of Ireland was ceded by the king to the commissioners appointed by the parliament; but so much did Lord Broghill abhor the cruelties and excesses which had been committed by the rebels, that he still retained his commission, and did not relax from his strenuous endeavours to re-establish the tranquillity of his country.

On the execution of Charles I Lord Broghill was so much shocked at that melancholy occurrence, that he immediately quitted the service of the parliament, and abandoning his estates in Ireland, embarked for England. He now retired to his seat at Marston, in Somersetshire, where he lived privately till 1649; but this inactive life soon wearied him. He regarded it as a dereliction of his duty to the unfortunate family of the Stuarts, and unfit for a man of his quality. The principles of loyalty in which he had been educated stimulated him to active exertions, and he resolved upon passing over to the continent, to procure a commission from Charles II to levy forces for his service in Ireland. For this purpose, he raised a considerable sum of money upon his estates, and applied to the Earl of Warwick, who was then in great credit with the prevailing party, requesting him to procure for him a free pass to go over to the Spa, the waters of that place having been recommended to him as essential to the recovery and preservation of his health. He also communicated his design to several persons whom he conceived equally devoted with himself to the cause of their exiled {136} sovereign; and the plan being approved of by them, he went to London to wait for his passport.

The committee of state, who were then at the head of the government, were ever on the watch to discover the designs of the partisans of Charles, and spared no money to procure intelligence. The Lord Broghill’s: abilities were too well known to them, his principles they had: every reason to suspect were unfavourable to their government, and his every motion was watched: His secret intentions were soon discovered, and the committee resolved upon making him an example to deter the friends of the king from exerting themselves in his behalf. From this resolution they. were, however, diverted by Cromwell, who had just been appointed to the command of the forces in-Ireland, and who was aware what essential service might be rendered him in that office by the interest of Lord Broghill, and his intimate acquaintance: with the country, the subjugation of which he was about to attempt. He represented these reasons to the committee, of which he was a member, and prevailed on them to allow him to talk with Lord Broghill, previous to proceeding to extremities.. Having obtained this permission, he immediately dispatched a gentleman to Lord Broghill, requesting to know at what hour it would be convenient for the general to wait upon him.

Lord Broghill was much surprised at this message, never having had the slightest acquaintance with Cromwell, and he informed the messenger, that he must: be mistaken in the person to whom the message was sent. The gentleman, however, insisting that it was to the Lord Broghill, his lordship requested him to inform his master, that he would wait upon him if he knew when he would be at leisure, and added, that in the mean time he would remain at home to receive the general’s answer.

Relying upon the honour of those he had entrusted with his secret, he did not entertain the slightest idea that his intentions had been discovered, and he remained at home {137} in much perplexity, waiting the return of the messenger, when, to his great surprise, Cromwell himself entered the room. After the first civilities were exchanged between them, Cromwell in few words informed him, that the committee of state were aware of his design of going over and applying to Charles Stuart for a commission to raise forces in Ireland, and that they had determined to punish him with the greatest severity, had not he himself diverted them from their resolution. Lord Broghill on this, interrupted him, with an assurance that the committee had been misled by false intelligence, as he had neither the power nor the inclination to raise any disturbance in Ireland; he also thanked the general for his kind offices to him, and entreated him to continue his good opinion. Cromwell made no reply, but drew from his pocket some papers, and put them into Lord Broghill’s hands. These were copies of several letters which he had sent to some of the persons, on whose assistance he most relied. Finding farther dissimulation impracticable, he asked his excellency’s pardon for what he had said, thanked him for his protection against the resolutions of the committee, and entreated his advice how to act on so delicate an occasion. Cromwell candidly told him, that though till that time he had been a stranger to his person, he was none to his merits and character; that he had heard how gallantly his lordship had already behaved in the Irish wars; and therefore, since he was named lord-lieutenant. of Ireland and the reduction of that country had now become his province, he had obtained leave of the committee to offer him the command of a general-officer, if he would serve in that war; that he should have no oaths nor engagements imposed upon him, nor be expected to draw his sword, except against the Irish rebels.

So generous and. unexpected an offer much surprised Lord Broghill. He saw himself perfectly at liberty by all the laws of honour to draw his sword against the rebels, whose atrocious barbarities were equally detested by {138} both parties. He, however, requested some time to consider of the proposal, but Cromwell briskly told him that he must form his resolution immediately, as he was returning to the committee, who were still sitting, and who, if his lordship rejected their offer, had determined to send him to the Tower. Broghill seeing that his liberty and life were in the most imminent danger, and charmed with the frankness of Cromwell’s behaviour, gave him his word and honour that he would faithfully serve him against the Irish rebels. On this Cromwell renewed his promises, and ordered him to repair to Bristol, whither forces should be immediately sent him, with a sufficient number of transports for their conveyance to Ireland, to which country he himself would soon follow.

These promises were fulfilled in every respect. Lord Broghill hastened to Bristol, where he was soon joined by the necessary troops, and on his arrival in Ireland, so much had he gained the affections of those who had formerly served under him, by his courage and affability, that he soon saw himself at the head of a troop of horse composed entirely of gentlemen, together with a regiment of fifteen hundred men. With this little army, he hovered up and down the country, keeping the insurgents at check, until Cromwell landed at Wexford, whom he immediately joined with his troops, though some of his friends had advised him not to put himself too much in the power of the lord-lieutenant. Broghill, however, resolved upon trusting himself entirely to Cromwell’s honour, nor had he ever reason to repent his confidence.

After the reduction of Drogheda, Cromwell laid siege to Clonmell, when he received intelligence that the rebels had collected a large body of troops, which were still increasing in numbers,with the intention of compelling him to raise the siege. He immediately dispatched Lord Broghill at the head of a strong detachment, with orders to fall upon the party which had assembled. This service was performed with the greatest celerity, and he fell upon the {189} nemy, whose numbers amounted to about five thousand men, before they were aware of his approach, and entirely routed them, and was engaged in taking measures for their complete dispersion, when he received dispatches from Cromwell, informing him that his army before Clonmell was much reduced by the ravages of disease, and that they had been twice repulsed by the besieged; conjuring him therefore, by every tie of duty and affection, to hasten to his relief, or that he should be compelled to raise the siege. Lord Broghill immediately returned him for answer, by his own messenger, that he had just defeated the rebels, and would be with him before Clonmell in three days. Cromwell was much pleased with this message: and when, at the time appointed, Lord Broghill appeared, he ordered the whole army to cry, “A Broghill! - A Broghill!” and ran and embraced him, thanking him for his seasonable assistance, and congratulating him on his late victory. Thus reinforced, he prosecuted the siege with redoubled vigour, and Clonmell surrendered to his victorious arms in the depth of winter.

Cromwell being soon after sent for to oppose the Scotch, gave the chief command of the forces in Ireland to Ireton, whom he appointed his deputy, and left Lord Broghill at the head of a flying camp in Munster. In this situation he was indefatigable, taking several towns, and frequently attacking the enemy with success. In these expeditions he evinced so much ability, and gave personal proofs of such undaunted courage, that he was regarded with admiration by the whole body of the nation; and Ireton, who still suspected him of a private attachment to the royal party, is reported to have said, “We must take off Broghill, or he will ruin us all.”

Lord Broghill himself entertained great suspicions of Ireton’s jealousy of him, and therefore kept with his little army at some distance, acting independently till he was compelled to join him at the siege of Limerick. During {140} this siege the Lord Broghill. was ordered on a service which certainly appears to have been dictated by evil intentions on the part of Ireton. Lord Muskerry had collected a body of three thousand men, one thousand of whom were horse, with which he was marching to join the Nuncio, who was at the head of eight thousand men, for the purpose of afterwards proceeding to the relief of Limerick. To prevent their junction, Lord Broghill was dispatched by Ireton with but one thousand troops. By forced marches he came up with Lord Muskerry before he had effected his union with the Nuncio, and fell upon him with the greatest intrepidity and resolution. He was, however, owing to his inferior numbers, soon surrounded by the enemy, who offered him fair quarter. This he refused, and threw himself into the thickest of the battle, to encourage his men to exert themselves to the utmost. This so exasperated the rebels, that they exclaimed, “Kill the fellow in the gold-laced coat,” and they would in all probability have effected their purpose, had he not been brought off by a lieutenant of his own troop, who was shot twice, and had his horse killed under him in ensuring his commander’s rescue. So spirited an example infused fresh courage into his troops, they fought with desperation, and their exertions were crowned with victory. The enemy was completely routed, leaving six hundred men dead on the spot, together with a great number of prisoners.

When the war in Ireland was finished, Cromwell, who seemed resolved to attach Lord Broghill to him, by loading him with fresh favours, sent for him to England, and appointed him one of his privy council. Nor can there be a greater proof of the fine taste of the Protector, in spite of the cant which the times compelled him to use in public, than the constant and familiar intimacy in which he lived with Broghill, Waller, and Milton.

The affairs of Scotland were at this time in much. Con {141} fusion, and Cromwell, wanting a man of abilities in: whom he could confide, to preside in that country, fixed upon: Lord Broghill for that high situation. His lordship, however, was unwilling to accept so delicate an office; he was aware that his conduct would be grossly misrepresented by the factions with which that country was then divided, and he requested the Protector to excuse his not accepting that post, informing him at the same time of his reasons for refusing the honour intended him. Cromwell, however, stating that it was necessary for! his service, he was compelled to submit. He, however, obtained a promise of the Protector, that his highness would listen to no complaints which should be made against him, till he had an opportunity of vindicating himself, and that he should be recalled at the end of one year. The Protector fulfilled his promises, and Broghill, on his return, found, as he expected, that numerous and violent complaints had been made against him. He, however, gave so clear an account of his reasons for his conduct in every particular, that Cromwell was perfectly satisfied, and conceived a much higher esteem for him than he had before entertained.

During the protectorate of Cromwell, Lord Broghill had many opportunities of relieving and assisting the adherents of the king, from the affection which Cromwell entertained for him. In proof of this, we may mention, that Cromwell one day, in the midst of a friendly conversation, told him in.a gay manner, that an old friend of his was just come to town. Broghill desiring to know whom his highness meant, Cromwell, to his great surprise, answered, the Marquis of Ormond. On this Broghill protested that he was wholly ignorant of it. I know that well enough, said the Protector; however, if you have a mind to preserve your old acquaintance, let him know, that I am not ignorant either where he is or what he is doing. He also told him where the Marquis lodged, and Broghill, having obtained this generous permission to save his friend, went directly to him, and acquainted him with {142} what had passed; Ormond finding himself discovered, immediately quitted London, and availed himself of the earliest opportunity of returning to the king.

The kindness and affection with which Lord Broghill was always treated by the Protector, excited corresponding sentiments in his bosom; and when, on the decease of Oliver, his son Richard succeeded him in his power, he resolved upon endeavouring to evince his gratitude to the father, by supporting the son. He saw the weak and vacillating state of Richard Cromwell’s mind, and he soon became aware of the impossibility of his maintaining the situation to which his father’s merits and abilities had raised him. As one of his cabinet council, which consisted of Dr. Wilkins, Colonel Phillips, and himself, he had frequent opportunities of perceiving that want of decision and firmness which marked the administration of the new Protector, and which prevented his profiting by the advice of those who were so well capable of directing him. Persuaded by the faction then prevalent in the army, Richard was induced, without acquainting his cabinet council, to consent to the meeting of a general council of officers at the same time that the parliament met, Broghill was perfectly aware of the destruction the Protector was drawing on his own head by this imprudent measure, and expostulated with him on the occasion, promising at the same time, that if he would resolve upon dissolving the council at the first opportunity, he would endeavour to prevent the mischief which might otherwise ensue, having, as a general, the right to be present at its meeting.

Wallingford House was the place appointed for the meets ing of the general council of officers, and on the first day they assembled to the number of above five hundred. After a long prayer by Dr. Owen, Major-General Desborongh rose, and ina long speech reminded them how gracious the Lord had been, and how their arms had flourished, though he feared this would not continue long, as several sons of Belial had crept in amongst them, who in all pro{148}bability would draw down the judgments of heaven upon them. To prevent this, he proposed a test to be taken by all persons in the army, that every one should swear that he believed in his conscience, that the putting to death of the late king Charles Stuart was lawful and just. This speech was received with great applause, occasioning a general cry of “well-moved!” so that many of Richard’s friends thinking it useless to oppose so evident a majority, left the house. Lord Broghill, however, against whom this speech was more particularly levelled, as soon as silence was restored, rose to object against any tests whatever, as a thing which they had often declared against. That if they proceeded to impose tests upon themselves, they would soon have them imposed by others. That the test proposed was improper, as many of the members were not present at the execution of the late king, and consequently. were unable to swear as to the lawfulness of a proceeding, the circumstances of which they were unacquainted with. If, however, they were resolved upon having a test, he would propose, that every person in the army should swear to defend the established government under the Protector and parliament.

This proposition was received with a louder cry of “well-moved,” than that of Desborough’s, and was seconded with so much warmth by some other members of the council, that Desborough, after consulting with Fleet-wood, and finding it impossible to carry the test he had proposed, stated that the arguments which had been made use of by Lord Broghill, had convinced him that tests -were improper, and he therefore proposed that they should both be withdrawn, which was at length agreed to.

On the breaking up of the council, which was adjourned till the next day, Broghill returned to the Protector, and after. pointing out. the constant difficulties in which he would be involved during their sittings, advised him to dissolve them immediately. Richard inquiring how he should do it? Broghill said that he would draw up a short {144} speech for him, which he might read to them the next morning, after having sat among them about an hour. This was accordingly done. The following morning the Protector, to the great surprise of the assembly, seated himself in the chair of state, and after attending to the debates some time, rose and delivered the speech which had been prepared for him by the Lord Broghill, with much better grace than had been expected.

Gentlemen,
“I thankfully accept of your services. I have considered your grievances, and think the properest method to redress what is amiss among you, is to do it in the parliament now sitting, and where I will take care you shall have justice done you. I therefore declare my commission for holding this assembly to be void; and that this general council is now dissolved; and I desire that such of you as are not members of the parliament, will repair forthwith to your respective commands.”

Fleetwood, Desborough, and the rest of their party were confounded by this spirited speech, and had Richard been capable of acting with the same dignity which he expressed upon this occasion, he might still have retained the power which was bequeathed to him by his father. The faction soon guessed that Broghill was the author of the speech they had just heard, and resolved to be revenged upon him for his interference. In consequence of this, at the first meeting of parliament they complained that they had been grossly abused and affronted by a certain lord in that assembly, and therefore moved that an address be presented to his highness the Protector, to know who advised him to dissolve the council of war with the consent and knowledge of his parliament.

Several of Broghill’s friends who saw that the storm was pointed at him, advised him to withdraw; he, however, sat still, till his enemies had done, and then rose and said, that he was not averse to the presenting such an {145} address, but at the same time he would move for another address, to know who advised the calling the council of war, without the consent and knowledge of his parliament, for surely, they were much more guilty than him who had advised its dissolution. This motion was received with applause by the house, who entertained great jealousy of the council of war, and Fleetwood had the mortification to see his plans baffled a second time by the dexterity of the Lord Broghill.

Though the council of officers, had been dissolved, a great, number of them still continued to meet privately. Broghill and some others of Richard’s friends informed the Protector of these meetings, by which, not, only his power, but even his person was endangered, and engaged that if he would act boldly, and give them a sufficient authority, they would either force his enemies to obey him, or destroy them. Richard was startled at this proposal, and declined their offers, stating, that rather than a drop of blood should be spilt on his account, he would lay down his power, which was but a burden to him; nor could all their persuasions induce him to alter his resolution. Shortly after this, the council of officers, partly by threats, and partly by promises, prevailed upon the Protector to dissolve the parliament. This was in effect destroying is own power; and Lord Broghill seeing the family of the Cromwells was now laid aside, returned to his command in Munster, where he was much beloved.

The conduct of affairs now devolved into the hands of the committee of safety, appointed by the army, and seven commissioners were detached by that body to take charge of Ireland. They had particular instructions to attend to the motions of Lord Broghill, and if possible to find some occasion to confine him, as they were well aware of his intentions of endeavouring to restore the exiled family of the Stuarts, and knew, that his popularity in Munster, and his great abilities might induce the whole army of Ireland to join with him to effect his purpose. He had already {146} applied to Sir Charles Coote, who had great power in the north of Ireland, when he was summoned by the commissioners to appear before them at the castle of Dublin. His friends on this advised him to stand upon his guard, and not put himself into the power of his enemies; but he thought himself not sufficiently strong to take such a step, and therefore went to Dublin, taking his own troop with him as a guard, which he left in the suburbs. The day after his arrival, he appeared before the commissioners who informed him that he was suspected of plotting against the state, and that they had orders to confine him, unless he would be answerable with his life and estate that there should be no commotion in Munster, where his interest principally lay. Lord Broghill was much surprised at this proposal; he saw himself in the power of his enemies, who would take advantage of his refusing the security required, by immuring him in a prison, and who, if he gave the securities, might themselves raise some commotion. He requested some time to consider, but they insisted on his immediate answer; when he requested to know if they intended to put the whole power of Munster into his hands; if they did, he was willing to enter into any securities whatever; but if they did not, they could not expect him to be answerable for the behaviour of people over whom he had no control.

This question so much embarrassed the commissioners, that they ordered him to withdraw, and fell into a warm debate how they ought to proceed with him; and at length it was resolved by the majority, that he should be sent back to his command in Munster, with every civility, and suffered to retain it till they had farther orders from England. In consequence of which he was invited to dine with the commissioners, who assured him that they had so high an opinion of his honour and integrity, that they would require him to enter into no engagements whatever, and dismissed him with the greatest respect. On his return to Munster, Lord Broghill easily saw through the mean {147} ing of these outward civilities, and on his arrival at his command, exerted himself with so much energy in the royal cause, that he was soon enabled to send over to Charles a declaration of their wish, that he should come to Ireland, signed by all the principal officers and commanders in that country.

Soon after his brother’s departure for Flanders, he received a letter from Sir Charles Coote, informing him that their design of declaring for the king had been discovered, in consequence of which he had been compelled to declare himself sooner than he had intended, and conjuring his lordship not to forsake him in a design which he had first persuaded him to undertake. On the receipt of this Lord Broghill immediately declared himself for his majesty; and the commissioners finding themselves in the midst of two such powerful parties, made so trifling a resistance, that the whole kingdom was quickly secured in the name of his majesty Charles II.

On the return of the king to England, and his re-establishment in the throne of his father, Lord Broghill hastened to England, where he was received by Charles with great coolness. He was much surprised at this, until he discovered that Sir Charles Coote had sent over a friend to the king at Brussels, who informed him that Sir Charles was the first man in Ireland who had taken up arms for his majesty, and that Lord Broghill was extremely averse to his restoration. In consequence of this, Broghill put the letter he had received from Sir Charles into the hands of his brother, the Lord Shannon, who laid it before his majesty, who was thus convinced of the strenuous exertions of Lord Broghill in his favour, and received him afterwards in the most gracious manner. Soon after this he was created Earl of Orrery, and appointed one of his majesty’s cabinet council. He was also promoted to the situation of lord president of Munster, and named one of the lords justices for the government of Ireland.

The tranquillity which followed the restoration of Charles rendering the Earl of Orrery’s abilities as a soldier {148} of less importance, he employed his talents in writing those plays on which his reputation as an author principally depends. They are, “The History of Henry V;” “Mustapha, the Son of Soliman the Magnificent;” “The Black Prince;” and “Triphon.” They were distinguished by much of that brilliant wit which sparkled in the luxurious court of Charles, but found their principal claim to our notice on the sentiments of honour and probity with which they are filled. His lordship unfortunately gained so much applause from his first piece, which was written in rhyme, that he published all his subsequent works in the same style, which is certainly extremely improper for the stage; and in consequence of this, some of the finest thoughts are expressed in so spiritless a manner, as to lay them open to the greatest ridicule. Great allowances, are however, to be made, when we consider that these plays were composed during the excruciating fits of the gout, (a disorder which, although it may elicit spirited exclamations, is not on the whole the favourable for the development of poetic talents.) This affliction caused Charles to observe, that if he intended to defer finishing his Black Prince till he had another attack, he heartily wished him a good fit of it. His posthumous plays are, “Mc Anthony;” “Gusman;” “Herod the Great;” and “Altemira.” His lordship is also well known as an author, by his immense romance, “Parthenissa;” a work which has been adimired and read in several modern languages. He also published, “The Irish Colours displayed; in a Reply of an English Protestant to a Letter of an Irish Roman Catholic;” and “An Answer to a scandalous Letter lately printed and subscribed by Peter Walsh, Procurator for the secular and regular Popish Priests of Ireland, entitled, “A Letter desiring a just and merciful regard of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, given about the end of October, 1660, to the then Marquis, now Duke of Ormond, and the second time Lord-Lieutenant of that kingdom. By the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery, &c., being a full Discovery of the Treachery of the Irish Rebels, since {149} the beginning of the Rebellion there, necessary to be considered by all Adventurers, and other Persons estated in that Kingdom.” His poems comprise, Poem on his Majesty’s happy Restoration;” “A Poem on the Death of the celebrated Mr. Abraham Cowley;” “The Dream,” which is altogether political; and “Poems on the Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England.” This was his last work, and exhibits manifest proofs of declining genius. He also dedicated to his majesty, “The Art of War,” a work which exhibits much classical ability and military talent.

Not long after his majesty’s return, the catholics of Ireland commissioned Sir Nicholas Plunket, and some other gentlemen, to present a memorial to him, requesting the restoration of their estates. The protestants, alarmed lest this remonstrance should take effect, chose the Earl of Orrery, and six more, to oppose this measure in the council, The Earl of Orrery had always been so strenuous. an opposer of the catholics that they were apprehensive that his eloquence and address might influence the council against them. In consequence of this, they offered him, as Mr. Morrice, his lordship’s chaplain, assures us, £8,000 in money, and estates to the amount of £7,000 per annum, not to appear against them; but he rejected this proposal with disdain, stating that, since he had the honour to be employed by the protestants, he would never have the baseness to betray them. The cause was heard with great solemnity before the king and council: the commissioners of the catholics urged their arguments on the case, and expatiated on their loyalty and attachment to his majesty; when the Earl of Orrery rose, and, after a handsome compliment to the king, stated that his protestant subjects in Ireland were the first who had formed a party for his assistance; that the catholics had fought against the authority, both of the late and present king; and finally, that they had offered the kingdom of Ireland to the Pope, the king of Spain, and the king of France. {150} In proof of his assertions, to the great surprise of all who were present, he produced original papers, signed by the supreme council of the catholics, of which Sir Nicholas Plunket himself was one. This unexpected blow decided the contest in favour of the protestants, and his majesty dismissed the catholic commissioners with more severity than he commonly made use of.

Shortly after this, his lordship with Sir Charles Coote, who had been created Earl of Montrath, and Sir Maurice Eustace, were appointed lords justices of Ireland, and commissioned to hold a parliament for the settlement of the nation. On this occasion Lord Orrery, with his own hand drew up the famous Act of Settlement, which was looked upon when it passed as evincing the most consummate skill and address. The partial interpretation, however, which was afterwards put upon it by the judges, gave rise to much clamour and complaint, and completely deprived the measure of that conciliating effect, which had been intended by it, in restoring many of the catholics to their hereditary possessions. When the Duke of Ormond was appointed lord-lieutenant, Lord Orrery retired to his presidency of Munster, where he heard and determined causes with such judgment and impartiality as acquired him the general approbation and esteem of that province, and induced the king, after the fall of the Earl of Clarendon, to offer him the seals. The gout, however, with which he was now almost continually afflicted, induced him to decline a situation which required so regular an attendance.

During the first Dutch war in which France acted in confederacy with Holland, he defeated the scheme formed by the Duke de Beaufort, admiral of France, to get possession of the harbour of Kinsale; and taking advantage of the alarm of the neighbourhood, he had a fort erected under his own directions, which was named “Fort Charles.” He afterwards interested himself in an inquiry which was attempted, into the king’s revenue from Ireland; but {151} Charles having applied large sums out of that revenue, was unwilling that the inquiry should proceed, and he consequently failed in his endeavours to procure it.
The ministry of England, which was now principally directed by Sir Thomas Clifford, apprehensive that they should not be able to succeed in their designs in Ireland, while Lord Orrery continued president of Munster, prevailed o on his majesty to direct him to discontinue his residential court, in which he sat as judge for that province, as a compensation for which, he received £8,000. But soon after, they procured ¢ articles of impeachment for treason and high misdemeanours to be exhibited against him in the English house of commons; on which occasion his lordship in his place, delivered so candid, ingenuous, and satisfactory a defence, that the proceedings were dropped. He was, however, so incensed against the ministry who had thus attempted to destroy him, that when Charles II who felt a real attachment to him, offered him the post of lord high treasurer to induce him to remain in England, he refused it; plainly telling him that he was guided by unsteady counsellors with whom he could not act.

Having been long a martyr to the gout, the frequent returns of which had induced an ill state of health for some time previous, he expired on the 16th of October, 1679, at the age of fifty-eight, leaving behind him the character of an able general, statesman, and writer. In all these capacities we have already had occasion to consider him, and have seen that he was deserving of high estimation in each of them, But the most distinguishing part of his conduct is that happy presence of mind which he possessed, and his peculiar dexterity in extricating himself from the perplexities in which he was so frequently involved. His generosity was great, but it was regulated by prudence; and his charities, as we are informed by his chaplain, Mr, Morrice, were extensive, and uninfluenced by any narrow illiberality of party oF religion. He possessed an undeviating integrity and Peart of principle, {152} from which we have seen, on one occasion, that bribes could not bias him, and on another he refused the offer of £4,000 which Charles, who was not so delicate, is known to have put into his own privy purse. His natural talents were much improved by literature, and his wit and courage rendered still more amiable by religion., His conversation was peculiarly interesting from the knowledge of men and manners which it evinced, and the wit with which it was enlivened.

His person (we are informed) was of a middle size, well shaped and comely; and his eyes had that life and quickness in them which is generally regarded as the sign of great and uncommon talents.

VISCOUNT SHANNON, fourth son of Richard, first Earl of Cork, was born on June 25, 1623. His first essay in arms was at the commencement of the great rebellion, and when his brother, Lord Kynalmenby was slain, he brought off in safety the cavalry which his lordship had commanded, together with his body, at the hazard of his own life. He continued very active during the reign of Charles I in suppressing the rebellion.

In 1660 he was dispatched to Brussels by his brother Roger, then Lord Broghill, to invite Charles II to Ireland, in order to procure his restoration; but the exertions of Monk in England having ensured his reception in that country, he did not avail himself of the offer of the Boyles. As a reward, however, for his services, he was in September raised by the king to the title of Viscount Shannon. He was also admitted a member of the privy council, made captain of a troop of horse, and received two grants of lands under the acts of settlement. In August 1672, he was appointed governor of the city and county of Cork, and lived probably till near the end of the seventeenth century. {158}

‘His lordship is known to the literary world as author of “Discourses and Essays, useful for the vain modish Ladies and their Gallants; as also upon several subjects, moral and divine, in two parts;” a work which is now very rare - In Park’s edition of Orford’s Royal and Noble Authors, is a list of the titles of the different essays which compose this work, some of which are curious: as,

8. Against maids marrying for mere love, &c.
9. Against widows marrying.
10. Against keeping of misses,” &c.

Aubrey, from Dr. Walker’s funeral sermon on Lady Warwick, speaks of a publication by Lord Shannon, entitled, his “Pocket Pistol,” “which may make,” says the preacher, “as wide breaches in the walls of the Capitol as many cannons.”

THIS celebrated and accurate investigator of nature, equally distinguished for the extent of his knowledge and the purity of his morals, was born at Lismore, in the province of Munster, on January 25, 1626-7. He was the seventh son and the fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Cork. When nine years of age, having been already taught to write a good hand, and to speak French and Patan with great didchiGh (the antic with so much accuracy, as to pass frequently when on his travels for a native of France,) he was sent by his father to England, to be educated at Eton school, under the care of Sir Henry Wotton; who discovered so much ability in the son of his old friend, combined with so anxious an inclination to avail himself of every opportunity to increase his acquirements, that he soon became accustomed to regard him as one of the most promising youths in that establishment.

During his stay at Eton, he met with several accidents which had nearly proved fatal to him. Being once {154} mounted on a starting horse, the animal reared up, and had almost thrown him backwards, when he would certainly have been crushed, had he not fortunately disengaged himself in time from the stirrups, and thrown himself off. On another occasion, an apothecary’s servant having by mistake delivered to him a strong emetic instead of a cooling draught, his life was in great danger through the violent operation of so improper a medicine on his delicate constitution. The most severe accident, however, happened one night when he was in bed; the room giving way, he was enveloped amidst falling timber, bricks, and rubbish; at which time, in addition to the imminent danger of being crushed by the ruins, he would inevitably have been choked by the dust caused by the disturbance, had it not been for his presence of mind in wrapping the sheet round his face, and thus securing to himself the power of breathing with freedom. When about ten years old, he was afflicted with an ague, which had occasioned so great a depression of his spirits, that in order to revive him from the melancholy into which he had fallen, they made him read “Amadis de Gaul,” and several other works of the same description; which, as he informs us in his Memoirs, produced. such a restlessness in him, that he was obliged to apply himself to the extraction of the square and cube roots, and to the more laborious operations of algebra, in order to fix and settle the volatility of his fancy. These studies, with the addition of several of the higher branches of the mathematics, he afterwards pursued with great application and success, more particularly during his residence at Geneva.

After having remained at Eton about three years, he accompanied his father to his seat at Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire, where he continued his studies under the direction of the Rey. William Douch, rector of that place, until the autumn of 1638, when he returned to London. Here he resided with his father at the Savoy, till his brother, Mr. Francis Boyle, espoused Mrs, Elizabeth Killigrew, {155} four days age which both brothers left England, under the care of Mr. Marcombes, with whom at his residence at Geneva, they spent nearly two years in the prosecution of their studies. In their way to that place, they passed through Paris and Lyons, at both which cities they devoted some time to observing every thing which was curious and worthy of attention. From Geneva he made frequent excursions into the neighbouring countries, and having on one occasion penetrated those wild and desolate mountains, rendered so gloomily interesting by the solitary life of the austere Bruno, and the establishment of the first and chief of the monasteries of his order (the Carthusian), he was so deeply affected, that he relates that “the devil, taking advantage of that deep raving melancholy, so sad a place, his own humour, which was naturally grave and serious, and the strange stories and pictures he found there of Bruno, suggested such strange and hideous distracting doubts of some of the fundamentals of Christianity, that though his looks did but little betray his thoughts, nothing but the forbiddenness of self-dispatch prevented his acting it.” In a mind so well regulated as that of Mr. Boyle, there could be little fear of such a catastrophe. He laboured under this melancholy for some months, and was at length recovered from it by an inquiry into the foundation of the christian religion; which terminating in his complete conviction of its truth, re-established his mind on that firm basis from which the wild and terrific localities which surrounded him, had almost caused it to totter.

In the autumn of 1641 he quitted Geneva, and went to Venice, whence, after spending a short time in that city, he proceeded to Florence, where he remained during the whole of the winter. This time he employed in the study of the Italian language, and in forming an acquaintance with the works of the celebrated astronomer Galileo, who died in a village in the neighbourhood, during Mr. Boyle’s residence at this place. In March the {156} next year, he made an excursion to Rome, where he arrived in five days, and surveyed the venerable relics and antiquities of that ancient metropolis of the world. He also visited such of the adjacent villages and towns as contained any object worthy of his attention, but was prevented from making so long a stay as he had intended, the heat of the weather not agreeing with his brother’s health. Having visited in his return several of the principal cities of Italy, he arrived at Marseilles in May, where he received letters from his father, informing him of the rebellion in Ireland, which had just commenced, and stating, that it was not without much difficulty he had procured the £250 which he remitted to defray their expenses to England. This money they never received; and after waiting several months in expectation of it, their pecuniary difficulties were such as to put them under the necessity of being indebted to their governor’s kindness for the means of their conveyance to his residence at Geneva; and finally, after a long stay there, to his credit in obtaining some jewels, from the sale of which he raised a sufficient sum to enable them to reach England, which they did in 1644. On his arrival, Mr. Boyle found his father dead; by whose will he became possessed of the manor of Stalbridge in England, and estates to a considerable amount in Ireland. His first care, after having obtained from the then government, protections for his estates in both countries, was to procure a permission to pass over into France, to remunerate Mr. Marcombes for the kindness he had shewn him in his distress; and from: the generosity of Mr. Boyle’s character, there can be no doubt of his having done it with great liberality. He staid but a short time on the continent, as we find him at Cambridge the following December.

He now retired to his manor of Stalbridge, where he continued for several years, devoting his time entirely to the study of chemistry and experimental philosophy; in which pursuits, the ardour and abilities with which he {157} prosecuted his researches, soon introduced. him to the acquaintance or correspondence of every person distinguished either for science or literature. These connections were the cause of occasional excursions to London, Oxford, &c. in which he formed'a personal. acquaintance with those scientific men whom he had before known merely by their writings; and he soon became so celebrated, that in 1651, Dr. Nathaniel Highmore, an eminent physician, dedicated to him his “History of Generation;” a work in which he examines the opinions of different authors, particularly those of Sir Kenelm Digby. . In May 1650 he.left Stalbridge; and in 1652 went over to Ireland, to arrange his affairs in that country, which detained him till August 1653. He was soon after compelled to return to Ireland again; a circumstance he would have much regretted, from the interruption caused by it to his studies, had it not been for his intimacy with his distinguished countryman, Archbishop Usher, with whom he studied the Scriptures in their original languages with so great exactness, as to quote readily any remarkable passage in either the Old or the New Testament. He was also intimately acquainted with the celebrated Sir William Petty, in whose conversation he took particular pleasure. A short time previous to the commencement of the civil wars, a few of the most distinguished philosophers had formed the plan of a society for prosecuting inquiries into nature, on the principle of experiment; an idea which had been originally suggested by the celebrated Bacon. Of this Mr. Boyle was one of the earliest members; and when all academical studies were suspended in consequence of the tumultuous times, this society,which was then called the Philosophical College, continued still to hold its meetings, though with the greatest secresy [sic], first at London, and afterwards at Oxford. This induced Mr. Boyle, on his return to England in 1654, to fix his abode at Oxford, where the society then held its meetings; as he was here surrounded by a number of his learned friends, such as {158} Wilkins; Ward, Willis, Wren, &c. who were all members of the Philosophical College, and with whom he passed his time in the pleasing reciprocation of imparting and receiving information.

During his stay at Oxford he resided in the house of Mr, Crosse, an apothecary, which he preferred to a college, as it afforded more room for his experiments, and agreed better with his health, It was here that he invented that admirable machine, the air-pump; the immense utility of which those only who devote themselves to his studies can justly appreciate: a machine which has developed so many facts as to have led to a nearly complete theory of the air, and laid the foundation on which chemistry has been raised to that high pinnacle of perfection on which she how stands. By the assistance of Mr. Robert Hooke, professor of mathematics at Gresham College, it was at length perfected in 1678; or 1679. Mr. Boyle laboured incessantly in framing and conducting new experiments; such, he said, being the only trtie foundation of science, and the sole means by which it was possible to arrive at a knowledge of the operations of nature: and so devoted was he to this opinion, that, although the Cartesian philosophy was at that time much applauded, he would never suffer himself to be persuaded to read the works of Des Cartes, lest, by plausible hypotheses and delusive theories, he might be led away from that truth for the establishment of which he was continually se gers in collecting materials.

Deeply, however, as he was devoted to inquiries into nature, his attention was not exclusively directed to them, he still continued to pursue critical and theological studies, in which he was assisted by Dr. Edward Pocock, Mr. Thomas Hyde, and Mr. Samuel Clarke, all of whom were eminently skilled in the oriental languages. He also cultivated a strict intimacy with Dr. Barlow, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, a man of the greatest variety and extent of learning, who was at that time keeper of the {159} Bodleian Library. His friend, Dr. Wallis, ii 1659; dedicated to him his excellent “Treatise on the Cycloid.” And in the game year the learned Sanderson, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, having been deprived of all his preferments in consequence of his attachment to the royal party, Mr. Boyle generously settled upon him a pension of £50 per annum, to encourage him to apply himself to the writing of cases of conscience. In consequence of which this excellent logician printed his lectures, which he had read at Oxford in 1647, “De Obligatione Conscientiæ,” and dedicated them to his friend and patron; without whose assistance, so liberally bestowed, this excellent production would have been buried, together with its pious author, in oblivion.

On the restoration of Charles II Mr. Boyle was received by that monarch with great civility, and was solicited by Lord Clarendon, and afterwards by the Earl of Shaftesbury, to enter into orders; both of those illustrious statesmen conceiving that his unblemished life and extensive learning would give additional strength to the doctrines he should preach. This proposition was, however, declined by Mr. Boyle, who conceived that, as a layman, his works in behalf of religion would perhaps have more effect than as clergyman, as being evidently free from all suspicion of interestedness, and therefore not liable to the scoff 80 frequently aimed at those whose religion is considered as being merely their trade. In addition to this, as Burnet has informed us in his funeral sermon, he did hot feel that “inward motion to it by the Holy Ghost,” which he conceived to be essential to take upon him that important charge.

In 1662 he commenced publishing the fruits of his studies with “New Experiments, Physico-Mechanical, touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects, made for the most part in a new pneumatical Engine.” This work he addressed to his nephew the Lord Dungarvan. He also published “Seraphic Love; or, some Motives and {160}

Incentives to the Love of God, pathetically discoursed of in a Letter to a Friend,” which was, finished as early,as 1648, though not printed till this time. It is said to have been occasioned by a passion which he is stated to, have entertained for the daughter of the Earl of Monmouth. Even so early as this period his, fame had extended itself beyond the limits of this kingdom, and Mr. Southwell, then resident at Florence, informed him in a letter, dated - October.10, 1660, that the Grand Duke of Tuscany (a prince eminently distinguished for his learning and abilities) was desirous of engaging in a correspondence with him... The following year appeared Certain Physiological Essays and; other Tracts;” and, in 1662, he published his “Sceptical Chemist,” a work containing much curious and valuable information; and also a second edition of his “New Experiments,” which we should not have noticed but for the Appendix which was now first printed, in which the work is defended with much ability and success against the objections which had been urged against it by Mr. Hobbes and Franciscus Linus. ., In this year a grant of the forfeited impropriations in Ireland was obtained from the king in Mr, Boyle’s name, though without his knowledge; but this did not prevent him from shewing a lively interest in procuring the application of those funds to the increase and promotion of religion and learning. As governor of the Corporation for propagating the Gospel in New England, he was also very instrumental in. procuring a decree in the court of chancery against Colonel Bedingfield; which restored to that. society .an estate of which they had been unjustly deprived, the colonel having taken possession of it after having sold it to them for a valuable consideration.

In 1663 he published “Considerations touching, the Usefulness of Experimental Natural Philosophy;” and also, “Experiments and Considerations upon Colours;” to which was added, “A Letter, containing Observations on a Diamond that shines in the Dark.” This dissertation is {161} full of most curious and valuable remarks on this subject, which had been entirely unexplained prior to this time, and which afforded much assistance to Sir Isaac Newton in forming that complete theory which has since suffered so little alteration. Mr. Boyle, indeed, was so attached to the collection of facts only, that he is said never, on any occasion, to have hazarded an hypothesis in explanation of any subject in which he was engaged. The latter end of this year he also published an extract from a larger work, entitled “An Essay on Scripture,” under the name of “Considerations upon the Style of the Holy Scriptures.” The whole work was afterwards published by Sir Peter Pett, one of Mr. Boyle’s most intimate friends.

In the same year, on the incorporation of the Philosophical College by Charles II, under the name of the Royal Society, Mr. Boyle was appointed one of the council; an honour which was certainly due to him, as he might be justly reckoned among the founders of that learned body. He continued throughout the whole of his life one of its most distinguished members; and the earlier volumes of its transactions are enriched with many valuable papers from his pen, in which we know not whether to admire most, the genius which dictated his experiments, or the unceasing perseverance with which he pursued them.

The whole of the ensuing year, in which he was elected one of the company of the royal mines, was employed by him in the prosecution of various designs for the service of his country, which was probably the reason why he did not publish until 1665, when there appeared “Occasional Reflections upon several Subjects; whereto is prefixed, A Discourse about such Kind of Thoughts.” This excellent work is dedicated to his sister, the Lady Ranelagh, whose name he conceals under the fictitious appellation of Sophronia; and contains thoughts upon various subjects which strongly evince his wit, learning, and piety. In these reflections, however, he followed too closely that {162} precept of Seneca “Omnibus rebus, omnibusque sermonibus, aliquid salutare miscendum est;” the meanness of some, of the subjects exposing him to the ridicule of the celebrated Dean Swift, which was severely bestowed in “A pious Meditation on a Broom Stick; in the Style, of the Honourable Robert Boyle.” This was the only attack which Mr, Boyle, ever. sustained; and, although we cannot approve of the severity of the censure, we must allow that his style is occasionally too verbose and prolix, and this more particularly in his theological treatises. He has also, and not without justice, been blamed for believing many things too easily on the credit of other people; although this has been attempted to be accounted: for, by stating that, as he abhorred to affirm what was false himself, he was unwilling to believe others capable of so mean a practice. A certain writer, however, by way of making reprisals upon Swift for this attack, which he affirms. to be as cruel and unjust as itis, trivial and indecent, has observed, that, from this very treatise which he has thus held up to ridicule, he borrowed the first idea of his Gulliver’s Travels; an assertion which certainly appears to be strongly supported by the following passage, which he has quoted in proof of his opinion:

“You put me in mind of a fancy of your friend Mr. Boyle, who was saying that he had thoughts of making a short romantic story, where the scene should be, laid in some island of the Southern Ocean, governed by some such rational laws and customs as those of the Utopia or the New Atalantis; and in this country he would introduce an observing native, that, upon his return home from his travels made in Europe, should give an account of our countries and manners under feigned, names; and frequently intimate in his relations, or in his answers to questions that should be made him, the reasons of. his wondering to find our customs so extravagant, and differing from those of his own country. For your friend imagined that, by such a way of exposing, many,of our practices, we {163} should ourselves be brought unawares to condemm, or perhaps to laugh at them; and should at least cease to wonder to find other nations think them as extravagant as)we think the manners of the Dutch and Spaniards, as they are represented in our travellers books.”

He also published an important work, under the title of “New Experiments and Observations upon Cold; or, an experimental History of Cold begun: with sever ctyskty thereunto annexed.”

In August 1665, he was nominated by the king to the provostship of Eton college, which was thought the fittest employment for him in the kingdom; his excellent character alone; without any solicitation, having obtained for him this noble appointment. Power or wealth, however, had for him no charms. Deeply devoted to retirement, as it afforded him the opportunity of employing his time in the manner most congenial to his disposition, so tempting an offer had but little effect on him; and, after mature ~ deliberation, he declined it; a step which he took in direct opposition to the wishes of all his friends, who had strongly advised his acceptance of so enviable a situation. He felt that the duties it would impose upon him would interfere too much with the studies he was addicted to, and with the course of life he then pursued, which was so congenial to his constitution; and he was besides unwilling to enter into orders, which he looked upon as a necessary qualification for a situation of such importance.

In 1666, he published, at the request of the Royal. Society, “Hydrostatical. Paradoxes made out by new Experiments, for the most part physical and easy;” being an account of some experiments he had made about two years before, at their request. He also published “The Origin of Forms and Qualities, according to the corpuscular Philosophy, “illustrated by Considerations and Experiments,” which evince consummate judgment and indefatigable perseverance in the pursuits of truth.

At this time the public attention was much engaged in {164} canvassing the pretensions of an Irish gentleman, by name, Valentine Greatraeks, who affirmed that he possessed a peculiar gift of curing diseases, by stroking the affected parts. In some instances, certainly, he had succeeded, owing most probably, to the effect produced on the imagination of the persons who underwent this operation. This gave rise to a controversy, in the course of which many pamphlets appeared on both sides, and at length, Mr. Henry Stubbe wrote “The Miraculous Conformist; or, an account of several marvellous Cures performed by the stroking of the hands of Mr. Valentine Greatraeks; with a physical discourse thereupon, in a letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq.” who, the morning after he received it, wrote a letter in answer, which evinces the greatest accuracy of judgment and correctness of style, combined with that comprehensiveness of mind, which at one view taking in the whole of an extensive subject, arranges it with perspicuity. It contains twenty pages, and from the ability which it displays, can be hardly conceived to have been written in a single morning, where we not assured by the unimpeachable testimony of Mr. Boyle himself. Nor must we omit to mention, that at the very time in which Mr. Stubbe thus respectfully appealed to the decision of Mr. Boyle, he was engaged in a warm attack on the Royal Society, not one of whose members, with the exception of Mr. Boyle alone, escaped his severe invective.

In 1668 Mr. Boyle left Oxford, and settled in Pall Mall, in the house of his favourite sister, Lady Ranelagh, where he continued during the remainder of his life. Desirous of facilitating every information in his peculiar studies, he now resolved upon devoting a particular portion of the day to receive such men of science as should be desirous of communicating their discoveries to a person so well qualified to appreciate justly their claims to attention, and to point out the new lights they were likely to throw on the economy of nature. Such are the claims of society {165} on those whose talents and exertions have rendered them conspicuous, that, had it not been for this well-timed arrangement, Mr. Boyle would have had but few opportunities of continuing his studies, owing to the multitude of those who resorted to so celebrated a philosopher.

His reputation, however, as we have already seen, was not confined to the country in which he resided. It had spread itself over the whole of Europe: and no foreigner who arrived in England with the slightest taste for literary or philosophical: enjoyment, now left it without having visited him. He received them with an openness and hospitality which were peculiar to him; and when some of his friends seemed to blame him for suffering himself to be so frequently interrupted by the visits of strangers, and condescending to answer all their questions, he replied, “that what he did was but gratitude, since he could not forget with what humanity he himself had been received by learned strangers in foreign parts, and how much he should have been grieved, had they refused to gratify his curiosity.” His laboratory was also constantly open to the curious, whom he permitted to see most of his processes,

It is true he made some discoveries in the course of his experiments, which he looked upon himself obliged to conceal for the good of mankind. Of this nature were several sorts of poisons, and a certain liquor with which he assures us he could discharge all the writing of any deed upon paper or parchment, and leave nothing but the parties names who signed it; and that the place from whence the first writing had been discharged would bear ink again as well as ever,

It is not, however, merely as a chemist that we are to regard Mr. Boyle. Chemistry in him was merely one vehicle in which his vast beneficence of spirit exerted itself to relieve the wants and alleviate the miseries of his fellow mortals. Actively engaged in endeavouring to extend the knowledge of the religion he professed, he {166} expended large sums of money in procuring translations of the Scriptures into various languages, and in causing them to be distributed; thus setting the example to those immense establishments which have of late years spread abroad the Gospel into the remotest parts of the earth. Among many other instances, may be mentioned his sending to the Levant many copies of “Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christiane;” translated, principally at his expense, into Arabic, by Dr. Pocock; and his having caused five hundred copies of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles to be printed at Oxford in 1677, in the Malayan language, and sent abroad. Pecuniary donations, however, coming from a rich man, are not to be regarded as positive proofs of a charity of disposition; what he gives in this way is to him superfluous; but when we see a man like Boyle; whose delight is in retirement, come forward as a director of the East India Company, continue in that capacity for many years, use great exertions in their service, particularly in procuring for them their charter, and all this solely with the intention of prevailing on the company to assist in propagating the Gospel through the medium of their factories, shall we not say, “Such is indeed the charitable man; the man who sacrifices his own comforts to minister to the wants of others.”

In the midst of all these exertions and studies for the benefit of mankind, he was afflicted with a severe paralytic attack, from which he recovered, though not without much difficulty, by strictly adhering to the regimen pre~ scribed for him by his skilful and‘ friendly physician, Sir Edmund King. In 1669, he published “A Continuation of New Experiments, touching the Spring and Weight of the Air; to which is added, a Discourse of the Atmospheres of consistent Bodies.” He also, in the same year, made many additions to several of the tracts he had previously published; many of which were now translated into Latin, for the benefit of such foreigners as might be unable to consult them in their original language. In 1670 there {167} appeared “Tracts about the Cosmical Qualities of Things; Cosmical Suspicions of the Temperature of the Subterranean Regions; the Bottom of the Sea; to which is prefixed an Introduction to the History of particular Qualities.”, This work excited considerable speculation, as it contained an immense number of facts, which were altogether new, and was, besides, founded upon actual experiments, from which legitimate conclusions were drawn; a method which completely and justly exploded the philosophy then popularly received, which consisted entirely of a confused tissue of mere hypotheses and groundless conjectures,

‘To enumerate even a portion of the numerous papers, which Mr. Boyle was continually communicating to the Royal Society, would extend these memoirs far beyond the limits which ean be allowed them; yet we cannot refrain from mentioning “An Experimental Discourse of. Quicksilver growing hot with Gold,” to which was added, another on the same: subject; as-it was regarded at the time asa discovery of the utmost importance. So great has in all ages been the avidity with which men have pursued every thing which appeared likely to open a way to the transmutation of the baser metals into gold, that these papers excited a very general attention, and were regarded even by men of seience as a prelude to that immense discovery, as is evident from a letter addressed by Mr. afterwards Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Oldenburgh, secretary to the Royal Society. Indeed, it is evident, from several passages in his writings, that Mr. Boyle entertained a belief of the possibility of this transmutation; and he was afterwards (in 1689) at some trouble in procuring an act for repealing the statute then in force against multiplying gold and silver.

In 1671 he published “Considerations on the Usefulness of Experimental and Natural Philosophy. The second Part;” and also “A Collection of Tracts upon several useful and important Points: ef practical Philosophy.” {168}

And in 1672, “An Essay about the Origin and Virtue of Gems,” together with “A Collection of Tracts upon the Relation between Flame and Air; and several other useful and curious Subjects.” In the following year Anthony le Grand,,the famous Cartesian philosopher, published at London his “Historia Nature,” &c. and in his dedication: to Mr. Boyle, he does justice to his universal reputation for extensive learning, and amazing sagacity in. every branch of experimental philosophy; and says of him, what Averroes said of Aristotle, that. nature had formed him as an exemplar or pattern of the highest perfection to which humanity can attain. About this time Mr. Boyle published “The Excellency of Theology compared with Natural Philosophy;” and “Essays on the strange subtlety, great efficacy, and determinate nature of Effluvia; to which are added a variety of Experiments on other subjects.” And in 1674, “A Collection of Tracts upon the Saltness of the Sea, the Moisture of the Air, the Natural and Preternatural State of Bodies; to which is prefixed, a Dialogue concerning Cold;” and another Collection of Tracts, containing Suspicions, about hidden Qualities of the Air; with an Appendix touching Celestial Magnets: Animadversions upon Mr. Hobbes Problem about a Vacuum; a Discourse of the Cause of Attraction and Suction.” In the following year, 1675, he published “‘ Some Considerations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion. By T. E, a Layman. To which is annexed, a Discourse about the Possibility of the Resurrection, by Mr. Boyle.” Both these pieces were, however, written by him, although the former is marked only with the final letters of his name. In 1676 he published “Experiments and Notes, about the mechanical Origin or Production of particular Qualities.”

In 1677 there was printed at Geneva, without his knowledge or consent, a collection of his miscellaneous works, in Latin, of which: there is a large account given in the Philosophical Transactions. In the following year he {169} communicated to Mr. Hooke some observations on an artificial substance that shines without any. preceding illustration, which were published by that gentleman in his “Lectiones Cutleriane.” And at the latter end of this year, as a proof of the high estimation in which he was held by Sir Isaac Newton, we may mention that that celebrated philosopher wrote him a very curious letter, in which he laid before him his sentiments upon that ethereal medium which he afterwards proposed in his Optics, as the mechanical cause of gravitation.

Deeply impressed with a just sense of his great worth, and of the services he had rendered to science during the whole of his life, on the 30th of November this year, the Royal Society made choice of him for their president. This honour he, however, declined in a letter addressed to his friend Mr. Robert Hooke, being, as he says, even peculiarly tender in point of oaths.

In 1680 he published “The Ærial Noctiluca; or, some new phenomena, and a process of factitious self-shining substance.” Phosphorus, the substance here alluded to, was then of very recent discovery. lhe first inventor of it was Brandt, a citizen of Hamburgh, who imparted his process to one Kraaft; by whose persuasion he kept it a profound secret. In 1679 Kraaft brought a piece of it to England to shew to the king and queen, which having been seen by Mr. Boyle, he‘ actually, in the following year, succeeded in making a small quantity, which he presented to the Royal Society, taking a receipt for it. The process was also discovered about the same time by Kunckel, another citizen of Hamburgh. It would not, however, have been necessary to be thus particular, had not Stahl, in a small work, entitled “Three hundred Experiments,” stated that Kraaft informed him that he communicated the process to Mr. Boyle; a circumstance which we must conceive to be entirely destitute of truth, when we consider the unimpeached veracity of Mr. Boyle, who would never have published to the world as his own discovery, a {170} process which he had received from the communications of another. We are, indeed, strongly inclined to regard Kraaft as a designing empiric, who, in revenge for the discovery of his secret processes, endeavoured to blast the reputation of the man who published them for the benefit of the world at large. Mr. Boyle afterwards instructed in the manipulations of the process, one Godfrey Hantkwitz, who exposed it for sale in a shop in Southampton street, Covent Garden, which has since remained a chemist’s to the present day, having still his name over the door, with the date 1680. Mr. Boyle also published about this time, “‘ Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold, by an Anti-Elixir; a strange chemical narrative.”

In 1681 he published a “Discourse of Things above Reason; inquiring whether a philosopher should admit there are any such?” and in the following year, “New Experiments and Observations made upon the Icy Noctiluca; to which is added, a Chemical Paradox, grounded upon new experiments, making it probable that chemical principles are transmutable, so that out of one of them others may be produced;” and also about the same time, “A Continuation of New Experiments, Physico-Mechanical, touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, and their effects.” In 1683 nothing appeared from his pen, except a short letter to Dr. Beal, relative to making fresh water out of salt. But in 1684 he printed two very considerable works; “Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood, especially the spirit of that liquor;” and “Experiments and Considerations about the Porosity of Bodies.”

At this time Dr. Ralph Cudworth, celebrated for his immortal work, “The Intellectual System,” wrote to him in the most pressing terms, requesting him to make an entire collection of his various writings, which had now become so very numerous; and to publish them together in Latin; and then,” says he, “what you shall superadd will be easily collected, and added afterwards. And I pray {171} God continue your life and health, that you may still enrich the world with more.) You have mucli outdore Sir Francis Bacon in your naturalexperiments; and you have not insinuated any thing, as he is thought to have done, tending to irreligion, but rather the contrary.”

In 1685 he published “Short Memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters, with directions as to the several: methods of trying them;” “An Essay on the great Effects of even, languid, and unheeded Motion; whereunto is annexed an Experimental Discourse of some hitherto little regarded Causes of the Salubrity and Insalubrity of the Air, and its Effects;” which was received with: the, greatest applause; and also, “Of the Reconcileableness -of specific Medicines to the corpuscular Philosophy; to which is added, a Discourse about the Advantages of the Use of simple Medicines.” In addition ta these philosophical works, he obliged the world with a theological one;” “Of the high Veneration Man’s Intellect owes to God, peculiarly for his Wisdom and Power.” At the commencement of the following year, his “Free Inquiry into: the vulgarly received Notion of Nature” appeared; a work which was so highly and justly admired as to be reprinted in the following year.

In June 1686, his friend Dr. Gilbert Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, transmitted to him from the Hague the manuscript of his travels, which he had drawn up in the form of letters, addressed to Mr. Boyle; who, in his answer, expresses great satisfaction in “finding, that all men do not travel as most do, to observe buildings and gardens and modes, and other amusements of a superficial and almost insignificant curiosity; for your judicious remarks and: reflections may not a little improve both a statesman, a critic, and a divine, as, well as they will make the writer pass for all three.” About this time also, Mr. Boyle was compelled, though very unwillingly, to complain to the public of some inconveniences under which he had long laboured; which he did in “An adver{172}tisement about the loss of many of his writings, addressed to J. W. to be communicated to those of his friends that are virtuosi; which may serve as a kind of preface to most of his mutilated and unfinished writings.” He here complains much of the treatment he had met with from plagiaries both at home and abroad; and though it is not easy to do so without incurring the charge of vanity, such is Mr. Boyle’s manner, that it tends rather to raise in us a higher admiration and esteem for him.

In 1687, he published “The Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymia,” one of the productions of his youth; and in the following year “A Disquisition about the final Causes of natural Things; wherein it is inquired, whether, and if at all, with what caution, a naturalist should admit them. With an Appendix about vitiated Light.”

Mr. Boyle now finding his health declining fast and anxious to put his numerous papers and accounts of experiments in order, for the benefit of the scientific world, came to a resolution to receive no more visitors. To announce this, he put forth an advertisement stating, that his age and sickliness require him to arrange his writings, which are much scattered, and some of them decayed, and partly destroyed through the misfortune of his servants having broken a bottle of oil of vitriol over the chest in which they were contained; and also that his physician and friends had pressingly advised him to decline all visits as causing too great a waste of his spirits. He thus gained time to finish many works; and among others, one, which was never published, he mentions in a letter to a friend as a kind of hermetic legacy to the studious disciples of that art. Preferring the benefit of the whole republic of letters to assisting any branch of it, he now ceased also to come - municate any more papers to the Royal Society; which afforded him sufficient leisure to publish “Medicina Hydrostatica, or Hydrostatics applied to the Materia Medica, shewing how, by the Weight that divers Bodies used in Physic, have in Water, one may discover whether they {173} be genuine or adulterate. To which is subjoined, a previous Hydrostatical Way of estimating Ores.” “The Christian Virtuoso; shewing, that by being addicted to Experimental Philosophy, a man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good Christian.- - The first Part. To which are subjoined, a Discourse about the Distinction that represents some things as above Reason, but not contrary to Reason; and, the first chapters of a Discourse, intituled Greatness of Mind promoted by Christianity.” In the advertisement prefixed to this work, he mentions a second part; which, however, he did not live to finish. But the papers he left behind him for that purpose, imperfect as they are, are printed in the late edition of his works in folio. The last work which he published himself, was in the spring of 1691;”Experimenta et Observationes Physic; wherein are briefly treated of, several subjects relating to Natural Philosophy in an Experimental Way. To which is added,a small Collection of strange Reports.”

His complaints continuing still to increase, after a tedious and lingering illness, which may be regarded as a complete decay of nature, he departed this life on the 30th December, 1691; exactly one week after the decease of his dear sister Lady Ranelagh, which afflicted him so much, as no doubt to hasten that melancholy event.

On the 7th of the following January, he was buried at St. Martin in the Fields; his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Gilbert Burnet, whom he had much assisted in his publication of the History of the Reformation, and who had gratefully acknowledged his kindness in the preface to his second volume. He states in this sermon, that twenty-nine years of intimate conversation with Mr. Boyle, have enabled him to give a complete character of him. He descants upon his zeal for the christian religion, and mentions with particular approbation his foundation for lectures in its defence against deists, atheists, &c. without interfering with any of those points on which christians {174} are divided into sects; and which has since produced so many volumes of excellent discourses. He was at the expense of £700 for printing the Irish bible, which he caused to be distributed in that country, as well as large sums towards the Welch bible, and that in the Irish language for Scotland, besides many other gifts of a similar nature: In other respects, the bishop informs us, so great were his charities, that they amounted to upwards of £1,000 per annum.

He then proceeds to enlarge upon Mr. Boyle’s astonishing abilities. After stating and extolling his knowledge of the Hebrew, of the fathers, and of the controversies on the Scriptures, his acquirements in the mathematics, particularly in geometry, his accurate and intimate acquaintance with geography and history, and his skill in physic; he says, “but for the history of nature, ancient and modern, of the productions of all countries, of the virtues and improvements of plants, of ores and minerals, and all the varieties that are in them in different climates, he was by very much the readiest and the perfectest I ever knew in the greatest compass, and with the nicest exactness. This put him in the way of making all that vast variety of experiments, beyond any man, as far as we know, that ever lived. And in these as he made a great progress in new discoveries, so he used so nice a strictness, and delivered them with so scrupulous a truth, that all who have examined them, have found how safely the world may depend upon them. But his peculiar and favourite study was chemistry, in which he was engaged with none of those ravenous and ambitious designs, which draw many into it. As he made chemistry much the better for his dealing in it, so he never made himself either the worse of the poorer for it. It was a charity to others as well as an entertainment to himself; for the produce of it was distributed by his sister and others into whose hands he put it.”

Such is the character of Boyle, as delivered to us by {175} his great contemporary and intimate friend; and from the facts of his life, and the internal evidence of his writings, we cannot conceive that the hand of friendship: has been called upon to slur over the faults which might otherwise have appeared, or to place in a stronger light the virtues he possessed; to draw the character of Boyle it needed not the pen of a friend, it is handed down to us in his works of science, in his religious reflections, and in his deeds of charity.

Mr. Boyle was in person, tall and slender, with a pale countenance, and a weakness in his eyes, which made him very careful of them. His constitution was so delicate, that he hadi cloaks of different. substances, to wear: when he went out, and which he put: on according to the thermometer, although he was in his infancy committed to the care of a country nurse, his father, as he informs us, “having a perfect aversion for the tenderness of those parents which made them breed: their children so nice and tenderly, that a hot sun or a good shower of rain, as much endangers them as if they were made of butter, or of sugar.” The effect of this hardy treatment was a strong and vigorous state of health, which was unfortunately soon destroyed on his return home, through too much indulgence and mistaken kindness. For the last forty years, of his life, so low were his health and spirits, that it was a wonder to all who knew him, how he could: read, study, make experiments, and write in the manner he did: He also had an impediment in his speech, which continued through the whole of his life, he having contracted it when a child, from mocking the stutter of other children of the same age.

Mr. Boyle was never married though he is said by Evelyn to have formed an attachment to the interesting daughter of Cary, Earl of Monmouth; and: there is extant a letter of Dr. John Wallis to him, by which we find, that there was an overture made him with respect to Lady Mary Hasting, sister to the Earl of Huntingdon. Burnet {176} informs us that he refrained from marriage at first through prudential motives, and afterwards more philosophically; and from a letter of his to the Lady Barrymore his niece, which yet remains, we may infer that it was neither owing to a dislike to the sex, nor to an austerity of disposition, every word in it breathing the truest spirit of gallanry and politeness.

In the habit of familiar intercourse with Charles II James II and William III all of whom were much attached to him, we might wonder that he was never raised to the peerage, especially as his four elder brothers were all of that rank. He was, however, in the habit of speaking his mind freely, with respect to the measures of government, and it might have been conceived that these kings, though pleased with him as a man, might think him unfit for a courtier, were it not that we are informed that the offer of a peerage was frequently made to him, and as constantly declined: That it is not in the power of titles to ensure fame, is evinced by two of his brothers, of whom we now know nothing but the name; while the history of the untitled Robert Boyle remains as a beacon to future ages, which points out exertion as the surest means of arriving at splendid celebrity.

The posthumous works of Mr. Boyle, are, “The general History of the Air, designed and begun;” a work which was highly esteemed by two of the most ingenious men of the time, Mr. Locke, and Mr. Molineux; as is evident from several letters which passed between them on the subject. “General Heads for the Natural History of a Country, great or small; drawn out for the use of Travellers and Navigators. To which are added, other Directions for Navigators, &c. with particular Observations on the most noted Countries in the world. By another Hand.” “A paper of the Honourable Robert Boyle’s deposited with the Secretaries of the Royal Society, October 14, 1680, and opened since his death; being an account of his making the Phosphorus, September 30, 1680;” printed {177} in the Philosophical Transactions. “A free Discourse against customary Swearing, and a Dissuasive from Cursing;” and, lastly, “Medicinal Experiments; or, a Collection of choice Remedies, chiefly simple, and easily prepared, useful in Families and fit for the service of the Country People. The third and last volume; published from the Author’s original Manuscript; whereunto are added several useful Notes, explicatory of the same.” The first edition of this work was in 1688, under the title of. “‘ Receipts sent to a Friend in America,” it was reprinted in 1692, with the addition of a second part; to which was now added (in 1698) a third volume, as above.

These posthumous works, joined to those before mentioned, together with his numerous scattered pieces in the Philosophical Transactions, have been collected together and published by Dr. Birch, in 6 vols. 4to.

LADY O’NEILL, is introduced here as the authoress of several elegant little poems, which grace the pages of Mrs, Charlotte Smith; for a specimen of which we insert her ODE TO THE POPPY

She was the only daughter of Charles, Viscount Dungarvan, eldest son of John, Earl of Cork, and born in the year 1758. She married, in October 1777, John O'Neill, Esq. of Slanes Castle [sic for Shane’s], in the county of Antrim, who was created a peer of Ireland in November 1793, and about two months after he had the misfortune to become a widower.

A PRELATE of great learning and an unblameable life, was a native of Ireland, and received his education at Trinity College, Dublin, where, being elected a fellow, he continued until the commotions broke out in 1641, when he retired into England, and became tutor to Lord Paulet, whom he accompanied in his travels, and remained in that family until the restoration of King Charles II. He then revisited his native country, and was presented to the rectory of Caragiline (alias Beaver), in the diocese of Cork, and from thence was advanced to the deanery of Cork, which he enjoyed. until he was promoted to the sees of Down and Connor, (the letters patent of which were dated the 12th of September, 1667). He was consecrated in Christ Church, Dublin, on St. Luke’s day following, by James, Archbishop of Armagh, assisted by the Bishops of Kilmore, Ferns, and Leighlin, from whence he was translated to the see of Clogher, on the 21st of September, 1672. He died on the 26th of November, 1687, in the 70th year of his age, and was buried in the church of Clunes. He wrote “Inquisitio in Fidem Christianorum hujus Seculi,” Dublin, 1665, 12mo. “Summa Theologiæ Christianæ,” Dublin, 1687, 4to.

His Common-Place Book on various subjects, together with an abstract of Sir Kenelm Digby’s Treatise of Bodies, in MS is deposited in the library of Trinity College.

It has been asserted with some truth, that the number of individuals to whom no circumstances can teach wisdom is absolutely countless, and amongst that numerous class may be included the subject of the present memoir. He was the only son of his father, who was an eminent dis{180}senting minister in England, but accepting an invitation to be joint pastor with Dr. Williams, in Dublin, he removed thither; but at what period he died is unknown. He was considered as a learned, pious, and useful divine; assiduous in the exercise of his ministry, and in his conduct generally esteemed. Samuel, who was in every respect the reverse of his father, was born in Dublin in the year 1708; and, after receiving the rudiments of his education at a private school in his native city, he was sent, at the age of eighteen, to the university of Glasgow. His father’s intention was, that he might pursue those studies that are preparatory to entering into the ministry; but before he had resided many months in that metropolis, his studies met with rather a serious interruption by a love affair, with a Miss Atcheson, the daughter of a respectable tradesman in that city, who, being possessed of both beauty and thoughtlessness, he married, before he had attained his twentieth year, and probably without the consent of the parents on either side. This unwise connection, in addition to the natural extravagance of his temper, involved him in numerous pecuniary difficulties, which obliged him to quit the university before he had completed his studies, and to seek relief for himself and his wife from his father at Dublin. On this expedition he was accompanied by his wife and her sister; but, notwithstanding this addition of interesting incumbrance, and the general levity of his conduct, his father received him with kindness, and out of the scanty and precarious income which he derived by voluntary subscriptions from his congregation, and from the income of a small estate in Yorkshire, which produced him £80. annually, he endeavoured to maintain his son, and to reclaim him once more to the prosecution of his studies. Tenderness like this, however, the mere mention of which is sufficient to excite gratitude, produced no corresponding effects on the degraded mind and abandoned heart of his son; who, far from attempting to prosecute his studies, gave way to the most unremitting {181} idleness and dissipation. In this course too (it is said) he was unhappily encouraged by his wife! who, while she imposed upon the good old man, by a shew of decency and even sanctity, became in fact both dissolute and vicious, and at length unblushingly shared her favours with other men, and that not without the knowledge of her husband, who is said either to have wanted resolution to resent her infidelity, or was reconciled by a share in the profits of his dishonour. We will hope, however, for the sake of human nature that this was not the case, and that the hand of some obscure biographer inserted this anecdote for the purpose of rendering his memorial amusing, and thus sacrificed fact on the altar of fiction.

His father died in the year 1728, and his entire property having been exhausted in the support of his son, the latter repaired to Edinburgh, where his poetical talents procured him numerous friends, amongst whom were some patrons of considerable eminence, particularly the lords - Stair, Stormont, and Tweedale. In 1731 he published a volume of poems, which gained him reputation; and to which was subjoined a translation of the Tablature of Cebes, and a Letter upon Liberty, which had been previously published in the Dublin Journal. This volume was addressed to the Countess of Eglinton, a lady of distinguished excellencies, and so much celebrated for her beauty “that it would be difficult,” says Cibber, “for the best panegyrist to be too lavish in her praise:” she was the patroness of all men of wit, and greatly distinguished Mr. Boyse while he resided in that country. It is likewise recorded of this damsel, that she was not totally exempt from the lot of humanity, and her conspicuous accomplishments were yet chequered with failings: the chief of which was too high a consciousness of her own charms, which inspired a vanity that sometimes betrayed her into errors.

The following short anecdote was frequently related by Mr. Boyse. The countess one day came into the bed-{182}chamber of her youngest daughter, then about thirteen years old, while she was dressing at her toilet; the countess observing the assiduity with which the young lady wanted to set off her person to the best advantage, asked her, “What she would give to be as handsome as her mamma?” To which Miss replied, “As much as your ladyship would give to be as young as me.” This smart repartee, which was at once pungent and witty, very sensibly affected the countess; who, for the future, was less lavish of her own charms.

Upon the death of the Viscountess Stormont he wrote an elegy, entitled “The Tears of the Muses;” in compliment to her ladyship’s taste, as a patroness of poets. Lord Stormont was so highly gratified with this mark of respect to the memory of his deceased lady, that he ordered a handsome present to be made to the author, whom however it was no easy matter to find, as a radical meanness of character, and partiality for low pleasantry, together with an aversion to all decent society, had possessed him so entirely, that Boyse’s person was known only among the lower orders; and the generous intention of Lord Stormont would have been frustrated, had not his agent put an advertisement into the papers, requesting the author of “The Tears of the Muses” to call upon him.

These substantial tokens of favour, on the part of his lordship, and of the Countess of Eglinton, served to procure for him the patronage of the Duchess of Gordon, who likewise was a person of literary taste, and cultivated the correspondence of some of the most eminent poets of her time: and so desirous was she of raising Boyse from obscurity, and placing him above necessity, that she employed her interest in procuring for him the promise of a place; and, accordingly, gave him a letter, which he was the next day to deliver to one of the commissioners of the customs at Edinburgh; but it unluckily happened that he was then some miles distant {183} from the city, and the morning on which he was to have rode to town with her grace’s letter, proved to be rainy. This trivial circumstance was sufficient to discourage Boyse, who was never accustomed to look beyond the present moment, and who invariably acted up to the old Spanish proverb of “Never doing that to-day, that can be done to-morrow;” he, therefore, declined going to town on account of the rainy weather; and while he let slip the opportunity, the place was bestowed upon another; and he was consoled by the commissioner’s declaration, “that he had kept the place vacant for some time in expectation of seeing a person recommended by the Duchess of Gordon.”

Such is the story of the disappointment, in which all Boyse’s biographers have acquiesced, and which bears strongly the marks of probability. Its consistency has been objected to by some on account of the epithet “some time” being applied by the commissioner; but let it be remembered that Boyse had studied, and was thoroughly acquainted with every chapter of “The Art of Indolence,” and that there was 7o space of time but what he would have got rid of without knowing how.

It is certain that this, as well as every other kind intention of his patrons in Scotland, were defeated by his perverse conduct; and that he remained at Edinburgh until contempt and poverty were succeeded by the dread of incarceration. To escape from a prospect, which, viewed at all points, appeared dreary in the extreme, he determined on visiting London; and had no sooner communicated his design of going to England, than the Duchess of Gordon (who still retained a high opinion of his poetical abilities) gave him a recommendatory letter to Mr. Pope, and obtained another for him to Sir Peter King, then lord chancellor, and procured for him several, to persons of rank, fashion, and influence. Lord Stormont also recommended him to his brother, the solicitor-general, afterwards the celebrated Lord Mansfield. Upon receiving these let{481}ters, he, with great caution, quitted Edinburgh; and his absence was regretted by a numerous class of society - his creditors.

On his arrival in London, in 1737, he waited on Pope, but as he happened to be from home, he never repeated his visit. There is some reason to think, however, that he was afterwards known to Pope, who acknowledged that there were lines in his poem of “The Deity” which he should not have been ashamed to have written; and Boyse complains to one of his correspondents, that nothing was approved of unless sanctioned by the infallibility of a Porr. By the lord chancellor he is said to have been received with kindness, and to have been occasionally admitted to his lordship’s table. So despicable were his habits, however, and such his aversion to polite company and rational society, that this latter part of his history, which he used to relate himself, has been doubted by those who lived near enough his time to have known the fact.

Whatever advantages he derived from the recommendations he brought with him from Scotland, they made not the smallest alteration in his line of conduct, in that he was lamentably consistent; and, consequently, was speedily reduced to a state of extreme indigence, from which he attempted no means of extricating himself, but by writing complimentary poems and mendicant letters, except that he frequently applied for assistance to several eminent dissenters, from whom he received numerous benefactions, in consequence of the respect which they paid to his father’s memory. But such supplies were quickly dissipated in the lowest gratifications, and his friends were at length tired of exerting their bounty, that was thus rendered useless to the object of it. The author of his life in Cibber’s works informs us, that, “Often when he had received half a guinea in consequence of a supplicating letter, he would go into a tavern, order a supper to be prepared, drink of the richest wines, and spend all the money that had just been given him in {185} charity, without having any one to participate the regale with him, and while his wife and children were starving at home.” If this anecdote be fact, it is altogether so disgusting and of so heartless a nature, that we rejoice while we write that we believe it to be unequalled in the annals of depravity.

About the year 1738 he published a second volume of poems, but with what success is not known; and, as he did not put his name to this volume, his biographer has not been able to find any mention of it. In the year 1740 he was reduced to the lowest state of poverty, having no. clothes left in which he could appear abroad; and what bare. subsistence he procured was. by writing occasional poems for the magazines. Of the disposition of his apparel, Mr. Nichols received from Dr. Johnson, who knew him well, the following account: He used to pawn what he had of this sort, and it was no sooner redeemed by his friends, than pawned again. On one occasion Dr. Johnson collected a sum of money for this purpose, (“the sum, (said Johnson) was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me, sixpence was a serious consideration;”) and in two days the clothes were pawned again. In this state he remained in bed, with no other covering than a blanket, with two holes, through which he passed his arms when he sat up to write. The author of his life, in Cibber, adds, that when his distresses were so pressing as to induce him to dispose of his shirt, he used to cut some white paper in slips, which he tied round his wrists, and in the same manner supplied his neck. In this plight he frequently appeared abroad, while his other apparel was scarcely sufficient for the purposes of decency.

While in this wretched state, he published “The Deity,” a poem, which was highly praised by some of the best critics of the age. Among those whose praise was of considerable value, Hervey introduced the mention of it in his Meditations, “as a beautiful and instructive poem;” and Fielding, in his Tom Jones, after extracting a few lines, {186} adds, that they are taken from “a very noble poem, called the Deity, published about nine years ago (1749), and long-since buried in oblivion; a proof that good books no more than good men, do always survive the bad.” These encomiums tended to revive the poem, of which a third edition was published in 1752; and it has since been reprinted in various collections. Fielding’s respect for this poem was uniform. He praised it in a periodical paper, called The Champion, dated February 12, 1739-40, but at the same time points out its defects, and seems to object to the author’s orthodoxy. An account of the Deity was sent to the Gentleman’s Magazine, and, although not inserted, was probably the means of Boyse’s introduction to Mr. Cave, from whom he obtained some supplies for writing and translating in that journal between the years 1741 and 1743. Cave’s practice was to pay by the hundred lines, which after a while he wanted poor Boyse to make what is called the long hundred. His usual signature for his poems was Y. or Alcæus. When in a spunging-house in Grocer’s-alley, in the Poultry, he wrote the following letter to Cave, which was communicated by the late Mr. Astle to the editor of the Biographia Britannica.

Sir, I wrote you yesterday an account of my unhappy case. I am every moment threatened to be turned out here, {187} because I have not money to pay for my bed two nights past, which is usually paid before-hand, and I am loth to go into the Compter till I can see if my affair can possibly be made up: I hope therefore you will have the humanity to send me half a guinea for support, ’till I finish your papers in my hands. - The Ode to the British Nation I hope to have done to-day, and want a proof copy of that part of Stowe you design for the present magazine, that it may be improved as far as possible from your assistance. Your papers are but ill-transcribed. I agree with you as to St. Augustin’s Cave. I humbly entreat your answer, having not tasted any thing since Tuesday evening I came here, and my coat will be taken off my back for the charge of the bed, so that must go into prison naked, which is too shocking for me to think of.

I am, with sincere regard, Sir, Your unfortunate humble servant,
S. Boyse.” “Crown Coffee-house, Grocer’s alley, Poultry, July 21, 1742.

July 21, 1742.

Received from Mr. Cave the sum of half-a-guinea, by me, in confinement.
S. Boyse, “
10s. 6d. Sent.
I send Mr. Van Haren’s Ode on Britain.
To Mr. Cave, at St. John’s-gate, Clerkenwell.

The Ode on the British Nation, mentioned here, is a translation from Van Haren, a Dutch poet, from whose works he translated some other passages. The “part of Stowe” was a part of his poem on Lord Cobham’s gardens.

The greater number of the poems which he wrote for the Gentleman’s Magazine during the years above mentioned, are reprinted in the late edition of the English Poets; but all of his fugitive pieces were not written for the magazine, some of them having been composed long before he had formed a connection with Cave, and, as there {188} is reason to believe, sent in manuscript to such persons as were likely to make him a pecuniary return.:

By a letter to Dr. Birch*, dated October 23, 1742, it appears that he had, among many similar projects, an intention of publishing a translation of Voltaire’s poetical works, and sent to the Doctor a specimen of three of his Ethic epistles. On the next day, he sent another letter supplicating assistance, and assuring Dr. Birch that his distress was not in any way the effect of his own misconduct! In a letter dated November 5, after acknowledging Dr. Birch’s kindness to him, and urging him to make his case known to others, he gives the following account of himself:

“I am, Sir, the only son of Mr. Boyse of Dublin, a man whose character and writings are well known. My father died in 1728 in very involved circumstances, so that I had nothing left to trust to, but a liberal education. In 1730 I removed to Edinburgh, where I published a Collection of Poems, with a translation of the Tablature of Cebes. After some years stay there, and many disappointments, I came in 1737 to London, where I have done several essays in the literary way (chiefly poetry) but with slender encouragement. Mr. Cave, for whose magazine I have done many things, and at whose desire I removed to this neighbourhood (St. John’s Court, Clerkenwell,) has not used me so kindly as the sense he expressed of my services gave me reason to expect. Learning, however it may be a consolation under affliction, is no security against the common calamities of life. I think myself capable of business in the literary way, but by my late necessities am unhappily reduced to an incapacity of going abroad to seek it. I have reason to believe, could L wait on Lord Halifax, (which a small matter would enable me to do) I should receive some gratuity for my dedication, so as to make me easy. This is all the hope I have left to save me

* MSS. Birch, 4301, in Brit. Mus,

{189}

from the ruin that seems to threaten me if I continue longer in the condition I am in: and as I should be willing most gratefully to repay any assistance I might receive out of my lord’s bounty, so I should ever retain a deep impression of the obligation. I humbly beg you will forgive this liberty, and believe me, with the greatest gratitude and esteem,

“Yours, &c.

“P.S. Mrs. Boyse has so deep a sense of your goodness that it is with difficulty she undertakes this.”

Mrs. Boyse was generally employed in conveying his letters of this description, and if she felt so much on delivering the above, her feelings were again tried on the 16th of the same month, when Boyse sent another importunate letter, which Dr. Birch probably found it necessary to disregard, When he had thus exhausted the patience of some, he made attempts on the humanity of others by yet meaner expedients. One of these was to employ his wife in circulating a report that he was just expiring; and many of his friends were surprised to meet. the man in the streets to-day, to whom they had yesterday sent relief, as to a person on the verge of dissolution. Proposals for works written, or to be written, was a more common trick: besides the translation of Voltaire, we find him, in one of his letters, thanking Sir Hans Sloane’s goodness in encouraging his proposals for a life of Sir Francis Drake. But these expedients soon lost their effect: his friends became ashamed of his repeated frauds and the general meanness of his conduct, and could only mix with their contempt some hope that his brain was disordered.

In 1743, he published without his name, an ode on the battle of Dettingen, entitled “Albion’s Triumph,” a fragment of which is printed in the last edition of the Poets. In 1745 we find him at Reading, where he was employed by the late Mr. David Henry in compiling a work, published in 1747, in two volumes octavo, under the title of {190} “An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe, from the Commencement of the War with Spain in 1739 to the Insurrection in Scotland in 1745; with the Proceedings in Parliament, and the most remarkable Domestic Occurrences during that period. To which is added, an impartial History of the late Rebellion, interspered [sic] with Characters and Memoirs, and illustrated with Notes.” To this he affixed his name, with the addition of M.A. a degree which it is probable he assumed without authority. The work, however, considered as a compilation of recent and consequently very imperfectly-known events, is said to possess considerable merit. In a letter, published by Mr. Nichols, we have some information relative to it, and to the present state of his mind and situation:

“My salary is wretchedly small (half-a-guinea a week) both for writing the history and correcting the press; but I bless God I enjoy a greater degree of health than I have known for many years, and a serene melancholy, which I prefer to the most poignant sensations of pleasure Lever knew. - All I sigh for is a settlement, with some degree of independence, for my last stage of life, that I may have the comfort of my poor dear girl to be near me, and close my eyes. 1 should be glad to know if you have seen my history, from which you must not expect great things, as I have been over-persuaded to put my name to a composure, for which we ought to have had at least more time and better materials, and from which have neither profit nor reputation to expect. I am now beginning “The History of the Rebellion,” a very difficult and invidious task. All the accounts I have yet seen are either defective, confused, or heavy. I think myself, from my long residence in Scotland, not unqualified for the attempt, but I apprehend it is premature; and, by waiting a year or two, better materials would offer. Some account, I think, will probably be published abroad, and give us light into many things we are now at a loss to account for. I am about a translation (at my leisure hours) of an invaluable French work, {191} entitled “L’Histoire Universelle,” by the late M. Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and preceptor to the dauphin, eldest son of Lewis XLV. I propose only to give his dissertations on the ancient empires, viz. the Egyptian, Assyrian, Grecian, and Roman, which he has described with surprising conciseness, and with equal judgment and beauty. I design to inscribe it to the Right Honourable Mr. Lyttelton, one of the lords of the treasury, one of the most amiable men I have ever known, and to whose uncommon goodness, if you knew my obligations, you would esteem him as much as he deserves.”

During his residence at Reading, his wife died, and notwithstanding the good sense expressed in the above letter, he put on airs of concern on this occasion, which inclines us to think that intemperance had in some degree injured his reason. Being unable to purchase mourning, he tied a piece of black ribbon round the neck of a lap-dog which he carried about in his arms; and when in liquor, he always indulged a dream of his wife’s being still alive, and would talk very spitefully of those by whom he suspected she was entertained. This he never mentioned, however, but in his cups, which was as often as he had money to spend. The manner, it is added, by his biographer, of his becoming intoxicated, was very particular. As he had no spirit to keep good company, he retired to some obscure ale-house, and regaled himself with hot twopenny, which, though he drank in very great quantities, yet he had never more than a pennyworth at a time. Such a practice rendered him so completely sottish, that his abilities, as an author, were sensibly impaired.

After his return from Reading, his behaviour, it is said, became so decent, that hopes were entertained of his reformation. He now obtained some employment from the booksellers in translating, of which, from the French language at least, he was very capable; but his former irregularities had gradually undermined his constitution, and enfeebled his powers both of body and mind. He {192} died, after a lingering illness, in obscure lodgings near Shoe-lane, in the month of May 1749. The manner of his death is variously related. Mr. Giles, a collector of poems, says he was informed by Mr. Sandby, the bookseller, that Boyse was found dead in his bed, with a pen in his hand, and in the act of writing: and Dr. Johnson informed Mr. Nichols that he was run over by a coach, when in a fit of intoxication; or that he was brought home in such a condition as to make this probable, but too far gone to be able to give any account of the accident.

Another of Mr. Nichols’s correspondents produces a letter from Mr. Stewart, the son of a bookseller at Edinburgh, who had long been intimately acquainted with Mr. Boyse, in which the particulars of his death are related in a different manner,

“Poor Mr. Boyse was one evening last winter attacked in Westminster by two or three soldiers, who not only robbed him, but used him so barbarously, that he never recovered the bruises he received, which might very probably induce the consumption of which he died. About nine months before his death he married a cutler’s widow, a native of Dublin, with whom he had no money; but she proved a very careful nurse to him during his lingering indisposition. She told me, that Mr. Boyse never imagined he was dying, as he always was talking of his recovery; but, perhaps, his design in this might be to comfort her, for one incident makes me think otherwise. About four or five weeks before he breathed his last, his wife went out in the morning, and was surprised to find a great deal of burnt papers upon the hearth, which he told her were old bills and accompts; but I suppose were his manuscripts, which he had resolved to destroy, for nothing of that kind could be found after his death. Though from this circumstance it may be inferred that he was apprehensive of death, yet, must own, that he never intimated it to me, nor did he seem in the least desirous of any spiritual advice. For some months before his end, he had {193} left off drinking all fermented liquors, except now and then a glass of wine to support his spirits, and that he took very moderately. After his death I endeavoured all I could to: get him decently buried, by soliciting those dissenters who were the friends of him and his father, but to no purpose; for only Dr. Grosvenor, in Hoxton-square, a dissenting teacher, offered to join towards it. He had quite tired out those friends in his life-time; and the -general answer that I received was, ‘That such a contribution was of no service to him, for it was a matter of -no importance how or where he was buried.’ As I found nothing could be done, our last resource was an application to the parish; nor was it without some difficulty, occasioned by the malice of his landlady, that we at last got him interred on the Saturday after he died. Three more of Mr, Johnson’s amanuenses, and myself, attended the corpse to the grave. Such was the miserable end of poor Sam, who was obliged to be buried in the same charitable manner with his first wife; a burial, of which he had often mentioned his abhorrence.”

Although there is too much reason to believe that no part of Boyse’s character has been misrepresented in the preceding narrative, he must not be deprived of the evidence which Mr. Nichols’s correspondent has advanced in his favour. He assures us that he knew him from the year 1732 to the time of his death; and that he never saw any thing in his wife’s conduct that deserved censure; that he was a man of learning; and when in company with those by whom he was not awed, an entertaining companion; but so irregular and inconsistent in his conduct; that it appeared as if he had been actuated by two different souls on different occasions. These last accounts are in some degree confirmed by the writer of his life in Cibber’s collection, who says that while Boyse was in his last illness, he had no notion of his approaching end, nor “did he expect it until it was almost past the thinking of.” His mind, indeed, was often religiously disposed; he {194} frequently thought upon that subject; and probably suffered a great deal from the remorse of his conscience. The early impressions of his good education were never entirely obliterated; and his whole life was a continual struggle between his will and his reason, as he was always violating his duty to the one, while he fell under the subjection of the other, It was, adds the same author, in consequence of this war in his mind, that he wrote a beautiful poem called “Recantation;” which poem, like many other productions of the author, is not now to be found unless by accident.

The following observations, annexed to a sketch of the life of Boyse, contain so much of apposite remark and judicious reflection, as will, we are sure, preclude the necessity of any apology for inserting them:

Such was the life of a man whose writings, as far as we have been able to discover them, are uniformly in favour of virtue, remarkable for justness of sentiment on. every subject in which the moral character is concerned, and not unfrequently for the loftiness and dignity which mark the effusions of a pure and independent mind. To reconcile such a train of thought with his life, with actions utterly devoid of shame or delicacy, or to apologize for the latter with a view to remove the inconsistency between the man and his writings, if not impossible, must at least be left to those who have no scruple to tell us that genius is an apology for all moral defects, and that none but the plodding and prudent sons of dullness would reveal or censure the vices of a favourite poet. Such is already the influence of this perversion of the powers of reasoning, that, if it is much longer indulged, no men will be thought worthy of compassion or apology, but those who err against knowledge and principle, who act wrong and know, better.

The life of Boyse, however, as it has been handed down to us, without any. affected palliation, will not be wholly useless, if it in any degree contribute to convince the dis{195}sipated and thoughtless of what dissipation and thoughtlessness must inevitably produce. It is much to be regretted, that they who mourn over the misfortunes of genius have been too frequently induced by the artifice of partial biographers, to suppose that misery is the inseparable lot of men of distinguished talents, and that the world has no rewards for those by whom it has been instructed or delighted, except poverty and neglect.. Such is the propensity of some to murmur without reason, and of others to sympathise without discrimination, that this unfair opinion of mankind might be received as unanswerable, if we had no means of looking more closely into the lives of those who are said to have been denied that extraordinary indulgence to which they laid claim. Where the truth has been honestly divulged, however, we shall find that of the complaints which lenity or affectation have encouraged and exaggerated in narrative, some will appear to have very little foundation, and others to be trifling and capricious. “Men of genius have no right to expect more favourable consequences from imprudence and vice than what are common to the meanest of mankind. Whatever estimate they may have formed of their superiority, if they pass the limits allotted to character, happiness, or health, they must not hope that the accustomed rules of society are to be broken, or the common process of nature is to be suspended, in order that they may be idle without poverty, or intemperate without sickness. Yet the lives of men celebrated for literary, and especially for poetical talents, afford many melancholy examples of these delusions, which, if perpetuated by mistaken kindness, cannot add anything to genius but a fictitious privilege, which it is impossible to vindicate with seriousness, or exert with impunity.

If the life of Boyse be considered with a reference to these remarks, it will be found that he was scarcely ever in a situation of distress, of which he could justly complain. He exhausted the patience of one set of friends {196} after another, with such unfeeling contempt and ingratitude, that we are not to wonder at his living the precarious life of an outcast, of a man who belongs to no society, and whom no society is bound to maintain. Among his patrons were many persons of high rank and opulence, whom he rendered ashamed of their patronage, and perhaps prevented from the exercise of general kindness, lest it might be disgraced by the encouragement of those who dissipate every favour in low and wanton excesses.

What can be urged in his favour from internal evidence ought not to be concealed. We do not find in his works much of the cant of complaint: and, although he submitted to every mean art of supplication, he does not seem to have resented a denial as an insult, nor to have taken much pains to make the worse appear the better cause. In his private letters, indeed, he sometimes endeavoured, by false professions and imaginary misfortunes, to impose upon others, but he did not impose upon himself. He had not perverted his own mind by any of the impious sophistries, which, by frequent repetition, become mistaken for right reason. He was not, therefore, without his hours of remorse; and towards the latter part of his life, when his heart was softened by a sense of inward decay, he resolved in earnest to retrieve his character.

As a poet, his reputation has been chiefly fixed on the production entitled “Deity,” which, although irregular and monotonous, contains many striking proofs of poetical genius. The effort indicates no small elevation of mind, even while we must allow that success is beyond all human power. His other pieces may be regarded as curiosities, as the productions of a man who never enjoyed the undisturbed exercise of his powers, who wrote in circumstances of peculiar distress, heightened by the consciousness that he could obtain only temporary relief, that he had forfeited the respect due to genius, and could expect to be rewarded only by those to whom he was least known. We are told that he wrote all his poems with ease, and even

{197} rapidity. That many of his lines are incorrect will not therefore excite surprise, especially when we consider that he wrote for immediate relief, and not for fame, and that when one piece had produced him a benefaction, he generally dismissed it from his mind, and began another, about which he had no other care than that it might answer the same purpose.

THE FIRST EARL OF MEATH, was the eldest son of Sir Edward Brabazon, Lord Ardee, and was born in 1679. He was knighted during the life of his father, and succeeded to his honours and estates on his decease in 1625. He was soon after appointed custos rotulorum of the county of Dublin, and in 1627 created Earl of Meath; his majesty, Charles I, as the chancery rolls express it, “esteeming it a principal strength and ornament to his royal estate in his several kingdoms, to have the same attended on by persons dignified with titles of honour, and being careful to confer the same upon such whose virtues do deserve it, made choice of his lordship, to advance him to a more eminent degree of honour, by making him an earl of his realm of Ireland, having received very good testimony of his virtues and merits, and of the long continuance of his ancestors in the service of the crown there, as counsellor and officer of state, and of his and their constancy in the profession of true religion.” And, “also, in regard of his many good abilities, and of his great experience in the affairs of Ireland, ordered him forthwith to be sworn of his privy council.”

During the troubles in Ireland which commenced in 1641, he suffered much from the damages and destruction committed by the insurgents on his estates, and his house at Kilrothery, together with his gardens, &c. were destroyed in cutting trenches for the defence of the city of Dublin. In 1644, he was deputed by the Marquis of {198} Ormond, to attend Charles I, at Oxford, in company with Sir Henry Tichburne and Sir James Ware, to explain to him the situation of his affairs in Ireland, and to consult with him on the measures which were necessary to be taken. On their return they were taken by a parliament ship, just after Sir James Ware had thrown the letters, with which they were entrusted from the king to the Marquis of Ormond, into the sea. They were then carried to London, and committed to the Tower, in which they were confined eleven months, when they were released in exchange for other prisoners. He died in 1651, and was buried at St. Catherine’s.

Sr. Briar, or Bridget, and by contraction Bride, Abbess, and a Saint of the Romish church, and the patroness of Ireland, flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, and is named in the martyrology of Bede, and in all others since that age. She was born at Fochard in Ulster, soon after Ireland was converted to the christian faith. She received the religious veil, at an early age, from the hands of St. Niel, nephew of St. Patrick. She built herself a cell under a large oak, thence called Kill-dara, or the cell of the oak; living, it may be presumed, from the veneration with which her name has been handed down to posterity, in the exercise of every virtue. Her fame soon spread, and several of her own sex, having resorted to her, they formed themselves into a religious community, which in time branched out into several other nunneries {201} throughout Ireland, all of which acknowledged her for their mother and foundress. Her biographers give no particulars of her life, but what relates to miracles. Several churches in England and Scotland are dedicated to her, some also in Germany and France, by which we may judge of her past reputation.

She died at the age of seventy, A.D. 521, and Giraldus Cambrensis informs us, that her body was found with those of St, Patrick and St. Columba, in a triple vault at Down Patrick in 1185, and were all three translated to the cathedral of the same city; but their monument was destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII. She was commemorated in many churches in Germany and France, until the year 1607, and likewise in the Roman martyrology on the ist of February.

FIRST VISCOUNT MIDLETON, was the second son of Sir St. John Brodrick, and was educated to the profession of the law in which he speedily attained to eminence, being appointed, in 1690, his majesty’s serjeant. In, 1695 he was advanced to the office of solicitor-general of Ireland; and in 1703, being returned to the parliament as member for the city of Cork, he was unanimously chosen speaker of the house of commons; and their choice was confirmed by the lord chancellor, in the name of the Duke of Ormond, then lord-lieutenant, in a highly flattering speech. This good understanding, however, was soon broken; Brodrick appears to have been a firm and warm friend to his country, and the powerful opposition which he made to some bills, proposed by the lord-lieutenant, and which were thereby frustrated, so much incensed his grace, that in 1704, he was removed from his situation as solicitor-general. A change, however, having taken place in 1707, her majesty appointed him attorney-general, and in 1710, on the death of Sir Richard {202} Pyne, chief justice of the king’s bench in Ireland, he was appointed his successor. On this occasion the author of the Life of Thomas, Earl of Wharton, who was then lord-lieutenant, observes, “that he procured that high post for one of the most worthy patriots of that kingdom, as an instance of the care he took of the security of religion and liberty.”

By this promotion, being raised to the house of peers, he took his seat on the woolsack on the 19th of May, 1710; and received the thanks of the commons for his faithful and eminent services to that house, during the time of his being speaker. In 1711, the queen, on changing her ministry, removed Brodrick from this high situation, in which he was succeeded by Sir Richard Cox. In 1713, he was returned to parliament for the county of Cork, and was again invested with the dignity of speaker, a more ample proof of his abilities, and judgment in the exercise of that arduous office, than the common-place routine of votes of thanks. Indeed, his constant and faithful attach ment to the laws and establishments of his country were eminently conspicuous; and he exerted himself with so much diligence in securing the succession of the crown to the House of Hanover, that George 1. immediately on his succession, preferred him to the dignity of lord high chancellor of Ireland; and soon after advanced him to the peerage, by the name of Baron Brodrick, of Midleton. From this time he continued in great favour with the government, and was frequently appointed one of the lords justices during the absence of the lord-lieutenant, and in 1717, he was created Viscount, Midleton. He was afterwards chosen a member of the British parliament for Midhurst, in Sussex; and died in February 1727.

THE AUTHOR of “Gustavus Vasa,” and “The Fool of Quality,” was born in Ireland in 1706. His father, a man of considerable talent and great worth, was rector of the parishes of Kollinhare, Mullough, Mybullough, and Licowie: his mother’s name was Digby. He was for some time the pupil of Dr. Sheridan, and from thence removed to Trinity College, Dublin, and when only seventeen, he commenced the study of the law in the Temple. In this situation, his genius, vivacity, and amiable temper, endeared him to the first characters there, and he was generally admired and beloved; and the friendship of Swift and Pope conferred a lustre on his name. He was recalled to Ireland by the illness of his aunt, who, on her dying bed, committed to his care and guardianship her daughter, a beautiful girl not twelve years old. Pleased with the trust, he was assiduous in his care, he placed her at a boarding school in Dublin, visited her often, with tender anxiety, thought only of her happiness, until he found his own was connected with it, and the guardian lost in the lover.

He found the enchanting girl sensible of his worth and ready to return his affection, and at length prevailed on her to consent to a private marriage, before she had reached her fourteenth year. It is not easy, or pleasant to believe, what some have affirmed, that she was a mother before that period. When the marriage was discovered, the ceremony was again performed in the presence of the family. Happy, and with no cares but to please each other, it was not until after the birth of their third child, that they began to think seriously how a family was to be provided for. Brooke had long given up the law, and he felt no inclination to resume a profession, which excluded the pleasures of imagination, and was so opposite to the feelings of a mind, tender, benevolent, and romantic. A {204} journey to London was resolved on; there he might indulge his genius, enjoy the advantages of literary society, and by the execution of literary schemes, be finally rewarded with fame and wealth. Accordingly, on his arrival, he hastened to renew his acquaintance with his former friends, and, under the eye of Pope, wrote, and published his philosophical poem of “Universal Beauty,” in 1735. He was soon, however, obliged to return to Ireland, where for a short time he practised, though reluctantly, as a chamber-council. But the desire of acquiring distinction in elegant literature, was not to be conquered, and a third journey to London was the consequence: this was in 1737. He was introduced to Lord Lyttleton and others, the political and literary adherents of the Prince of Wales; he was caressed and treated with friendly familiarity, and received from the latter many elegant and friendly tokens of regard. Amidst such society, he had every thing to cherish his ambitious hopes of fame and independence, and he readily caught that fervour of enthusiasm, which was the bond of union in the prince’s court.

In 1738 he published a translation of the first three books of Tasso, of which Hoole gives this flattering testimony: “It is at once so harmonious, and so spirited, that I think, an entire translation of Tasso, by him, would not only have rendered my task unnecessary, but have discouraged those from the attempt, whose poetical talents are much superior to mine.” He was, however, by his political friends, diverted from completing the translation, and his talent conducted to another channel, and, as it were, joined to a host of writers, who wielded the weapons of literature against the minister of the day. Paul Whitehead wrote satires; Fielding, comedies and farces; Glover, an epic poem; and Brooke, encouraged to introduce Walpole in tragedy, wrote “Gustavus Vasa, the Deliverer of his Country:” it was accepted at Drury Lane, but when on the point of performance, an order from the lord chamberlain arrived to prohibit it. This piece, animated {205} with the noblest sentiments of liberty, was, however, considered at the time to contain a considerable portion of party spirit, and the character of Trollio, the Swedish minister, as intended for Sir Robert Walpole: but it may be doubted whether this minister gained any thing by prohibiting its performance, since he could not suppress its publication. By the prohibition, curiosity was awakened in an uncommon degree, and it excited an enthusiastic ardour in his favour, amongst his friends and of the public generally, who were not biassed by the other party, and the author was more richly rewarded than he would have been by the profits of the theatre. Above a thousand copies were subscribed for, at five shillings each, and by the sale of subsequent editions, he cleared about a thousand pounds, Dr. Johnson appeared at his side, and wrote a very ingenious satirical pamphlet, entitled “A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage from the malicious Aspersions of Mr. Brooke, Author of Gustavus Vasa, 1739,” 4to.

The fame Brooke acquired by this play, seemed the earnest of a prosperous career, and as at this time the prince proposed Mrs. Brooke as wet-nurse to the child of whom [sic] the princess was then pregnant, the most flattering prospects opened to his imagination. He hired a house at Twickenham, near to Pope’s, furnished it genteelly, and sent for Mrs. Brooke and family. But, alas! his flattering prospects were soon obscured; he was taken ill, and his complaint continued so violent and obstinate, that his physicians considered his life in danger, and advised, as a last resource, his native air, He accordingly removed thither, and soon recovered. But when his return was expected by his friends, to their great surprise he parted with the house at Twickenham, and determined to remain in Ireland. For a conduct so apparently inconsistent, both as to interest and inclination, he declined accounting for. It afterwards appeared Mrs. Brooke was alarmed at the zeal with which he espoused the cause of the opposition, {206} and dreaded the consequence with which his next publication might be followed. For this singular measure, at this favourable crisis in his history, he could assign no adequate reason without exposing her to the imputation of timidity, and himself to that of a tender and too yielding husband. He still continued to court the Muses, and kept up a literary correspondence with his London friends, particularly with Pope; and it is to be lamented, that all these letters were consumed by an accidental fire. In one of the letters, Pope advised Brooke to take orders, as being a profession better suited to his principles, disposition, and his genius, than that of the law; and also less injurious to his health. Why he did not comply with this advice cannot now be known; for it appears he was always of a religious turn, and his principles those of the strictest kind, notwithstanding the apparent inconsistency of his ambition to shine as a dramatic writer.

In 1741 he contributed to Ogle’s version of Chaucer’s “Constantia; or, the Man of Law’s Tale;” and, in 1745, his tragedy of the “Earl of Westmoreland,” was performed on the Dublin stage. The Farmer’s Letters appeared the same year, and was calculated to rouse the spirit of freedom among the Irish, threatened, as they were in common with their fellow-subjects, by rebellion and invasion. Lord Chesterfield was at this time viceroy, and patronized Mr. Brooke, from the admiration of his talents, and the respect which his virtues obtained from all. The office of barrack-master was conferred on him, which fixed him some years in Dublin, In 1746 he wrote an epilogue on the birth-day of the Duke of Cumberland, spoken by Mr. Garrick in Dublin; and a prologue to Othello. In 1747 he contributed to Moore’s volume of Fables, four of great poetical merit, viz. “The Temple of Hymen;” “The Sparrow and Dove;” “The Female Seducers;” and “Love and Vanity.” In 1748 he wrote a prologue to “The Foundling;” and an opera, entitled “* Little John and the Giants.” This was acted only once {207} night, in Dublin, being prohibited on account of political allusions. This produced “The last Speech of John Good, alias Jack the Giant Queller; a satirical effusion, mixed with political allegory, and a profusion of quotations against Tyrants and Tyranny.” In 1749, his tragedy of the “Earl of Essex” was performed at Dublin, and afterwards at Drury Lane, with much success, as it was at that time preferred to those before written on the same subject. At what period his other dramatic pieces were written or performed is uncertain; these were “‘The Contending Brothers;” “The Female Officer;” and “The Marriage Contract,” comedies: “The Impostor,” a tragedy; and. “Cymbeline,” an alteration from Shakspeare. “Montezuma,” although printed among his works, is said to be the production of another.

In 1762 he published a pamphlet, entitled “The Trial of the Roman Catholics;” in which he generously endeavoured to prove the justice and propriety of removing the restraints on that class of the community; and in his zeal to remove the prejudices entertained against them, to prove it might be done with safety, he was led to assert that the history of the “Irish Massacre, in 1641,” is nothing but an old wife’s fable. Its success did not answer his expectations; and, wearied at length with fruitless efforts to arouse the slumbering genius of his country, disappointed, and disgusted, he withdrew to his paternal seat, and there, in the society of the Muses, and the peaceful bosom of domestic love, consoled himself for lost advantages and deceitful hopes. An affectionate and only brother, with a wife and family almost as. numerous as his own, accompanied his retirement; and there for many years they lived together with uninterrupted harmony - discord never entered their habitation, it was a little paradise - the abode of peace and love.

“The Fool of Quality; or, the History of the Earl of Moreland,” appeared in 1766; a novel which, excited much attention in England; and, certainly, a work replete {208} with the knowledge of human life and manners, and in which are admirable traits of moral feeling and propriety; but, towards the close, there is too much of religious discussion for a work of this nature. It became, however, when completed in 5 vols. in 1770, a very popular novel; and has gone through several editions. In 1772 he published “Redemption,” a poem; in which that great mystery of our religion is explained, with a boldness and amplification seldom hazarded; and it must be admitted, that sometimes his enthusiasm surmounted his better judgment, and in this poem the introduction of rhymes, which must be read according to the vulgar Irish, deducted considerably from the merit of the performance. His last work was “Juliet Grenville,” a novel in three volumes, which appeared in 1774; and is very justly entitled “The History of the Human Heart,” the secret movements of which few novelists have better displayed; but there is such a mixture of the most sacred doctrines of religion with the common and trifling incidents of modern romance, that his best friends could not but lament the absence of that genius, spirit, and judgment which once enlightened his mind. It has been said, that, in this year, Garrick pressed him earnestly to write for the stage; but there are so many reasons for supposing this to be incorrect, that it is needless to mention contradictory reports.

Our author’s tenderness of heart, and unsuspecting temper, involved him in pecuniary difficulties. He could not be deaf to a tale of distress; his purse was ever ready, and he relieved their necessities, and added to his own. At length he was compelled, first to mortgage, and then to sell his paternal lands, and remove to Kildare. Here he resided some time, and then took a farm near his former residence. Not long after his removal, his mind received a shock, by the death of his wife, which it never wholly recovered; they had been happily united for nearly fifty years. This calamity, aggravated by the decease of {209} his children, which, from seventeen, were now reduced to two, together with his pecuniary embarrassments, was followed by such a state of mental imbecility as to leave little hopeof recovery. However, religion had early been planted in his mind; and though the blossoms for a time appeared to wither, the root lived; and, as he approached his last days, it revived, and like a medicinal balm shed its healing balsam on his wounded heart. He died, Oct. 10, 1783, leaving a son, since dead; and adaughter, the child of his old age. He was in possession of the place of barrack-master of Mullingar at his death.

His poetical works were collected in 1778, in four vols. octavo, but printed very incorrectly, and with the addition of some pieces which were not his. In 1792 another edition was published, in Dublin, by his daughter; who procured some memoirs of her father, and prefixed them to the first volume. In this she observes, she found many difficulties, as the greater part of his friends and contemporaries had departed before him. It is to be regretted Miss Brooke could not obtain more correct information, since the narrative is in many points confused and contradictory; yet from all it is apparent that Brooke was a man of most amiable character, endowed with the kindest and best feelings of our nature; and, perhaps, few men have produced writings of equal variety, the tendency of all being so uniformly in favour of religious and moral principles; yet truth must admit that there are in these many inconsistencies, which it would be difficult to explain. We-cannot reconcile it to our feelings, and it is certainly repugnant to taste and propriety, the bringing together, as it were in the same page, the most awful doctrines of religion and the lighter incidents and: humorous sketches of vulgar or fashionable life; yet this is frequently exhibited in his novels, and remains a. sad memorial of the weakness and frailty of the best minds. As a poet he delights his reader by occasional flights of a vivid imagination; and his first production, “Universal {210} Beauty,” has a charming display of fancy in many parts. It has been insinuated that Pope, to whom he submitted it, gave some assistance; but this may admit of doubt, from the absence of that regularity and smoothness so universal in the writings of the latter.

During a great part of the life of Brooke, his religious opinions approached to what is termed methodistical, yet he uniformly supported the stage; and we find even trifling farces among his works. Whether the importunity of injudicious friends, or the pressing occasions of embarrassed circumstances, pointed to the stage as a profitable resource, cannot now be known; but, it is certain he lived more consistently than he wrote. No day passed in which he did not collect his family to prayer; and he not only read, but expounded the Scriptures to them, with a clearness and fervency edifying and interesting. The following anecdote will more immediately illustrate his ability on this head.

One Sunday, while the congregation were assembled in the rural church of the parish in which he lived, they waited a long time the arrival of their clergyman. At last, finding he was not likely to come that day, they judged that some accident had detained him; and, being loth to depart entirely without their errand, they, with one accord, requested that Mr. Brooke would perform the service for them, and expound a part of the Scriptures. He consented, and the previous prayers being over, he opened the Bible, and preached extempore on the first text that struck hiseye. In the middle of his discourse the clergyman entered, and found the whole congregation in tears. He entreated Mr. Brooke to proceed; but this he modestly refused; and the other as modestly declared, that, after the testimony of superior abilities, which he perceived in the moist eyes of all present, he would think it presumption and folly to hazard any thing of his own. Accordingly, the concluding prayers alone were said, and the congregation dismissed for the day. {211}

Among his tenants and humble friends, he was the benevolent and generous character he had been accustomed to depict in his works; and it may be truly said, whilst he had the means, - he relieved the poor, comforted the afflicted, comforted the weak, and literally went about doing good.

Was daughter of the above, and was one of the brightest literary ornaments of her country. It is to be regretted of a lady so celebrated, so little is known. Her first publication was a translation of a Song, and Monody by Carolan, in “Walker’s Irish Bards;” to neither of these translations did she affix her name. Her translation of the Monody is thus prefaced by Walker: “For the benefit of the English reader, I shall here give an elegant Paraphrase of this Monody by a young lady, whose name I am enjoined to conceal - with the modesty ever attendant on true merit, and with the sweet timidity natural to her sex, she shrinks from the public eye.” She was, however, at length prevailed on by Mr. Walker, and others of her literary friends, to conquer her timidity, and to engage in” work for which she seemed admirably calculated. Accordingly, in the year 1787, she undertook a translation of such productions of merit of the ancient and modern Irish Bards, as she could collect amongst her friends, and in the year following appeared her “Reliques of Irish Poetry;” a work universally and justly admired, as affording gratification, both to the antiquary and lover of poesy.

In the year 1791, she once more presented herself before the public eye, as in the early part of that year, she published “The School for Christians, in Dialogues, for the use of Children.” In the preface to this little work, she - informs us, that “her only object in this publication is, the happiness of seeing it become useful to her species, and the pleasure of bestowing the profits of the book on {212} the enlargement of a little plan she has formed, for the charitable education of children, whose parents are too poor to afford them the means of instruction.” But her praise-worthy literary labours did not close here: anxious to do honour to the memory of her father, she re-published all his works, to which she prefixed a well-written sketch of his life. There her exertions in the fields of literature terminated; for shortly after (on the 29th March, 1793) a malignant fever put an end to her valuable life.

It is said, she wrote a tragedy entitled “Belisarius,” which was spoken very highly of by those who had read it; but the manuscript of which is supposed to be lost.

Aw ingenious mezzotinto engraver, was a native of Ireland, and it is to his instruction the world is indebted for two very celebrated mezzotinto engravers, M’Ardell, and Houston, who were both apprenticed to him.

The year that Brooks left Ireland is unknown; but on his arrival in England, he produced a specimen of an art which has since been applied and extended to a very considerable manufacture at Liverpool and several other places in England - which was printing in enamel colours to burn on china, which having been shewn to that general patriot and worthy character, Sir Theodore Jansen, he conceived it might prove a national advantage, and readily embarked in it, taking York-house, at Battersea, and fitting it up at a considerable expense. One Gynn, a native of Ireland, a very ingenious designer and engraver, was employed, with the celebrated John Hall, who at that time was very young. The subjects they chose, consisted for the most part of stories from Ovid and Homer, and were greatly admired, not only for their beauty of design and engraving, but for the novelty of execution, and were indefatigably sought after by the curious, for pendents in cabinets, or covers to toilet boxes. This manufacture {218} might have been highly advantageous to all parties, but owing to the bad management and dissipated conduct of Brooks, it became the principal cause of the ruin of Jansen, who was lord mayor of London at that time; but the commission of bankruptcy was withheld until his office was expired, on account of his not wishing to receive the usual annual stipend for his support, which is customary under such circumstances, and the city manifested their respect for him, by choosing him afterwards into the office of chamberlain, which he held until his decease.

At the breaking up of this manufactory, Brooks took up his residence in a place more congenial to his nature, namely, a public-house, situated in Westminster, and kept by one Rose, and so attached was he either to his host, or the “bosom of his family,” that he stirred not out of his apartments for several years. On Rose’s quitting this house, Brooks manifested his regard for him by following him to the “White Hart,” Bloomsbury, where he remained in the same happy state of seclusion for years, and was at last compelled to leave the house by an event which he, no doubt, feelingly regretted - the decease of his landlord; thus were separated two congenial souls, which nothing in all probability could have separated, except death, or a bailiff. After this unhappy occurrence, his old friend Hall (who was then very eminent) took him home “from whose house,” says his biographer, with an elegant archness, “he never moved until turned out by the undertakers.”

Although in his latter days he was systematically dissipated, yet it is recorded of him, that he was possessed of a great share of industry in the early part of his life, and made a copy from the print of Hogarth’s Richard ILL. in pen and ink, which was esteemed a miracle; for when it was shewn to Hogarth, who was desired to view it with attention, he was so far deceived, as to reply, he saw nothing in it remarkable, but that it was a very fine impression; and was not convinced until the original was {214} produced, to shew that this was a variation in some trifling circumstances.

He lived about the year 1742. His prints are chiefly portraits; amongst which are Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, and William Aldrich, lord mayor of Dublin. There is also a print of the battle of the Boyne by him after Wyck.

Viscount or Castle Lyons, an eminent mathematician, and the first president of the Royal Society, was born about the year 1620. He received no regular university education, but applied himself with such diligence to the study of the mathematics, as to arrive at great perfection in that useful branch of knowledge. He succeeded to his father’s honours in 1645, and in June in the following year he was created M.D. of the university of Oxford. In April 1660, he subscribed with many others, a declaration wherein General Monk was acknowledged the restorer of the laws and privileges of these nations.

On the incorporation of the Royal Society in 1662, he was appointed president pro tempore, a situation which was at first continued to him by monthly, and afterwards by yearly elections. In this capacity he continued about fifteen years, and was of considerable service, as well as a distinguished ornament to that learned body. He also enjoyed -the oftices of chancellor to Queen Catherine, and, keeper of her great seal; and was one of the commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral, and master of St. Catherine’s hospital, near the Tower of London. This last he obtained in 1681, after a long suit at law with Sir Robert Atkins, one of the judges of the common pleas.

He died at his house in St. James’s Street, Westminster, April 5, 1684, aged sixty-four years, and was buried on the 14th of the same month, in a vault which he had pre{218}pared for himself in the middle of the choir belonging to the hospital of St. Catherine. A list of his works are to be found in Park’s edition of Lord Orford’s Noble Authors.

Whether the hunter had any share in Dr. Brown’s advancement is now of little consequence; suffice it to observe, the politics of Ireland at that time ran very high; the whole kingdom were divided amongst two parties, known by the name of Williamites and Jacobites (nearly answering the principles of our Whig and Tory). Brown was of the former, on the purest principles of attachment; and would, if necessary, defend those principles at the hazard of his life. Boyle was likewise a Williamite up to the head and ears; and so staunch an advocate for the cause as Brown was, could not well miss the patronage of the former. Brown was likewise a keen sportsman; so was Boyle: thus from a congeniality of amusements, as well as politics, an union was formed between both, which only terminated with the life of the earl.

in 1743, Dr. Brown was consecrated Bishop of Killaloe;: soon after of Dromore; and in 1745, Bishop of his native city of Cork. Here he continued twenty-seven years, and in that time had the opportunity of providing handsomely for his sons and relations; a great number of whom were bred ecclesiastics. As a diocesan, Dr. Brown was a great disciplinarian; keeping his clergy to constant residence and punctual duties, and examining with great accuracy {217} into all parochial, matters at his visitations. He gave the example himself by constantly attending divine service twice a day, and. by preaching every Sunday evening at the several parish churches alternately.

During his residence at Cork, he was involved in a contest with one of his clergy, of the name of Dallas, on account of the latter not complying with the orders of his superior. The fact was this: The ceremony of marriage, before the bishop’s time, was equally performed in the private house of the parties, or at church, just as they themselves settled it: Dr. Brown issued out general directions at an early visitation, and by the usual official notices, “That no clergyman in his diocese, after such a

day, should marry any couple in his diocese, but in the body of the parish church of one of the parties.” This order was inadvertently broke through by Mr. Dallas, who was persuaded, by the influence of his pupil (a gentleman of considerable fortune), to marry him at his own house. Dallas perhaps thought the particular occasion might make the bishop overlook it; or, at the worst, a slight apology would atone for his transgression: but Dr. Brown was not of a temper thus easily to forgive so marked a dereliction from the path of duty. He summoned Dallas to appear before him, and he not willing to make such an apology as his bishop dictated, a spiritual law-suit commenced, which, after travelling through all the courts, finally rested in a confirmation of the bishop’s sentence, which was a suspension from all ecclesiastical duties.

Blame was attached to both parties at the time: to Dallas, for the first breaking through the positive orders of his diocesan; and to the bishop, for pursuing an offence of so trivial a nature with such rigid perseverance. This apology, however, may fairly be made for the bishop, who, beside having officially a fault to correct in his inferior, had to give an example. to the rest of his clergy, who might on other occasions plead apologies for transgressing his-orders, The issue, however, was fatal to poor Dallas, {218} he not only lost his curacy, but soon after his school; nor did we ever hear he was properly remunerated by the family for whom he risked and lost so much.

In 1772 Dr. Brown was removed to Elphin, and in 1775 consecrated Archbishop of Tuam; previous to which period his wife died, and he entered into the connubial state a second time, at the steady age of seventy, choosing for his partner the widow of a Captain Barry, a lady possessed of an agreeable person, highly accomplished, and who had attained the age of thirty. The seeming inequality of this match was commented on in the usual agreeable way, and many jokes (which cannot be teo much reprobated) passed at the tea tables and other parties of the friends of both sides; amongst which the following bon mot was long recorded:

The day after the ceremony, several of the bishops and dignified clergy of his acquaintance, who happened to be in or near Dublin, agreed to go and compliment him on the occasion. The archbishop, who was always a man of high spirits, and which he enjoyed to the last, bore their raillery with great good humour, and retaliated on them in their own way. “;Well, but,” said the Bishop of Derry, “though we need not ask you, my lord, how you are, seeing you in such high spirits, how does Mrs. Brown bear the hurry of her new situation ?” - “Oh! perfectly well,” replied the other; “for can assure you she had the full benefit of clergy!” - I am heartily sorry for that,” said the bishop, looking very gravely; “as you know, my lord, by our laws, she cannot have that benefit a second time.”

He died in his archbishopric in about eight years after his marriage (1782), without issue by his last wife, but leaving several grandchildren, and other relations, behind him. His eldest son Edward died a dean, and left several children. His second son Thomas died early, chancellor of the diocese, without a family. His eldest daughter married a dignified clergyman, and his youngest died unmarried.{219}

Dr. Brown’s first wife was a Miss Waterhouse, sister of the chancellor of the diocese, which office he afterwards conferred on his second son Thomas. His last wife’s maiden name was Swan, sister to Bellingham Swan, Esq. and afterwards married to Captain Barry, son of the celebrated Sir Edward Barry, who, beside being an eminent physician, wrote the celebrated treatise “‘On the Wines of the Antients.”

The bishop’s country residence was Riverstown, a paternal estate near Cork, which he laid out with great elegance, and where he lived with much hospitality. His town residence, called “The Bishop’s Palace,” had little to value itself on as a building, besides its being roomy, and a good situation: the library is a pretty good one, and one of the rooms is ornamented with a series of all the portraits of the Bishops of Cork since the Reformation.

Amongst these portraits, that of the celebrated Dr. William Lyon, promoted to this see by Queen Elizabeth in 1583, deserves particular notice, from the following short history of the original.

Lyon, though a man of tolerable education, had taken an early liking to the sea service, and by degrees rose to the command of a frigate, where he signalised himself so much under Sir Walter Raleigh, that Queen Elizabeth promised him the first place in her power. Soon after, the bishopric of Cork became vacant: and Lyon, relying on her promise, without finding in himself any disqualifications for the office, solicited her for the bishopric. The queen at first excused herself on account of the impropriety of the request; but Lyon pressing her on the words of her promise, which were without any exception, and which he relied on, the queen consented, and he was consecrated bishop of that see in the spring of 1583.

He was bishop of this diocese near thirty-five years; and, during all that tine, behaved himself with great propriety as a clergyman; and, being a man of spirit, and much attached to the Reformation, was very serviceable in {220} the promotion and discipline of the protestant religion. He never brite Age to preach but once, and that was onthe queen’s death, which it is supposed he lamented with great sincerity. Amongst other topics of discourse on this occasion, he observed, “Fatal as the day was for all true lovers of the church and state, still there were no - doubts but many would be glad of it: this wish (said the honest blunt zealot) they are now fully gratified in; the day is come, and the d——l do them good with it.”

By his portrait, he appears to have been a stout, short, swarthy-looking man; his right-hand extended, and wanting the forefinger, which was shot off in one of his early engagements with the Spaniards.

Dr. Brown was in his person a tall, manly, well-looking figure, with a piercing eye, and decisive countenance. He was in principles a high churchman, and executed the duties of a bishop with that punctuality which demanded obedience from his inferior clergy. He preached more sermons, perhaps, than any dignitary of his time, though we do not know that he printed any, or that he published any thing else, except one or two pamphlets during his contest with Dallas, which, though written forcibly enough in respect to the subject, bore no marks of superior writing.

Though possessed of no great eloquence as a lord of parliament, yet he was a good matter of fact speaker, and was always reckoned useful in the house, which he regularly attended in the busy time of parliament. In the recess, and indeed the greatest part of the year, he mostly resided at Riverstown. He had a social turn amongst intimates, and particularly amongst the ladies, who formed most of his parties; and to whom he always shewed those particular attentions which form so much the characteristic trait of an Irishman.

Being so many years Bishop of Cork, he had an opportunity of providing handsomely for most of the branches of his family, and he was too good a christian “to neglect {221} his own household.” To his two sons he gave good livings, with church dignities. To his elder brother, Dr. St. John Brown, a living worth near £1,000 per annum. To his second brother, who was a layman, the registry of the city of Cork, a place worth then between four and five hundred pounds per year. His nephews, his cousins, and other relations, who were bred to the church, likewise partook of his bounties: nor did he neglect the inferior clergy (though no way related to him), who had services, large families, or considerable merit, to recommend them.

Observing one day, at a Visitation, a stout country, or rather ploughman-looking parson in the consistory, with a tattered gown and old wig, he particularly examined him in respect to the state of his church. The honest parson, who felt poverty to be no disgrace, told him he was a curate of but fifty pounds per year, for which he did the duties of two churches; that he had eight children; that not being able to afford a horse, he walked thirty miles every year up to the visitation; and if it was not for the additional labour of his own hands, with those of his wife and eldest son, they must want the necessaries of life!

This artless stery had a visible effect even upon the pampered Levites around him. The bishop. heard him with particular attention, commended. his: conduct, and told him, he would take the first opportunity to remedy his situation; which he punctually performed, as in less than three months he presented-him with a living, worth between four and five hundred. pounds per year.

The poor curate, on receiving this intelligence, brought up his whole family to town, to thank in person their generous benefactor. The bishop was pleased with this honest mark of gratitude, entertained them with great hospitality, and dismissed them with little domestic presents. He enjoyed this living for many years, and educated his family. with great propriety: on every visitation-day he previously called at the bishop’s palace, to pay his respects to his patron; and, as the parson was always fond {222} of punch, the first toast he drank after dinner, from a full bowl of this liquor, was “The Bishop of Cork and Ross, and God bless him!”

Dr. Brown died at the advanced age of eighty and it was whispered, that some time prior to his, decease, he felt the full force of Dr. Johnson’s vitriolic maxim; “That marriages that don’t find people equal, seldom make them so.”

Was a native of Ireland. He was a senior fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards provost of it, from whence he was removed to the sees of Cork and Ross, by letters patent, dated the 11th of January, 1709, and was consecrated on the 10th of April, 1710. He had no ecclesiastical preferments before his advancement to these sees, except a lectureship in St. Bridget’s parish, Dublin, while he was a junior fellow, and after that the parish of St. Mary’s in that city, being appointed thereto by an act of parliament, which created the parishes of St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s out of the old parish of St. Micham. But he surrendered the same on the 9th of November, 1699 to the dean and chapter of Christ-church (who had the collation thereto) on his promotion to his provostship.

He died at Cork on the 25th of August, 1735. “He was,” says Harris, “an austere, retired, and mortified man; but a prelate of the first rank for learning among his brethren, and was esteemed the best preacher of his age, for the gracefulness of his manner, and a fine elocution. He studied, and was master of the most exact and just pronunciation, heightened by the sweetest and most solemn tone of voice; and set off by a serious air, and a venerable person; all which united, commanded the most awful attention in his hearers of all sorts. He was eminent for his critical skill in the Greek and Hebrew, which enabled -him to explain the beauty, energy, and sublimity of the {223} sacred writings to great advantage: and as he had formed himself upon: the best models of antiquity, he quickly introduced a true taste of eloquence into that society, of which he was a member and head; and utterly banished that false glitter of shining thoughts, and idle affectation of points, and turns, which reigned before in the sermons of their most eminent preachers; by shewing how contemptible they were, compared with the solidity and dignity which discovered themselves in his plainer, but more correct and nervous periods. Yet after all, his most distinguished talent was that of inspiring true piety into the hearts of all that heard him preach or pray; his heart was full of it; and his whole air, manner, and tone of voice (whether in the pulpit, or at the altar) breathed and inspired it pure and fervent. The liturgy of the church of Ireland was seen in a new light of beauty and excellency, when he officiated: and more particularly the communion service was felt and confessed, by every man that heard it from his mouth, to be an heavenly composition.

“His whole life was one uniform tenor of piety and true religion. He expended vast sums in charitable uses; but took particular pains to keep the knowledge of them private; even those who were relieved, knew not the hand from whence their assistance came. He made it a rule, never to trust any person to convey his charity a second time, who had once divulged what he desired. should be kept secret from all the world.

“By his generous encouragement several churches were rebuilt and repaired, and a handsome public library, with a large room for a charity school, erected near his cathedral. Although those good works were not entirely done at his own expense; yet he was the most considerable contributor to them. And in such cases, his most intimate friends could seldom discover the amount of his disbursements. He expended upward of £2,000 on a country house and improvements at Ballinaspack, or Bishopstown, near Cork; which he built for a summer retreat, and left {224} to his successors free from any charge, as he did also his improvements at Bishopscourt, in Cork, of a considerable value.

“He was a great enemy to death-bed donations; and therefore what he left by his will to public uses, was chiefly a contingency of £3000 if a young female relation of his died before the age of twenty-one, or her marriage, or if she married without the consent of a clergyman, under whose care he left her. If any of these things should happen, then he ordered the said £3000 to be laid out on the purchase of a rent, one third part of which to be given as a salary toa librarian for the library erected near St. Finbarr’s church; another third part for the purchase of books to supply the said library; and the remainder for the benefit of widows and children of poor clergymen, to be distributed according to the discretion of his successors. He left also £20 to the poor of the parish of St. Finbarr, £100 for clothing poor children, and putting them out apprentices; and he bequeathed a part of his books to the library aforesaid.”

He greatly distinguished himself by the following controversial writings: 1. “A Refutation of Toland’s Christianity, not mysterious.” This pamphlet was the foundation of his preferment, and it was the occasion of his saying to Toland himself, that it was he who had made him bishop of Cork. 2. “The Progress, Extent, and Limits, of the Human Understanding,” published in 1728, in 8vo. This was meant as a supplemental work, and displayed more copiously the principles on which he had confuted Toland. 3. “Sermons,” levelled principally against the Socinians, written in a manly and easy style, and were much admired at the time of their publication. He likewise published a little volume in 12mo., against the “Custom of Drinking to the Memory of the Dead.” It was a fashion among the Whigs of his time to drink to the glorious and immortal memory of king William III which greatly disgusted our worthy bishop, and is supposed to have {225} given rise to the book in question. His notion was, that drinking to the dead is tantamount to praying for them, and not as is in reality meant, an, approbation of “certain conduct or principles. The Whigs of course were not less copious in their libations, and the only effect the book had, was their adding good-naturedly to every toast, in spite of the bishop of Cork.”

THIS ingenious and eminent naturalist was the fourth son of Edward Browne, Esq. a gentleman of respectable family and handsome estate, in the county of Mayo, where the subject of the present memoir was born; at Woodstock, the paternal inheritance, in the parish of Crossboyne, and county of Mayo, about the year 1720. After receiving a good classical education, he was sent to a near relation in the Island of Antigua, in 1737. But the climate disagreeing with his constitution, he returned in about a twelvemonth to Europe, and landing in France, went directly to Paris, where he speedily regained his health, and with the approbation of his parents, applied himself diligently to the study of medicine, and particularly to the improvement of his knowledge in botany, ascience for which he always manifested .a peculiar predilection. After having passed five years in the acquirement. of knowledge at Paris, he removed to Leyden, where he remained near two years, applying with assiduity to study, and at the expiration of that period, obtained from the famed university of that city, the degree of M.D., Here he formed an intimacy with Gronoyius and Muschenbroeck, and commenced a correspondence with Linnæus, and other eminent botanists and learned men.

From Holland he proceeded to London, where he practised his profession near two years, and from thence went out again to the West Indies; and after spending some months in Antigua, and some other of the sugar islands, [226} he proceeded to Jamaica, where he occupied the greater part of his time in collecting and preserving curious specimens of the plants, birds, shells, &c. of those luxurious soils, with a view to the improvement and elucidation of its natural history. During the time he remained in Jamaica, his residence was chiefly at Kingston, and it was he who first pointed out the absurdity of continuing Spanish Town the port and capital, while reason plainly pointed out Kingston, or in his own words, “the defects of a port of clearance to leeward” and in consequence of his writing to the governor and council on the subject, they represented the matter so strikingly to Earl Granville, the then president of the council, that the immediate adoption of the measure ensued, and Kingston became the port of clearance to the great enlargement of commerce in general; as, prior to this arrangement, when vessels were clearing out of Kingston, and ready to weigh anchor, they were obliged to send near seven miles to Spanish Town, by which they often suffered ¢reat inconvenience and delay. At this time he also collected materials, and made the necessary observations (being a good mathematician and astronomer) for a new map of the island of Jamaica, which he published in London, in August 1755, engraved by Dr. Bayly, on two sheets, and by which the Doctor cleared the sum of four hundred guineas. Soon after this (March 1756) he published his “Civil and Natural History of Jamaica,” in folio, ornamented with forty-nine engravings of natural history, a whole-sheet map of the island, and another of the harbour of Port Royal, Kingston Town, &c. Of this work there were but two hundred and fifty copies printed by subscription, -at the very low price of one guinea, but a few were sold at two guineas in sheets, by the printer. Unfortunately all the copper-plates, as well as the original drawings, were consuined by the great fire in Cornhill, on November 7, 1765. This disastrous circumstance prevented, in his life-time, a second edition of the work, for which he made {227} considerable preparations by many additional plants, and several corrections in his different voyages to these islands; for altogether he visited the West Indies at six different periods, and resided upwards of a twelve-month at Antigua. Prior to his decease, he forwarded to Sir, Joseph Banks, P. R.S. “A Catalogue of the Plants growing in the Sugar Islands, &c. classed and described according to the Linnean system,” in 4to. containing about eighty pages. In Exshaw’s Gentleman’s and London Magazine, for June 1774, he published “A Catalogue of the Birds of Ireland,” and in Exshaw’s Magazine of August following, “A Catalogue of the Fish of Ireland.” .

Dr. Browne long and regularly kept up.a correspondence with the celebrated Linnæus, which continued to his death, a correspondence which, for the sake-of science it would have been praiseworthy to have published, but unfortunately, though the Doctor was possessed of the epistles of Linnæus, by some unaccountable neglect he retained no copies of his own,

In 1788. he prepared for the press'a very curious and useful Catalogue of the Plants of the North-West Counties of Ireland, classed with great care and accuracy, according to the Linnean system, and containing above seven hundred plants, mostly observed by himself, having trusted very few to the descriptions of others. This small tract written in Latin, but containing both the English and Irish names and descriptions, might be of considerable use in assisting to compile a “Flora Hibernia,” a work every botanist will allow to be much wanting.

The Doctor was a tall, comely man, of good address, and gentle and unassuming manners, naturally cheerful, very temperate, and in general healthy; but in his latter years had violent periodical fits of the gout, by which he

suffered greatly. In the intervals of these unwelcome visits he formed the Catalogue of Plants, and was always (when in health) employed in the study of natural history, or mathematics. He married at a very early period, in Antigua, a native of that island, but had no issue. His circumstances were moderate, but easy, and the poor found ample benefit from his liberality as well as professional skill.

This worthy member of society paid the debt of nature at Rushbrook, in the county of Mayo, on Sunday, August the 29th, 1790, and was interred in the family burial place, at Crossboyne. In his will he desired the following inscription to be placed on his monument: -

“Hanc opponi jussit Patri Matri Fratribusque Piissimis et sibi; Patricius Browne, olim Medicus Jamaicensis, qui, nunc insita humiliter pro tum inter mortuos ehumerandum deprecetur præcis fidelium pro se illisque offerri; ut cum Domino Deo requiescant in pace. Amen.”

Was a protestant clergyman, and rector of Buttivant, to the county of Cork for many years, and was greatly distinguished for his patronage and knowledge of Irish music. He was a remarkably good performer on the Irish harp, and at the time of his decease, about the year 1770, had in his possession fifteen harps, bequeathed to him at various times by the minstrels of his native land, as the last mark of their gratitude for his hospitality towards them.

His own harp was made by the famous Kelly for him, and bears an inscription to that purpose on its front. It is still preserved by his descendants with that care and veneration, which so interesting a relick deserves.

Mr. Bunworth had also an intimate knowledge of the classics. The celebrated Curran came to him to be examined before he entered Dublin college, and Mr. Bunworth was so much pleased with young Curran, that he gave him some pecuniary assistance.

Came into parliament under the auspices of James, Duke of Leinster, and immediately joined the opposition then formed against the administration of Lord Townshend.

His speeches when he first entered the house of commons, were very brilliant, very figurative, and far more remarkable for that elegant poetic taste, which had highly distinguished him when a member of the university, than any logical illustration or depth of argument; every session however, took away somewhat of that unnecessary and exuberant splendour.

His eloquence (says one of his contemporaries) was by no means gaudy, tumid, nor approaching to that species of oratory, which the Roman critics denominated Asiatic; but it was always decorated as the occasion required: it was often compressed, and pointed; it was sustained by great ingenuity, great rapidity of intellect, luminous and piercing satire; in refinement, abundant, in simplicity, sterile.. The classical allusions of this orator, for he was most truly one, were so apposite, they followed each other in such bright, and varied succession, and, at times, spread such an unexpected and triumphant blaze around his subject, that all persons, who were in the least tinged with literature, could never be tired of listening to him.

He accepted the office of prime serjeant during the early part of Lord Buckinghamshire’s administration; but the experience of one session convinced him, that his sentiments and those of the English and Irish cabinets, on the great questions relative to the independence of Ireland, would never assimilate. He soon grew weary of his situation; when his return to the standard of opposition was marked by all ranks of people, and especially his own profession, as a day of splendid triumph. Numerous were the congratulations which he received on this sacrifice of {230} official emolument, to the duty which he owed to his country. That country he loved even to enthusiasm. He moved the question of a free trade for Ireland, as the only measure that could then rescue this kingdom from total decay. The resolution was concise, energetic, and successful. He supported Mr. Grattan in all the motions which finally laid prostrate the dominion of the British parliament over Ireland. When he did so, he was not unacquainted with the vindictive disposition of the English cabinet of that day, towards all who dared to maintain such propositions. One night, when he sat down after a most able, arguinentative speech in favour of the just rights of Ireland, he turned to Mr. Grattan, “I have now,” said he, “nor do I repent it, sealed the door against my own preferment; and I have made the fortune of the man opposite to me,” naming a particular person who sat on the treasury bench.

He loved fame, he enjoyed the blaze of his own reputation, and the most unclouded moments of his life were not those when his exertions at the bar, or in the house of commons, failed to receive their accustomed and ample tribute of admiration; that, indeed, but rarely happened; he felt it at particular moments, during his connection with the Buckinghamshire administration; nor did tie general applause which he received counterbalance his temporary chagrin.

He died at atime of life when his faculties, always prompt and discriminating, approximated, as it should seem, to their fullest perfection. On the bench, where he sat more than one year, he had sometimes lost sight of that wise precept which Lord Bacon lays down for the conduct of a judge towards an advocate at the bar. “You should not affect the opinion of poignancy and expedition, by an impatient, and catching hearing of the counsellors at the bar*” He seemed to be sensible of his {231} deviation from this; to be convinced that security in our own opinions, like too great security in any thing, “‘is mortal’s chiefest enemy,” and that, in our daily, converse with the world, we meet with others who are far wiser than ourselves, even on those points where we fondly imagine our own wisdom to be the most authenticated. His honest desire not to feed contention, but bring it to as speedy a determination as could reasonably be wished, deserves great praise.

“He did not,” says Mr. Flood, alluding to him in one of his speeches, “live to be ennobled, but he was ennobled by nature.”

* Lord Bacon’s speech to Judge Hutton, on being made a judge of the Common Pleas. {231}