The following Letters were commenced, and the pedestrian Tours pursued, under the idea of subsequently forming an historical work on Ireland. This object has been impeded and retarded by unexpected obstacles, and the fruits of considerable observation on that country are now submitted, with great diffidence, to the public, in Letters, partly penned on the spot, and partly extracted from notes. The situation of Ireland is highly interesting. That her misery is greats and that no adequate remedy appears to have been applied, cannot be denied by impartial men. The body of her people can scarcely procure the conveniences and necessaries of life, the country seems retrograde rather than progressive. Improvident legislative provisions have turned dearth to famine; — pestilence has followed. Political injustice keeps alive the fever of the mind.

The Author submits his Letters to the judgement of the Public, hoping that a just consideration of his motives may lead men to excuse the defective nature of his performance.

Biography though always an highly interesting branch of literature, is by no means so instructive as it ought to be. It is a display of the conduct and character of ah individual in the real occurrences of life; his fortunes are usually found to depend upon his own deserts, and therefore moral truths are inculcated, not by scenes of amusing, though fallacious, fiction, but by facts which all must feel and assent to, because all have had a similar experience. But biographers are friends or associates of the parties, and therefore bring to their work feelings too favourable to the life and writings of the objects they describe. Prepossession thus takes the place of impartiality, and the love of the individual insensibly supersedes the love of truth; failings are palliated, merits are exaggerated, and the pleasure which the biographer feels in thus drawing a favourable portrait of his friend, easily reconciles him to a deception, which, at the same time, flatters his own self-love, by describing the virtues of a congenial object. From this cause of defect, at least, the present sketch is exempt. Whilst an opportunity of intimate knowledge of the subject has given all the requisite means of information, no undue partiality for ihe [vi] man has biassed the detail; and whatever instruction the chequered scenes of his life may afford, it has not been rendered less by extenuation or concealment.

John Bernard Trotter was born in the year 1775 in the county of Down. His family were originally from Scotland, and descended from the Earl of Gowry, whose actions are recorded among the historical events of that country. They left their native land, and took refuge in the mountains of Mourne, in Ireland, where their descendants, at this day, are among the respectable gentry of the country. The father of Mr. Trotter was a clergyman of the established church. He had three sons: Southwell, who inherited the paternal estate, and was a member of parliament for Downpatrick; John Bernard, the subject of this sketch; and Ruthven, a major in the army, who was killed at Buenos Ayres.

John Bernard was intended for the church. He was educated in the grammar-school at Downpatrick, under Mr. Wilde; and, in 1790, was entered a pensioner of Trinity College, Dublin, under Dr. Stack. In 1795 he took his degree; and, after attending the usual course of divinity lectures, he took deacon’s orders. He did not long continue in the clerical profession. His maternal uncle, Dr. Dixon, had been an early friend to Charles James Fox, by whose interest he was afterwards created Bishop of Down. From him he naturally had great expectations; but, preferment not coming as early as he expected, he became disgusted with a profession to which he was never attached, and left the church for the bar, after having once or twice officiated as a clergyman.

He now entered himself at the Temple, where his first acquaintance with Mr. Fox commenced, which terminated only with the death of that great man. At this period the question of the Union was first agitated in Ireland [vii], and he immediately took up his pen in opposition to it. His first public essay, as a writer, was a pamphlet on the subject, which he immediately sent to Mr. Fox. His opinion of it was characteristic. You have put your objection to the Union,” said he, “on right grounds; but whether there is a spirit in Ireland to act up to your principles is another question. I do not know whether you have ever heard, that it is a common observation, that Irish orators are generally too figurative in their language for the English taste; perhaps I think part of your pamphlet no exception this observation; but this ia a fault, if it be a ifault, easily mended.” It was a fault, which, unfortunately, he never corrected.

Immediately after the short peace of Amiens, among the English, whose curiosity, or other motives, led to visit France, was Mr. Fox. He wished to consult certain documents necessary for the completion of his historical work; and he wrote to request Mr. Trotter would accompany him, to assist him in transcribing materials. Mr. Trotter was then in Wales, and he immediately joined Mr. Fox at St. Anne’s Hill, and set out on this highly interesting tour in the latter end of July, 1802. After passing through Holland and Flanders, the party arrived in Paris, where Mr. Trotter accompanied his patron to examine the most important documents in the archives of the Bureau des Affaires Etrangères. Here, in company with Mr. Fox, Lord St. John, and Mr. Adair, late ambassador to Constantinople, he was sedulously employed in taking extracts from such state-papers as were necessary for the completion of Mr. Fox’s history.

Among the characteristic incidents which enlivened Mr. Trotter’s interesting account of this tour, detailed in the last years of the Life of Fox, is their introduction to the [viii] first consul of which he used to mention many circumstances in conversations which he has not inserted in his work. - When the group of the English whe wished to be introduced were formed into a circle, the first consul entered it and passed from one to the other, saying some brief obliging thing to each in succession. When Mr. Trotter was introduced as “Un Hibernois,” the chief consul stopped for a moment, as if detained by some sudden recollection - then replying rather to his own thoughts than to the words of the introduction, he muttered “Catholique sans doute,” and passed rapidly on.

In three months he voluntarily left Mr. Fox and those fascinating scenes which Paris presented, and returned to Ireland to commence his professional pursuits, and was called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas term, 1802. His health was at this time so delicate, as materially to interfere with his practice. After an interrupted attendance on the courts for a short time, he was compelled to abandon them, and retired to Glasnevin, a pleasant village in the vicinity of Dublin. Here he was known For his active and extensive benevolence on every occasion where it could be exercised; and he has left behind him a character of kindness and good-will, which, after a lapse of sixteen years, is yet recent in the memory of some of the poor people of the neighbourhood. Among the incidents which called forth his sympathy, and engaged his active kindness, was that of a poor young woman who had been the victim of much calumny. She retired with a broken heart to die in obscurity at Finglas, and was attended, with zeal and assiduity, in her last moments, by Mr. Trotter. She imparted to him the strange incidents of an eventful story just before her death; and on those he founded an interesting novel which he afterwards published. [ix]

After three yeers inactivity, he first appeared in public life in a manner creditable to his spirit and ability. ln 1806 was the memorable election for the county of Down, in which Lord Castlereagh was a candidate. This great contest was the touchstone of the feelings of the people at that time, on the subject of the Union, by the acceptance or rejection of Lord Castlereagh. After a long and spirited contest, the secretary of state was obliged to retire defeated, but, with his characteristic good temper, he retired with a conciliating speech. It was on this occasion that Mr. Trotter, then a very young man, made a first and unexpected display of those talents which gave an early promise of future greatness. He started up, when Lord Castlereagh had ended, and replied to his Majesty’s minister in a strain of spontaneous and unstudied eloquence that surprised and delighted the auditors. The freeholders crowded round the young orator when he had concluded, with thanks and congratulations. Lord Castlereagh retired without a reply. In the year following his friends were called to political power; as part of the arrangement, the Duke of Bedford was appointed viceroy of Ireland; and Mr. Trotter, to prepare for his approach, established, in Dublin, a newspaper called “The Herald,” which was conducted with much spirit and ability, whereby he acquired a high degree of reputation.

He was now a second time sent for by Mr. Fox, who first placed him in a high situation in the foreign-office, and afterwarda appointed him his private secretary, which he held at the time of his death. It, perhaps, never fell to the lot of any young man to start into life with more flattering prospects of rank and distinction than now opened on Mr. Trotter; highly connected and popular in his own country, he was called, at a critical period, [x] without any solicitation on his part, to fill an eminent situation in another. The first offices in the state presented themselves to his distant view at home, and he had immediate prospect of going abroad to a foreign court, in a high diplomatic situation. It should appear that Mr. Fox entertained as well a high opinion of his talents, as the greatest personal esteem and regard: he employed him not only as his political coadjutor in the great concerns in which, as prime-minister of England, he was engaged at that most critical and important period, when the very existence of this country and the other states of Europe seemed to hang on those negociations [sic] for peace which Mr. Fox was labouring to effect; but he took him to his most intimate confidence, and he was his friend and inseparable companion in private as in public life.

It is impossible to read the interesting and most affecting narrative detailed of the last days of Mr. Fox, without being struck with this circumstance: When borne down by an oppressive malady, the minister was compelled to retire from the weight of public business, which he was no longer able to support, he took with him his faithful secretary. He was his friend, his confident, his companion, and his nurse. He supported him in his walks, he drew him in his chair when he was no longer able to move, he administered to him his medicines, he sat beside his bed when he could not sleep, and the morning sun often found him diverting the restless vigilance of his friend by reading and conversation. From these attentions Mr. Fox received the greatest consolation, when nearly all his other friends were excluded; and he seemed to die with more tranquillity, from the prospect of breathing his last sigh in Trotter’s arms. Surely, then, if the memory of this great political luminary [xi] is held in deserved respect and veneration by his countrymen, the friend who shared with him his ministerial labours, and whom he thought worthy of such confidence, ought not to have been forgotten; if his whole household were provided for by the bounty of the nation, his chief secretary and bosom-friend should not have been overlooked. Yet, so it was; and posterity will hardly believe, that, while the menial who attended at his table was appointed to a situation of £200 per annum in the foreign-office,* the friend, whom he entrusted with the concerns of that important department, was dismissed without the slightest remuneration at his death, and suffered to pine in want and obscurity.

On the death of Mr. Fox, Trotter returned to Ireland; his spirit was then sound and unbroken, and he asked for no provision which he thought ought to have been offered to him; careless of money, of which he had yet experienced no want, he preferred the independence of a literary life to an office or pension shackled with restrictions. It was his great misfortune to hold himself independent of circumstances, and think himself right in asserting and displaying the same spirit on all occasions.† Vain of the distinction of the rank he lately held, the secretary could not condescend to resume the drudgery or a junior barrister in the courts of Dublin; and, indignation

*Mr. Conway, Mr. Fox’s butler.
†A nobleman, high in the confidence of his majesty’s government, has expresses himself, in a letter to Mr. Trotter on this occasion: “I have said, and always will repeat, that I think you very hardly used, in being removed from an office not within the usual removals or change of government without some other being given to you; leaving you, (the friend and secretary of the late foreign secretary of state), destitute, was unkind and indefensible.” [xii]

at what he supposed the apostacy of some of his party, he was fond of displaying an impotent anger against them. In this spirit he never resumed his situation to the bar, and ostentatiously affected to break off all connection with Mr. Grattan because he supported the disarming and insurrection bills; and, with the Downshire family, because he thought they wished to make a monopoly of the representative of the county of Down. He seemed to think himself the only representative of consistency and public spirit, and that nothing more was wanting than an opportunity of displaying it to rally the country round him. He took a house at Philipsburgh, [i.e., mod. Phibsborough] near Dublin, and commenced an Historical Register, a periodical work published by Lewis, in Anglesea Street. About this time his brother, Major Trotter, was killed in the attack in Buenos Ayres, and he devoted some pages of his Register to an eloquent and just eulogium on that gallant officer; he further displayed his affection, and wish to encourage the arts in Ireland, by directing a monument, sculptured by a native artist, to be erected to his memory. This was completed by Ryan of King-street, and was publicly displayed in Dublin for some time, as a monument equally creditable to the artist and his employer; but it was never erected.

Having utterly failed in the speculations of his Historical Register, he left Philipsburgh, and went to reside at Lark-Hill, in the county of Down, near which was a spa-well, of which Mr. Trotter was advised to drink. Here another circumstance occurred, strongly indicative of that visionary and speculative turn of mind which seemed to unfit him for the purposes of common life. He wanted a friend, and he wished to have one of his own creation. He, therefore, took a poor boy, whom he accidentally met with in the humblest rank of life, and [xiii] undeterred by the failure of a similar project of the celebrated and unfortunate Mr. Day, he resolved to educate him so as to fit him to be his friend and companion. He, therefore, took him into his family, not as his domestic, but his elève, and the relations of master and servant were obliterated in those of tutor and pupil after a suitable education, e appointed him to hold that station in his will which he himself held in that of Mr. Fox, and he made him his confidant and private secretary, a rank which he held in all the melancholy vicissitudes of his future life.*

ln the year 1808 the question of the veto was much agitated in Dublin, and Mr. Trotter stepped forward in the controversy “to support,” as be says, in a pamphlet be published on the occasion, “his own consistency, to offer to his country a pledge of his independence of ministers, of his disdain of party, and of his respect for the venerable fragments which scatter the base of that temple, once dedicated, in Ireland to religion and liberty.” In this pamphlet, which he dedicated to the Catholic prelates of Ireland, his opinions aro decidedly hostile to his. former political friends. He says the veto was a point crudely and inconsiderately brought forward by a party in parliament, and that Ireland was by no means bound to their proceedings, or responsible for them. And that the Catholic prelates are resolved to barter to no minister, under any reign whatever, the integrity and independence of their church, for the false grandeur, or vile emolument, which an English minister plight propose, or an ambitious monarch might bestow.

*The eccentric experiment of Mr. Day vas made on two females, of there is a curious account in Seward"s Life of Darwin. [xiv]

The pamphlet was suited to the popular spirit of the time; it was read with avidity, as the unbiassed opinion of a protestant, and contributed, perhaps unfortunately, to increase the obstacles to setting at rest, for ever, an agitating question.

He now applied himself to finish a work of fancy, the foundation of which was laid in the incidents of real life. In 1809 he published his “Stories for Irish Calumniators,” drawing all his characters from living models. In Fitzmorice he depicted himself; in Frank, his secretary; in Miss Saxly, a young lady who had died, at Finglas, the victim of calumny; and in the vicar and his family, the Rev. Doctor Dobbyn, and the gifted and benevolent residents of the. parsonage-house of that parish, whose amiable features he has sketched with a just and delicate pencil. This work, which was dedicated to Lord Holland, breathes a benevolent and patriotic spirit, and contains much judicious remark and interesting detail. The style, however, is loose and declamatory, the characters strained, and the incidents unnatural; and though popular for some time as a local work, it was soon forgotten. He published also, at this time, a “Letter to Lord Southwell,” on the Catholic claims and Irish prelates. This was a subject which now engrossed every one’s attention. The letter was read with avidity, as coming from a source respected by the party to whom it was addressed, and acquired for the author much popularity and celebrity.

It was always his opinion, that music had considerable influence on the national character of a people, and that it was no less wise than patriotic to cherish and promote the practice of it. The music of his native country he regarded with enthusiastic admiration, and he was anxious to be instrumental in reviving the race of Irish [xv] Bards, which was nearly extinct in the country. In the year 1792 a patriotic society had been established in Belfast for that purpose, and his view was to enlarge a provincial society into one which would embrace the whole kingdom. For this purpose he searched out one of the last of the Irish harpers, whom he found in the person of a blind old man, and taking the bard with his harp into a coach and four horses, he proceeded with his venerable companion to the metropolis. Here he published his proposals for forming a society, and roused the public interest to an intense degree, upon a novel and romantic subject. The Irish melodies were at this time in high and deserved repute; but the Irish harper had never been seen, except by the curious in the College Museum. To display his bard and instrument, therefore, he took a house at Richmond, fitted it up in a style correspondent to his plan; and while he entertained numerous and successive, companies with profuse hospitality, his bard sat in his bower, or his hall, and delighted his guests with unheard-of strains of melody. A national society was soon formed, embracing a highly respectable list of noblemen, gentlemen, and professors, and a concert in commemoration of Carolan and the Irish Bards was performed, which will be long remembered, for the enthusiastic ardour which it excited. Intoxicated by the popularity and interest of which he supposed himself now the object, he indulged in a profuse and careless expence, which involved him in difficulties, from which he never extricated himself.

From Richmond he retired, in embarrassment, to the county of Wicklow, and rented a small villa, called Montalta. Here he built a cottage, on the solitary banks of a romantic mountain-stream, and with a mind harmonized to the undertaking, he wrote his Last Years of [xvi] the life of Charles James Fox.” This celebrated work has much to censure and much to praise: the loose and desultory manner, the quantity of irrelevant matter, the wanton offence offered to many of the friends of Mr. Fox, and the weak and unjustifiable attack on the conduct of his physicians, were all subjects of just censure and severe criticism; but the touching details of a distressing malady, the minute traits of a great man at the approach of dissolution, the clear insight of the private habits and turn of mind of a public minister, on whom the eyes of the world were fixed, detailed by a faithful eye-witness, who never for a moment left his bed-side, gave to the work so great an interest, that it was bought with avidity, and in a very short period passed through three editions. Notwithstanding the success of this work, his embarrassments daily increased, and his character, compromised by some unfortunate pecuniary transactions, was daily attacked. Labouring under anxiety and distress, which he was not yet broken in to bear, he at length applied to his majesty’s ministers for some situation; he was proffered, through Mr. Canning, a small employment in the revenue, of £150 per annum, which he indignantly rejected.*

His health now declined, and his spirits sunk to a state of morbid depression. A circumstance at this time occurred strongly indicative of the perturbed and desponding state of his mind. He had been some time before engaged with Mr. Fox in a course

*In a letter to Lord Liverpool he thus expresses himself: “I think he (Mr. Canning) never knew that the small revenue-place offered me by the Duke of Richmond was unfit for me to accept. Mr. Trail was ashamed when he proposed it to me; that which was disgusting I could not take.”

of classical reading and in particular attention to Horace, some of whose odes he had translated; there was one, however, which he now dwelt on with persevering fondness as peculiarly congenial to his present circumstances. It was the seventeenth ode of the first book, addressed lo Macænas, in which the poet anticipates the death of his patron, and intimates his intentions not to survive him.

Non ego perfidium
Dixi sacramentum; ibimus, ibimus
Ut cunque præcedes, supremum
Carpere iter comites parati.

This ode he was most anxious, to have well translated, and importunately applied to a classical friend, of whose powers of versification he had a high opinion, to do that justice to the subject which he found he could not do himself. His friend complied with his request, and unwittingly fed a despondency, which he subsequently dreaded would ultimately terminate in suicide. Indeed, his conduct justified the apprehension; he frequently left his house, and wandered about the mountains without a wish or intention of returning. When his family, alarmed with his absence, sent in search of turn; he was sometimes found at midnight, stretched on the banks of a mountain stream in the wet grass, soaked with dew and benumbed with cold. At length his creditors seized on his house, and he was driven from his home without knowing where to turn his steps. He retired to Dalkey, near Dublin, and composed, for his immediate subsistence, a novel called Margaret of Waldemar. His work, which he completed in a month, was composed under great agitation of mind, and bears the stamp of a wild and morbid imagination. It was rejected by the booksellers as too [xviii] extravagant even for the regions of romantic fiction. Disappointed in this expectation and only resource, he became a fugitive without any fixed residence; and after many wanderings, he proceeded on foot, without any definite object, through the mountains of Wicklow, and finally arrived at Hook Tower, at the extremity of the coast of Wexford.

This sequestered spot is a peninsula running several miles into the sea, and forming the eastern coast of the entrance into the great estuary into which the rivers Suir and Barrow discharge themselves. At its extremity stands a round tower, erected, it is supposed, by the Danes, and found standing when the first English adventurers landed near this spot in 1171. It as now a

*On one of these occasions be called upon some friends; they lived in a lone country, in a new house and demesne not yet finished, for whom he felt a particular regard. His friends were from home, and he had departed before their return; he left, however, behind him a trace which marked his progress; they found on the chimney-piece an impromptu, written during the few minutes he had stayed. It is here given, as a specimen of that easy and ready versification which he could always command.

To Mr. and Mrs. L——. When first the infant Muses chose their seat On earth, and sought with care a lone retreat, No fiowret smi’d, no foliage deck’d the place, Till poesy display’d enchanting grace; Whose magic breath soon vivifi’d the scene, And the dull spot arose in bloom serene — Thus here the hand of Genius forms around The varied charms that deck the wondering ground; And here tiie Muses haste — they gently press And hail the spot which all the Virtues bless.

J. B. T.

[xix]

light-house, marking the entrance of the harbour of Waterford. On this peninsula he became the inmate of a sequestered cabin, unknown and secluded from the world; and hoped to find refuge among the solitary haunts of seals and sea-mews. One day, as he wandered along the coast of this wild region, in attempting to pass a rocky rendered slippery by the spray of the sea, he lost his infirm footing, and fell from the summit, and was taken up severely contused. While labouring under the effects of this accident, and yet scarcely able to walk abroad, early one morning at sun-rise, two men entered the cabin, and asked for the refreshment of a drink of water. Mr. Trotter, who was just risen, with his accustomed good-nature, directed that the poor men, who seemed to be travellers, should be supplied with something better; and while some of his family were preparing to set before them the best his house afforded, the men seized him suddenly and violently by the collar. Surprized by this unexpected attack, at an unseasonable hour, and in a solitary place, he resisted, from an impulse of self-preservation; and the young man, his secretary, coming to his aid, assaulted the men with more zeal than discretion, and they were expelled from the house. It soon appeared that they were bailiffs executing a writ, though they never shewed it, or even declared the purpose for which they assaulted him. They immediately applied to the nearest magistrate, and lodged an exaggerated information of an assault and rescue. The magistrate proceeded to the house with a body of armed servants; and when Mr. Trotter refused to open his door, from an apprehension of an arrest for debt, they brought a file of soldiers from Duncannon-fort, and laid siege to the cabin. The whole country was now alarmed; crowds were collected from all quarters; and while they were [xx]

preparing to burst open the door with a stodge, Mr. Trotter came quietly forward and surrendered himself. It appears, by his uncontradicted statement, that he was treated with the most unfeeling brutality by the magistrates, particularly by one of them. He was called a “ruffian” and addressed in the language of wanton and unnecessary insult, and a common flat-backed car and straw were brought to convey him. This is the usual carriage prepared for the commonest felon, and, from the structure of the rude machine, is the most painful and uneasy al any time; but, in bad roads, and to an invalid, labouring under the effects of recent wounds, would be intolerable. He, therefore, declined a mode of conveyance at once ignominious and painful; and having petitioned in vain for a carriage, or even a jaunting-car, he was marched with a delicate female, and the young man, his. secretary, on foot, through the country, to Wexford, with military parade, and the way lengthened by an unnecessary circuit of several miles. At length, two gentlemen of the county came forward and interfered. The parties were bailed for the assault, and liberated; but Mr. Trotter was lodged in the Marshalsea of Wexford jail under the arrest for debt. On this occasion, he appealed to the public, through the medium of the press, detailed the brutality with which he was treated, and severely animadverted on the conduct of Messrs. Tottenham and Handcock.

From the jail of Wexford he was removed by Habeas Corpus to the King’s-bench prison in Dublin. While confined here, he wrote to a clergyman, with whom he was in habits of intimacy, to request he would come to him, as he had something which pressed upon hi mind which he wished to communicate. His friend, who had not seen him since he was in the zenith of opulence and [xxi] popularity in Dublin, was shocked at the change. He found him in a naked apartment of that dreary mansion, wrapped a soiled and tattered night-gown, leaning with his elbow a table, and his head resting on his hands, pensively contemplating the bust of Fox, which stood on the table before him. This relique be had never parted with, but bore it as one of his penates, or household gods, through all his wanderings. He told the clergyman he was going to be married on that day, and requested him to perform the ceremony. His intended wife was a young woman of respectable connections, who had formed a strong and early attachment for him, and had followed him through all his misfortunes, which she equally shared. Struck with the irreparable injury it would do to his future prospects, his friend ventured to remonstrate on the imprudence of the act; but he cut all remonstrance short. “My mind,” said he, “is made up, and I would not have it disturbed; nor would I expect that a clergyman would dissuade me from an act enforced by every motive of justice, morality, and religion.” His friend was silent, and his marriage was solemnized in the prison!

While residing in the county of Wexford, he had been engaged in a consideration of the political state of the country. The late parliament was then new, and had just assembled for the first time. The death of Mr. Percival had made some difficulty in forming a new administration, and the intemperance of the Catholics had alarmed and alienated some of their warmest friends. He took an impartial, temperate, and candid view of the state of things, and the difficulties which the government of the Prince Regent had to contend with. This he published while in the Marshalsea, in a pamphlet, called, “Five Letters,” addressed to Baron Sir W. Smith. They were well received and [xxii] shortly passed through two editions. He now wrote to Lord Yarmouth, inclosing a copy of this pamphlet, who replied in a kind and friendly letter, holding out hopes and inducements to go to England, and inclosing him a bill for £200 for his present expences [sic passim]. With this he compromised with his creditors, many of whom declined to receive any part of their debt, and were anxious that he should be liberated without any payment; evincing a liberal feeling, no less honourable to themselves than creditable to him.

It was his wish immediately to avail himself of the invitation to England, but he was detained by a circumstance as unexpected as it was vindictive. His mysterious residence on a solitary peninsula in the county of Wexford, had rendered him an object of alarm and suspicion to the neighbouring gentry, in a country so recently and so dreadfully agitated. He was, moreover, from his political connection, considered what is called in Ireland a marked man; and his decided but imprudent opinions on some popular questions, had inflamed rancour against him. An insinuation had been thrown out, that his residence in that part of the country was for the purpose of holding secret meetings, and sowing seditious opinions. When, therefore, he had opposed the bailiffs in the execution of the writ, they availed themselves of his imprudent act, and instead of remuneration for the unworthy manner in which he was treated on that occasion, a merciless and relentless prosecution was commenced against him. He was indicted, therefore, at the assizes of Wexford, and he was compelled to attend the trial. The bailiffs deposed that they were violently assaulted and severely wounded; and an impression was made that there ;ir#ffe guns and ammunition kept in the house for the purpose of resistance to the laws. His own family were [xxiii] restrained from giving evidence in his favour by being equally included in the indictment. The evidence stood uncontradicted, and the judge charged the Jury accordingly. Mr. Trotter now addressed the Court in an eloquent and pathetic speech. He averred, that the bailiffs had shewn no writ, or acted in any way to induce him to believe they had legal authority; that he did not open his door to the magistrates from the conviction that he had a right to protect himself against arrest from bailiffs who had made no legal caption; that he and all his family had ever held the laws of their country in the highest respect; and at the very time when imputations of sedition and outrage were attempted to be affixed to him, he was composing, in retirement and solitude, a defence of his majesty’s government, which had been equally well received by the government and the people; that he had received flattering encouragement from the Prince Regent, who could not be supposed to countenance a character liable to a disloyal imputation; and that prospects now opened on him, which conviction and confinement for the supposed offence with which he was charged would for ever destroy. The Court was moved; the barristers employed against him declared they would rather throw up their brief than be accessary to such a case; and, much to the disappointment of the prosecutors, the expected period of his imprisonment for two years was changed to one fortnight. At the expiration of this term he went to England, to realise those golden dreams; he was kindly received, and expected an adequate provision; but his hopes ended in a gift of £100, and in 1813 he again returned to Ireland.*

* there seemed to be a prejudice of the most unconquerable kind excited against him, and his very name conveyed something most repugnant to those in power. The kind friend who had the inclination, [xxiv] and, as he supposed, the power to assist him, thus states the result of his application in a note dated May 13, 1813: “I never got a favour, and therefore asked with confidence, and I hope you will believe with sincere anxiety. I had, as I believed, obtained something very good, and leading to something better. But on naming you, your petition, and opposition to Mr. Pitt, barred a door I thought already opened. [xxiv]

He now retired to Balbriggan, in the county of Louth, where he composed and published a short poem on the “Battle of Leipsic;” from thence he removed to Rathfarnham, near Dublin, where he commenced his great work, an epic poem, called, “The Rhine; or, Warrior Kings,” in 24 books. To assist in the composition of this work, he purchased the bust of the Duke of Wellington, which he always placed on the table before him, and while he contemplated the features of the hero of his poem, he fancied he felt an inspiration which he sensibly wanted when the supposed cause was absent. This visionary association was common to him in many occurrences of his life. The poem he continued to revise and improve till the time of his death, and he left it as a posthumous work for future publication. He had proposed to publish it by subscription, and procured a number of respectable names, at £3 a copy. Among the rest, he applied to Lord Holland, who declined in such a manner as induced Mr. Trotter, with his usual imprudence, to publish his letter, with severe animadversions, in the Dublin newspapers.

He was now driven from his residence at Rathfarnham, and compelled to seek for a retreat at Tramore, in the county of Waterford. This village stands upon a large and dangerous bay, surrounded on all sides by a wild and desolate coast. It presents an open and inviting harbour of great, extent, and frequently allures vessels unacquainted with the danger, for certain destruction. [xxv]

One night, in the commencement of winter, the inhabitants were alarmed with the rumour of a wreck, and Mr. Trotter, ever foremost in a kind and benevolent act, was among the first who fled to the relief of the sufferers. The ship proved to be the Sea-horse transport, returning with troops from the Continent after the battle of Waterloo; unable to weather the western point of this insidious bay, she foundered on the sands, and three hundred of the unhappy passengers perished. In the midst of a dreary and inclement night, Mr. Trotter proceeded three miles along the coast, encountering less danger from elements than from a band of ruffian-plunderers, who, like vultures scenting their prey, had hovered near and followed the unhappy vessel as she drove along the coast for several miles. His first service was to save the crew from outrage and plunder till the military arrived for their protection. He received with kindness the surviving sufferers. He had little to give, but that little he freely shared with them. His services on this occasion were so conspicuous, that thanks were returned to him individually for his humane exertions, and they were noticed with due applause in the public papers. But while he thus rendered services to others in distress, there was no one to relieve his own; they now became almost insupportable. His secretary and friend, who had never parted from him for a moment, was compelled to seek for that subsistence which his patron could no longer afford to give; he, therefore, privately withdrew himself, and enlisted into the East-India Company’s service. From the distress in which he was now involved, he was relieved by the timely aid of £100 sent by Lady Liverpool. He immediately repaired to London, and liberated his friend. While in London, he applied once more ta the Prince-Regent; he received, through Sir B. Bloomfield, [xxxi] £100, with an intimation that it was the last aid be ever to expect. Stung with this communication, which be considered to have put a final period to all his hopes, he seems to have changed his mode of address, and with more than his usual folly and imprudence, attempted to extort by threats what he no longer expected from entreaties. They only recoiled upon himself, and deprived him of the countenance and good-will of the last friend who adhered to him.

After a chequered life of wandering through Wales, he again returned to Ireland through Bristol, and finally took up his residence in Cork, where he proposed to establish an “Historical Register.” His plan, however, met with no encouragement, and it was soon abandoned. But neither his disposition nor his necessities allowed him to be idle: he tried one more scheme, therefore, for subsistence. He was persuaded that every view of Ireland was superficial and imperfect, as the tourist merely saw the surface of things. He determined to inspect them more closely; he therefore set out on a pedestrian tour, with a view to publish the result. Accompanied by his young man, he proceeded on foot through the counties of Cork, Limerick, Clare, Galway, and Mayo, exploring all the wild district of Erris, Conemara [sic for Connemara], and Joyce’s country, a solitary and sequestered tract along the western ocean, little known or visited. Here the native Irish

* the last communication he held with this noble friend, who had always tried to serve him at court, was on this subject; his reply was as follows: — ** If I were disposed to disobey a positive command, I assure you it would not be on a day when, instead of having humbly to present a poem to which his R. H. most liberally subscribed, I am directed to carry a direct threat of the publication of some work unpleasant to the feelings of his R. H.” — It should be stated, in justice, that [he] had received, at different times, nearly £1000 from this source. [xxvii]

were driven, after the confiscation of Cromwell, and retain still that unmixed character which distinguishes them. In this tour he sometimes took up his abode for the night with the poorest peasants, occupied their straw shaken on the ground, which was the only accommodation they could afford for a bed, and shared their potatoes and salt, which was the only food they could offer. It was his good fortune to be able to remunerate these poor people for their hospitality more effectually than by any trifling gift in his power to bestow. He made representations to Mr Peele [sic], then secretary for Ireland, on whatever might improve or ameliorate the distress of the poor where he passed, and, through his agency, relief was sent to Newport, Prat, Lough-rea, and other places, where the poor had suffered most severely from the contagious fever at that time raging there. For these services he was thanked by Lord Clanrickarde, and other leading persons in that country. From Connaught he returned to Cork, through the county of Tipperary and Killarney, having walked more than a thousand miles in three months, and inspected personally every thing worthy of notice, either in the domestic habits or mansions of the peasantry, or in the antiquities and curiosities of the country. From his memoranda, taken on this occasion, he composed a most interesting tour, addressed in a series of letters to his friend, the Rev. William Liddiard, rector of Knock-marck [sic for Knockmark], in the diocese of Meath, the work to which this sketch is prefixed.

While engaged in the composition of this work, his hopes were supported, and his spirits were kept from sinking, by the very effort of exertion; and, indeed, he displayed a resignation and equanimity highly creditable, by submitting to privations of every kind with a cheerful fortitude. At this time all his means were exhausted [xxviii] and his food was supplied in a very precarious and irregular manner. When the hour of dinner arrived, he attended with his family frequently to an empty table, and taking up some favourite author, he read it out for their amusement and instruction during the ordinary period of a meal. He thus, by precept and example, supported their sinking spirits; and they often rose from their mental repast, if not with a feeling of content, with that of resignation, in the hope that the morrow would bring relief. But when his tour finished, as if exhausted both in body and mind, he suddenly sunk into dejection and despondency. He occasionally communicated his feelings and situation to the only friend a hard world had left him. The letters indicate the wreck of a mind worn down by incessant anxiety and hopeless affliction; and, indeed, the circumstances under which he supported existence at this time, would justify the deepest dejection. He had two helpless persons depending on him, for whom he thought it was his duty to provide; he occupied some naked rooms in a decayed house in Hammond’s-Marsh, in Cork; the rain penetrated the decayed roof, and wind rushed through the broken windows, rendering his abode as dreary and comfortless as poverty could retire to. His diet was potatoes, salt, and water, with such cheap vegetables as he could procure; the addition of milk and tea were rare, and occasional luxuries; and to provide them, it was necessary on several occasions to pawn the last shirt which remained to him and his companion. His dress was the worn-out remnant of better days, affording little protection against the cold, and scarcely that covering which the decorum of society required. He latterly seldom stirred from his wretched abode, where no one sought him out, and his only solace was to lie in bed whole days, pondering over his misfortunes. [xxix] On these occasions, he used to read such works as suited his own sad feelings, and corresponded with his unhappy circumstances. It was remarked, that he dwelt with a melancholy fondness on the lines of Chatterton, Savage, Otway, and such authors as had prematurely perished from distress and want; drawing from their fate a gloomy presage and anticipation of his own. In this state he was visited by that epidemic dysentery which was raging among the poor of his neighbourhood, and which is always found to be most fatal when it attacks the unhappy and distressed, who are predisposed both in mind mod body to receive it. He had eaten with unusual appetite two large cabbages, the only food he could procure after a long abstinence, and the next day he was seized with the distemper. He was visited by the physician of a neighbouring dispensary, and received gratuitously from the institution such medicines as they prescribed: but physic could render little service to a man whose heart was broken, and whose malady was hourly increased by scanty, crude, and unwholesome diet When exhausted with disease, and unable to speak without difficulty, it was his practice every day to detail in writing the symptoms of his complaint for the direction of the physicians. These statements were drawn up with great precision, and are still preserved by one of the physicians, not only as curious relics of the man, but as extraordinary indications of a clear and vigorous mind, when the powers of the body had sunk under the malady. In a short time, however, his case became hopeless, and it only remained to send for a clergyman, to afford him the last consolation. The clergyman was the learned and accomplished Dean of Cork, who, above the prejudices of mean and little minds, availed himself of no pretext of his rank to evade his [xxx] duty, but kindly and assiduously attended as long as his clerical functions could confer comfort to the sinking heart of his patient. But the powers of his mind at length gave way also, and bereft him of this consolation. The first indication was a visionary phantom, which strongly impressed him. One day, while Mrs. Trotter was sitting beside his bed, he fancied a man walked across the room, and passed into a small closet inside it. He earnestly requested Mrs. Trotter to follow the vision. She complied with his request, but could not persuade him it was a delusion of his fancy. He insisted that another person should be called to make further search; and not satisfied even with his assurance, he himself rose from his bed, tottered across the room, and closely examined the closet. Shortly after, he called for his writing-materials, as if some thought had struck his mind which he wished to preserve. He made a vain and ineffectual effort to write, but the pen fell from his hand, and the black ink streamed upon the sheet, and tinged his pallid cheek. He seemed shocked, clasped his hands upon his breast, and, uttering a deep moan, sunk back exhausted on the pillow. This was the last effort at intelligent communication, and in a short time after he expired, ou the 29th of September, 1818, in the 43d year of his age.

During his illness, he was constantly visited by a poor woman who sold oranges. She daily and anxiously enquired afler his health, and insisted on leaving her best fruit for his use, for which she would accept no compensation. Though apparently in good health, she gradually pined away as his malady increased. When be . died, her strength sunk rapidly, and in six days she died also, without any visible disease but excessive grief.

He had expressed a melancholy wish, during his illness, that his remains should be placed near the elm [xxxi] trees which shade the walk through the church-yard of the cathedral of Cork; the breeze, as it murmured through the leaves, he said, would sooth his weary spirit, and compose that anxious and perturbed state of mind, which had embittered the Jast years of his existence. This harmless persuasion of a visionary mind has been complied with, and he lies under his favourite elms, which now sigh over his grave. The few friends, whom his distresses and his abilities have interested, mean to ’ erect a slight monument to mark the remains of genius and misfortune; and, as it will stand close beside the public walk, he will have the consolation of hearing, with Yorick, his monumental inscription read over by every passenger, in all the tones of sympathy and commiseration.

The following inscriptions were written by two of his friends, to commemorate his melancholy fate as well as his virtues:

In contemplating the character of this ingenious but most unfortunate gentleman, there will be found much to censure, and much to praise. His prominent failing was vanity. An eagerness for popular applause led him into extravagant expence and an overweening opinion of his knowledge in politics, and his talents as an author, induced him to neglect a respectable, and lucrative profession, and devote his time to a pursuit from which he seldom gathered either fame or profit. His modes of thinking were fanciful, and his style of writing loose and declamatory; and there was generally something negligent, incorrect, or imprudent, connected with all he said and did. In fact, he totally wanted judgment to guide him in the great or little concerns of life; in the first he was visionary, pursuing romantic notions of impracticable perfection; in the second, he was weak, the slave of passion, and the martyr of imprudence. On the other [xxxiii] hand, he possessed genius and talent, a quick conception and an uncommon facility of composition; his mind was imbued with a fund of classic images, which an intimate knowledge and taste for the dead languages supplied; but his favourite language was Italian, the beauties of which he felt and understood; many passages in his own writings, drawn from those sources, display great ability and beauty; and had his judgment in correction been equal to his readiness in composition, his writings would be highly and deservedly praised. He had a kind and warm heart, never neglecting an opportunity of doing a good action, and often promoting the interests of others to the neglect of his own. He was capable both of feeling and inspiring strong attachment; every person with whom he was in habits of intimacy evinced great affection for his person, from the prime-minister of England, who expired in his arms, to the poor orange-woman, who died for grief at his death. Qualities which could inspire such extraordinary regard in minds so dissimilar, must have been of a very amiable kind. His manners were gentle, and though somewhat eccentric, were polished and courteous; under all his provocations, he never retorted with a rude or acrimonious spirit, nor in any of his misfortunes forgot what was due to others or to himself as a gentleman. His notions of honour and integrity were enthusiastic before he felt the pressure of pecuniary distress. Even then he was most anxious to redeem a character which a wreckless [sic for reckless] profusion had compromised. He received at one time the sum of £300 from the Prince-Regent; at another, a similar sum from Lord Holland. The first be immediately sent to discharge bia engagements with the Harp-society; the second he divided among his creditors, without appropriating any part of either to his own use. His moral [xxxiv] principles were deeply seated, even when they seemed to be eradicated. He made the only reparation left in his power to a deserving woman. In short, he had a strong sense of the duties of morality; and though he was often led into error and irregularity, he never lost sight of those principles from which he had reluctantly strayed. He was a liberal and enlightened, though a speculative politician; steady to his principles, but not to his party; and his attachment to what he thought the interests of Ireland was most disinterested, ardent, and sincere. His love, indeed, for his native land he carried to a romantic excess: he was persuaded he never could exert his powers of composition in any other country, and, indeed, under this fanciful impression, he always returned to Ireland when he had any work in contemplation, that his imagination might be excited by the presence of fond and congenial objects.

This predilection for his own country, honourable though it be, as a testimony of his national feelings, was unfortunate in its consequences. Had he made choice of the metropolis of England as his place of residence, there can be little doubt of his having procured, by the exertion of his talents, a subsistence honourable at once, and sufficient to secure the necessaries, and, perhaps, some of the luxuries of life. The literary society, established expressly for the aid of authors in distress, would have relieved him from that state to which he was at last reduced in his native land; that land, of which it may be truly said —

“’Tis treason to love her, and death to defend;”

where the want of nationality, a coldness in the cause of literature, an indifference to the fate of its supporter its or poverty, has left the people without such an asylum for [xxxv] genius, when persecuted by distress and want. It is but ustice to state, that distant as was Mr. Trotter from this resource for talent from the envy and oppression of a “cold world,” that he was more than once relieved from this godlike fund. Two of Sir Benjamin Hobhouse’s letters, which inclosed [sic] the much-wanted aid, being, with many other papers, now in my possession. Mrs. Trotter has also received some relief, since her husband’s death, from the same source. Had he been nearer to such relief his days might have been lengthened; he might not have been cut off in the zenith of his talent, before he had completed his epic poem, so as to render it fit for the public eye; at all events, it is not too much to suppose they would have been deprived of much of their bitterness. As it was, to any application he could have made for help, which, probably, be would not make till reduced to the last extremity, it must be remembered, he could not, from the distance of Cork from Dublin, recejive any benefit in much less than a fortnight. This conviction was less calculated to give rise to hope than to encourage despair.

But the circumstance which most strongly impresses the contemplative mind is the extreme disproportion which existed between his actual fortune and that to which he might most reasonably aspire. Descended from a highly respectable and ennobled ancestry; the nephew of a bishop; the brother of a member of the imperial parliament; the friend, companion, and official confidant of the greatest minister that ever conducted a great nation, and in the zenith of his power. Himself a man of cultivated mind, high honour, warm sensibilities, and liberal endowments, starting into life with all the advantages which could flatter an aspiring mind, connection, fortune, interest, talent, and personal merit; and [xxxvi] seeming to touch the very point which placed him on a pinnacle of his hopes: yet, without any known demerit, suddenly thrust from his place; and, after sinking rapidly through all the gradations of a life, short in point of time, but long, indeed, in chequered scenes of varied misery, he was shamefully suffered to perish, in the vigour of life, the victim of actual want — the pauper patient of a Dispensary!