strong suspicion to his reverend colleague, who was not perhaps wrong in the supposition that he was selected by the government to counteract any leaning on his own part to the church, and to divide the protestant interest. If such was the design of the English Council, it undoubtedly added one more to the long and tortuous tissue of errors in which it was involved. Ignorant of the true nature and operation of the dissent subsisting in the protestant churches of Ireland, it was not aware that the central principles of a common faith must, in the moment of extreme danger, combine the protestants of all denominations, which are united by those principles, for their common protection. And so it was at this time found: Granard, whatever may have been his private views, united sincerely with Boyle. They acted, nevertheless, with exemplary caution and moderation, as well as firmness. Receiving from the fears or designs of either party daily information and reports, equally unfounded, they dismissed them all, and were tempted or terrified by no imaginary inducement or fear from holding a calm and steady rein on both. In their determination to maintain the protestant interest, nothing in fact was more necessary than to ward off those gross and palpable injustices which the fear or zeal of the crowd will always be ready to exact. The earl was at last, however, compelled to give way to a power which was not to be repressed by any consideration short of its main object. He was pressed by his council, who were mere instruments of the English court, to authorise Roman catholics to commit any person without bail: he requested to be dismissed. The government was reluctant to take such a step, as his influence among the presbyterians was very great, and his appointment was considered to be a restraint upon himself also. The king therefore wrote him a letter to assure him that he would not do any thing injurious to the protestant interest. Nevertheless it immediately appeared so very visible that this assurance was thoroughly false, and had no view but the deception of the earl, that he soon found himself forced to act with the most decided firmness, to prevent himself from being made instrumental against the protestants; and entering with decision into their interests, he was dismissed in 1685 from his post of chairman to the council.

The remaining history of his life must be here briefly dismissed: as it contains nothing of sufficient importance to draw us into an extensive anticipation of the train of events into which we are presently to enter. In 1690, the earl was sworn of the privy council to William III., and, in the following year, distinguished himself before Sligo, by the prudent dexterity which caused the garrison to surrender to the forces under his command and those of colonel Mitchelbourne. In the following year he took his seat in parliament, and was one of the committee appointed by the peers to present their address of thanks to the king.

He built a church at Castle Forbes, and promoted the linen trade there.

He died "in or about" 1695, and was buried at Castle Forbes.

RICHARD TALBOT, EARL OF TYRCONNEL.

DIED 1691.

The life of Richard Talbot is an essential portion of the history of his period, and, though apart from this consideration he would possess but feeble claims on the pen of the biographer, yet the history of his career may serve to afford a strong illustration of the effect of revolutionary periods, in raising the obscure to rank, fame, and public importance, without any aid from the possession of great talents or virtues. When wisdom and virtue are elevated to station and command by the dispositions of that power which overrules the tide of events, by the emergency which often sets aside for an instant the ordinary agencies of society, or by the accidents of wealth and exalted rank, they will undoubtedly win the homage which is their righteous meed: partly because the world is always ready to bow down before success, however won; and partly because men are more just in their judgments than pure in their actuating motives. The avowed conventions of society are in favour of goodness,- every popular vice must wear an honourable mask, and when bad men receive the praises of the multitude, it is not for the vices by which they are earned. But, after all that can be said, the fame of true wisdom and genuine goodness is rather a conquest over, than a consequence from, the moral influences actually operating on the world; it is an extorted concession hardly wrung, and, as in the case of the duke of Ormonde, too often followed by a long and lasting wake of detraction: while, on the other hand, base servility, whether to the humours of the people, the will of the despot of the hour, or the prejudices of the age, will rise wafted by all the influences which are at work in the ferment of human corruption: and will have a royal road of greatness, or, at least, notoriety. Between the two conditions we have thus contrasted, there is all the difference between stemming the tide, or floating with it. And there is another moral lesson which the same contrast is adapted to convey, whether it is sought in experience or the page of history: that true greatness of character will most frequently be found standing equally apart from the blind and fierce impulses of public opinion, and from the profligate venality of courts. In each of these extremes, there is a perpetual effort of usurpation, and an equal ignorance of the real rights of man, as well as a most strange unconsciousness of the true locus of that centre of moral and intellectual gravitation in which the actual power of civilized society resides, and its true balance is to be found. We should gladly extend our remarks on this most important, and much desiderated branch of moral science, but it is our business to display examples rather than enforce rules. The first duke of Ormonde has, we trust, afforded no doubtful example of a statesman who was equally inaccessible to the clamour of crowds or the corruption of tyrants, though true alike to the just claims and real interests of king and country, and assailed but too often by the ingratitude of both. In Tyrconnel, we here present the reader with a character remarkably illustrative of the contrast to these noble features.

Of the birth of Talbot we have not found any record, still less can we offer any notice of his early career; nor are these considerations such as to warrant the delay that they might offer in our narrative, which must derive its entire interest from the history of the time. We find Richard Talbot first in the historian's page the active advocate of the claims of the papists in 1662, and among the most forward and violent of those whom they sent to plead their cause in England; on which occasion he did more harm than good to the cause he was employed to serve, by his extreme want of prudence and moderation, and of all the qualities necessary for so difficult an office. If the reader should demand to what grounds we are to attribute a selection so injudicious on the part of his countrymen, we believe that, independent of the effect of mere violence to recommend the possessor to an angry crowd, Talbot was recommended by the reputation of his favour with the duke of York, into whose regard he had insinuated himself in the Netherlands before the Restoration, by a convenient and subservient attention, when attention and subserviency were harder to be met and of higher value. His devotion to the royal interests was shown, it is said, by an offer to assassinate Cromwell; and, after the restoration, his services were recompensed and his peculiar merits recognised, by the post of gentleman of the bed chamber to the duke of York.

His zeal in the cause he undertook, was increased by the early impression received in the course of the rebellion of 1641, and the terrors of the sack of Drogheda, left in his breast an abiding horror of fanaticism, which, in his narrow and worldly view, perhaps included all of religion beyond its forms and its secular associations.

In 1678, he was among those who were ordered to be apprepersons hended on the accusations of the popish plot: but nothing to his prejudice having been discovered, he was permitted to leave the kingdom. From exile he was soon allowed to return, when this spurious excitement had subsided, and a strong reaction of popular feeling for a time gave strength to the actual machinations of the king's and duke's designs for the same end. On his return he lost no time in the exertion of his influence with the duke; and availing himself of his reputed knowledge of Irish affairs, he soon raised a fresh cloud of calumnies, doubts, and misapprehensions against the government of Ireland, then in the hands of the duke of Ormonde. The recall of this illustrious nobleman was the immediate consequence: Rochester was sent over with contracted powers; and the authority over military affairs, which till then had been committed to the lord-lieutenant, were now transferred to the lieutenant-general; which post was destined for Talbot.

Rochester, unwilling perhaps to go to Ireland, delayed his journey, and, in the mean time, a fresh and sudden change took place in the condition of affairs. The circumstances appear to be imperfectly understood: the king seems to have given way to those secret counsels in favour of Monmouth, which created a sudden coolness between him and the duke of York, of whose presence he endeavoured to rid himself by sending him to Scotland. The projected policy with regard to Ireland was entirely suspended, and matters remained there in a state of suspense, though aggravated by the increased animosity and the mutual accusations of parties.

Under these circumstances, while matters appeared not only to take a turn opposed to the duke's political designs, but even to menace his claim to the succession, the king opportunely died under circumstances impossible to be perused without some strong impressions of foul play. The duke was under a growing disfavour, and the earl of Rochester was on the point of being sent to the Tower, on a charge of official malversation in the treasury; and "a message was sent to Mr May, then at Windsor, to desire him to come to court that day, which it was expected would turn out a very critical day. And it proved to be so indeed, though in a different way."* The king was taken suddenly ill after taking "a porringer of spoon meat," which was made "too strong for his stomach," after which he had an unquiet night. The next day he was attended by Dr King, a chemist whom he had sent for concerning some chemical operations, upon which he was at the time engaged. When the doctor came, he was unable to understand the king, whose language was become suddenly so broken and incoherent as to be unintelligible. The doctor went out and reported this unusual circumstance to lord Peterborough, who desired him to return to the king: but he had hardly entered the chamber when the king fell down in a fit, which, for the moment, was judged to be apoplectic. The doctor then bled him, and he regained his senses; but still appeared so oppressed and stupified, that a return of the same attack was expected hourly. It was proposed to administer the sacrament to him, and he was addressed by Sancroft and Kenn, who, considering the real emergency of the occasion, spoke strongly to him of his sinful life: the king was meanwhile exhibiting in the presence of these reverend prelates a singular illustration of the life he had led, and of his awful unfitness to meet so sudden a call; for he was supported in the bed on which he sat by his mistress the duchess of Portsmouth. He was pressed to receive the sacrament, but resisted all entreaty till the duke of York sent for Huddleston, a favourite priest of his own persuasion: when this person had all things prepared for the purpose, every one was desired to leave the room but the earl of Bath and Feversham, when the sacrament according to the ritual of the Romish communion was administered with extreme difficulty, as the king was unable to swallow the wafer. After which, the company being re-admitted, the king "went through the agonies of death" very decently, according to Burnet: now and then complaining of being burned up within, but still commanding his sufferings enough to deliver his last injunctions to the duke, in favour of his favourite mistresses Portsmouth, and Nell Gwyn; and to give his blessing to those present, who fell on their knees to receive it, which seems to have been carrying the farce of court obsequiousness as far as can well be conceived. And thus king Charles II. died. In addition to the slight incidents which give a suspicious character to these circumstances, one far more unequivocal remains to be told. Poison was suspected by some of the physicians: and when the body was examined, great care was taken to divert the attention of the medical men present, from the stomach, which was not suffered to be examined; but while means were taken to divert and

Burnet's Own Time.

interrupt the spectators' attention, it was suddenly put out of the way; but not before doctors Lower and Needham observed "two or three blue spots on the outside," from which their inference was evidently of an unfavourable nature. "Needham," says Burnet, "called twice to have it opened," but the operators pretended not to hear; and he heard a murmur amongst them when he repeated the call. Le Fevre, a French doctor, observed a blackness on the shoulder; and Short, whose creed encouraged him to speak his suspicions more freely, "did very much suspect foul dealing," and was soon after taken ill after drinking a large dose of wormwood wine given him by a patient, and died, expressing his opinion to the physicians who attended him, that he was poisoned for having spoken too freely of the king's death! These incidents may easily be overrated; yet it is not to be neglected that they are reported upon the authority of those who were least likely to be deceived; and whose inferences were the most likely to be grounded on a just appreciation of the actual circumstances. After having composed his history, Burnet received a very curious account from a Mr Henly, of Hampshire, of a conversation this gentleman had with the duchess of Portsmouth, who expressed herself as if she thought the king had been poisoned; and on being further pressed, she mentioned that she had always pressed his majesty to set himself at ease with his people, by coming to an agreement with his parliament; that he had made up his mind to follow this advice, and as a needful preliminary, resolved to send away the duke. These purposes were to have been carried into effect the day following that on which he was taken ill. She having been aware of these particulars beforehand, mentioned them (with an injunction of secrecy perhaps,) to her confessor: it was her impression that this person mentioned them to others, and that they thus went round through the parties most interested to prevent the king's designs by any means. This account, it must be observed, seems to coincide with the facts, so far as they are known, and account as well for the sudden interruption above mentioned in the Irish arrangements as far as the king's sudden death.

The licentious profligate, whose prudence, when fairly alarmed, might have led him to recall his steps and retrieve the fortunes of his race, was succeeded by his shallow and bigoted brother on the throne. Sincere and earnest in the principles he would have maintained, inflated with a false notion of the power and rights of kings, incapable of any sense of public rights, or not conceiving the real force and character of public opinion and national feeling, he tampered with these dangerous elements with a feeble and inadvertent hand, until they exploded, to the destruction of his house, and the subversion of the infirm and tottering pillars on which it stood.

Among his first acts was the reparation of that broken tissue of fraud and despotism, by which he had fondly hoped to effect his favourite purpose. The recall of the duke of Ormonde was confirmed with circumstances of gratuitous harshness; and having publicly avowed his adherence to the church of Rome, he prepared to pave the way for the restoration of the papal dominion in England by the completion of its triumphs in Ireland. The mere report of his favour went before his acts, and heaped fresh fuel in Ireland upon the flames of party