father's title and estates when only six years old. His education was rather desultory, and how his taste for literature was acquired it is not very easy to trace. In 1746 he went abroad, and attended the academy of Turin for one year. This was the only public school or university he ever attended, and yet he appears to have acquired a most respectable proficiency in letters and polite scholarship generally. He remained on the continent nine years, in the course of which period he extended his travels to Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, and formed an intimate acquaintance with David Hume, whom he met both at Turin and Paris, the President Montesquieu, the Marchese Maffei, and various other eminent personages, of whom a number of interesting reminiscences are preserved in the Memoirs of the Earl by Hardy.1

In 1755 he returned to his native country, where he was courted by the ministry, but the first scene of court-intrigue which he witnessed so disgusted him that he resolved to be no party's man; and he kept his understanding in his own power to the day of his death. It had been his intention to remain a bachelor, until one day his brother, Major Caulfield, to whom he was pointing out the classical improvements he had made in his grounds, happened to remark, that when the property came into his hands, he should at once do away with its decorations, and devote the land to the more profitable purposes of growing corn and grazing cattle. This observation gave the future earl so much offence that he determined to marry; and, in July, 1768, he was united to Mary, the daughter of an officer on half-pay, named Hickman, who bore him several children. He took his seat in the Irish house of peers when about thirty years of age; and, subsequently, with some reluctance, accepted the earldom of Charlemont; annexing, however, to the patent of his creation, an apology to his successors, written by himself, for having consented to receive it at a time when such honours were obtained with extreme facility. It is sufficient for his memory to say that the title was conferred upon him, during the lieutenancy of the carl of Northumberland, without any solicitation; and that he was neither at that time nor at any other invested with any official situation.

In 1779 Earl Charlemont was declared commander-in-chief of the Irish association of volunteers. The history of this most anomalous political body has been very ably detailed by the writer of the article on Hardy's Life of Charlemont in the 19th volume of the Edinburgh Review.' "A Catholic bill," says the reviewer, "was carried in 1778, and about the same time, the whole strength and independent spirit of the nation was directed towards the obtaining a free trade, and the abolition of those laws by which the kingdom and parliament of Ireland had been rendered entirely dependent upon the parliament or cabinet of England. It is now universally admitted, however, that neither of these great objects would have been obtained, had it not been for the formidable array, and patriotic resolutions of the Associated Volunteers, who then covered the country. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, to explain, in a few words, the origin of this singular institution, which, to speak it in plain terms, effected a revolution in Ireland not less momentous and radical than that which was accomplished in England in 1688; and a revolution which, though carried through by the instru

1 London: 4to. 1810.

mentality of an armed force, was yet conducted with a temperance and moderation unexampled in the history of any such transaction.

"About the year 1777 a considerable alarm had been excited by the report of an invasion meditated by France upon several parts of the Irish shore; and as the country had been almost entirely stripped of its regular force, by the exigencies of the foreign service, very urgent applications were made to government for the means of defence. To these applications the government was constrained to reply, that it had no forces to spare for such a purpose; and that it trusted in a great degree to the vigilance of the navy, and to the valour and loyalty of the inhabitants. The inhabitants, thus left to their own exertions, were not slow in showing that these were sufficient for their security. Under the direction of a number of public-spirited gentlemen, a great variety of volunteer companies were raised, and trained to arms, in all the districts on the coast; and as they multiplied, and became better organized, were reunited into battalions and brigades. In a country overflowing with an ardent, idle, and spirited population, it is easy to conceive with what rapidity an institution of this kind was likely to diffuse itself. Independent of the patriotic motives which suggested the attempt, the gentry were vain of the numbers and discipline of those they could engage to serve under them; and the peasantry were vain of their uniform, their band, the admiration they excited, and the importance to which they were raised. The institution spread from the coasts to the centre of the country; and before the end of the year 1780, there were upwards of 42,000 men arrayed and embodied in Ireland, commanded by officers of their own election; and free to lay down their arms, as they had taken them up, from the impulses of their own sense of duty or of honour.

"Important as the services were which this body rendered to the government and the country at their first institution, it is not possible that they should not have been regarded with considerable distrust and apprehension, from the moment that they began to communicate and be organized in large bodies,-to form encampments, and assemble for reviews, with a splendour, and in numbers, far exceeding any thing that had ever been displayed by the regular army in that country. Such, however, was their popularity, such the unquestionable loyalty of all the men who possessed the chief influence among them,—and such, for a good while, the utter inoffensiveness of their deportment,—that, whatever jealousy was felt, none was manifested by any party in the state. The thanks of the government, and of both houses of parliament, were repeatedly voted to them, in terms of the highest approbation. They lined the streets through which the members proceeded to their places of assembly; and escorted, with their unbought battalions, the lordlieutenant on his arrival or departure from the seat of government. Persons holding the first offices in the state, intrigued for commissions in their body;-and a vast self-created military force, seemed for a while to be regarded as a safe and ordinary ingredient in the frame of the constitution.

"It has been already observed, however, that just about the time when the exigencies of national defence led, accidentally as it were, to the formation of this great force, the body of the nation had been roused to an extraordinary degree of zeal for the recovery of their commercial

and political freedom. The sense of the country was so decidedly in favour of those claims, that it was not without great difficulty that the government could command a majority, even in the houses of parliament, where Flood and Grattan displayed an eloquence and a courage of which there was no example in the recent annals of their country;— while, out of doors, the sentiments of the nation were not only unanimous, but keen and enthusiastic, even beyond the common pitch of Irish impetuosity. It could not but happen, therefore, that the volunteers should participate in this spirit. Being taken indifferently from all ranks and descriptions of the community, and from all parts of the country, and commanded by officers who had been raised to that station, not by the favour of the court, but by their individual and local popularity and influence, from whatever source these might be derived, -they could not fail to represent very faithfully whatever sentiments or opinions were really prevalent among the body of the people, and to share in all the emotions by which they might happen to be inspired. It was almost as inevitable, that, when assembled in large bodies, the leading men among them should communicate and converse together upon those great topics of national interest; or that, when they had once felt their power and their popularity, they should not think of employing them in the support of this good cause.

"In those days, it was not illegal for persons associated for lawful purposes, to appoint delegates to take charge of their common interests, or for any body of men to petition parliament, or to express, in public resolutions, their determination to seek, by all constitutional means, an amelioration of their political condition. Those important points were accordingly discussed, with various degrees of temper, in various local assemblages; till, at last, one of the Armagh battalions, commanded by Lord Charlemont, appointed a full meeting of delegates from all the volunteer corps within the province of Ulster, to take place at Dungannon on the 15th of February, 1782, then and there to deliberate on the present alarming situation of public affairs; and to determine, and to publish to the country, what may be the result of such meeting.' On the day appointed, the representation of 143 corps accordingly assembled; and, after a good deal of discussion, adopted a variety of resolutions, by which they condemned, as grievances, and unconstitutional, the powers exercised by the privy-council, or parliament of England, under the law of Poynings, or of George I.; and also the various remaining obstructions that had been allowed to cramp the trade of Ireland; and declared, that they were determined to seek redress" of these grievances by all constitutional means;-and pledged themselves, at every ensuing election, to support those only who had supported and would support them therein.' They appointed a committee to call future meetings, and to act for them in the interim; and to communicate with such other volunteer associations as might think proper to adopt similar resolutions; and, finally, they voted the following short and emphatic address to the minority in both houses of parliament, who had unsuccessfully supported the claims which they had then asserted :—

"My Lords and Gentlemen-We thank you for your noble and spirited, though hitherto ineffectual efforts, in defence of the great constitutional rights of your country. Go on! The almost unanimous voice of the people is with you; and in a free country, the voice of the

people must prevail. We know our duty to our sovereign, and are loyal. We know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved to be free. We seek for our rights, and no more than our rights; and, in so just a pursuit, we should doubt the being of a Providence if we doubted of

success.

The appointment of a whig ministry, with Rockingham and Fox at the head of it, and of the duke of Portland as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, happened most providentially at this crisis. The wild and liberal measures of the new ministry satisfied the patriotic portion of the agitators, and none acted more cordially with ministers than the earl of Charle

inont.

To the command of the old volunteer army of Ireland his lordship was for several years successively elected; nor did this relation cease until a difference of political opinion had arisen, which induced him to resign. That difference arose on the question of admitting the Catholics to participate in the power of the state. The idea was first broached in an address from the volunteers of Ulster to his lordship, after they had been reviewed by him in the neighbourhood of Belfast. He, in plain, but very polite and respectful terms, expressed his difference of opinion on that question. A discordance of sentiment, on a point of such moment, must have been fatal to that cordiality of affection which had alone reconciled him to the troublesome, though highly honourable, situation to which he had been raised: he therefore shortly afterwards resigned his command.

Of a reform in the representation his lordship had been long a friend, and was among the first of those noblemen and gentlemen who, when the question was agitated, and the great difficulty appeared to be how individuals should be satisfied for the annihilation of what they had been accustomed to regard as their property, made an offer of a voluntary surrender of their boroughs to the public. On the question of the regency, too, he adopted that side which alone was thought compatible with the independence of Ireland. He was one of those, who, in opposition to the partisans of Mr Pitt, asserted the right of that kingdom to appoint its own regent; and, as they constituted a majority in the two houses, they accordingly offered the regency to the heir-apparent. In a mind like that of his lordship, cultivated, vigorous, and pure, error is seldom a plant of perennial growth. The opinion which he so honestly entertained, and so boldly avowed to the volunteer army of 1784, he seems to have changed for those of a more liberal complexion, as he afterwards supported the Catholic claim to the elective franchise, which parliament acceded to in 1796, and became an advocate for Catholic emancipation. Of the system of coercion which preceded the insurrection in Ireland his lordship was uniformly the declared enemy. He, therefore, was one of the very few who supported Lord Moira in his parliamentary reprobation of these measures, and in recommending those of peace and conciliation.

Unexceptionable, however, as Lord Charlemont's political conduct has been, it is not as a politician that he is exclusively entitled to our regard. He is more highly estimable, perhaps, as a man of taste and literature. As a general scholar he had not his equal in the Irish peerage. Possessing a respectable knowledge of the learned languages, he was also intimately acquainted with those of modern Europe, par

ticularly the Italian, in which he was an adept. To his love of letters Ireland owes in a great measure the establishment of the Royal Irish academy, which was incorporated by royal charter in 1786, and of which his lordship was elected president. Of this office he discharged the duties con amore, constantly attending its meetings, unless when ill health prevented, presiding with a father's care over its concerns, and occasionally contributing to fill the pages of its transactions. In these volumes his lordship published three essays, which are highly respectable,—one on a contested passage in Herodotus,-another on an ancient custom at Meteline, with considerations on its origin,-and a third on the antiquity of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, which he has proved from some passages in the Italian poets. Among the lovers and judges of the fine arts he held a conspicuous rank. At his house in Rutlandsquare, Dublin, was to be seen a most respectable collection of the great masters in painting and sculpture, both ancient and modern; and of his taste in architecture his temple of Marino, within a couple of miles of the Irish metropolis, is a beautiful specimen.

Viscount Howe.

BORN A. D. 1725.-DIED A.D. 1799.

THIS gallant officer was the second son of Lord Viscount Howe by a daughter of Baron Kilmanseck. He was educated at Eton school, which he left at the age of fourteen to enter on board the Severn of 50 guns, commanded by the Hon. Captain Legge, and which formed part of the squadron destined for the South seas under Commodore Anson. He next served on board the Burford, which was one of the squadron detached in 1743, from Sir Chaloner Ogle's fleet, to reduce the town of La Guyra on the coast of Caraccas. The Burford suffered much in this enterprise, and Captain Lushington was killed. Mr Howe was appointed acting-lieutenant by the commodore, and in a short time returned to England with his ship, but his commission not being confirmed by the admiralty, he returned to his patron in the West Indies.

Sir Chaloner appointed him lieutenant of a sloop of war; and being employed to cut out an English merchantman, which had been taken by a French privateer under the guns of the Dutch settlement of St Eustatia, he executed the difficult and dangerous enterprise in such a manner as to produce the most sanguine expectations of his future services. In 1745 Lieutenant Howe was with Admiral Vernon in the Downs, but was in a short time raised to the rank of commander, in the Baltimore sloop of war, which joined the squadron then cruising on the coast of Scotland under the command of Admiral Smith. During this cruise an action took place, in which Captain Howe gave a fine example of persevering intrepidity. The Baltimore, in company with another armed vessel, fell in with two French frigates of 30 guns, with troops and ammunition for the service of the Pretender, which she instantly attacked by running between them. In the action which fol lowed, Captain Howe received a wound in his head which at first appeared to be fatal. He, however, soon discovered signs of life, and when the necessary operation was performed, resumed all his former