indeed only the agent of his gallantry, was a party concerned; but what won't malicious folks say? Be it as it will, his lordship's character was torn to pieces everywhere, except at the groom porter's, where he was a man of honour; and at the taverns where none surpassed him in generosity. Having led this life till it brought him to death's door, his neighbour, the reverend John Madden (vicar of St. Anne's and dean of Kilmore), a man of exemplary piety and virtue, having heard his lordship was given over, thought it his duty to write him a very pathetic letter, to remind him of his past life; the particulars of which he mentioned, such as profligacy, gaming, drinking, rioting, turning day into night, blaspheming his Maker, and, in short, all manner of wickedness; and exhorting him in the tenderest manner to employ the few moments that remained to him, in penitently confessing his manifold transgressions, and soliciting his pardon from an offended Deity, before whom he was shortly to appear. It is necessary to acquaint the reader, that the late earl of Kildare was one of the most pious noblemen of the age, and in every respect a contrast in character to lord Ross. When the latter, who retained his senses to the last moment, and died rather for want of breath than want of spirits, read over the dean's letter (which came to him under cover) he ordered it to be put in another paper, sealed up, and directed to the earl of Kildare: he likewise prevailed

"July 21, 1738, paid Mr. James Worsdale for drawing your grace's picture for Mrs. Conolly, thirty guineas- £34 2s 6d. April 24, 1740, paid Mr. James Worsdale for your grace's picture and frame, drawn by him for the Royal Hospital, forty guineas-£45 10s.-April 26, paid him in full for the frame, upon Mr. Dance's enquiry about the value of it, six guineas-£6 16s. 6d." In a privately printed satire of the year 1740, we find the following allusion to the painter:

"Tho' Wordsdale is for satire too obscure,
Must he uncensur'd artfully procure?
Frequent as painter, his employer's house,
And thence delude his mistress or his spouse?
True to the lover's procreating cause,

He breaks all ties, all hospitable laws,

And pimps, resistless, while his pencil draws."

Worsdale instituted a suit for libel, against James Wynne and Mathew Gardiner, the supposed authors of this satire; they were, however, acquitted in the king's bench in February, 1742. In the preceding year, the right honorable Luke Gardiner, master of the revels in Ireland, appointed Worsdale his deputy in that office, a post for which he was admirably calculated, having written a number of songs, ballads, and the following dramatic pieces :-"A cure for a scold," ballad opera, 1735. "The Assembly," a farce in which the author acted the part of "Old Lady Scandal." "The Queen of Spain," a musical entertainment, 1744, "The Extravagant Justice,' a farce. "Gasconado the great," tragicomedy, 1759. Many of the compositions published as his own_were written for him by Mrs. Pilkington. He died in June 1767, and was buried in St. Paul's, Covent-garden, with the following epitaph of his own composition :

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:

Eager to get, but not to keep the pelf,
A friend to all mankind, except himself."

on the dean's servant to carry it, and to say it came from his master, which he was encouraged to do by a couple of guineas, and his knowing nothing of its contents. Lord Kildare was an effeminate, puny little man, extremely formal and delicate, insomuch, that when he was married to lady Mary O'Brien, one of the most shining beauties then in the world, he would not take his wedding gloves off to embrace her. From this single instance may be judged with what surprise and indignation he read over the Dean's letter, containing so many accusations for crimes he knew himself entirely innocent of. He first ran to his lady, and informed her that dean Madden was actually mad; to prove which, he delivered her the epistle he had just received. Her ladyship was as much confounded and amazed at it as he could possibly be, but withal, observed the letter was not written in the stile of a madman, and advised him to go to the archbishop of Dublin (Dr. John Hoadly) about it. Accordingly, his lordship ordered his coach, and went to the episcopal palace, where he found his grace at home, and immediately accosted him in this manner: ‹ Pray, my lord, did you ever hear that I was a blasphemer, a profligate, a gamester, a rioter, and everything that's base and infamous?' 'You, my lord,' said the bishop, 'every one knows that you are the pattern of humility, godliness, and virtue.** Well, my lord, what satisfaction can I have of a learned and reverend divine, who, under his own hand, lays all this to my charge?' 'Surely,' answered his grace, no man in his senses, that knew your lordship, would presume to do it; and if any clergyman has been guilty of such an offence, your lordship will have satisfaction from the spiritual court.' Upon this lord Kildare delivered to his grace the letter, which he told him was that morning delivered by the dean's servant, and which both the archbishop and the earl knew to be dean Madden's handwriting. The archbishop immediately sent for the dean, who hap pening to be at home, instantly obeyed the summons. Before he entered the room, his grace advised lord Kildare to walk into another apartment, while he discoursed the gentleman about it, which his lordship accordingly did. When the dean entered, his grace, looking very sternly, demanded if he had wrote that letter? The dean answered, I did, my lord. Mr. Dean, I always thought you a man of sense and prudence, but this unguarded action must lessen you in the

A Dublin author of the time writes of Robert, earl of Kildare, as follows:

"Kildare's a precedent for lords,

To keep their honor and their words,
Since all our peers to him give place,
His fair examples let them trace,
Whose virtues claim precedence here,
Even abstracted from the peer,
His morals make him still more great,
And to his titles, and estate,
Add such a lustre and a grace,
As suits his ancient noble race,
Surrounding him with all their rays
Above the compass of our lays,

Instead of duns to crowd his door,
It is surrounded by the poor,
My lord takes care to see them serv'd,
And saves some thousands from being
starv'd,

Nor does he think himself too great
Each morning on the poor to wait;
And as his charity ne'er ceases,
His fortune ev'ry day increases,
Has many thousands at command,
A large estate and lib'ral hand."

esteem of all good men; to throw out so many causeless invectives against the most unblemished nobleman in Europe, and accuse him of crimes to which he and his family have ever been strangers, must certainly be the effect of a distempered brain: besides, sir, you have by this means laid yourself open to a prosecution in the ecclesiastical court, which will either oblige you publickly to recant what you have said, or give up your possessions in the church. My lord, answered the dean, I never either think, act, or write anything, for which I am afraid to be called to an account before any tribunal upon earth; and if I am to be prosecuted for discharging the duties of my function, I will suffer patiently the severest penalties in justification of it. And so saying the dean retired with some emotion, and left the two noblemen as much in the dark as ever. Lord Kildare went home, and sent for a proctor of the spiritual court, to whom he committed the dean's letter, and ordered a citation to be sent to him as soon as possible. In the meantime the archbishop, who knew the dean had a family to provide for, and foresaw that ruin must attend his entering into a suit with so powerful a person, went to his house, and recommended him to ask my lord's pardon, before the matter became publick. Ask his pardon, said the dean, why the man is dead! What! lord Kildare dead! No, lord Ross. Good God, said the archbishop, did you not send a letter yesterday to lord Kildare? No truly, my lord, but I sent one to the unhappy earl of Ross, who was then given over, and I thought it my duty to write to him in the manner I did. Upon examining the servant, the whole mistake was rectified, and the dean saw with real regret, that lord Ross died as he had lived; nor did he continue in this life above four hours after he sent off the letter. The poor footman lost his place by the jest, and was indeed the only sufferer for my lord's last piece of humour."

The death of lord Rosse occurred in Molesworth-street, on the 21st of June, 1741, two days after which he was privately interred in St. Anne's church; and although his career may appear extraordinary at the present day, a glance at the irreli gion and depravity of his times will shew that his vices, however inexcusable, were but those of the era in which he lived.

A writer of the time of Charles II., speaking of the state of Ireland, at that period, tells us that:

"Prophane cursing and swearing, a wickedness, through custom, grown into that credit, it disdains reproofs; nay, some persons seem to value themselves by their wit to invent and courage to utter the most horrid oaths, at which moral Heathens would tremble, who retain so great a veneration to their gods, especially their chief gods, as Jupiter, &c., they will not mention their names without great reverence, and will only swear by their attributes, as by the great, the wise, the just, &c., whereas our prophanenists so glory in their shame, they will oft belch out their filthy vomit in the face of magistrates, who when they reprove them, and demand one shilling

for one oath, have contemptuously both to God and the king's laws thrown down their guinny, and immediately swore it out, like those prophane desperate ones, the psalmist complains of, Psalm xii. 4, Who have said, with our tongue will we prevail: our lips are our own: who is Lord over us?' Now though this is the most unpleasant and unprofitable vice in this world, yet it is the most frequent; for 100s of oaths are uttered at the committal of any one of the other debaucheries, and so universal, that from the man stooping with age to the lisping infant before it speaks plain, shall you hear oaths and curses, to the reproach of their parents, that no better instruct them, so that this is a long lived weed, that buds early in the spring, and continues green in the depth of winter; the food of other lusts may be devoured by poverty, age, and bodily infirmities; of the latter we have had dreadful examples of some, who could plainly express horrid oaths, and not one other word to be understood, and others so hardened through the custom of this sin, that on their deathbeds, when they could not utter a word of sense, they have breathed out their last breath with dreadful oaths and curses, which I have received from the testimony of credible persons then present.”

A partizan author of the reign of William III., speaking of the conduct of the Irish Roman Catholics and their adherents, during the time of James II., asserts that—

"The perjuries in the courts, the robberies in the country; the lewd practices in the stews; the oaths, blasphemies, and curses in the armies and streets; the drinking of confusions and damnations in the taverns, were all of them generally the acts of Papists, or of those who owned themselves ready to become such, if that party continued uppermost. But more peculiarly they were remarkable for their swearing and blaspheming and prophanation of the Lord's day; if they had any signal ball or entertainment to make, any journey or weighty business to begin, they commonly chose that day for it, and lookt on it as a kind of conquest over a Protestant, and a step to his conversion, if they could engage him to prophane it with them. And they would often laugh at our scrupling a sin, and our constancy at prayers, since, as they would assure us with many oaths, we must only be damned the deeper for our diligence; and they could not endure to find us go about to punish vice in our own members, since, said they, it is to no purpose to trouble yourselves about vice or virtue, that are out of the church, and will all be damned."

Notwithstanding the above statements, we find that profaneness and immorality prevailed to an appalling extent amongst the Protestants, of whose rectitude their partisans have given such glowing, though false, descriptions. Dr.

*An act of parliament passed at Dublin in 1634-5 imposed a penalty of twelve pence on persons convicted of profane swearing or cursing, and in case the offender was unable to pay, he was to be set in the stocks for three hours; if under the age of twelve years, the culprit was to be whipped by the constable, or by his parents or master in the presence of a justice of the peace.

Gorge, secretary to marshal Schonberg, wrote to colonel James Hamilton, that the "soldiers in the Protestant army, under king William, robbed and plundered at pleasure; that some of its leaders ridiculed, scorned and condemned all motions for its good government and order, and said that religion was nothing but canting, and debauchery the necessary practice of a soldier;" facts which receive confirmation from the following document :

“A PROCLAMATION BY FREDERICK, DUKE OF SCHONBERG, LORD GENERAL OF ALL THEIR MAJESTIES FORCES, &c.

Whereas, the horrid and detestable crimes of prophane cursing, swearing, and taking God's holy name in vain, being sins of much guilt and little temptation, have by all nations and people, and that in all ages, been punished with sharp and severe penalties, as great and grievous sins: And we to our great grief and trouble, taking notice of the too frequent practice of these sins, by several under our command, and that some have arrived to that height of impiety, that they are heard more frequently to invoke God to damn them, than to save them, and this, notwithstanding the heavy and dreadful judgments of God upon us at this very time, for these and our other sins, and notwithstanding the penalties enjoined by their majesties articles of war on these offenders; and we justly fearing that their majesties army may be more prejudiced by these sins, than advantaged by the conduct and courage of those guilty of them: do think fit strictly to charge and command all officers and soldiers under our command, that they and every one of them from hence-forward, do forbear all vain cursing, swearing, and taking God's holy name in vain, under the penalties enjoined by the aforesaid articles; and our further displeasure. And that all officers take particular care to put the said articles of war into execution on all under their respective commands, guilty of the said offences, as they will answer to the contrary at their utmost peril. Given at our head quarters at Lisburn, the 18th of January, 1689.90, in the first year of their majesties reign. (Signed)

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SCHONBERG."

The reduction of the kingdom, consequent on the Treaty of Limerick, was succeeded by what a writer of the day styles a torrent of vice," a feeble attempt to stem which was made by an association formed in Dublin, "for the reformation of manners. This laudable institution, of which scarcely a vestige has been preserved, appears to have had but little influence in the generation which it sought to reform; and nearly all the vices which then disgraced England were communicated to the neighbouring island. The act of Charles I., against profane cursing and swearing, having been found ineffectual, another statute was passed in 1695, subjecting every "servant, day-labourer, common soldier, and common seaman,"