posed upon the Lord Mayor of Dublin by a forged or a forced Letter from the King, obliging him to surrender Dublin to the Puritans; that in surrendering Dublin, he acted with interested views to his own domestic concerns; having stipulated with the Puritannical commissioners for a large sum of money, as the price of his own base surrender; and that he thus infamously betrayed the authority and trust of the King !*

8. Thus has it been the curse of our Country, that whenever an Irish Protestant was eminent, either as a Statesman, or a Military Man, or an Author, the Catholics vilified his character, and obscured his reputation; whenever a Catholic became equally eminent, the Protestant writers retaliated; nothing escaped on either side, but what was sheltered from malignity by insignificance; and Ireland thus became contemptible in Europe, notwithstanding the brilliancy of that wit, which distinguishes all classes of her inhabitants, and notwithstanding the bravery of

Plowden's Hist. Rev. of Irel. vol. 1, p. 154.

heroes, who have perished abroad and at home, without a prospect even of posthumous renown! Omnes illachrymabiles, carent quia Vate Sacro.

§ XXI. Genuine Character of Ormond, with respect to his Government of Ireland.

1. I cannot say that I ever derived satisfaction from those exhibitions of eloquence, however classical, which are styled Characters. A Gentleman once asked me to write a Character of his Son, then a lad in the army.-I don't know him, said I, and an old adage says you must eat a peck of salt with a young Man, before you can be qualified to estimate the dispositions of his mind, or to mark the passions which influence his conduct in life.—No matter, said he, write whatever best may be said of a fine, handsome, Irishman, a gallant fellow-and that will do.-Just so, most of those Characters which Historians have taken such pains to draw, in the finest colouring of language, are too splendid for real life, too theatrical to be true.--I shall therefore confine myself to facts.

2. There is an original engraving of Ormond by Vandergucht, which may be seen both in the octavo edition of Clarendon's History, Lond. 1715, vol. 7, No. 79, and in the grand folio edition of Oxford, 1704, vol. 3, p. 225.Arguing from that engraving, as well as from Lynch and Walsh, who were intimately acquainted with him, I infer that he was possessed of such a noble air and countenance, that, even if he were dressed as a ploughman, he would still be known for a man of quality.

From his fairness, the Irish named him Seamus-ban, James the white; but yet "it was a manly countenance, says Carte, which expressed greatness of soul, and was full of sweetness and modesty. He, the D. of Norfolk, and the Earl of Bedford, were the three persons who had most the air and dignity of their quality, of any men about the Court."-Now every one who is acquainted with the manners of the Irish, will acknowledge that such external advantages have been always regarded by them with the greatest respect. Their own hereditary Chiefs were disinherited in consequence

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of considerable deformity; and they were, on the other hand, the more enthusiastically followed, in proportion to the manliness and dignity of their appearance.

If then those qualities which Ormond so eminently possessed, united with the conciliating circumstances I am about to relate, had no effect in bringing the mass of the people to any terms for the defence of the Monarchy, we must look for the cause of their opposition, to a source very different from that implacable malevolence of Ormond towards them, which Mr. Plowden, arguing from the Religious Cry of the Nuncio and of his foreign influenced Bishops, so unjustly assigns.

3. With regard to the imputation of hatred to the Catholics of Ireland.-I have read Ormond's letters, and all that has been written on that subject, from N. French, the Catholic Bishop of Ferns's Unkind Deserter, down to Mr. Plowden's declamatory compilation, intitled an Historical Review; and I say distinctly, that it is a malicious falshood, propagated by the foreign influenced men of Ireland, by the Ultra

montane Bishops, and by the scurrilous, and ignorant writers of our times.

Our own venerable Lynch says of him, that there never existed a more loyal, a more upright, or more honourable Man, whether we consider his moral character as a Christian, or his political character as a Statesman; and Lynch, as well as Walsh, was personally acquainted with him; and he goes so far, in consequence of this unimpeachable integrity with regard to the Catholics, as to pour out his most fervent prayer, and pious hope, to that Almighty Being who knows the secrets of hearts, that he may reward Ormond for his conduct towards them, by enlightening his mind, and granting him the grace, before he drops into the grave, to distinguish between the abuses of the Catholic Religion, and the Sacraments of reconciliation and these endearing expressions come warm from Lynch's heart, so lately as in 1667, after all the horrors of the Cromwellian war had spent their rage on the heads of his Countrymen; and when he, an eye witness, perfectly