imputation. Lord Cloncurry was a generous, high-minded man, who loved his country, and felt for her distresses. His sympathies were enlisted for a suffering people, as for a persecuted individual, and though he could not approve the ill-judged and violent efforts which many who felt with him attempted, when they had failed, and languished in their dungeons, until summoned to the scaffold, for having loved their country, "not wisely but too well," Cloncurry was not the man to refuse that assistance which humanity could not deny to the fallen. Looking back on those early scenes of Cloncurry's life, we repeat that no man with those feelings of sympathy for sorrow and suffering which the Divinity has planted in the human breast, and who was not deterred by an unworthy though not unreasonable fear of consequences, or blinded by the heat of party feeling, would have acted otherwise; and when to this we add a personal friendship with many of those unfortunate men whose talents. and personal worth endeared them to all who knew them, and bear in mind the state of the country when, as Grattan said, "I could not join the rebel-I could not join the government -I could not join torture-I could not join half hanging-I could not join free quarter-I could take part with neither. I was therefore absent from the scene where I could not be active without self-reproach, nor indifferent with safety,-" remembering this, we have little fear for the verdict which pos terity will pronounce upon Cloncurry.

Without at all impeaching the title of the Cloncurry family to trace their descent from Sir Hugh de Lawless of Hoddesden, County Hertford, who came over to this country with Henry the Second in 1172, we may say that the writer leaves a very considerable gap in the line to be filled up, and that with the exception of similarity of names, we cannot see any connection between the barefooted boy, Lord Cloncurry's grandfather, who brought his brooms for sale into Dublin, and the chieftains of ancient lineage This, however, is a matter of interest rather to the immediate family of Cloncurry, and that limited number of the community who cannot appreciate worth unless in one of an ancient family, than to the great mass of readers. To trace the gradual advance of each of the three generations of this family, is very interesting. Robert Lawless, the grandfather of the late Lord Cloncurry, made his first appearance in Dublin leading an ass with a load of heather tied into

brooms, which he had made up in the adjacent county of Wicklow, in which he had been born and reared. The boy continued his broom-selling trade for some time, principally in the liberties of Dublin, and amongst his customers was a woollen draper who conducted a respectable establishment in High-street, which was at that time (1720), one of the principal streets of the city. The intelligence of the boy attracted the draper's attention, and an offer was made to take him as a messenger and assistant in the shop, which was gladly accepted. Robert Lawless rose steadily, until he became foreman to and finally a partner with his master. After his old employer's death, he married the widow, who was of a highly respectable citizen family. Of this marriage, Nicholas, first Lord Cloncurry, was the first fruit. Robert's worldly affairs throve apace, his business became very extensive, and he realized so considerable a fortune, that the close of his life was spent in his private residence in Chancerylane, which was at the time one of the most fashionable localities in Dublin. Before he died the old man was gratified by the elevation of his son to a baronetcy, although he did not live to see him a peer. Nicholas, thanks to the penal laws which then and for many a dreary year afterwards existed, received his education abroad, like most men of his creed; on his return he turned his accomplishments to advantage, by gaining the affections of a Miss Brown, the only child of one of the wealthiest merchants in Dublin, and knowing how high were the expectations of her father in marrying the young lady, he succeeded in inducing her to elope with him, and they were married. By the liberality of his father, Nicholas had been enabled to purchase the manor of Galleville, near Rouen, a Catholic being at that time incapable of purchasing real property in this country, and he retired thither with his wife. After the lapse of about five years from their marriage, during which they were childless, a daughter was born, Mary, afterwards married to a gentleman of large fortune, known as "Jerusalem Whaley;" after her came Valentina, afterwards Lady Barton, and Charlotte, afterwards Lady Dunsany; and on the 19th of August, 1773, was born to them their fourth child, Valentine second Lord Cloncurry, the subject of this biography. After the birth of their two first children, Nicholas and his wife returned to Dublin. When the reconciliation between old Brown and his daughter and son-in-law took place does not appear, but that such took place was evidenced, inuch more

satisfactorily than by any friendly intercourse, by the large fortune which Nicholas Lawless received from the old man. Nicholas was a close and attentive trader, like his father, and too prudent to throw up the establishment in High-street when his father retired. Accordingly he took upon himself the management of the business, and as we are told might be seen for many years after his elevation to the baronetcy, at the several country fairs, engaged in purchasing wool for the purposes of manufacture and sale. His private residence, however, was in Merrion-square, then and still the most fashionable locality in Dublin.

We shall not pause to detail by what gradual steps the considerable fortunes which he inherited, and obtained by marriage, became enormously increased by the care and diligence of a clever man of business, or how he became successively a banker, a Protestant, and a landed proprietor. Neither shall we enter upon the merits of the scandal that Nicholas became a Protestant, not from conviction of the superiority of the Protestant religion over that of Rome, but simply to enable himself to become the holder of landed property, and to advance in his progress towards the coronet. Nicholas went into Parliament, became one of the supporters of government, per fas et nefas, and was by Pitt created successively baronet and peer, in the regular course of shameless and profligate bribery, by which, with other still more guilty practices, the Legislative Union between England and Ireland was effected. We cannot take our leave of His Lordship without giving the following clever lines, referring to his original trade of woollen draper, ascribed to Lady Cahir, and written on seeing his Lordship laughing immoderately at a pantomime in which Sancho Panza was being tossed by the villagers in a blanket :

:

"Cloncurry Cloncurry,

Come here in a hurry,

And tell why you laugh at the squire ;

Now altho' he's tossed high,

I defy you deny,

That blankets have tossed yourself higher."

VALENTINE LORD CLONCURRY was born at his father's residence in Merrion-square, on the 19th August, 1773. At the age of eight, being then only a younger son, (his elder brother Robert was alive) he was sent to school to Portarlington in the Queen's County. From his infancy he had been delicate and ailing, and the rough treatment which was then customary to inflict on young boys at public schools, forced

his family after a time to bring him home. When his health and strength became somewhat restored, principally by the unceasing care and nursing of his mother, he was sent to a very fashionable school near Maretimo, the family villa, which was presided over by a clergyman named Dr. Burroughs who may be truly styled an eccentric school-master as "a capon smothered in oyster sauce presented far greater attractions to the Rev. pedagogue, than the choicest stanzas of Homer or Euripides; and the rattle of roulette or the tumult of the dice box, were sounds that fell far more joyfully upon his ears than even the creditable answers of his own pupils at the annual scholastic examination at Prospect." Valentine after remaining two years with this gentleman, was removed to the King's School in Chester, where he resided chiefly with Bishop Cleaver. That prelate having been appointed principal of Brazennose College, Oxford, wished the Hon. Valentine Lawless, for whom it seems he entertained a great friendship, to enter himself at that university; with a national pride, however, as rare as creditable, the young man gave the preference to the university of his own country, and accordingly entered himself as a student of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1790, and after three years took his degree of Bachelor of Arts.

It must be a matter of regret, that the biographer has not made more extended inquiries as to the college career of Lord Cloncurry. One might expect from the length at which some incidents are entered on that Mr. Fitzpatrick possessed the necessary industry, and surely inquiry into this subject would throw some light on that important era in a man's life, in which he forms connexions and acquires opinions which materially influence his entire career. We find, however, that Valentine Lawless was a member of the College Debating Society, which the bigotry, and intolerance of everything national, of Dr. Elrington and the other Fellows, could not suffer to exist within the walls of the university. In 1792 he was on the continent for some time, and remained a few months at Neufchatel, where he was a good deal thrown into the society of officers of the Irish Brigade in the service of France. The national tendencies and liberal opinons of Lord Cloncurry must have been strengthened considerably by his intercourse. with those brave and distinguished men, whom a misguided Legislature had driven to seek fame and fortune in the ranks of a foreign service. After spending some time at

Lausanne, and visiting the principal places of interest on the Rhine, he returned to his own country to enter upon scenes in which every man who took an honest part, in resisting the encroachments of Pitt upon the liberties of Ireland, was destined to be victimized if not ruined for his independence.

The condition of the Irish people, when the Honorable Mr. Lawless returned to his native country, was most deplorable. The rudeness with which the humble petitions of the great masses to be admitted to an equality of civil and religious rights with their fellow subjects, were rejected, the apparent fruitlessness of their just remonstrances, the recall of every governor who was disposed to act with fairness or liberality, had driven the people almost to a state of frenzy. The French Revolution, which produced such marked effects on most countries, elevated, especially, the hopes of the popular party in Ireland. The society of United Irishmen, of whose original intentions and objects so little is known, had been formed, and was receiving immense additions to its ranks, though many Roman Catholics of the higher classes held aloof, hoping beyond all hope for a consideration of their claims, and fearing to afford a pretext for the denial of concessions. When to all these is added, that the underhand means of driving the people to open insurrection employed by the government were at work, and that rebellion, which as a modern statesman, who taking no part in those scenes, could refer to them without passion or prejudice, writes, "was wickedly provoked, rashly begun, and cruelly crushed," was in progress, it will be difficult to realize the popular excitement, or the troublous condition

of the times.

One of Mr. Lawless' first acts on his return was to join the society of United Irishmen. As this step constitutes the chief portion of the evidence against Lord Cloncurry, to convict him as a traitor and a rebel, it will be necessary to offer a few observations on the formation and objects of this society, which, legitimate in its inception, was ultimately used, when all hopes of legitimate redress were despaired of, to effect the subversion of British rule, and to wrest by force of arms, rights which were refused to constitutional agitation.

The society was formed by Theobald Wolfe Tone, and a few other young men of respectability, and of very considerable

Lord J. Russell, Preface to Memoirs of Thomas Moore, page 18, vol. i.