to the earl of Exeter. In 1703, he was appointed colonel of a regiment of foot. On queen Anne's restoration of the order of the Thistle, in 1705, he was elected a knight of that order.

In 1709, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general, and immediately after, in the next year, to that of major-general. In 1710, he was sent as British envoy to Flanders, and to the council of state in the Spanish Low Countries, with an allowance of £10 a-day. In 1712, he served under the duke of Ormond in Flanders, and was present in the battle of Taniers, in which he distinguished himself at the head of his own regiment. He was sworn on her majesty's privy council, and raised to the British peerage soon after his return, by the title of Baron Boyle of Marston.

In the subsequent reign he was successively honoured with various appointments which may be found enumerated by Lodge; but must be here omitted.

On the accession of George I., lord Orrery's reputation, and the caution which he had always preserved in his intercourse with public men, preserved him in favour for a time; and it seems apparent that he might, without difficulty, have made good his footing by pursuing a steady and consistent course. But, though both clever, dexterous, and accomplished, lord Orrery was not either sagacious or profound. He over-rated his talent and importance; and, having manners which attracted flattery, he allowed himself to be flattered into presumption. At a time when dangerous plots were apprehended, and suspicion was ever on the watch to fasten on doubtful conduct, he affected a tone of honest independence for which no sagacious observer was likely to give him credit. But in fact, as shall presently appear, he was closely watched, and thoroughly understood. This is the true interpretation of his friend Budgel's account of his loss of favour by an unwillingness to fall in with the "violent humour of those times." He evidently endeavoured to trim dexterously. Several of those with whom he was in the habit of acting lost their places, but he for a time preserved his own. He voted much with ministers, and wrote a letter to the king to excuse himself for not voting always with them; and offered, if required, to resign all his posts.

The consequences soon began to appear. The king went to Hanover soon after, and while he was there, lord Orrery's regiment was taken from him—on this he resigned his court office of lord of the bedchamber. After which he remained, for some years, in a state of comparative privacy, to which his aspiring and over-active temper Icould ill be reconciled. This continued from this time, in 1716, till the year 1722. During the interval, we have met with no very detailed account of his lordship, though he is occasionally to be traced in Ireland, where he filled a gap in the circle which revolved around the central light of Swift. In Ireland this was a distinction; but to one of lord Orrery's habits and intercourse with the great world, it was accompanied by humiliating circumstances. He could not bear to be a satellite; yet it was only on such terms he could enjoy the privilege of taking his station in the court of wit. He is thought by Scott to have resented the self-imposed mortification-and the inconsistency is at least natural. It is the character of vanity to study ap

pearance at the sacrifice of reality, and purchase flattery with humiliation. He treated the Dean's memory with a severity, which, though in our estimation by no means unjust, yet comes with a bad grace from one who had been exalted by his notice, and played the courtier's part for his favour.

In the meantime, the company he kept, and the small party to which he really belonged, were chiefly composed of the remains of that extreme party which, towards the close of queen Anne's reign, had kept up a dangerous correspondence with the pretender, which ended in their disgrace. For some time previous to that on which we now enter, their hopes had been revived by the birth of an heir to the pretender, Charles Edward, who was born at Rome in 1720. A correspondence was renewed by this party, and an active plot organized, at the head of which was the earl of Orrery, and the earl of Arran, with other peers and gentlemen, of whom the most known was the celebrated Atterbury, who had been one of Orrery's tutors in Oxford. This accounts more satisfactorily for the disfavour of the earl at court; as it is known that the earl of Sunderland kept an active correspondence with the pretender and his adherents, with the private sanction of king George, to whom all their proceedings were thus exposed. Sunderland died early in 1722; and about the same time the conspiracy began to grow more serious. The clue, however, to their proceedings seems to have been lost; for it was in the mouth of many, when the king was preparing to visit his German dominions, that the English minister received a warning from the regent of France, of a conspiracy against the throne. To this was attached a condition, that no one should be put to death. Walpole's intelligence, thus put on the alert, soon unravelled the state of affairs, and found that the pretender was in motion, and that the duke of Ormonde was preparing to take charge of a descent from the coast of Biscay. We cannot here enter into a detailed account; but, among other steps, lord Orrery and the duke of Norfolk were sent to the Tower. The earl was taken into custody on the 27th September, at his country-house, by a party of soldiers, commanded by a colonel, and accompanied by one of the under-secretaries. A thorough search for papers was made, and all his lordship's letters and papers of every description were thrown into a large sack. At the same time, his town house underwent a similar search, and seizure of papers. His nearest friends were denied access to his confinement, and even his son, who entreated to be shut up with him, was refused.

The earl's sufferings were severe; for his health had, for many years, been in an extreme state of delicacy, and had been kept up solely by constant air and exercise. On the 9th of October, the parliament passed a bill for the suspension of the habeas corpus act for one year. It was proposed and agreed to, to detain the earl by virtue of this suspension. He soon fell sick, and his physician, Dr Mead, went to the council, and urged that his life was endangered, and he was, in consequence, admitted to bail. Two noblemen went security for him, in £20,000 each. His liberation was, nevertheless, imperfect, as he was only allowed to remain in his country-house, under the custody of two officers, in whose company he was allowed to take the air. The authority upon which we are chiefly compelled to rely in all that

merely relates to the private history of the earl, is rendered so very doubtful, by a great deal of very obvious folly and misrepresentation, that we shall not enter fully into a variety of minute statements which have too much the air of the clumsy fabrications of an apologist, half deceived and willing to deceive. Budgel received his accounts from the lips of the earl-against whom it is no very serious imputation that he did not unfold circumstances of so questionable a nature, with severe precision, to so shallow a creature.

His lordship obtained his freedom, and continued to attend in the house of lords. He seldom or never spoke; but often joined in protests, and always voted against the government.

His lordship died in 1731, in his fifty-seventh year. Among his accomplishments, the most distinguished was his knowledge of mechanics. Budgel claims for him the invention of that astronomical toy which bears his name; and the manner in which he mentions it makes it plain that lord Orrery was himself his authority. But we rather suspect that his lordship, whose vanity was a besetting infirmity, rather countenanced the mistake than directly asserted such a claim. Budgel says, "The instrument which was invented by him, and bears his name, is an undeniable proof of his mechanic genius. There are so many different motions in this machine, that I have heard his lordship say, it had almost turned the head of that ingenious artificer whom he had employed to make it." We may venture to say, that the "different motions," which nearly "turned the head" of George Graham, are not to be referred to the contrivance of any other brains. The conception involves no very great difficulty, or indeed, any very extraordinary powers of contrivance. There is, however, nothing improbable in the supposition, that the thoughts of such a machine might have originated with his lordship, or, indeed, with any one. He might have proposed to Graham to contrive a machine to represent the motions of the solar system, but even this is negatived by the known facts.

Graham, the inventor of the Orrery, was perhaps not acquainted with the earl, for whom one was constructed by Rawley. The name of "Orrery was given to it by the error of Sir Richard Steele, who was very probably imposed on by a conversation similar to that related by Budgel. Graham's discoveries and inventions are numerous and important. He was a member of the Royal Society, and abundant records of his astronomical talents and knowledge may be found in the Philosophical Transactions." He was the constructor of the great mural arch in Greenwich Observatory. Indeed, the whole story is too absurd.

One more circumstance we have reserved for this place. His lordship left his splendid library to Oxford, to the great annoyance of his son; and Budgel, who seems to have thought that his regard for the honour of his former patron was sufficient excuse for the most unnecessary and self-exposing mis-statements, cannot dismiss this slight circumstance without an insinuation. We shall take his entire statement:- "But there is one article in his will, which, as it has made some noise in the world, deserves to be explained: what I shall say upon this head is, to my own certain knowledge, matter of fact. The

late lord Orrery has bequeathed to Christ Church College, in Oxford, of which he was formerly a member, all his noble library, save only the journals of the house of lords, and such books as relate to the English history and constitution, which are left to the present earl, his son, who is likewise allowed the term of two years to separate these from the other books. The world has been not a little surpris ed, to find that the late earl of Orrery should leave the bulk of that library he had collected with so much pains and expense, from such a son, who all who have the happiness to know him do very well know, is not only learned, but a real lover of learning and men of letters. In order to explain this mystery, it is proper the public should be informed, that the late lord Orrery's will was made about four years since, at a time when there was an unhappy coldness occasioned by a family dispute between the late earl of Orrery and the present earl of Orkney, soon after the son of the first had married the daughter of the latter. Perhaps neither of these two noble lords were wholly in the wrong." If the statement of Johnson be true-and there is no reason to doubt it-the cause of the quarrel, which should not have been hinted at by a biographer who did not think it fit to state the whole, was simply that the young lord "would not allow his young wife to keep company with his father's mistress." It is unnecessary

to say where the wrong lay. The father and son are said to have been reconciled, and that the earl intended to alter his will, but was prevented by death.

Turlough Carolan.

BORN A.D. 1670.-DIED A.D. 1738.

CAROLAN was the son of a farmer in the village of Hobber, in the county of Westmeath. His father possessed but a few acres, and was not therefore enabled to afford him the advantages of education, nor was his condition in life such as to have pointed out any of the paths of studious pursuit. He might, in all probability, have been destined to the less brilliant, but not less happy or respectable avocations of his father, and lived in industrious but fortunate obscurity, in his little farm; but the accident which appeared to cut him off from the busy haunts of men, and consign him to the lowest state of helpless inutility, seems to have been the means of calling his extraordinary genius into life. While yet an infant, the small-pox deprived him of his eyesight; and his mind, shut in and bereaved of one great field of exertion, transferred itself with the more wholeness to another, or, as he himself was afterwards heard to say, "My eyes are transplanted into my ears." He was too young to appreciate, in its full extent, the deprivation, and if he wasted any very serious thought upon it, he was, from his disposition, far more likely to measure it by the gifts and immunities, the leisure and the song, than by its privations. His astonishing musical powers were quickly noticed; and it may be generally observed, that musical talent, where it exists, is the first to be developed, as the faculties which are more nearly allied to pure intel

lect are the latest in their order. Carolan's genius was of the highest order, and it soon attracted extensive curiosity, and many liberal friends and patrons, who contributed to its cultivation. A harp and master were procured, and he was quickly enabled to follow the dictates of his fancy and his ear. These were, indeed, but uncultured still; for, with the wilfulness which belongs to internal impulse-the waywardness of genius-he soon became impatient of the dull discipline which is so essential to any perfection. With him the originating power, so rare in every department of human pursuit, was overflowing; he truly "lisped in numbers."

He grew in melody as he grew in years, and those tender impressions of passion which nature has so deeply woven with the gifts of verse and song, began to expand in his bosom, and form part of an existence which had so small a sphere to dwell in. To fall in love, was with Carolan a matter of course; though his ideas of beauty—as it is for the most part derived from the sense of which he was not possessed— must have been wholly wanting, or but dimly reflected from the recollections of infancy. The blind alone can tell how fancy can dress out its rayless and formless vision of delight. Miss Bridget Cruise may have had a plain face, and a graceless figure; but we may assume that she was possessed of an enchanting voice: the child of song probably felt with intense reality the power of a loveliness imbodied in sound-a voice replete with soft and pleasant associations played over his breast, when Miss Cruise was near. We know that his passion found its only consolation in an immortal melody which bears the lady's name, and perhaps the image of her lover's dream. It is said that Miss Cruise was not insensible to the passion of her blind lover; but it may be presumed, that every voice, and all the little prejudices of village pride, would deter her from listening to any serious proposal from a blind youth. Every one understands how the fancy will work upon the report of rumour or fame; to such an influence the blind must be unusually liable, and this easily leads to the supposition that Miss Cruise may have been the object of general admiration; and, from such a thought, a little romance of pleased vanity, amiable condescension and wounded affection, is but too ready to start unbidden. But these fancies have no end.

Carolan had the good sense to seek for consolation from the affection of Miss Mary Maguire, with whom one of his biographers has informed us that he lived "harmoniously," though she was remarkable for extravagance and pride: Carolan himself was a devotee to whiskey; so that we may venture to apprehend that the harmony may have been rather of the loudest. He took a farm at Mosshill, in Leitrim, and launched into a course of reckless and prodigal hospitality, which was both the bent of his nature, and the fashion of his time. The Irish of that day were addicted to extravagance in a degree incredible in this sober and trading age of teetotalism and railroads the only pledges, then, were pledges over the punch-bowl,-the best kept road was the road to ruin, and a merrier or more crowded way was never known; and on such, Carolan was not likely to be wanting.

After a little time, we find him an itinerant musician. Of this pro