Delighted beyond all delight, Then in the hush, with innocent smile, As the Holy Babe looked with His clear And moved His blessed lips, and smiled, Who, silently enraptured, Would longer with Him have wished to stay— Swelled sudden near, and-the scene was gone! Memory-never more to fade From his heart's dear home thus happy made; And snowy world in guardian gloom T. C. IRWIN. RICHARD BOYLE, FIRST EARL OF CORK. (Concluded.) IN that portion of our sketch of Richard Boyle's life, contained in the November number of this magazine, we had arrived at the year 1600. He had been appointed clerk to the Council of Munster, of which Sir George Carew was Lord President, and buried his first wife, Joan Apsley, and her child, in a graveyard at Buttevant. At this point we interrupted our narrative in order to recount the episode respecting the monument to his second wife on the site of the high altar in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and to contrast the treatment of poor Joan's remains by the young aspirant with that bestowed on the corpse of the high-descended and powerfully-connected daughter of Sir Geoffry Fenton by the now Earl of Cork, at the pinnacle of place and power. Not content, however, with erecting a monument such as had never before been seen, the old man determined to write for himself an epitaph which should be equally unprecedented. Accordingly he sat down, and from the depths of his inward consciousness composed his "True Remembrances." He had always before his eyes the fact that there were incidents in his carcer open to the gravest suspicion, that there had been more than one slur cast upon his name, and that many men of high position and spotless honour looked askance at him and shrank from his contact. The stupendous monument of marble and alabaster would appeal to the eye, and the epitaph written in the "True Remembrances" would speak to the understanding and go straight to the heart. Both combined would shield his name from posthumous calumny or damning inferences from equivocal circumstances. Upon this thought he spake and produced the memoir in question. It is written in artless style and a tone of injured innocence. At proper stages are interspersed pious ejaculations and prayerful thanksgivings; though occasionally, when allusion is made to anyone that had injured him in purse or reputation, there is the shadow of a curse, not loud, but deep, a something between the growl of a mastiff and the hiss of an envenomed serpent. In after years his son, the famous Robert Boyle, wrote a very delightful memoir of his own youth, wherein, speaking of his father, he describes him (page xiv.) as one "who supplied what he wanted in scholarship himself by being a passionate affector and eminent patron of it." But though his scholarship was small, his literary power was great, and whether he is soliciting a troop of horse for his son, Dungarvan, from the Marquis of Ormond, or detailing his merits and sacrifices on behalf of the commonwealth to the Speaker of the disloyal English Parliament, or inditing an anticipatory defence of his life in the "True Remembrances," his exposition is always terse, forcible and telling; in his hands "the thing became a trumpet, whence he blew" self-laudatory strains, many, clear and resonant. Nor in this, as in almost every other act of his life, was his prevision For full one hundred years after the date prefixed to his astute memoir, that document was passed in manuscript from member to member of the ever-widening circle of his high and accomplished descendants; it formed, in fact, a kind of family gospel, became in due time the infallible text-book of the historian, and materially contributed to the misapplication of the epithet "Great," which is usually prefixed to the name of the first Earl of Cork. The bigoted Borlase quotes it with rapture; the venomous Cox gloats over it; both make it the foundation of a huge superstructure of extravagant eulogy. It was not until 1734 that it was first published in entirety by Birch, the biographer of the Honourable Robert Boyle. That writer, at the opening of his work, gives in full the "True Remembrances" of the earl, with adequate expressions of admiration, and with unquestioning faith in the veracity they so suspiciously profess. That belief remained current for generations. In addition to the authors we have named, we should mention that of Smith, the well-known historian of the counties of Cork, Kerry and Waterford. In his eyes they are seemingly entitled to as much credit as the utterances of the inspired writers. But time brought about its changes, and one of them was the application of criticism to the productions of those partisans of a system, who, to justify wrong and perpetuate injustice, had falsified history and been left too long in undisputed possession of the field. Before proceeding further, we must here cite a few passages from this famous memoir. Let the reader picture to himself "Old Richard ❞—as Strafford, in one of his last letters from the Tower, irreverently styles the Great Earl of Cork-seated before his desk in his sanctum at Dublin Castle. The monument in St. Patrick's, on the site of the high altar, has been just completed. He is in his sixty-seventh year, and apparently at the height of human felicity. But there before him stands the skeleton in the cupboard. What signify the trophy of marble and alabaster, the vast estates and the titles multiplied by the number of his offspring, if his name is to go down to posterity branded as that of a forger, thief and traitor? The thought inspires his pen, and he indites the "True Remembrances," which are to descend as a family heirloom, an imperishable monument of the innocence and virtues of this prime favourite of heaven, this inheritor of "God's Providence." And now for the ipsissima verba : "I, Sir Richard Boyle, Knight, Baron of Youghal, Viscount Dungarvan, Earl of Cork, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, one of his Majesty's Privy Council, and one of his Majesty's Lords-Justices for the government of this kingdom, do commend these True Remembrances' to posterity this 23rd day of June, Anno Domini 1632, having lived in this Kingdom of Ireland full forty-four years, and so long after as it shall please God Almighty." After detailing his parentage, his birth in 1566, and a few other particulars, he proceeds: "After the decease of my father and mother, I, being the second son of a younger brother, having been a scholar in Bennett's College, Cambridge, and a student in the Middle Temple, London, finding my means unable to support me to study the laws in the Inns of Court, put myself into the service of Richard Manwood, Knight, Lord Chief Baron of her Majesty's Court of Exchequer, whom I served as one of his clerks; and perceiving that the employment would not raise a fortune, I resolved to travel into foreign lands, and to gain learning and knowledge and experience abroad in the world. And it pleased the Almighty, by his Divine Providence, to take me, I may justly say, as it were by the hand, and lead me into Ireland, where I happily arrived at Dublin on the midsummer eve, the 23rd day of June, 1588." He then recounts his monetary and other resources-the former amounting to only £27 35.-in a paragraph we have already quoted, and after mentioning his marriage with his first wife in 1595, and with her the acquisition of £500 a-year, and her and her child's death in 1599, and their burial at Buttevant, he thus goes on: "When God had blessed me with a reasonable fortune and estate, Sir Henry Wallop, of Wares, Sir Robert Gardiner, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir Robert Dillon, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Sir Richard Bingham, Chief Commissioner of Connaught, being displeased for some purchases I had made in the province, they all joined together by their lies, complaining against me to Queen Elizabeth, expressing that I came over without any estate or fortune, and that I had made so many purchases as it was not possible to do without some foreign prince's purse to supply me with money; that I had acquired divers castles and abbeys upon the seaside fit to entertain and receive the Spaniards; that I kept in my abbeys fraternities and convents of friars in their habits, who said Mass continually; and that I was suspected in my religion, with divers other malicious suggestions. Whereof having some secret notice, I resolved to go into Munster, and so into England to justify myself; but before I could take shipping, the general rebellion in Munster broke out, and all my lands were wasted. As I might say, I had not one penny of certain revenue left me, to the unspeakable danger and hazard of my life; yet God preserved me; as I reached Dingle, and got shipping there, which transported me to Bristol, from whence I travelled to London, and betook myself to my former chamber in the Middle Temple, intending to renew my studies in the law till the rebellion was passed over. Robert Earl of Essex was designed for the government of this kingdom, unto whose service I was recommended by Mr. Anthony Bacon, whereupon his lordship very nobly received me, and used me with favour and grace in employing me in issuing out his patent and commissions for the government of Ireland, whereof Sir Henry Wallop, Treasurer, having notice and being conscious in his own heart that I had sundry papers and collections of Michael Kettlewell, his late Under-Treasurer, which might discover a great deal of wrong and abuse done to the queen in his late accounts, and suspecting, if I were countenanced by the late Earl of Essex, that I would bring those things to light which might prejudice or ruin his reputation or estate, although I vow to God, until I was provoked I had no thought of it; yet he, utterly to suppress me, renewed his former complaints against me to the queen's majesty. Whereupon, by her majesty's special direction, I was suddenly attacked and conveyed close prisoner to the gate-house,* all my papers seized and searched, and although nothing could appear to my prejudice, yet my close restraint was continued till the Earl of Essex was gone to Ireland. Two months afterwards, with much suit, I obtained the favour of her sacred So called from the purpose for which it was originally built in Edward the Third's reign. It was situated close to Westminster Hall, and was constituted prison for the Liberties of Westminster. Sir W. Raleigh was there imprisoned before his execution, and composed there his poem beginning, "Even such is time;" as was also Lovelace, who wrote there the lines : "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage." majesty to be present at my answers, when I so fully answered and cleared all their objections, and delivered such full and evident justifications for my own acquittal, as it pleased the queen to use these words, viz.: By God's death, these are but inventions against the young man, and all his sufferings are for being able to do us service, and those complaints urged to forestall him therein. But we find him a man to be employed by ourselves, and we will employ him in our service; and Wallop and his adherents shall know that it shall not be in the power of any of them to wrong him; neither shall Wallop be any longer our Treasurer.' We are then told that on the spot the queen dismissed Wallop and appointed Sir George Carew, Treasurer in his stead, and a few days afterwards invited Richard Boyle to court, and, the narrative proceeds, "bestowed on me the office of Clerk of the Council of Munster; whereupon I bought of Sir Walter Raleigh his ship, called "The Pilgrim," into which I took a freight of ammunition and victuals, and came in her myself by long seas, and arrived at Carrig-Foyle, Kerry, where the Lord President and the army were at the siege of that castle, which, when we had taken, I was there sworn as Clerk of the Council of Munster." He then states how, as Clerk of the Council, "I attended the Lord President in all his employments, and waited on him during all the siege of Kinsale, and was employed by his lordship to her majesty with the news of that happy victory." He next recounts his marvellous journey from Cork to London on the occasion of this mission: "I left my Lord President at Shandon Castle, near Cork, on the Monday morning, near two o'clock; and the next day being Tuesday, I delivered my packet, and supped with Sir Robert Cecil at his house in the Strand :" that is to say, in the days when steam was not by sea or land, when roads were execrable, Richard Boyle traversed a distance in a shorter space of time than it could now be done with all our modern appliances. Richard sups familiarly with Cecil, and is introduced at cock-crow into the queen's bed-chamber, where her majesty, still a-bed, recognises him at once, gives him her hand to kiss, and, having read Carew's despatch, sends him back to Ireland freighted with her best wishes. Returned to Ireland, he finds Carew engaged about the siege of Dunboy, "which after battering we had made assaultable, we entered and put all to the sword. His lordship having placed wardes on all places of importance, made his return to Cork, and on his way home made me acquainted with his resolution, it being presently to employ me into England, to obtain licence from her majesty for his repair to her royal presence, at which time he propounded unto me the purchase of all Sir Walter Raleigh's lands in Munster, offering me his best assistance for the compassing thereof, which he really performed. For, upon my departure for England, he wrote by me two effectual letters, one to Sir Robert Cecil, wherein he was pleased to magnify my service and abilities, and concluding with a request that he would make intercession with Sir Walter Raleigh to sell me all his lands in Ireland, that were then altogether waste and desolate. To Sir Walter Raleigh he also wrote, advising him to sell me all his lands in Ireland, then untenanted. and of no value to him; mentioning withal that in his lordship's knowledge his estate in Ireland never yielded him any benefit, but contrariwise stood him in £200 yearly for the maintenance and support of his titles. Whereupon there was a meeting be tween Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Raleigh and myself, when Sir Robert mediated and concluded the purchase between us.' He then describes his return to Ireland for the third time, his meeting with Carew in Dublin, the match-making of the latter on his behalf with Sir Geoffry Fenton, his marriage contract with that gentleman's daughter on the 9th March,-1603, and his marriage with that lady on the 25th July following, On this occasion he was knighted by the Lord Deputy, strange to say, another S George Carew, who is often mistaken for the President of Munster, a mistake wh has sometimes given rise to a good deal of confusion. He enumerates his numer titles and the respective dates of their acquisition, tells full particulars of each of fifteen children, and piously ejaculates: "The Great God of Heaven I do hum' heartily beseech to bless all these my children, etc., which is the prayer and cr me their father, in the sixty-seventh year of my age, 1622." He adds, in w like a postscript: "My dear wife, the crown of a and m my children, Catharine Countess of Cork, was a better, the 16th February, 1630. |