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PAGE Separate Notices of some of the eminent or remarkable Persons who were Correspondents, Friends, or Acquaintances of Lady Blessington—Lord Lyndhurst—Lord Erskine-Henry Erskine -The Earl of Dudley-Lord Auckland—Lord Holland–Lord John Russell—Marquis of Normanby—The Earl of Westmoreland—Lord Howden-The Earl of Chesterfield–Lord Glenelg —The Earl of Carlisle—The Prince Michael Soutzo–George Byng, Esq.—The Right Hon. R. Cutlar Ferguson—Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd—General the Hon. Edmund Phipps—William Godwin, Esq.—James' Perry, Esq.—John Allen, Esq.-Sir David Wilkie, R.A.-Daniel Maclise, R.A.-Sir Edwin Landseer, K.B., R.A.—Benjamin Robert Haydon, Esq.—Sir George Hayter—Richard J. Wyatt, Esq.—Thomas Uwins, Esq., B.A. —Francis Grant, Esq.-Emile de Girardin-Samuel Carter Hall, Esq.-Mrs. A. M. Hall-Lady E. S. Wortley—G. P. R. | James—W. M. Thackeray, Esq.—Washington Irving—J. H. Jesse, Esq.—Henry F. Chorley, Esq.—William Jerdan, Esq. | —William Charles Macready-R. M. Milnes, Esq., M.P.Ralph Bernal Osborne, Esq.—Alexander Baillie Cochrane, Esq.-Terrick Hamilton, Esq.—Henry Reeve, Esq.-Henry Chester, Esq.—C. Greville, Esq.—T. N. Longman, Esq.Count Von Kielmansegg - F. Mills, Esq.-Hon. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways—Captain Thomas Medwin -C. M. Talbot, Esq.—William Thomas Fitzgerald, Esq.

John Bushe, Esq.—The Duc di Rocco Romano, Esq. . . 346
No. II.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Esq. * - - - . 415
No. III.
Theophilus Godwin Swift, Esq. , - - * . 434
No. IV.

Letters to and from Lord Blessington . - * , 440

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CHAPTER I.

THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY.

Richard Colley Wesley, first Marquess Wellesley (eldest son of Yarrell, second Baron Wesley, and subsequently to the birth of said Richard, Earl of Mornington), was born in Dublin, the 20th of June, 1760, and died in London, in 1842, in his eighty-third year.* To his mother's excellent

* In "Pue's Occurrences," a weekly paper, published in Dublin, No. 50, from June 17th to June 21st, 1760,1 find the following notice among the births—(June 20th, 1760)—" In Grafton Street, the Lady of the Right Honourable the Lord Mornington was safely delivered of a son and heir, to the great joy of that family." This is the first time, as far as I know, that the above notice has been referred to in relation to the place of birth of the Marquess. A great deal of confusion of dates, names, and of ideas that have led Colonel Gurwood, Mr. Peter Cunningham, and other writers, into error, have arisen, as I imagine, from there being a traditional account of a son of Lord Mornington born in Grafton Street, in the house lately occupied by the Royal Irish Academy, and, from some cause or other, that son being erroneously supposed to be Arthur Wesley, the third son of Lord Mornington. The notice I discovered in "Puc's Occurrences" disposes of that

VOL HI. B

understanding and great mental accomplishments is chiefly to be attributed the careful cultivation of the Marquess Wellesley's elegant tastes for literature and classical learning. His first display of oratorical talent was in an eloquent academical address, pronounced at Eton, in 1778, and, two years later, he gained the University prize for the best composition in Latin verse. At a subsequent period of his career, the Provost of Eton College, Dr. Goodall, before a committee of the House of Commons on academic education, spoke of the Marquess Wellesley as "infinitely superior to Porson in Greek composition." The Marquess, he said, as a genuine Greek scholar, exhibits the exquisite style and manner of Xenophon. He sat in the Irish House of Peers from the date of his succession to the title of his father, the Earl of Mornington, in 1781, for a few years. In 1784, he was sworn in a Member of the Privy Council; in 1786, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury. He sat in the English House of Commons, for several boroughs, from the year 1784, and distinguished himself particularly at the time of the Regency question by his advocacy of the English view of it, and at the period of the French Revolution, by his denunciations of its excesses. He married, in 1794, his first wife, the daughter of M. Pierre Roland, by whom he had previously several illegitimate children. A separation took place soon after the marriage, and the Marchioness died in 1816, leaving no legitimate issue. In 1795, he was appointed a member of the Board of Control: and subsequently Chief Governor of India. In 1797 he was created Baron Wellesley, in the peerage of

error; but there remains another to get rid of. The house of Lord Mornington, in Grafton Street, was not the one which became the property of the Royal Irish Academy. The Academy's premises were built on the site of that house, in fact, the house in which the Marquees of Wellesley was born, has long ceased to exist. A writer of great research and accuracy, in his second article on " the Streets of Dublin," treats largely of this locality.

Great Britain, and in 1799, Marquess Wellesley, in the peerage of Ireland, on account of his great services in the office of Governor-General of India. In 1805, after a career of unparalleled successes, signal civil and military triumphs, and services of the highest importance, thwarted and distrusted, and interfered with in his great and comprehensive schemes and governmental measures by the Court of Directors, he resigned his office and returned to England, when he had attained the forty-fifth year of his age.

In the latter part of 1809, he was appointed Ambassador to Spain. He landed at Cadiz the day the battle of Talavera was fought, but remained only a short time in Spain, and on his return home was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. His known opinions in favour of Catholic Emancipation did not leave him long in office, and for fifteen years he continued in opposition to government.

In December 1821 the Marquess of Wellesley was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. From 1807 up to that period, Ireland was governed for the interests, and in the interests solely, of Orangeism, nominally by the Duke of Richmond, but virtually by the Attorney-General, Saurin, and an English Chancellor, Lord Manners, who was wholly under the control of the former.

The Marquess of Wellesley in 1822 struck a blow at the Orange ascendancy regime, from which it never recovered. From 1807, up to that period, Ireland had been governed by William Saurin, of Huguenot descent, a black-letter lawyer of eminence, of much astuteness in his profession, but of a narrow mind, illiberal and unenlightened, a partizan of Orangeism without disguise or any affectation of impartiality in his high office—an open adherent of that system, deriving all his power from its fanaticism, and exercising all his influence for its objects, under the cloak of zeal for the interests of religion. All the administrative power of the state was

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