In the time of Swift and Grattan.

CHAPTER VIII.

In The Time Of Swift And Grattan** **

Some** **use has already been made of the descriptive talent of an English rival of the Celtic panegyrists of Howth, who appears towards the close of the 19th century: According to the title-page of his poem, his chief qualification for his task was the fact that he had held the office of commissary of musters, and his muse is not past criticism; hut his knowledge of Howth and fervour in communicating it cannot be denied.

As he tells us in the preface, he had resided on the peninsula for many months, and had become so enamoured of it as to believe that it could not he rivalled on the globe for the luxuriance of its prospects, or surpassed in the neighbourhood of Dublin, to which he descends with the suddenness of an aviator, for the purity and sweetness of its air, the variety of its recreations, and the privacy and convenience of its baths.

The poem consists of 800 lines in the heroic style, and shows that, notwithstanding the different circumstances of the time, the natural features that attracted then were those that most charm to-day.

The first part of the poem is devoted to a description of the prospects as seen from the summit of the hill, and begins with some ecstatic verses, of which the following may he taken as a specimen:-

Fair opening to the west a prospect lies,

More beauteous far than Titian ever drew

The rising background fills the expanded eyes,

And lifts the villas up to view.

The poet refers next to Dublin, a city whose “mighty bulk the eye may comprehend,” and to the Liffey, which he likens to a canal crowded with shipping, “a wood of many a leafless tree.”

Turning to the sea, he draws inspiration from Ireland’s Eye and Lambay, from a fleet of “ships, sloops, barks, brigs, and boats” which opportunely appeared, and from the Albion cliffs which bounded his eastern prospect. Looking landwards, be extols Marino, which smiled then like a second Eden, and the gay Blackrock, whose** **bathing-place enjoyed much fame; and he beholds “embattled groves o’er groves embattled rise” until terminated to the south by Bray Head, Sugar Leaf, and double Caucasus, and to the north by the mountains of Newry and Mourne, which are at last lost to him in distant skies.

The second part of the poem describes a tour of the peninsula, which some persons accomplished in an hour, but which, under the guidance of the poet, who thought such haste unpardonable, is made more leisurely. Starting from the isthmus,

A sweet improvement hangs upon the right,

The park and gardens wind along the Coast

Here the Court holds an elevated site

By groves protected from the northern blast.

[At that time, according to the poet, the Castle was called the court]

and the town where “learning held of old her seat secured” is visited, and the mote, church, and altar-tomb noticed. Then the tourist descends to Balscadden Bay, where a bathing-house built of stone stood, and climbs from it to the cliff where Puck’s Rock displays “the fiend in adamantine bonds.”

On the way the great cave, in** which seals then concealed their young, **is entered, and an inhabitant of Howth, who was wont to encounter there single-handed these amphibious foes, is recalled. Avoiding the most dangerous path, where, says the poet,

Oft to the mouldering cliff like bat I’ve clung

Unable to advance, scarce power to retreat,

Whilst in my ear the dreadful surges sung,

And screaming sea-mews marked my doubtful fate,

the tourist is conducted to a platform of the old lighthouse, where* *the poet pictures for him a storm. Then, ascending to the Baily by the grass slope, down which clinkers from the lighthouse fire rolled, he sees the rocks, “a giant offspring from the parent cleft,” and the cave formerly much used as a receptacle for smuggled goods; and, having been provided with a gun, “a thundering cylinder of ample bore,” he wages war upon the seals that were then incessantly sporting round the shore.

From the Baily he crawls on hands and feet to the cape on the other side, and looks down from the giddy height, where a youth had fallen over, on the glittering sand below with the shells and pebbles glowing in the sun.

Thence advancing along the south side of the peninsula, he explores “Neptune’s grot” and its petrifactions, and finally turns inland across “Saucer’s sunny slopes and Sutton’s downs,” where

Abundant game around in mazes run,

On foot the hare, the rabbit, and the fox;

Or now at seat, or basking in the sun,

Or there in wily sleep sly Reynard on the rocks,

until a horn sounds, and the music of deep-tongued hounds is heard:-

But lo! the close-embodied pack appear,

The open cry proclaims the hollo-view,

And round the precipice in toll career,

The flying war vociferous pursue.

According to Abraham Bosquet-for so the poet was named-Howth lay then unheeded and neglected, but before his time Swift’s friend, Mrs. Delany, had discovered its charms and had described them with her usual sprightliness.

Writing in the gloomy month of January on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Charles the First, in the year 1759, she says; “After church Mrs. Hamilton, and her daughter Sally, and I went with the six horses to take the air as far as the hill of Howth, which is about 10 English miles; it is all the way on the strand close to the sea, the view of which with the ships in the harbour, the city of Dublin, little villages, hills, mountains, and beautiful fields, and scattered houses, made a most delightful appearance; we did not return home till near six; we found our little fasting dinner ready for us.”

Howth was also, before the poet’s time, the objective for boating-parties from Dublin, and dinners on the hill were not uncommon. Near the lighthouse two actors of that day, John O’Keeffe and John Kane, joined on one occasion in a jovial meal, and did not return to their starting-place, “the ferry-boat slip at the bottom of Abbey Street,” until late the next morning.

Horse-races were, too, not unknown on the peninsula, and one of the earliest Dublin newspapers, the “Intelligence,” announces on March 31, 1730, that on the previous day there had been a race “which yielded great diversion to the spectators ” at the Warren House near Howth. The place of meeting, which is now a private house, was no doubt then an inn, and as Bosquet tells us refreshments were also to be found on Ireland’s Eye:

Here Ireland’s Eye from parent Howth detached,

A pleasing isle, with valleys clad in green,

For samphire famed, and lobsters wicker-catched,

And whiskered sea-calves of bold mastiff-mien.

A sweet retreat, where many a happy pair

Excursions make, and frisk the island round,

Snatch reason’s feast, and breathe salubrious air.

Then seek the spot with ready viands crowned.

The economic resources of Howth were much exploited throughout the 18th century. In 1738 it was announced that “the Lord of Howth hath lately discovered a fine marble quarry on his estate at the hill of Howth,” and that the marble was “as finely variegated with red, blue, yellow, and other colours as any in Italy or Egypt,” and in 1754 it was announced that a rich lead-mine hath been lately discovered on the estate of Lord Howth,” and that “the assay masters who have tried it judge it to be as good as any mine of the sort in Europe.”

Sea-water from Howth was then sold in Dublin, and seems to have supplied a great want. In the summer of 1759 Catherine Dowdall, who kept a grocer’s shop at the corner of Pill Lane and Arran Street, advertises “the genuine sea-water from Howth,” and adds that “as this is the season in which the sea-water is mostly used, she takes care to have it in fresh every morning,” and in the winter of 1762 Andrew Ross, a saddler at the sign of the White Horse in Dame Street, advertises that he has taken Over Mrs. Dowdall’s business, and sells at the old address “the genuine sea- water taken every day at Howth and sold as usual at two pence per quart, or sixpence per gallon.”’

The port of Howth had fallen into almost entire disuse as regards traffic with England, but the fishery was still productive. From it the Dublin market then drew, as it does to-day, its chief supply of herrings, and in 1732 their conveyance in open boats from Howth to Dublin is mentioned as one of the abuses from which he city suffered.

The reputation of the fishermen had in no way declined, and when an early aeronaut who ascended from Dublin was in danger of being lost at sea, it was to them an appeal was first made to go to his rescue. The ascent, which took place in May, 1785, had many witnesses, and on its becoming apparent that the balloon was being carried away from the land some of the spectators rode to Howth and begged the fishermen to put out and save the aeronaut. The actual rescue was performed by the crew of a pilot-boat, but would not have been undertaken except for the intrepidity displayed by the Howth fishermen.

[“Hibernian Magazine” for 1781, p. 279. An account appended to the print gives all the credit of the rescue to the crew of the pilot-boat. The smaller boat in the print is the Howth one, and the central figure in it a brother of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.]

As Bosquet tells us, the caves afforded great facilities to smugglers to conceal illicit cargoes, and in the summer of 1764 Howth was the scene of a desperate affray between a party of smugglers and some revenue officers, who had seized 16 casks of tea. The smugglers succeeded in recovering from the revenue officers all the casks except seven, but in the affray one of their number, called Higley, was killed, and another was said to have been so severely wounded as to have subsequently died.

Two years later, in a great gale, a lighter was driven ashore at Howth with no less than 35 puncheons of brandy on board, and hearing that the lighter had been deserted, Lord Howth ordered his own servants to take charge of the cargo until an owner could be found.

In the beginning of the 19th century the descendants of men who had died from wounds received in conflicts with the revenue officers were living at Howth, and one of them used to relate that an ancestor had been killed by a button with which a revenue officer had loaded his pistol when bullets failed.

At the beginning of the period which this chapter covers the prebend of Howth was held by another friend of Swift’s, Samuel Webber, or Philosopher Webber, as Swift called him; and at the time at which the chapter closes, it was held by the great pulpit crater, Walter Blake Kirwan. With Webber, who had a house near Baldoyle, Swift stayed often; and although Webber had private means, and was “above all economy,” Swift used to bring, according to his custom, his own previsions, the supply for a stay of five days being eight bottles of wine, and bread and meat for three days.

In addition to the prebend of Howth, Kirwan was given the living of St. Nicholas Without in Dublin. As was remarked at the time, that church was roofless, while the parish church of Howth lay “prostrate in a heap of ruins.”’ It was in connexion with this preferment that Grattan, in speaking of Kirwan, exclaimed: “What reward, St. Nicholas Within or St. Nicholas Without! The curse of Swift is upon him to have been born an Irishman, and a man of genius, and to have used it for the good of his country.” The services were performed then in a chapel belonging to Lord Howth, the walls of which are still standing a little to the north of the Castle, and were taken sometimes by a curate, an office filled at one time by Mervyn Archdall, the author of the “Monasticon Hibernicum,” and editor of Lodge’s “Peerage of Ireland.”

In the early part of the 18th century the penal laws fell heavily on the Roman Catholics. The Rev. Edward Treacy, who was then the parish priest, was a special object of persecution, and his church was reported to be in a dangerous condition, and liable to fall down. But throughout the century the Roman Catholic parishioners were not left without spiritual aid.

The Castle and demesne underwent in Swift’s day great improvement. Their appearance then will be seen from the bird’s-eye view, which is reproduced from a contemporary oil-painting in a panel over the chimney-piece of the Castle drawing-room, and the contents of the rooms are known from inventories which were compiled between the years 1746 and 1752.

It was in Swift’s time that the present entrance from the courtyard to the Castle, the classic doorway and the broad steps and terrace, were constructed, and uniformity in the appearance of the Castle secured by the erection of turrets and battlements in imitation of those on the ancient keep.

The bird’s-eye view shows also that an Italian garden was laid out, and that it terminated in a canal; but before the end of the 18th century, as will be seen from the reproduction of an old engraving, this garden had undergone alteration. The round pond and great tree shown in the view, however, still survive, the former being known as Black Jack’s pond, and the latter as the family tree.

A tablet, with the St. Lawrence arms and the initials W. H., dating from that time is placed beside the entrance doorway, and formerly another tablet recorded that

“This Castle was rebuilt by the Bight Honorable William, Lord Baron of Howth, Anno Domini, 1738.”

Entering the castle the hall contained then, as it does to-day, the great sword of Howth,” some pieces of armour, and a picture called a sea-triumph. On the walls hung, as a memorial of the troublous times in the previous century, 50 muskets and bayonets, with two back-swords, as well as trophies of the chase in the shape of stags’ horns and elks’ antlers. On the left of the hall was the dining-parlour, now the billiard-room, in which a round drinking-table and bottle-tray were significant of the habits of the time.

In the list of the furniture it is noticeable that the chairs were provided with loose covers of calfskin, and that instead of a sideboard there was a black and white marble table, which was surmounted by a cistern to match.

On the right of the hall, where the present dining-room lies, were my lady’s bedchamber, my lord’s dressing-room, and my lady’s dressing-room. In my lady’s bed-chamber panel pictures, which still survive, were then to be seen: the Siege of Buda, by Joseph Harrath, a German animal and landscape painter of that period, which is over the dining-room chimney-piece, and flower pieces, which are over the dining-room doors.

In the list of furniture the bed and bedding are fully described, and are not without interest. The bedstead, a tester one, was covered with scarlet English damask; and the bedding consisted of a feather-bed and bolster, a white mattress, silk blankets, a broadcloth under-blanket, and a Manchester counterpane. The furniture included a mahogany bureau and book-case with a looking-glass door, and on the walls there were a chimney-glass with snake arms, London gilt, and a number of prints, amongst which the Rake’s Progress was conspicuous. There was also much ornamental china, and a punch-bowl and figures of Turks receive special mention.

My lord’s dressing-room served as an additional armoury, and contained no less than seven guns, and sufficient steel-mounted pistols, screw-barrel pistols, and pocket-pistols to fill nine cases, besides hunting poles mounted with bayonets and daggers.

In my lady’s dressing-room the furniture resembled that of a boudoir, excepting a dressing-glass in a swinging frame, which is said to have been diamond-cut.

The drawing-room was then known as “the great dining-room,” but was furnished as a drawing-room. Over the chimney piece was the “Prospect of the House of Howth,” and over the doors landscapes by Richard Carver, a Dublin painter of that period, which still remain. On the walls there hung a whole-length portrait of Swift by Francis Bindon, unique amongst portraits of him, it that its history is determined with absolute certainty, and nine family portraits, all, with one exception, still in the Castle, besides a pair of fine carved branches, London gilt, at the chimney-piece, and two pier sconces. The furniture included two large Italian marble tables on walnut frames, for which Spanish leather covers were provided, and a number of Indian boxes and trunks, and a filigree cabinet. There were also a six-leaf screen of Indian work on a scarlet ground, and a tea equipage of burnished china, as well as an immense collection of “curiosities in china and paste.”

The principal bed-rooms were known as the castle room, the crimson room, the yellow-damask room the blue room, and the chintz room. In the castle room the window and bed curtains were of blue silk-mohair, and the chairs were covered with the same material. The bedstead was supplied with a feather-bed and bolster of Flanders tick, a Holland mattress, English blankets, and a white satin quilt, which still survives, and is a fine example of the embroidery of that period.

The furniture included a number of Indian boxes and a set of varnished dressing-boxes, together with a tortoise-shell trunk mounted in silver, and an eight-leaf screen of Indian work in gold. Amongst other chattels at that time in the Castle there may be mentioned a bust of Dr. Steevens, after whom Steevens’ Hospital in Dublin is named, backgammon and card tables, and carpets designed by Mr. Hogarth, which were evidently much prized.

William, who succeeded on the death of his father, in 1727, to the title and estate, had for 11 years occupied a seat in the House of Commons, as representative of the borough of Ratoath, in the county of Meath. He shared the representation with Lieutenant-General Richard Gorges, who lived close to Ratoath, at Kilbrew, and a year after the death of his father he married one of General Gorges’s daughters, although she was then only a girl of 17, while he had reached the age of forty.

Her mother, who was a daughter of the first Lord Hamilton of Glenawley, had been, previous to her marriage to General Gorges, married to Sir Tristram Beresford, whose son was created Earl of Tyrone, and she enjoys much celebrity as the heroine of what is known as the Beresford ghost story.

It is said that she had in her youth discussed with the last Earl of Tyrone of the Power family, the truths of Christianity, and that in accordance with an agreement between them that the one who died first should appear to the survivor, he presented himself to her after his death, and assured her of the truth of the Christian revelation. At he same time it is said that he predicted the events of her life, arid in particular her death on her 47th birthday, a prediction that is said to have come true.

To convince her of the reality of his presence, the story adds, he touched one of her wrists, and caused an injury, which she concealed afterwards by a black ribbon, an appendage which, according to tradition, was shown in the portrait of her preserved at Howth until the representation of it was removed during the restoration of the painting.

The friendship between Swift and the owners of Howth, which the great portrait of him proclaims, did not begin until William’s time, and was evidently attributable to the attractions of William’s wife. Swift used to call her his blue-eyed nymph, and was so captivated by her as to interfere, at her request, in the sordid affairs of the Irish Parliament on behalf of her brother, who had been defeated in an election at Ratoath, and sought to unseat his opponent by a petition.

Although Swift told her, as his custom was, that she ought “to go to a writing-school and spelling-book,” she wrote him three very pretty letters, which Swift, although he did not commit himself to a reply, treasured. The first of these letters, which is dated August 15, 1734, and was written from Kilfane, in the county of Kilkenny, tells of a commission from Swift to find him an easy riding-horse, and of the efforts which she had made, although only three days in the country, to execute it.

The next letter, which is dated August 6, 1736, and was written from the county of Galway, conveys a recommendation from her host, Lord Athenry, to Swift, as a governor of the Erasmus Smith educational endowment, of a candidate for the position of a schoolmaster.

She opens the letter by a reference to the fact that her former letter had never been answered, a neglect that she imputes to the post, or anything else except that she was forgot by her old friend, and she goes on to tell him that she is constantly on horseback, visiting the beauties of Connaught, and that she believes that if he would lend her a little of his head, she would almost approach Addison in some of his descriptions of Italy.

The third letter, which is dated St. Stephen’s Day, 1737, and was apparently written from Howth, announces a present of wild duck, partridge, plover, and venison, which she says that she sends by “a blackguard,” knowing the Dean’s generosity.

The portrait of Swift was painted in the summer of 1735, and is mentioned by him in a letter to his friend Sheridan, dated Jane 16 in that year, in which he says that he has been fool enough to sit for his picture at full-length by Mr. Bindon for his Lord Howth, and had sat that day for two hours and a half.

In a letter which is dated July 6 following, and which was written from Kilfane, William expresses his obligation to his good Dean of St. Patrick’s for the honour he had done him in sitting for the portrait, and says that he had asked Dr. Grattan to carry it to his own house in** **order that a copy might not be substituted for the original. To commemorate further Swift’s visits to Howth, William took advantage of the bird’s-eye view, and caused him to be represented in the left-hand corner, sitting on a seat.

The earliest visit which Swift records that he paid to Howth was in November, 1731, but his visits were subsequently frequent and not confined to the periods in which Lord Howth was in residence. In December, 1734, he mentions riding to Howth when the Castle was empty in connexion with an attack of illness that came upon him while there, and obliged him to lie down in the deserted house.

In his letter to Swift William is revealed as a man of considerable attainments, with a clear insight and a facetious disposition, but too much addicted to the pleasures of life. He mentions in it that he had taken advice which Swift had given him, and had kept good hours since he came last to Kilfane, but two years later it is recorded that when dining at Howth, the Lord Lieutenant of the day “contrived to be as drunk as any of his predecessors had been at that place, although he came away at six o’clock.”

To recruit himself William was wont to resort hi the summer to the Irish Harrogate of his tune, Ballyspellan, in the county of Kilkenny; and as its hotel was notable for a drawingroom of large size, he found there diversion as well as health:-

Good cheer, sweet air, much joy, no care,

Your sight, your taste, your smelling,

Your ears, your touch, transported much,

Each day at Ballyspellin.

Of sport William was passionately fond, and Kilfane was taken by him for the indulgence of his taste. “Every second day,” he writes to Swift, “I am out otter-hunting”; and in her letter from Lord Athenry’s seat his wife dilates on a monster trout which her lord and she had just weighed and measured.

While with Lord Athenry William met an Augustinian friar of sporting tastes, who bred beagles and “a double sort of wolfhound,” and whistled a good tune, and he was asked by the friar to obtain an exemption for him from the penal laws, in order that he might not be driven to travel as far as Vienna, where he was promised a hearty welcome from Prince Eugene and the Prince of Schwarzenberg, who kept the finest kennel in Europe.

But as a reference in his letter to Swift shows, William had good judgment in regard to more important matters, and his activity in the political life of his day obtained for him a seat in the privy council. To him a remarkable work, entitled “Zoologica Medicinalis Hibernica,” [Zoologica Medicinalis Hibernica, or a Treatise of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Reptiles, or Insects which are commonly known and propagated in this kingdom, giving an Account of their Medicinal Virtues, and their Names in English, Irish, and Latin, to which is added a Short Treatise of the Diagnostic and Prognostic Parts of Medicine the former showing bow by the Symptoms you may know a Distemper the latter giving an Account of the Event thereof; whether it will end in Life or Death,” by John Keogh, A.B., Chaplain to the Right Honourable James Lord Baron of Kingston, Dublin, 1739.] was dedicated, and its author says that this dedication was in acknowledgement of William’s unceasing generosity, liberality, and great goodness.

As appears from legal proceedings in which he was involved with a steward, William was extensively engaged in agricultural operations, including the fattening for the Dublin market of cattle which he bought in such distant fairs as that of Castlepollard; and he gave much employment. This care for his poorer neighbours is further shown in his will, which testifies to his charity.

While William was living at Kilfane, in the winter of 1736, two tragedies occurred in his family, remarkable not only in themselves, but also in their connexion with each other. It appears that at that time his niece, Miss Rice, the only child of his sister by her first marriage, and a cousin, Miss Berford, lived constantly with him and his wife, and the first tragedy was an accident by which the latter lost her life. According to a contemporary account she was taking the air at Kilfane with a friend, a Miss Hawley, in a four-wheel chaise, and on the driver getting down to fasten the linch-pin of one of the wheels, the horses took fright and ran into the river, with the result that the chaise was overturned, and both Miss Berford and Miss Hawley were drowned. When the news reached Dublin, William’s brother, Henry St. Lawrence, was staying at Kilbrew with the Gorges family, and Lady Howth’s younger brother, Hamilton Gorges, expressed commiseration for his sister, left with no companion except Miss Rice, whom he characterized as a silly girl, which so enraged her uncle, Henry St. Lawrence, that he forced Hamilton Gorges to fight a duel with him. It was attended with fatal consequences to Henry St. Lawrence; but on Hamilton Gorges being brought to trial, he was acquitted, and held by the jury to have acted in self-defence.

By the provisions of his will, which is dated January 30, 1774, William evinced his attachment to the seat of his ancestors, as well as his care for his humble neighbours, ordering that during the minority of his eldest son the mansion-house, out-offices, and improvements were to be kept in very good order and repair, and leaving a substantial sum to be distributed amongst the poor of Howth.

He left also a sum of £200 for the erection of a monument to his father’s memory. Besides his own family, he mentions his old friend and physician, Dr. Grattan, and Dr. Grattan’s cousin, the Rev. John Jackson, who held then the prebend of Howth. He appointed as executors and guardians of his children his wife and her brothers, Richard Gorges and Hamilton Gorges, and Lord Athenry, but the appointment of the last was revoked in a codicil made a few days before his death, on March 27~ 1748, and in his place the Hon. Arthur Blennerhasset, one of the justices of the King’s Bench, who had married his niece, Miss Rice, was named.

He died on April 4, l748 and left two sons, Thomas and William, and one daughter, Mary. His second son, of whom a portrait here sketched is preserved in the Castle, had been appointed, when only 14 years of age, an ensign in the army, and died a year after his father, in April, 1749, of the smallpox; and his daughter married, in 1750, Sir Richard Gethin, of Gethin’s Grot, in the county of Cork, the fourth baronet of his line, and died in October 4, 1787, in France.

Thomas, first Earl of Howth, who succeeded to the title and estate on his father’s death, was then only 18, and a student. in Trinity College, Dublin. There he did net, however, long pursue his course, and before he came of age he married, his wife being Isabella, daughter of Sir Henry King, and sister of the first Earl of Kingston, of the King creation.

The interest which his father had displayed in public affairs secured for him a prominent place in the political world, and his own abilities enabled him to take such advantage of it as to entitle him in his 38th year to the highest honours the Government could confer. On the death of the Chancellor of Ireland at that time he was appointed by a King’s letter, dated July 28, 1767, a Commissioner of the Great Seal, together with the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Cloyne; and by another King’s letter, dated August 7 following, he was created Viscount St. Lawrence and Earl of Howth.

It was thought desirable a few months later to bind him still further to the Government by giving him a seat in the privy council; and the Lord Lieutenant represented that not only would it oblige Lord Howth and the Beresfords, with whom as his mother’s connexions he was politically allied, but also that it would be generally acceptable and excite no jealousy, owing to the position which Lord Howth occupied.

The sporting instinct, which he inherited, was exhibited by him in early life in driving a coach. According to John O’Keeffe, the actor, he was one of the first amateur whips, and used to array himself in the garb of a coachman, “a wig with a number of little curls, and a three-cornered hat with great spouts;” and to carry in his mouth, when on the box, “a bit of straw about two inches long.”

In a letter, which is preserved in Howth Castle, there is also evidence of his seeking diversion in driving at a later time. The letter was written by him from Holyhead when he was on his way to Bath, and concerns a certain chaise, which was to be sent after him as soon as possible by a ship plying between Dublin and Bristol.

At Bath, towards the close of his life, he resided almost constantly. At his house in the Grove, on September 21,1794, his wife died, and there, in the following year, he made his will, which bears date July 11, 1795.

Howth was, however, not forgotten by him. In addition to a direction that he was to be interred in the vault of his family, he makes provision for the poor of Howth, and leaves a piece of plate to his former agent, Robert Hutchinson, as a token of Hutchinson’s services to him and his family, and of his own esteem and regard for him. His death took place on September 29, 1801, at Cheltenham.

He had three sons: William, who succeeded him ; Thomas, who took holy orders, and became Bishop of Cork ; and Henry, who was in the army and three daughters: Isabella, who married, in 1773, Dudley Cosby, Lord Sydney of Leix; Elizabeth, who married, in 1786, Lieutenant-General Paulus Emilius Irving; and Frances, who married, in 1808, the Venerable James Phillott, Archdeacon of Bath.

With Howth Castle the names of Bishop St. Lawrence and Lady Sydney are much associated, the Bishop’s name by a ghost-story, and Lady Sydney’s name, which has been given to a room and a garden, by a long residence during her widowhood, which commenced within a month of her marriage.

The ghost-story with which Bishop St. Lawrence’s name is connected, and which is said to have been told by himself, arose from a tradition that a daughter of the house of O’Byrne had cause for dissatisfaction with one of the Bishop’s ancestors, and was accustomed to visit the Castle in the form of a mermaid.

According to the story, the Bishop arrived one day unexpectedly at the Castle, and, finding everyone away, amused himself reading an old book, entitled “Stories of the Ancient Families of his Majesty’s Kingdom of Ireland.”

In one of its chapters, headed “how the mermaid came to be one of the supporters of the Lords of Howth” the history of Dame Geraldine O’Byrne was set forth, and with his head full of her and her melancholy end, the Bishop retired to rest. His room lay in what was then known as the Mermaid’s Tower, and, needless to say, the Bishop was before long startled from his slumbers.

The cause was a damp, cold pressure on his face, such as a mermaid might be expected to impose, and the Bishop apprehended an amphibious rather than an episcopal close to his career. But at last a light was struck, and what was supposed to be a mermaid’s fin proved to be a coachman’s glove that had fallen out of a watch-pocket fastened to the bed.’

Like most tales of the kind, the Bishop’s ghost-story is embellished with precise details that are inconsistent with fact, and this fate also attends the tale of “the rat that followed Lord Howth.” According to this tale, a certain Lord Howth was out shooting on his peninsula near the cromlech when a rat of an old Irish breed, grey in colour, ran out, and was about to be killed by the gamekeeper. Lord Howth ordered that it should not be destroyed, and in the evening he found that it had followed him into the Castle. It became his constant companion, and was decorated by him with a gold ring which he placed on its right foreleg.

People laughed about his strange pet, and to escape their ridicule Lord Howth went to the Continent. There he met a charming lady, who agreed to marry him on condition that he would not attempt to examine a gold bracelet that she were on her right arm. But after some years curiosity overcame him, and one night when his wife was asleep he raised her arm and tried to open the bracelet. As he did so she awoke, and with a loud cry fell back dead, and at the same moment a rat with a gold ring on its right foreleg ran away from beneath the bed.

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