Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/492

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We never knew the value of him till we really lost him, which often falls out in such cases ; and since it was in our quarrel that he lost his life, we cannot too much honour his memory, which will make a considerable figure in history whilst the world lasts. He was certainly a man of the best education in the world, and knew men and things beyond most of his time, being courteous and civil to everybody, and yet had something always that looked so great in him, that he commanded respect from men of all qualities and stations. Nor did we know any fault that he had, except we might be jealous he sometimes was too obliging to the French. As to his person, he was of a mid- dle stature, weU proportioned, fair com- plexioned, a very sound hardy man of his age, and sate an horse the best of any man ; he loved constantly to be neat in his clothes, and in his conversation he was always pleasant." His body was brought to Dublin, and interred in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where a monument to his memory was subsequently raised by Dean Swift. '« ==3 318

Scott, John, Eaxl of Clonmel, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, an Irish lawyer, who, in the latter part of the 1 8th century amassed a large fortune, and from obscurity raised himself to some of the highest oflSces in the state. Mr. Fitz- Patrick has devoted a portiou of his Ire- land before the Union to the not very profit- able history of Lord Clonmel. He died 23rd May 1 798. Barrington says he was "courageous, vulgar, humorous, artificial ; he knew the world well, and he profited by that knowledge. He cultivated the powerful ; he bullied the timid ; he fought the brave ; he flattered the vain ; he duped the credulous ; and he amused the convivial. Half liked, half reprobated, he was too high to be despised, and too low to be respected. His language was coarse, and his principles arbitrary ; but his pas- sions were his slaves, and his cunning was his instrument. He recollected favours received in his obscurity, and in some instances had gratitude to requite the obligation ; but his avarice and his os- tentation contended for the ascendancy ; their strife was perpetual, and their vic- tories alternate." Shell writes of "the matchless imperturbability of front to which the late Lord Clonmel was indebted for his brazen coronet." His mansion in Harcourt-street, Dublin, now divided into two houses, has given his name to a street opposite. =" 5* '^-i 304

Scully, Deuys, a prominent leader in the cause of Catholic Emancipation, was 468

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bom at Kilfeacle, County of Tipperary, 4th May 1 7 73. He was the eldest surviving son of James Scully, an extensive landed proprietor. In 1 794 he entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, being the first Ca- tholic student admitted for upwards of two hundred years. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1796, and in February 1805, was one of a deputation of Catholic noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, ap- pointed by their co-religionists to wait on Pitt with a petition for Emancipation. Pitt declined to present it to Parliament ; but Fox and Lord Grenville, after an interview with the deputies, presented it on 25th March. Mr. Scully had private interviews with Castlereagh, Fox, Hus- kisson, Cobbett, and other public men, regarding the question he had so much at heart ; and amongst his many corres- pondents on Catholic afi"airs, were Grattan, O'Connell, and Lords Holland, Grenville, Hardwicke, and Donoughmore, He wrote more than one pamphlet on the subject, and joined Edward Hay, secretary of the Catholic Board, in preparing a statement of the cruelties to which the people of Wex- ford had been subjected previous to the Insurrection of 1798. The work by which he is chiefly known is his Statement of the Penal Laws, published in 181 2, a standard authority in regard to those oppressive enactments, and a powerful agent in pre- paring the public mind for Emancipation. This book attracted so much attention that the government of the day, being opposed to Emancipation, prosecuted the publisher, FitzPatrick, for libel on the Lord-Lieutenant, and FitzPatrick was fined £200, and imprisoned for eighteen months. To the prolific pen of Denys Scully may be traced many of the peti- tions and resolutions of the Catholic clergy and laity of his day, as well as many able articles in the Morning Post, and Dubliti Evening Post, bearing on the Catholic question. He lived to see the fruition of his labours in the Emancipation Act of 1829, and died at Kilfeacle, 25th October 1830, aged 56, having been para- lysed for some years previously. He was buried with his ancestors on the Eock of Cashel. [His son, Vincent Scully, for some 3'ears member of Parliament for County Cork, and the author of some valuable treatises on the facilitation of the transfer of land, died on 4th June 1 87 1 . ^^a Sedtilius, a "Scot of Ireland," an eminent divine, orator, and poet, flourished about 490. The following account of him is given in Harris's Ware : — " Sedulius, a Scottish priest, was from his youth up- wards a disciple to Hildebert, Archbishop