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bodying severe strictures on the Beres- ford family ; and, finding that a bill had been found against him for communicating with the "Defenders" in the County of Louth, with a view to induce them to join the United Irishmen, he thought it wise to fly to America. He established himself at Wilmington, Delaware, until 1798, when the progress of events in Ire- land induced him to proceed to France. He was there given the provisional rank of general, and entrusted with the com- mand of a small body of Irish refugees intended to form the nucleus of an army in Ireland. They sailed in the frigate Anacreon, and on i6th September landed on the island of Aran, off the coast of Donegal, where they heard of Humbert's de- feat at Balliuamuck eight days previously. They almost immediately re-embarked, after scattering a few bombastic proclama- tions calling upon Irishmen " to strike from their blood-cemented thrones the mur- derers of your friends," and to " wage a war of extermination against your oppres- sors." To avoid British cruisers, the A na- creon sailed north, and landed Tandy and his companions in Norway. Thence he endeavoured to make his way to France, but was arrested at Hamburg through the influence of the Czar, detained in prison for some years, and ultimately delivered to the British authorities. He was tried in Dublin for complicity in the Insurrec- tion of 1798, but was acquitted on a point of law. He was then sent to Lifford, and on 7th April 1801 was arraigned for his part in the attempted invasion, and the pro- clamations. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to death. Two months before the trial Lord Cornwallis had interceded with the Ministry in London on his behalf ; and, in Cornwallis's own words, " considering the incapacity of this old man to do fur- ther mischief, the mode by which he came into our hands, his long subsequent con- finement, and, lastly, the streams of blood which have flowed in this island for these last three years," his life was spared, on condition of his leaving the country for ever. He spent the remainder of his days at Bordeaux, where he died in the latter part of 1803, aged 63. His name occu- pies a pi'ominent place in the government despatches of the time. Barrington says of Napper Tandy : " His person was un- gracious ; his language neither eloquent nor ai'gumentative ; his address neither graceful nor impressive ; but he was sin- cere and persevering, and though in many instances erroneous and violent, he was considered to be honest. His private cha- racter furnished no ground to doubt the
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integrity of his public one ; and, like many of those persons who occasionally spring up in revolutionary periods, he ac- quired celebrity without being able to account for it, and possessed influence, without rank or capacity." " 7= s? 330
Tate, Nahum, Poet Laureate to Wil- liam III., was born in Dublin about 1652. [His father, Faithful Teate, D.D., minister of St. Werburgh's, Dublin, was the author of Sermons, and minor works, published between 1655 and 1672.] Soon after tak- ing his degree at Trinity College, Dublin, Nahum Tate removed to England, where he resided the rest of his life. In 1692 he was appointed Poet Laureate. According to Harris's Ware, " he was a man of learn- ing, had a winning, affable behaviour, and a good share of wit." Conjointly with Dr. Brady, he wrote a metrical version of th'e Psalms, which was until lately in general use by the Established Church. The poet Dryden selected him to continue his .46- salom and Achitophel. Tate spent the latter part of his life in reduced circum- stances, and died a prisoner for debt in London, 6th -^ August 171 5. His poetry excelled rather in quantity than quality, and his name is not even included iu Johnson's Lives of the Poets. Charles Knight says : " There is an English word- joiner — author we will not call him — who has had the temerity to accomplish two things, either of which would have been enough to have conferred upon him a bad immortality. Nahum Tate has suc- ceeded, to an extent which defies all com- petition, in degrading the Psalms of David and the Lear of Shakspere to the condi- tion of being tolerated, and perhaps even admired, by the most dull, gross, and anti- poetical capacity. These were not easy tasks ; but Nahum Tate has enjoyed more than a century of honour for his labours, and his new version of the Psalms are still sung on (like the shepherd in Arcadia piped) as if they would never be old, and his Lear was the Lear of the playhouse at the time of the publication of our first edition, with one solitary exception of a modern heresy in favour of Shakspere." 16 254(3) 339
Taylor, George, one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence, was born in Ireland in 17 16. At an early age he was placed with a physician to study medicine, but not liking the profes- sion he ran away from home without con- sulting his friends. Finding a vessel ready to sail for Philadelphia, he entered as a " redemptioner " — one who sailed on the chance of having his passage paid at the port of arrival by some person to whom
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