Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/234

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FLO
FOL
culated to excite admiration it might be in the sister kingdom — appeared to English ears cold, stiff, and deficient in some of the best recommendations to attention." In 1785 he took a prominent part in the opposition to Orde's commercial regulations, and in 1787 to the proposed commercial treaty with France. In 1790 he introduced a Reform Bill, providing for the addition of 100 members to the House of Commons, to be elected by household suffrage. Both Burke and Fox are said to have approved the measure; and Pitt based his opposition almost exclusively upon the disturbed state of public affairs. There is something pathetic in the speech delivered by Flood on this Bill, shortly before he retired, soured and disappointed, from public life: "I appeal to you whether my conduct has been that of an advocate or an agitator; whether I have often trespassed upon your attention; whether ever, except on a question pf importance; and whether I then wearied you with ostentation or prolixity. I have no fear but that of doing wrong; nor have I a hope on the subject but that of doing some service before I die. The accident of my situation has not made me a partizan; and I never lamented that situation till now that I find myself as unprotected as I fear the people of England will be on this occasion." He now retired to his estate at Farmley, near Kilkenny. While suffering from gout he imprudently exposed himself in helping to extinguish a fire, and took a cold, followed by pleurisy, of which he died, 2nd December 1791, aged 59. His remains were interred in the family vault at Burnchurch, close to Farmley. Of his property of £6,000 or £7,000 per annum, he willed the major portion, on the death of his wife, to Trinity College, for the purchase of Irish manuscripts, and to promote the study of the Irish language. The will was eventually set aside by the plea of the law of mortmain, which barred the claims of Trinity College, and the property went to his descendants, by whom it is now held. Mr. Lecky says: "A few pages of oratory, which probably at best only represent the substance of his speeches, a few youthful poems, a few laboured letters, and a biography so meagre and so unsatisfactory that it scarcely gives us any insight into his character, are all that remain of Henry Flood." Z12 96 133 141 196 233 Flood, Valentine, M.D., a distinguished anatomist and demonstrator, was born in Dublin early in the present century. He was the author of several works on anatomy, published between 1828 and 1839. He was entering on a successful
career as a lecturer and teacher, when, devoting himself unreservedly to practice amongst the poor during the typhus epidemic accompanying the famine, he caught the fever himself, and died at Tubrid, County of Tipperary, i8th October 1847. "5(5)

Foley, Daniel, D.D., an Irish scholar, was born about 1815. He was for some time Professor of Irish in Trinity College, Dublin, and was the compiler of an English-Irish Dictionary. He strenuously opposed the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and lectured in England and Scotland in its defence; and when the question was finally settled, threw himself with equal earnestness into its reorganization. He was latterly rector of Templetouhy, and prebendary of Kilbragh, in the diocese of Cashel. He was an occasional contributor to the University Magazine, Dr. Foley died at Blackrock, Dublin, 7th July 1874, aged about 59, and was buried near by at Grange cemetery. =33

Foley, John Henry, R.A., sculptor, was born in Dublin, 24th May 1818. At the age of thirteen he became a student in the art schools of the Royal Dublin Society, where he obtained first prizes for studies of the human form, for animals, for architecture, and for modelling. Removing to London in 1834, he entered the schools of the Royal Academy, and first appeared as an exhibitor in 1839 with his "Death of Abel," and a figure of "Innocence." In 1840 his group of "Ino and Bacchus" elicited much commendation, and henceforth his success was rapid and striking. He became an A.R.A. in 1849. Two of the statues — those of Hampden and Selden — in the House of Parliament at Westminster, were executed by him. In 1856 he completed in bronze a statue of Lord Hardinge for Calcutta, believed to be the finest equestrian statue up to that time executed in the United Kingdom. In 1858 he modelled "Caractacus" for the London Mansion House, and the same year became a R.A. The overpowering press of work thenceforward imposed upon him prevented the prosecution of his earlier ideal studies. He is best known in Ireland by his statues of Goldsmith and Burke in front of Trinity College, Dublin, and of Father Mathew in Cork; whilst his design for a monument to O'Connell, to be erected in Dublin, was, at the period of his death, nearly completed. Amongst other works from his chisel are the principal statue and five of the emblematical figures belonging to the Albert Memorial, in Hyde Park, London. Foley wrote poetry, and was an accomplished

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