career, and having taken orders and married, was in 1819 collated to the rectory of Balla, in Connemara. There he occupied his leisure time in authorship. His Stories of Waterloo (1829) and Wild Sports of the West (1833) were received with favour by the public, and between 1829 and 1848, a series of works (numbered up to twenty by Allibone) flowed from his pen. Most of them, whether truth or fiction, deal with military matters. His Life of Wellington (3 vols. 1839-'41) was declared at the time of its publication to have "no rival among similar publications of the day." Maxwell is thus spoken of in the University Magazine: "If a brilliant fancy, a warm imagination, deep knowledge of the world, consummate insight into character, constitute a high order of intellectual gift, then he is no common man. Uniting with the sparkling wit of his native country the caustic humours and dry sarcasms of the Scotch, with whom he is connected with the strong ties of kindred, yet his pre-eminent characteristic is that sunshiny temperament which sparkles through every page of his writings." His History of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1798, illustrated by Cruikshank, and published in 1845, meant probably as a corrective to Madden's Lives of the United Irishmen, is a solid contribution to the history of the period of the Insurrection and Union. He was a frequent contributor to Bentley's Miscellany and the University Magazine. Cotton, who states that he was deprived of his living for non-residence in 1844, is probably mistaken in saying he was once a captain in the army. Notwithstanding his popularity and success, he never made provision for the future; and after the failure of his health and the exhaustion of his spirits, he is said to have passed his days in penury. He died at Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, 29th December 1850, aged 55. 16 116(18) 146
Meagher, Thomas Francis, Irish nationalist and Brigadier-General in the United States service, was born in Waterford, where his father was a respectable merchant, 3rd August 1823. He was educated by the Jesuit fathers at Clongowes and Stonyhurst, and entered upon the world in 1843 with a reputation for rare talents and great oratorical powers. He early became a zealous Repealer, and with O'Brien, Mitchel, Davis, and others, joined the Young Ireland party. His fiery and impassioned eloquence stimulated the people to hope for a restoration of their national rights by force of arms. In the spring of 1848 O'Brien and Meagher were sent as a deputation to France to congratulate the French people on the establishment of the Republic. On their return they were received by an enthusiastic meeting, and Meagher presented to the citizens of Dublin, with glowing words, an Irish tricolor flag—green, white, and orange. In May he was brought up for trial before the Queen's Bench in Dublin, "for exciting hatred and contempt against the Queen, and inciting the people to rise in rebellion." On the 16th the jury disagreed, as in W. Smith O'Brien's trial on the same occasion on a similar charge. The Habeas Corpus Suspension and Treason-Felony Acts having been passed, in July, Smith O'Brien, Meagher, Dillon, and a few others, unsupplied with arms or ammunition, and almost without plan of operations, took the field in Tipperary. The struggle was short and decisive. Meagher was one of those arrested and, with MacManus and O'Brien, was tried at Clonmel for high treason, found guilty, and on 23rd October sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The capital sentence was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for life. On 29th July 1849, he was, with his friends O'Brien and MacManus, sent to Tasmania, where he was allowed considerable liberty, and married the daughter of a squatter. Early in 1852 he made his escape from the colony, and landed in New York in the latter part of May. He was tendered a public reception, which he declined to accept, because of his "country remaining in sorrow and subjection," and so many of his companions being still in confinement. Meagher soon became a distinguished popular lecturer, and in September 1855, after preliminary study, was admitted to practise at the Bar of New York. Shortly afterwards he undertook an exploring expedition to Central America, and gave his experiences in a series of lectures, afterwards published in Harper's Magazine. He had already, in 1852, published a volume of his Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland. On the secession of the Southern States in 1861, he threw himself with ardour into the support of the Union, and in a series of letters to the Dublin Nation endeavoured to impress his view of the case upon his fellow-countrymen, in opposition to Mitchel and other Irishmen who upheld the Confederates. He raised a company of zouaves for the 69th New York Regiment, and after the battle of Bull Run formed an Irish Brigade. He was untiring in the cause of the Union: "Never," he declared, "never, I repeat it, was there a cause more sacred, nor one more great, nor
