RYA
Quakers in Ireland, from 1653 to 1700. . . Compiled hy Thomas Wright, Re- vised, Enlarged, and Continued to iJSi, Dublin, 1 75 1. This is a valuable and comprehensive book, and embodies much information that but for Rutty's care might have been lost to posterity. (2) The Mineral Waters of Ireland, Dublin, 1757. He was severely taken to task by Dr. Lucas for some of the statements in this work. (3) The Weather and /Seasons in Dublin for Forty Fears, London, 1770. (4) Natural History of the County of Dub- lin, 2 vols., Dublin, 1772. (5) The labour of his life was a book, now very scarce, wi'itten in Latin, and printed and pub- lished at Rotterdam in 1775 — Materia Medica, Antigua etNova, Opus XL. Anno- rum — a quarto of 560 pages. (6) Perhaps Dr. Rutty is better known by his Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies than by any other of his works. It recounts his spiritual conflicts, backslidinga,and progresses, from September 1753, to December 1774, not many weeks before his death. In accord- ance with the provisions of his will, it was printed without alteration from his manuscript. Johnson "laughed heartily at this good Quaker's self-condemning minuteness." Boswell says the volumes " exhibited in the simplicity of his heart, a minute and honest register of the state of his mind ; which, though frequently laugh- able enough, was not more so than the history of many men would be, if recorded with equal fairness." Dr. Rutty died in Dublin, 26th April 1775, aged yj, and was interred in the Friends' buryiug- ground, Dublin, where the College of Surgeons now stands. He resided for many years before his death on the drawing-room floor of the house at the eastern comer of Boot-lane and Mary's- lane, for which he paid ^10 per annum.
"5(3)
Ryan, Richard, probably an Irish- man, son of a London bookseller, was born in 1796. He was the author of some works of but moderate reputation, and assisted in several literary undertakings of other persons. His Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland, 2 vols., London, 1821, contains some information not attainable elsewhere, and is occasionally referred to in this Compendium. There are in it 326 notices. The early part is much over- balanced, 602 out of 1,136 pages being de- voted to lives coming under A, B, C, and D. He also wrote Ballads on the Fictions of the Ancient Irish, 1822, and Poetry and Poets, 3 vols., 1826, the latter said to be " very gossipy and pleasant reading." Mr. Ryan died in 1849. '^ 34'
SAI
Ryyes, Elizabeth, an authoress, was born in Ireland about the middle of the 1 8th century. Deprived of her birth-right in Ireland " by the chicanery of the law," most of her life appears to have been passed in London. In 1777 she published a volume of poems ; in a small book, The Hermit of Snowdon, she traced her own sorrows ; for some time she conducted the historical department of the Annual Register ; and she made several transla- tions from the French, amongst the rest De la Croix's Review of the Constitutiom, in two large volumes, with painstaking notes. One of her comedies. The Debt of Honour, was warmly approved at the time. Isaac Disraeli gives a touching account of her struggles to win an honour- able livelihood : " Even in her poverty her native benevolence could make her generous ; for she has deprived herself of her meal to provide with one an un- happy family dwelling under the same roof. . . The character of Eliza Ry ves was rather tender and melancholy, than brilliant and gay ; and, like the bruised perfume— breathing sweetness when broken into pieces. . . Not beautiful nor in- teresting in her person, but with a mind of fortitude, susceptible of all the delicacy of feminine softness, and virtuous amid her despair."'°3t g^g ^g^j j^ London, April 1797. ^■»'t io3t 146
St. Lawrence, Sir Armoric, the
progenitor of the present Earl of Howth, a knight, who, about 1177, accompanied his brother-in-law and sworn companion, Sir John de Courcy, in an expedition to the Irish shores. After a bloody battle at the " bridge of Ivora," near Howth, in which several of his relatives were killed, he won the district that has ever since remained in his family. He af terwai'ds ac- companied De Courcy on his northern ex- peditions. In 1 1 89, when St. Lawrence, with 30 knights and 200 footmen, was absent on an incursion into Connaught, news reached him that his friend was sorely pressed by the Irish, and he hastened to join him. His band was intercepted by an overwhelming force under O'Conor, King of Connaught. Escape was impossible, unless the knights were wUling to abandon the footmen. Lodge gives us the words of a stirring appeal of St. Lawrence to his companions : " Who will, may save his life by flight on horseback, if he can ; but assuredly my heart will not Bufier me to leave these my poor friends in their neces- sity. . . Myheart to my brother, Sir John Courcy and wife ; my force, might, pain, and good will to my poor friends and fellows 461
