174 GARDINER. of feeling, either pleasure or gratitude at his release from captivity; and when Mr. Galwey was taken i l l , h e not only abandoned him, but carried off the little property h e had with him, n o part o f which was ever recovered. WILLIAM GARDINER, Was a n ingenious engraver and a bookseller, possessed o f more literary and bibliographical information than many o f his cotemporaries. He has left a n account o f him self sufficient t o satisfy any reasonable person's curiosity, and which we forbear t o alter, amend, diminish, o r in CreaSe. “I, William Gardiner, was born June 11, 1766, i n Dublin. I am the son o f John Gardiner, who was crier and fac-totum t o Judge Scott, and o f Margaret (Nelson) his wife, a pastry-cook, i n Henry-street. A t a n early age I discovered a n itch for drawing, the first effort o f which was spent i n a n attempt t o immortalise Mr. Kennedy, my mother's foreman; and vanity apart, i t was a t least a s like t o him a s i t was t o any one else. At a proper age I was placed i n the academy o f Mr. S . Darling; there I was, i f I recollect right, esteemed a n ordinary boy; yet was I selected, accord ing t o annual custom, t o represent, o n a rostrum, Cardinal Wolsey, and precious work I dare say I made o f i t . Before I quit school and Mr. Sisson Darling, let me d o him the justice t o say, that h e was the only true Whig schoolmaster I ever heard o f Neither h e nor his ushers assumed any power t o punish the slightest offence. A book was kept i n school, i n which the transgressions o f every week were registered, with the proofs and evi dence t o the same. On Saturday, the master sat a s judge, and twelve o f the senior boys a s jury, and every offender was regularly tried, and dealt with strictly according t o justice. There was no venal judge, whose pas sions became law—there was n o packed jury t o defeat the ends o f truth. I f ever there was a n immaculate court o f justice, that was i t . My mother, the best and most pious o f mothers, our sheet-anchor, dying, my father at tached himself t o Sir James Nugent, o f Donore, county o f Westmeath, a n amiable and excellent gentleman; into his suite I was received. My father, a strictly honest, and excellently tempered man, like myself, had neither ballast nor reflection; consequently, I was, a t ten years old, my own master, At that time my talents began t o expand, and I then, a s I have uniformly through life, found that I could easily make myself a second-rate master o f any acquirement I chose t o pursue
I rode tolerably, I hunted passably, I shot well, I fished well, I played o n the violin, the dulcimer, and the Ger man flute, tolerably
and my fondness for painting strengthened every day, and seemed t o promise s o fairly, that i t was determined t o send me t o the Royal Academy i n Dublin; there I stayed for about three years, and concluded by receiving a silver medal. London's Imperial London'
