LAWSON. 371 of a man so supereminently distinguished by his merits, while church patronage was lavished upon contemporaries so: much his, inferiors, and Irish mitres were bestowed upon English clergymen, the favourites of British minis ters, or the former tutors or chaplains of English peers, whose names and abilities were utterly unknown in the land of their preferment. “If,” said Mr. Grattan, “Mr. Kirwan had been an English blockhead, he might have been long ere now an Irish bishop; but, unfortunately for him, he is an Irishman, and the original sin of his birth will never be forgiven him.” In some short time after this, during the viceroyalty of Marquis Cornwallis, Mr. Kirwan was promoted to the vacant deanery of Killala, worth about 400l. a-year; for which, as pluralities became objectionable, he relinquished his living of St. Nicholas without. Here terminated his hopes of further preferment, with the fatigues of his mission. His health had been long declining, and ex hausted by arduous labours, he died on the 27th October, 1805, leaving a widow with two sons and two daughters. His late Majesty was pleased to confer a pension of 300l. a-year for life on the widow, with reversion to her daughters. o In 1814, appeared in print a volume of his sermons, published for the benefit of his sons. They are elegant specimens of his compositions, and abound with splendid and pathetic passages; but still they are only Parian studies of his living eloquence, and want the Promethean fire of the orator himself, to give us a true representation of his powers. He was a man of acute sensibility, amiable, humane, and beneficent, an ornament to his profession, and an honour to his country. DR. JOHN LAWSON, D. D. Was born about 1712, at Ornagh, in the county of Tyrone, of which parish his father was curate. He early discovered a taste for classical literature and belles lettres,
