Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/80

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76 DERMODY. vants are ordered to observe, every thing relative to the management of the children and other concerns of the house, hath been conducted in the most exact and proper manner.” “That by the extraordinary care of the nurses, excited by the pre miums of the Right Hon. Lady A. D . for retrieving such of the infants as are sent thither weak and sickly, many of their lives have been saved.” “That the thanks of the House be given to the Right Hon. Lady A. D . for her extraordinary bounty and charity, in promoting the present salutary regulations in the foundling side of the workhouse of the city of Dublin; and that Mr. Cranier do acquaint her ladyship therewith.” We cannot learn the exact time of her ladyship's de cease; but her monument is before us, may i t s language be felt, understood, and imitated. THOMAS DERMODY. Often have we had t o lament the union o f talent with vice, but never more, perhaps, than i n the present in stance; for, i f his biographer did not suffer partiality t o guide his plume, never was there any individual whose knowledge was s o intuitive, o r whose profligacy was s o precocious. He was the eldest o f three sons, and was de scended from a respectable family i n the south o f Ireland. Nicholas Dermody his father, was the sixth son o f a sub stantial farmer, and received his education a t Clonmel. At the age o f twenty-two h e went t o Limerick, and from thence went a s tutor t o John Scott, Esq. a gentleman o f large fortune i n the county o f Clare. I n Mr. Scott's family h e remained two years, a t the end o f which period h e married, and settled a s a classical teacher a t Ennis, i n the same county, where his son Thomas, the subject o f the present memoir, was born, o n the 17th o f January, 1775. I t i s well known, that for some years after fixing his abode a t Ennis, he lived i n a state o f tolerable comfort, but from some unknown cause, h e grew uneasy i n his mind, and flew for temporary relief t o that successful de ceiver-wine; and i t i s not unlikely, that from being exposed t o the contagion o f bad example, his son early