United Kingdom. On 23 July 1803, while driving with his daughter and a nephew from his country residence to Dublin Castle on the night of the Emmet insurrection, Wolfe’s carriage was stopped in Thomas Street by the rebels, and the chief justice and his nephew were barbarously murdered. It was said that Wolfe was mistaken by his murderers for Carleton, the chief justice of the common pleas, a judge of much sterner character. Wolfe’s tenure of his high judicial office was brief and unmarked by any exceptional qualities, but his humanity and moderation were conspicuous. His conduct in relation to the trial and conviction of Wolfe Tone by court-martial is well known, and he displayed consistently the dignity and respect for law which breathe in his dying words, on hearing a desire expressed for instant retribution on his assailants: ‘ Murder must be punished; but let no man suffer for my death but by the laws of my country.’
Wolfe married Ann, daughter of William Ruxton of Ardee, co. Louth. A portrait of Wolfe is in the dining-hall of Trinity College, Dublin. He was elected a vice-chancellor of Dublin University in 1803.
[Webb’s Compendium; Wills’s Illustrious Irishmen; Madden’s United Irishmen; Maxwell’s Irish Rebellion; Barrington’s Personal Sketches; Wolfe Tone’s Autobiography, i. 120; Todd’s Graduates of Dublin University; Burke’s Extinct Peerages; Smyth’s Law Officers of Ireland; Official Returns of Members of Parliament, ii. 680, 684. 688.]
WOLFE, CHARLES (1791–1823), poet, was born at Blackhall, co. Kildare, on 14 Dec. 1791. He was one of a family of eleven children and the youngest of eight sons of Theobald Wolfe of Blackhall, first cousin to Arthur Wolfe, first viscount Kilworden [q. v.] Theobald Wolfe died when his son was but eight years old, and the poet was brought up in England by his mother, Frances, daughter of Rev. Peter Lombard, and was educated first at Bath, and afterwards at the Abbey high school, Winchester. In 1809 he matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a scholarship in 1812, and graduated B.A. in 1814; and it is within the eight years between his entrance at the university and his ordination in 1817 that the period of his poetical activity is almost exclusively comprised. He also attained great distinction in the college historical society. It was in competition for the medals of this society that Wolfe's talent for versification was first employed, and his poem on ‘Patriotism,’ and a more important one, ‘Jugurtha,’ written for the vice-chancellor's prize, show considerable merit. Though his academic career was distinguished, Wolfe declined to read for a fellowship, because he was unwilling to pledge himself to celibacy. In November 1817 he took orders, being ordained for the curacy of Ballyclog, co. Tyrone, which after a few weeks he exchanged for the more important one of Donoughmore, in co. Down. Here he laboured assiduously and successfully for three years; but the disappointment at the rejection of his addresses by the lady for whose sake he had abandoned the prospect of an academic career, acting on a constitution never robust, quickly sowed the seeds of consumption. In 1821 he was compelled to abandon his work. After two years passed in a vain quest of health he removed to the Cove of Cork, where he died, aged 31, on 21 Feb. 1823. He was buried in the ruined church of Clonmel outside the Cove of Cork.
Wolfe is remembered almost solely for his famous lines on the burial of Sir John Moore. Their origin, and the many spurious claims put forward to their authorship, form an interesting chapter in literary history. Originally published in the ‘Newry Telegraph’ on 19 April 1817, they had been for many years forgotten when the praises bestowed on them by Byron in January 1822—‘such an ode as only Campbell could have written,’ as reported by Medwin in his ‘Conversations’ (ed. 1824, pp. 164–6)—drew general attention to the elegy. Byron's regretful repudiation of their authorship, and Medwin's hints that the stanzas were really by his hero, brought forward friends to justify Wolfe's title and establish his fame. It was clearly proved that the lines were written in 1816 in the rooms of Samuel O'Sullivan, a college friend, their suggestion being immediately due to Wolfe's perusal of Southey's account in the ‘Edinburgh Annual Register’ of Sir John Moore's death. After being handed about among Wolfe's college friends the lines were, through the Rev. Mark Perrin, published in the ‘Newry Telegraph,’ whence they were transferred to various journals, and printed in ‘Blackwood's Magazine’ in June 1817 (i. 277). Notwithstanding O'Sullivan's testimony, confirmed by that of other friends, several fictitious claims to the authorship of the poem were put forward. A curious account of one of them, which ultimately proved to be a hoax, may be found in Richardson's ‘Borderer's Table Book,’ vol. vii. In 1841 the claim of one Macintosh, a parish schoolmaster, was put forward in the ‘Edinburgh Advertiser’ and strongly supported. On this occasion the indignant remonstrances of Wolfe's friends were reinforced by the
