Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/436

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422
french protestant exiles.

1773, died 1836), unmarried; he was a scholar and a gentleman, an ornament to society, a conspicuous loyalist, and also an advocate for the removal of the political disabilities of Roman Catholics. The second son, Elias Tardy, M.D. (born 1777, died 1843), after serving in the Navy, obtained through his merits a lucrative practice in London. Dr. Tardy, having anticipated the discoveries of modern science regarding the treatment of the insane, was persuaded to found a private asylum, of which the Duke of Kent was patron; but he thus lost £10,000, therefore emigrating to Trinidad he made another fortune there. The third son, James Tardy, Esq. (born 1781, died 1835), satisfied with his patrimony, devoted his life to the study of natural history, and to the encouragement of that study; and he has been justly styled “the Father of Irish Natural History.” Dr. Drummond in his “Thoughts on the Study of Natural History,” published in 1820, speaks of it as a neglected study, yet congratulates Ireland on possessing a few distinguished naturalists, one of whom, “James Tardy, Esq., of Dublin, to a knowledge in every department of the science unites an enthusiastic zeal for entomological enquiry.” In entomology he discovered several new species, one of which received the name of Cossonus Tardii. His cabinet of insects is now in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin. James Tardy, Esq., had married, in 1813, Mary Anne, daughter of James Johnston, Esq., of Rockfield, in the parish of Aughnamullen, a scion of the noble house of Annandale, and his son and successor is the Rev. Elias Tardy, whom he himself educated at home, and who graduated as BA. of the University of Dublin. This gentleman, being curate of East Farleigh, in Kent, was presented by Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst to the Vicarage of Grinton, in Yorkshire, which he resigned in 1850 on being preferred by the late Lord Primate (Beresford) to the Rectory of Aughnamullen in County Monaghan, a parish with which his mother’s family were connected for several centuries, and in which his monument, erected in his lifetime, is the new and handsome Parish Church. The Rev. Elias Tardy, who is a Justice of the Peace for the county, married, in 1837, Sarah, daughter of Edmund Charles Cotterill, Esq., of the Grove, Essex, and has had two sons, James Francis Barham (born 1841 ) and Charles Joseph Hill (born 1849) — also two daughters, Elizabeth Mary (died 1863) and Lucretia Anne. He is the namesake of his good and gallant grandfather, and is also, like him, a Trustee of the Dublin Huguenots’ Cemetery.

It is interesting to observe how the refugees have intertwined among the old families of their adopted country. The Tardy family furnishes an illustration. James Tardy, Esq., the refugee’s son who founded a family, married, in 1813, Mary Anne, daughter of James Johnston, Esq., by Jane Lucretia Fisher, his wife, a lady descended from the Lord Primate, Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh, by the Lady Lucretia Hyde (daughter of the first Earl of Clarendon, sister of Anne, the first consort of James II., and aunt of Queen Anne). To Lady Lucretia Marsh Queen Anne bequeathed a valuable oak cabinet, having on its doors the arms of the family of Hyde, surmounted by the Earl’s coronet, finely blazoned, and bearing the date 1660. This precious relic was brought by the above-named Mrs. Tardy into her husband’s possession; and as an heirloom from the great statesman and historian, it is still preserved and justly valued by the Rev. Elias Tardy.



Chapter XXIII.

OFFSPRING OF THE REFUGEES AMONG THE CLERGY.

Bishop Chenevix. — The name of Chenevix is pre-eminent in Huguenot martyrology, through the glorious constancy of Monsieur Paul Chenevix d’Eply. Quick says of him, “Monsieur Chenevix was a venerable and ancient gentleman, a person of eminent prudence, illustrious for learning and godliness, and councillor to the king in the court of Metz. He persisted faithful to death. He died, and they dragged most inhumanly his dead carcase upon a hurdle and buried it in a dunghill. He hath a brother, a very reverend minister of the Gospel, refugeed in this city of London.” A letter dated Metz, 2d October 1686, says:—

“Poor Monsieur de Chenevix lies very ill. The curate of the parish was with him to oblige him to confession, but he positively told him that he would not confess himself to any