found himself deserted by all his family. He died on the 17th December, 1816. His lordship, says the writer of the notice in the Annual Obituary,' "was one of the most singular men of the age in which he lived. In person he was tall, lank, with a polished forehead, which, on account of baldness, extended to the occiput. His countenance, of late years, was wan and pale, and shrivelled, so as to render him much older in appearance than in reality; while his locks were straight, stiff, and formal, sacred alike from hair-powder and the curling-irons, so as exactly to resemble Sir Harry Vane's portrait during the civil wars. A scorn of dress and of fashion seems to be hereditary; and so plain and simple was his appearance, that had it not been for a certain awkwardness in his gait and manner, in express defiance to the rules laid down by his celebrated kinsman, Philip Lord Chesterfield, he might, like his own father, the second earl, have been refused admission within the bar of the house of lords, accompanied with the remark of 'Good man, stand off; such as you must not come here.' One anecdote, on the score of philosophical oddity, will suffice. Sitting one day in company with his lordship, I perceived that his boots were rounded off in a particular manner, so as to be far more capacious than common. On inquiry, I found it to be his opinion, that, as iron joints work best in oil, so do those also composed of bone, muscle, and flesh!' His son, a fine young man, since dead, soon after confirmed this fact; and in respect to the reasoning, after due reflection, I am yet to learn why the rigidity and stiffness incident to age, and also to the unnatural constraint of a leathern shoe, may not in part be warded off, by means of an oleaginous composition." John Courtenay. BORN A. D. 1741.-died a. D. 1816. THIS gentleman was a native of Ireland, where his family, though of English descent, once possessed immense estates. Viscount Townshend, when viceroy of Ireland, first brought him into political life, by appointing him his secretary, and getting him returned for the borough of Tamworth to the parliament which assembled in October, 1780. He did not, however, identify himself with ministers in his first appearances in the house, although on the resignation of Lord North he accompanied him into retirement. In 1784 he opposed Pitt's Commutation Act,' and, in 1786, the duke of Richmond's plan of internal fortifications. He was one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of Wilberforce in his noble efforts to put down slavery. In 1797 we find him in the minority which supported Mr Grey's motion for parliamentary reform; and in 1805 he joined the same member in his motion relative to the Spanish papers. On the change of administration in 1806 Mr Courtenay became a commissioner of the treasury. He enjoyed office only a few months, after which he retired from public life. His death took place on the 24th of March, 1816. As an orator, Courtenay amused more frequently than he convinced his speeches often displayed a glittering but harmless poignancy which almost amounted to wit. Though a whig he wrote a laudatory poem on Johnson. He was also the author of 'A Series of Poetical Epistles on the Manners, Arts, and Politics of France and Italy; of Philosophical Reflections (addressed to Priestley) on the Revolution in France;' and of a 'Poetical and Philosophical Essay' on the same subject, dedicated to Burke. To use a Johnsonian phrase, he was eminent as a talker. Patrick Duigenan. BORN A. D. 1735.-DIED A. D. 1816. THIS celebrated character is generally supposed to have been the son of an Irish peasant. A Roman Catholic writer, who evidently owes his subject no good-will, says of him: "Dr Duigenan owes his birth to Paddy O'Dewgenan, and Joan his wife, two Catholics, who subsisted by tending cattle on one of the bleakest mountains of the county of Leitrim." He also maintains that he was intended for a priest, but converted by a Protestant clergyman, who kept a school, and raised him to the situation of his assistant. "With his elevation, our hero adopting new views, read his recantation, and changed his real name of O'Dewigenan, which he thought savoured too much of Popery, to the more Protestant appellation of Duigenan. Mr Duigenan, as we must now call him, remained at this school, till by the benevolent aid of his master, he acquired as much learning as enabled him to gain admission as a sizer to Trinity college, Dublin, where, conscious he was fighting pro unguibus, his application was so intense, that, though unassisted by any extraordinary talents, he obtained a scholarship, and afterwards in due time a fellowship, then the highest point of ambition to which he could aspire. Among the Irish Catholics it is universally observed that kiln-dried Protestants, (by which is meant those who have read their recantation from the church of Rome to that of England or Ireland,) are peculiarly intolerant and hostile to the members of their former communion." However obscure his birth may have been, we soon find him taking a distinguished place amongst his fellow-colleagues at Dublin and rewarded with a lay-fellowship, of which only two are allowed by the statutes of that university. When Hely Hutchinson became provost, Duigenan exhibited his dissatisfaction at the appointment by the publication of a Latin poem entitled 'Lachrymæ Academicæ,' and immediately withdrawing from under his jurisdiction. He successively published a series of satirical pieces levelled against the provost, for which he was called to account by one of Hutchinson's admirers. Duigenan accepted the challenge sent him, but terrified his adversary into a compromise by appearing on the field armed with a huge blunderbuss with which he threatened to blow him to pieces. In 1785 he was appointed king's advocate-general and a judge in the Prerogative court. In 1790 he was returned to the Irish parliament. "His adherence to the old high church principle," says one of his contemporaries, "finally procured him a seat in parliament, when the increasing liberality of public feeling made it likely that those prin ciples might need an advocate to support them. Sent to the senate by clerical influence, Dr Duigenan has never forgotten what he owes to his patrons, nor has he at any time omitted an occasion of inculcating on the house and the public the virtues, the poverty, and the loyalty of the clergy, or of holding out popery and sectarists as the enemies of God and of religion, of moral duty and of good government. It is not only against papists and sectarists, as such, that the caustic eloquence of Dr Duigenan is directed; the Irish, as distinguished from the British settler and their descendants in Ireland, are equally, at times, the smarting victims of his tongue; even a name sounding like that of an Irishman, or an Irish Catholic, furnishes a theme for the parliamentary invectives of the learned doctor. The unfortunate name of Keogh, which belonged to a man some time active in the cause of emancipation and reform, has more than once been pronounced by Dr Patrick Duigenan in a manner, and a tone, which, while it entertained the senate, spoke his contempt and scorn for Irish gutturals. It would be doing great injustice to this learned gentleman to insinuate that he is an indolent senator, except when the concerns of the church call for his exertions; the fact is, he is one of the most zealous supporters of the Irish administration, and the most devoted enemy of sedition in every form; but it must be acknowledged that his powers are most happily raised when the interests of the clergy combine with the safety of the state, and when he labours at once for God and for his country. Hence it is that he calls forth his finest figures, and flames with most heat, when he opposes such a man as Mr Grattan, who so mistakingly would engraft religious freedom on civil liberty. Indeed, against such men as Mr Grattan, the doctor delights to pitt himself. Even when that gentleman had retired from parliament, his address to his constituents, and some other trifles which appeared in public under his name, excited the attention, and roused the fire of the doctor. He attacked them in a pamphlet so much in the doctor's strong way, so vehement, we do not say so scurrilous and so abusive, that Mr Grattan thought himself called upon to give the gentleman, who had taken so much offence at him, some other way of obtaining satisfaction than mere writing would afford him; he accordingly left London, went to Dublin, and after publishing an advertisement in most of the London and Dublin papers, in which he applied the strongest epithets of contempt to the doctor's publication, gave notice, that for a certain number of days, in the advertisement mentioned, he should be found at Keams's hotel, in Kildare-street. The doctor, however, on this occasion, showed himself a well-disposed subject, who could not easily be persuaded to break the peace: he exerted no sagacity in finding out Mr Grattan's meaning, and Mr G. knowing, perhaps, the danger of giving an ecclesiastical judge a more explicit declaration of it, returned after some time to England. It is remarkable, that Dr Duigenan is at present a widower. His wife was a very rigid Catholic; and notwithstanding the vehemence of his declaration against popery, with his strong opposition to every popish claim, he kept constantly, during his wife's life, a Catholic priest in his house, as her confessor and chaplain. He is still a healthy, strong man, though in declining years: whether he will a second time connect himself with the abominations of Babylon, is a matter of curious speculation." He was the first member who ventured to propose a union with Great Britain. At the time of his death, which happened on the 11th of April, 1816, he was an Irish privy-counsellor; vicar-general of the metropolitan court of Armagh, of the dioceses of Meath and Elphin, and of the consistorial court of Dublin; judge of the prerogative court; king's advocate-general of the high court of admiralty; professor of civil law in the university of Dublin, and LL. D. He was a man of very considerable powers, but violent to an extreme in all his actions, and not without reason suspected of sycophancy to ministers. Sir Roger Curtis. BORN A. D. 1750. DIED A. D. 1816. THIS gallant admiral was born at Downton in Wilts, where his father was an opulent farmer. He early evinced a decided predilection for the sea, and was allowed to gratify his inclination. He entered the service under Captain, afterwards Admiral, Barrington, as a midshipman on board the Venus. In 1771 he became a lieutenant, and in 1776 was appointed commander of the Senegal sloop of war. His services on the North American station recommended him to the notice of Admiral Lord Howe, who promoted him to the rank of post-captain, in which capacity he materially contributed to the reduction of New York, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. In 1781 he greatly distinguished himself by his able service in throwing supplies into Gibraltar, and in the following year he contributed greatly to the gallant defence of that place made by Governor Elliot against the Spanish and French forces, as appears from the following extract from the governor's despatches: "The Spanish squadron having gone to the eastward of the rock, and formed in a line, (the admiral leading,) came before the batteries of Europa, and under a very slow sail, commenced a fire from all their guns until the last ship had passed. They repeated their manœuvre at two o'clock the following morning, and again in the forenoon of the same day. These successive cannonades did not any way damage the works. Some of the leading ships having been pretty frequently struck by our shot, they afterwards kept at a greater distance. Two Spanish ships went early in that morning to Algeziras to repair, as we imagine. All the batteries at Europa were manned by the marine brigade encamped there, with a small proportion of artillerists. The guns were extremely well laid and pointed; the whole under the immediate command of Brigadier Curtis. But the 13th of September was the epoch fixed upon for the grand attack, and as many of the Spanish vessels were deemed indestructible by fire, in consequence of a new invention by General D'Arçon, a French engineer, it was expected that a serious impression would be made. The following is the total amount of the combined force brought into action upon the present memorable occasion:-1. Spanish ships of three decks, 2;-2. Of the line, 28;— 3. French ships of three decks, 5;-4. Of the line, 9;-5. Spanish ships of from fifty to sixty guns, 3;-6. Battering ships, 10;-7. Floating battery, 1;8. Bomb ketches, 5. In addition to these 63 sail, are to be included an immense flotilla consisting of frigates, xebecs, gun and mortar boats, together with 300 large shallops to carry troops; so that, in the event of the fire of the garrison being silenced, a landing was to have been attempted. About eight o'clock in the morning the Spanish battering ships got under weigh, and by ten they were all placed in their respective stations. From the ten battering ships alone was opened a tremendous fire, from two hundred and twelve twenty-six pounders, while the Spanish lines, at the same time, played incessantly on the rock with heavy artillery and mortars. The following interesting account cannot fail of affording complete satisfaction: The eyes of all Europe had long been turned on this famous siege, and the preparations latterly made by the allied forces of France and Spain, were of such a magnitude, that it was generally supposed victory must at length have crowned their persevering efforts; the princes of the blood royal of France, some of the principal nobility of Spain, and many distinguished military officers had joined the besieging army, and, together with an immense crowd of spectators, were anxious witnesses of the attack; the combined powers had formed the most sanguine expectations of success fro a their battering-ships deemed perfect in design, completed by dint prodigious labour, and unlimited profusion of expense, and, by common report, pronounced invincible. The English batteries opened as the enemy came before them, and an awful and tremendous fire was kept up on both sides; the Spanish floating batteries were supported by the cannon and mortars in their lines and approaches, and two bomb ketches, which were brought forward, continued to throw shells into the garrison during the attack. Red-hot shot were sent with such precision from the garrison, that in the afternoon the smoke was seen to issue from the upper part of the Spanish admiral's and some other ships, and men were perceived ineffectually labouring to extinguish the fire by the use of fire-engines. The fire from the garrison was kept up briskly, and that of the enemy gradually decreased. About seven in the evening they fired only from a few guns, and that only at intervals. At midnight the admiral's ship was plainly discovered to be on fire, and an hour after she was completely in flames: eight more of the Spanish ships took fire in succession. Confusion was now evident among them, and the numerous rockets thrown up from each ship was a demonstration of the greatness of their distress; their signals were answered from the fleet, and they immediately sent launches and boats of different descriptions to take out the men; the fire from the Spanish lines, however, did not slacken, and the ships not completely in flames still sent a few shot at intervals. At this critical period Captain Curtis gave proof of his great skill and judgment; he advanced with the whole division of gun-boats, (twelve in number,) each carrying a twenty-four or eighteen pounder, and formed them so as to flank the line of the enemy's battering ships, while they were annoyed by an excessive heavy and well-directed fire from the garrison. The fire from the gun-boats was exceedingly well-directed, and kept up with great vigour; it effectually prevented the enemy from approaching to the assistance of their ships. General Elliot, in his public letter, observes, speaking of this manoeuvre, that "the enemy's daring attempt at sea was effectually defeated by the constant and well-supported fire from the batteries; but the well-timed, judicious, and spirited attack made by Brigadier Curtis, |