plains, be owing to a petty jury; for we see other countries, where this mode of trial does not subsist, at least as faithless and wicked as our own.

Soon after this pamphlet was published in Dublin, the Attorney-general, stopping his carriage at the printer's, inquired who the author of it was? The woman, as she was desired, refused to tell. "Well," he said, "give my compliments to the author, and inform him from me, that I do not think there is virtue enough in the people of this country ever to put his scheme into practice."

Mr. Skelton had, I understand, a ready turn at composition, having often composed, as he told me, a long sermon in twelve hours, which was no ordinary day's work. To write a sermon well is possibly more difficult, than to compose equally well any other piece of prose of the same length. The biographer and historian have materials provided for them; their business then is only to arrange with skill, and express with perspicuity. The sermon writer, beside this, must find out materials for himself. He must therefore exercise his invention, no easy employment, which the others need not. While he is thus employed, he must use also his judgment, in choosing or rejecting, amidst the wild variety which his imagination presents. He must examine into the different motives and actions of men, restrain their unruly appetites by shewing the consequence of indulgence, set before them their real interests, convince by powerful arguments, and find out, if it be possible, the avenue to their hearts. He must fight against the passions and prejudices of the human race; he must strive to make a man war with himself, and tear out from his breast every corrupt desire. A biographical or historical composition, though but indifferently executed, often engages the attention of the reader by the facts it contains; but in sermons, or works of morality, or disputation, which consist more of arguments than of facts, the reader's attention must be secured chiefly by the ability of the composer.

His fame, as a preacher and a writer, his extraordinary care as an instructor of a parish, and his wonderful acts of charity and goodness, began, about the year 1737, to be the subject of conversation, not only in the diocess of Clogher, and other parts of the North, but also in the metropolis.

He had then some reason to expect from his bishop a degree of attention suitable to his deserts. But here he was unhappily disappointed. He saw living after living given away; but there was no notice taken of him. The bishop of Clogher, Dr. Sterne, usually sent for him, after he had bestowed a good preferment upon another, and gave him ten guineas, which Mr. Skelton frequently made a present of to a Mr. Arbuthnot, a poor cast-off curate, who was unable to serve through age and infirmity. He never asked, he said, his lordship for any thing, but he thought his works should speak for him. "Men of real merit," he remarked, "are always modest and backward, but blockheads tease bishops, and give them no peace, till they get something: they therefore usually prefer them to get rid of them."

Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirudo.

About the year 1738, his first rector, the Hon. Francis Hamilton, left Monaghan, on obtaining a benefice in the same county, and the living of Dunleer. A Mr. Douglas then got Monaghan by exchange, a man of a weak constitution, whose death, it was expected, would soon make a vacancy.

Dr. Sterne, the bishop of Clogher, gave, it appears, but little encouragement to literature. Mr. Skelton said, that he promised some clergyman in his diocess a living, upon condition of his writing a treatise to prove, that man could scarce know more of his duty than a brute without the assistance of revelation. The clergyman, who, I believe, never wrote the piece, advised Skelton to do it as he had a ready pen; but Skelton, though his opinions coincided with the bishop's, having no positive offer, thought it best not to volunteer himself in the cause. He had little or no expectations from his lordship; the preferments were given away to persons whose qualifications were different from his. Of this neglect he could not be insensible; for a man of learning and abilities must surely be offended to see the dull and illiterate placed over his head in a literary profession. He resolved therefore to quit a diocess, where his merits were overlooked, as soon as an opportunity offered. This happened in a short time.

Dr. Delany, who, as I mentioned before, was his tutor at

college, perceiving his unpleasant situation in the diocess of Clogher, procured for him an appointment to the cure of St. Werburgh's, in Dublin. This was extremely agreeable to Mr. Skelton, because he would then have a wide field to display his eloquence, which before was confined within too narrow a compass. His friend, Dr. Delany, could also more conveniently recommend him there, on account of his abilities, to the notice of the great. These reasons struck Mr. Skelton very forcibly, and inclined him to go to St. Werburgh's. He had then, he said, a fair opportunity of speedy promotion, if he had embraced it, but unhappily he did not. Who can foresee every instance of human perfidy? When he was just on the point of quitting the diocess of Clogher, the bishop perceiving it would be to his discredit, that a person of such abilities should leave his diocess for want of due encouragement, and influenced also by another motive, which I shall mention afterward, sent a favourite clergyman to him with a message to this purpose, "that if he stayed in his diocess, he would give him the first living that should fall." Skelton, depending on his lordship's word (for what should be more sacred than the promise of a bishop?) informed his friend Dr. Delany, that he would not take the cure of Werburgh's, but that he would continue in the diocess of Clogher, on the bishop's promise of the first vacant living. Accordingly, the cure of Werburgh's was otherwise disposed of. Skelton's only dependance now was upon the bishop of Clogher, who was bound by every tie of honour to provide for him. But his notions of honour were not over nice. I am sorry that my regard to truth obliges me to declare, that his lordship broke his word. The first living that fell was that of Monaghan (in 1740), where Mr. Skelton was curate, and his lordship, disregarding his promise, gave it to his nephew Mr. Hawkshaw, a young gentleman who had lately entered into orders.

When he bestowed the preferment on his nephew, he said to him, “I give you now a living worth three hundred a year, and have kept the best curate in the diocess for you, who was going to leave it; be sure take his advice, and follow his directions, for he is a man of worth and sense."

Hence it appears, that his lordship made his promise with a fixed determination to break it. He expected from Mr. Douglas's state of health that the living of Monaghan would soon be vacant, and he was resolved in his mind to give it to his nephew, but he wished to have Skelton to assist him, and feared lest his leaving the diocess in displeasure, might bring censure on himself; he therefore fixed on the scheme of sending a divine with a promise which he never intended to perform. Every circumstance relative to this affair I mention upon the authority of Mr. Skelton himself, from whom I have heard it above twenty times. Mr. Hawkshaw, who is still alive, is a gentleman of too much honour to deny it. Yet it is but justice to own, that no blame can be laid to him. Possibly he did not know of the bishop's engagement with Mr. Skelton; or if he did, where is the man that in such a case would refuse a good living when it is offered to him? But by his conduct afterward to Mr. Skelton it appears that he thought him injured, or at least well worthy of a higher station in the church, for he treated him with singular respect and esteem.

Mr. Skelton did not bear his lordship's breach of promise with remarkable temper. He expressed his resentment with great plainness. "God forgive me," he used to say, "I railed against him most violently, but he did not regard it; his station placed him far above me, and what did he care for the censure of a poor curate?" He never attended a visitation during the remainder of his lordship's life, which continued for a series of years. The bishop never asked for him, nor seemed surprised at his absence, for his own breast told him the cause of it. After his promise to him he disposed of many livings without offering him one of them. "I saw then," said Skelton, "sorry fellows, time after time, put over my head, but I could not mend myself, though it vexed me more than it ought." It appears that the sense of his injury had some effect on his patience. He was then a young man; his temper was warm, his notion of honour just and pure; he expected that the conduct of so dignified a personage as a bishop should be regulated by the same principles as his own. His disappointment in this particular, especially as it touched

him so closely, made him express his resentment against the person that deceived him. All this was the natural and excusable effect of the injury which he had sustained.

The respect which Mr. Hawkshaw entertained for Mr. Skelton, his curate, was shewn when he first obtained the living. He said to him, "Sir, I am but a very young man, and you are fit to direct me; give me your advice, and I'll do whatever you desire me." This shewed him to be a young man of a noble and ingenuous disposition, which he displayed in the whole of his subsequent conduct towards Mr. Skelton. Under such a rector, he must have been as happy as the condition of a curate, situated as he was, could admit.

Mr. Hawkshaw, who was himself scrupulously attentive to his duty, told me, that Mr. Skelton gave him the clearest ideas of the duty of a clergyman that could possibly be conceived. He was often forced, he said, to contrive secretly to attend the sick, as Mr. Skelton would be angry at him if he would not let him go himself; a noble emulation between a rector and a curate!

Though Mr. Skelton strove to act so consistently with the character of a clergyman, yet he could not escape the censure of a sour fanatic. One John Porter, a presbyterian churchwarden, coming in upon him on a Sunday morning, when he happened to be shaving himself, seemed surprised, and told him it was a shame for one of his profession to shew such a bad example. "Well, John," said he, “if you think it is your duty, present me.”—“ I believe I will," he replied. At the visitation, he asked the bishop, if a clergyman could be presented for shaving himself on a Sunday? The bishop said he thought not; this made John stop his proceedings.

However, he was actually presented to the bishop for abusing a Mr. Wrightsome at a vestry, where parishioners usually display their eloquence. A vestry being held at Monaghan a short time before to bring an overseer to an account, who had the management of some repairs in the church, Wrightsome (who formerly lent him the horse) openly insulted him there before all the people. Skelton then told him, shaking his fist at him out of the readingdesk, that if he had him out of that place he would chastise