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the Endowed School of Londonderry; the same year he took orders in the Church, and was appointed to a chaplaincy by the Bishop of berry. In 1817, on a third trial, he gained a fellowship in Trinity College, and in 18 18 was elected Donnellan Lecturer; in 1823 he resigned his fellow- ship, married, and accepted the curacy of Keady, in the diocese of Armagh, which next year he gave up for the rectory of Killyman in the same diocese. In October 1825 he succeeded to the college rectory of Ardtrea, and next year took the degree of D.D. He died 13th June 1830, aged 41. This amiable and learned man was the author of The Policy of the Church of Rome in Ireland (1827), and numerous minor works. His Remahis were collected by his friend Bishop Jebb, and published in 2 vols. Bvo. in 1832.

Phillips, Charles, author, was born at Sligo in 1789. He graduated at Trinity College, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1812, and to the English Bar in 1821. Lord Brougham gave him an appointment as a bankruptcy judge at Liverpool, and in 1835 he was advanced to be a Commissioner of Bankruptcy. His brilliant though somewhat florid eloquence secured his success at the criminal bar, and for some years he was theleading counselatthe Old Bailey. His action at the trial of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord William Russell in June 1840, was much and justly called in question. He endeavoured to clear his client by throwing suspicion on another person, of whose entire innocence he was well aware. The voluminous literature of the question is fully set forth by AUi- bone, who devotes almost a page of his Dictionary to a specification of his nu- merous writings. His Emerald Isle, a Poem (1812), Recollections of Curran and his Cotemporaries (1818), Specimens of Irish' Eloquence (18 19), and Historical Sketch of Wellington (1852), are perhaps the most important. Moore speaks of his Life of Curran as written in wretched taste, and Sir James Mackintosh declared his style "pitiful to the last degree," and said "he ought by common consent to be driven from the Bar."Christopher North writes: "There were frequent flashes of fine imagination, and strains of genuine feeling in his speeches, that showed nature intended him for an orator. In the midst of his most tedious and tasteless exaggerations, you still feel that Charles Phillips had a heart."He died in Golden-square, London, 1st February 1859, aged 70.

Pilkington, Letitia, daughter of Dr. Van Lewen, a Dublin physician, was born in 1712, and was early married to the Eev.

Matthew Pilkington, prebendary of Lichfield. Her literary acquirements made her intimate with Dean Swift, of whom at one time she was a great favourite. He procured an English chaplaincy for her husband. Ultimately the Dean appears to have had reason to regret his acquaintance, and in a letter to Alderman Barber, dated 9th March 1737-8, he uses language too strong to be quoted, concerning her and her husband. Mrs. Pilkington and her husband were divorced; in London she was befriended by Gibber; gradually de- scending in the social scale, she died in poverty, 29th August 1750, aged 38. Her Memoirs were published in Dublin in 1748. Her husband. Rev. Matthew Pilkington (who must not be confounded with the following), was the author of a volume of Miscellanies, a Rational Concordance (Nottingham, 1749), and other works. Pilkington, Matthew, Rev., vicar of Donabate, was born early in the i8th century. In 1722 he took his degree of B.A. at Trinity College, Dublin. He was the author of an important work, which has gone through eleven editions, and is still highly esteemed — Dictionary of Paint- ers, A. D. 1250 to 1767, first published in London in 1770. Bryan's well-known Dictionary of Painters and Engravers is said by Allibone to be an enlargement of the 1805 edition of this work; yet Bryan ap- pears to make no reference to Pilkington in his list of authorities.

Pleasants, Thomas, a Dublin philanthropist, was born in Ireland in 1728. Amongst other acts of benevolence he, in 1815, built, at a cost of ,£i4,ooo,,the Stove Tenter House, in Dublin, to enable weavers to dry their cloth in damp weather. This building is now the St, Joseph's Night Refuge. He gave ,£6,000 to the Meath Hospital to build an operating room and other oflaces operations having previously been performed in the general wards, within sight and hearing of the patients. He made large contributions of books and paintings to the Royal Dublin Society; and erected the lodges at the Glasnevin Botanic Gar- dens. He republished and circulated gratuitously a large edition of Dr. Samuel Madden's Reflections. Thomas Pleasants died in Dublin, ist March 18 18, aged 89, leaving large bequests to Dublin institutions. He is said to have given away altogether some £100,000.

Plowden, Francis, LL.D., historian and miscellaneous writer, was born in Ire- land 'early in the i8th century. He was a Catholic, and a member of the English Chancery Bar. The work that chiefly en- 438