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 than once refused the offer of a puisne judgeship, and when, in 1866, his party again came into power, it was felt that high place was due to his eminent services. After a few weeks of office as Attorney-General, the retirement of Chief-Justice Lefroy made room for his appointment as Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench, over which he presided for ten years. We are told that his "courtesy, his abounding and facile humour, which exercised itself on the most incongruous subjects; the pleasant literary flavour of all his sayings; the quaint abundance of his illustrations; the grace and charm of his manner, rendered attendance in his court one of the pleasautest of intellectual enjoyments." He died at Brighton, 25th November 1876, aged 72. Besides his books on Italy, he was the author of some minor sketches, including a series of lectures on The Irish Parliament. 

Wilde, Richard Henry, a lawyer, was born in Dublin, 24th September 1789. At an early age he was taken by his parents to the United States, where he studied law, was called to the Bar, and became a distinguished orator. He attained the position of Attorney-General of the State of Georgia, and was thrice elected to Congress between 1815 and 1835. He spent some years on the Continent of Europe, and was the fortunate discoverer of an old fresco portrait of Dante on the wall of the Bargello at Florence. Mr. Wilde was the author of a Life of Tasso, published in 1842; and of some Lyrics. He died at New Orleans, 10th September 1847, aged 57. 

Wilde, Sir William Robert Wills, antiquarian and oculist, the son of an eminent provincial physician, was born at Castlereagh, County of Roscommon, in 1815. He was educated at Banagher and Elphin, never passing through college, although his merits were afterwards recognized by Dublin University conferring upon him the degree of M.D. In 1832 he was apprenticed to Surgeon Colles, and five years afterwards obtained his surgical diploma. The same year (1837) he made a yacht voyage in charge of an invalid patient, and his account of the trip was his first essay in literature. In 1841 he commenced practice in Dublin as an aurist and oculist, which he continued during the rest of his life with splendid success and widespread reputation. In 1844 he founded the St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital in Dublin, and contributed largely to its funds. He became editor of the (Dublin) Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, and from time to time published works on medicine, Irish biography and antiquities, and general literature. It is probably in the department of Irish antiquities that he will be longest remembered. Though, perhaps, not much of an original investigator (except in the matter of crannoges), he had the happy knack of popularizing and bringing into notice the information entombed in ancient annals and the drier disquisitions of others. There are no more delightful hand-books than his Boyne and Blackwater (1849), and his Lough Corrib (1867). His Closing Tears of Swift (1849) is a valuable contribution to the study of that great man's character. Sir William Wilde was one of the most active members of the Royal Irish Academy, and edited a volume of the Museum Catalogue, He delighted in angling and in the outdoor life of the West of Ireland, and had summer residences near Cong, and at Illaunroe, in Connemara. He especially delighted in Kylemore, where his friend Andrew Armstrong resided in summer. Sir William Wilde edited the Irish Census for several decades, and his observations upon population and disease were considered especially valuable. On the publication of the Census Report of 1861 he received the honour of knighthood, "not so much," as Lord Carlisle said at the time, "in recognition of your high professional reputation, which is European, and has been recognized by many countries in Europe — but to mark my sense of the service you have rendered to statistical science, especially in connexion with the Irish census." He received honorary diplomas from the Royal Society at Upsala, from the Antiquarian Society of Berlin, and from other learned bodies on the Continent, and was decorated with the Order of the Polar Star by the King of Sweden. In every thing connected with Ireland's ancient history, traditions, literature, and relics, he was inspired with an impassioned fervour. On the round tower controversy, in particular, he was the champion of Mr. Petrie's conclusions. In 1873 he obtained from the Royal Irish Academy the Cunningham Gold Medal, the highest honour in their gift. In 1853 he was appointed Surgeon Oculist in Ordinary to the Queen in Ireland. In 1857 he took a prominent part in welcoming the British Association to Dublin; he presided over the Ethnological Section, and conducted the Association trip to the Islands of Aran. Sir William died at his residence in Merrion-square, Dublin, 19th April 1876, aged 61, and was interred in Mount Jerome Cemetery. The following remarks upon his character and writings will be found in the  564