Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/39

Rh education directed by the care of his mother's brother, Luke Wadding, a celebrated Franciscan friar, who, in the seventeenth century, manifested his extraordinary talents, and extensive information, by many works of great labour and genius. When he was of a proper age, he got him admitted into the Franciscan order, and brought him to Rome, where he placed him, in order to complete his education, under his own eye, in the college of St. Isidore. This was a society which he himself had founded in 1625, for the instruction of Irish students in the liberal arts, divinity, and particularly controversies on the doctrines of religion, from which the mission to England, Scotland, and Ireland, might be supplied. Baron grew into great reputation, and was distinguished by the purity with which he wrote the Latin language. His talents were first brought into notice from the circumstance of a cardinal having written a small treatise in Italian, which he wished to get translated into Latin. Baron undertook the performance; but his excellency, from his ignorance, being dissatisfied, it was referred to the learned society of the Jesuits, who expressed themselves highly in Baron's favour. His enthusiasm for imperial Rome, and the love of the religious and learned society he found there, induced him to settle in that city, where he lived altogether sixty years, during part of which time he lectured on divinity at St. Isidore's. He died very old and deprived of sight, in March 16th, 1696, and was buried in the church of his own college. His works are, 1."Orationes Panegyricæ Sacro-Profanæ decem," Roma, 1649, 12mo.2. "Metra Miscellanea, sive Carminum diversorum libri duo; Epigrammatum unas; alter Silvulæ; quibus adduntur Elogia illustrium Virorum," Romæ, 1645, 24mo.3. "Prolusiones Philosophicæ," Romæ, 1651, 12mo.4. "Harpocrates quinque Ludius; seu Diatriba silentii," Romæ, 1651, 12mo.5. "Obsidio et Expugnatio Arcis Duncannon in Hiberniâ, sub Thomâ Prestono."6." Boëtius Absolutus; sive de Consolatione Theologiæ, lib. iv."