Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/397

 CAROLAN. 386 vale of sorrow after the decease of his wife. While on a visit at the house of Mrs, M'Dermot, of Alderford, in the county of Roscommon, he expired in the month of March, 1738, in the sixty-eighth year of his age,and was interred in the parish-church of Killronan, in the diocese of Avedagh, but "not a stone tells where he lies," The manner of his death has been variously related; but that his excessive partiality for a more sparkling stream than flows at Helicon, was the cause of his decease, is a point that all his biographers have agreed on. Goldsmith says " his death was not more remarkable than his life. Homer was never more fond of a glass than he. He would drink whole pints of usquebaugh, and, as he used to think, without any ill consequence. His intemperance, however, in this respect, at length brought on an incurable disorder, and when just at the point of death, he called for a cup of his beloved liquor. Thase who were standing round him, surprised at the demand, endeavoured to persuade him to the contrary, but he persisted; and when the bowl was brought him, attempted to drink but could not, wherefore giving away the bowl, he observed with a smile, that it would be hard if two such friends as he and the cup should part, at least without kissing, and then expired." Walker, in his account of the Irish Bards, inserts a letter which states that" Carolan, at an early period of his life, contracted a fondness for spirituous liquors, whieh he retained even to the last stage of it. But inordinate gratifications carry their punishments along with them; nor was Carolan exempt from this general imposition. His physicians assured him, that, unless he corrected this vicious habit, a scurvy, which was the consequence of his intemperance, would soon put an end to his mortal career. He obeyed with reluctance; and seriously resolved uporn never tasting that forbidden, though (to him) delicious cup. The town of Boyle, in the county of Roscommon, time his principal place of residence, there, while under so severe a regimen, he walked, or rather wandered about like a rêveur. His usual gaiety forsook was at that