Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/43

34 vain. Under his protecting influence, youth found an asylum from vice and wretchedness, and was trained up in the paths of virtue and of truth. The shivering mendicant was prepared to meet the severity of approaching winter, through his bounty and his influence."

He sunk into the arims of death, in March 1808, at his house in Chapel lane, Ennis. "Upon his decease the shops were all closed, and business completely at a stand in Ennis; while the general gloom which sat ou every countenance, more foreibly pourtrayed the character of departed worth, than volumes written on the subject could possibly convey." Dr. Barrett was in the eighty-sixth year of his age, for forty-six years of which he was the faithful pastor of that parish. Some people imagined that the dean was possessed of money but those who thought so did not follow his steps into the mansions of misery and distress; if they had, their coffers would be like hisdestitute of a single guinea, and, divine reflection-their reward, like his, would be-heaven!

a brave yet unsuccessful seaman, who, to a perfect knowledge of his profession, united an enthusiastic courage, and whose whole life was an uninterrapted tissue of extraordinary embarrassments, terminated by a calamity, borne with the heroic coolness of a Spartan.

He was a native of the city of Drogheda, and was descended from a respectable family, resident during several centuries in the adjoining county of Louth. At a very early age he exhibited a strong predilection for the naval profession, and in compliance with his repeated solicitations, he was placed under his brave countryman Admiral Caldwell, and under his auspices he continued until his promotion to the rank of lieutenant, towards the close of the year 1793; an advance, which the interest of his patron greatly forwarded, who, on the 1st of February