Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/547

 543 PHILIP SKELTON, An individual fully entitled to the epithet “Worthy,” a learned clergyman, and author of some valuable works on divinity, was born in the parish of Derriaghly, near Lis burn, in February 1707. His family was originally English. His grandfather, an engineer, having been sent over by Charles I. to inspect the Irish fortifications, settled in that country, and suffered many privations in Cromwell's time. His father appears to have been, in the reign of Wil liam III. a gunsmith, and afterwards a farmer and a tanner. He died in his fiftieth year, leaving a widow and ten chil dren. Philip, when about ten years of age, was sent to Lisburn school, where, being at first negligent, his father reformed him by sending him into the fields, and treating him as a menial; after this he applied diligently, and soon displayed an ardent thirst for knowledge. On the decease of his father, which happened when he was at school, his mother had to encounter many difficulties in bringing up her numerous family, and he laudably thought it his duty to relieve her from the expense of one at least, and applied still more closely to his studies. From school, in June 1724, he entered as a sizer in Dublin University, where Dr. Delany was his tutor, and ever after, his friend. Here he soon obtained the reputation of a scholar, and also distinguished himself by his skill in fencing, cudgel ling, and other manly feats, as well as in some college frolics from which he did not always escape uncensured. His temper was warm, and he entertained that irritable sense of honour which frequently involved him in quar rels. On one occasion he had a quarrel with a fellow student, who happened to be connected with Dr. Baldwin, the provost, and who insinuated that Skelton was a Jaco bite, an accusation which he repelled by the most solemn declaration of his adherence to the Hanover family. Baldwin, however, was prejudiced against him, and en deavoured to keep him out of a scholarship, but, mistaking him for another of the same name, his malice was disap