Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/624

 620 JOSEPH-COOPER WALKER, An author who has thrown much light on the bardic antiquities of his country, was born in Dublin, and edu cated by the Rev. Dr. Ball; but being possessed of a frame of peculiar delicacy, was obliged to visit Italy. Here he devoted his time principally to the study of Italian literature. He soon returned from the continent, little improved in health; but his mind was stored with the treasures of observation. He wrote two works, which are now very scarce, viz. “Historical Memoirs of the Bards and Music of Ireland,” 4to. plates; and “Historical Essay on the Dress, Armour, and Weapons of the Irish,” 4to. plates. The above are held in great and deserved estimation, although filled with long Italian quotations, in many instances quite irrelevant, which Walker, in a conversation he had a short time before his decease with the celebrated Mr. Bunting, sincerely regretted, as then he was convinced it arose from a badness of taste. Mr. Walker died April 12, 1810, in the forty-ninth year of his age, at St. Valeri, near Bray. He was also the author of a quarto volume, entitled, “Memoirs on Italian Tragedy;” and in the Transactions of the Irish Academy for 1788, there is a short Essay on the Irish stage, written by him. PETER WALSH, A catholic of great learning and liberality of sentiment, was born at Moortown, in the county of Kildare, in the early part of the seventeenth century. He was a friar of the Franciscan order, and was professor of divinity at Louvaine, where he probably was educated. Returning to Ireland, he went to Kilkenny at the time the pope's nuncio was there, but was not of his party. On the contrary, he made many endeavours to persuade the Irish Roman Catholics to the same loyal sentiments as he himself held;