Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/333

 governorship and sworn of the privy council. The viceroy, Clarendon, thought county governorships had become useless (Clarendon and Rochester Correspondence, i. 240), but he and Massereene were on the most friendly terms (ib. pp. 356, 411, ii. 292). When the citizens of Londonderry determined to stand on their defence, Massereene helped them with a large sum of money. He was one of those to whom the Enniskilleners specially appealed for help (, Enniskillen). It was at Antrim Castle that the protestants of the county met under Massereene's presidency, and his only surviving son, Clotworthy, was chosen to command them in the field. Massereene himself withdrew to England soon afterwards. In Tyrconnel's proclamation of 7 March 1688–9 both father and son were among the ten persons excepted by name from mercy as ‘principal actors in the rebellion.’ Massereene was in London in November 1689, being one of the Irish committee chosen to confer with William (Clarendon and Rochester Correspondence, ii. 292; Journal of the Rev. Rowland Davies, p. 60). Soon after the ‘break of Dromore’ on 14 March 1688–9, Antrim Castle was sacked, about 4,000l. in money and plate falling into Jacobite hands. He and his son were both included in the great Irish act of attainder in May 1689, his estate being valued at 4,340l. a year. Massereene returned to Ireland after the battle of the Boyne, sat in the parliament which met on 5 Oct. 1692, and was active in the business of the House of Lords. He died on 21 June 1695, and was buried at Antrim. His only surviving son, Clotworthy, succeeded him as third viscount, and was ancestor of Clotworthy Skeffington, second earl Massereene [q. v.] Of his three daughters, the youngest, Mary, married Edward Smyth [q. v.], bishop of Down and Connor.

[Lodge's Irish Peerage, ed. Archdall, ii. 377–385; Burke's Peerages; Lascelles's Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniæ; Witherow's Derry and Enniskillen; Stebbing Shaw's Hist. of Staffordshire.]  SKEFFINGTON, LUMLEY  GEORGE (1771–1850), fop and playwright, younger but only surviving son of Sir William Charles Farrell Skeffington, was born in St. Pancras parish, Middlesex, on 23 March 1771. His father, Sir William, the only surviving son of William Farrell of Skeffington Hall, Leicestershire, married, at St. Peter le Poer, London, on 9 Dec. 1765, Catherine Josepha, eldest daughter of Michael Hubbert of Teneriffe, a merchant of the city of London; he took the surname and arms of Skeffington by royal warrant, dated 11 June 1772, was created baronet on 10 June 1786, and died on 26 Jan. 1815.

Lumley was educated in the school of the family of Newcome at Hackney, and, by taking part in the plays for which the institution was famous, acquired a taste for the drama. While at Hackney he recited an epilogue on the manners and follies of the day, which had been written by George Keate [q. v.], and, on quitting school, he soon set the fashions for the youth of the time. He was admitted into the select circle at Carlton House, was consulted on the subject of attire by the prince regent, and invented a new colour, known as the Skeffington brown. So early as 4 Feb. 1789 he dined with Sir Joshua Reynolds. Skeffington was well bred and good-tempered. His features were large, and he had a sharp, sallow face, with dark curly hair and whiskers. For many years his dress was ‘a dark blue coat with gilt buttons, a yellow waistcoat, white cord inexpressibles, with large bunches of white ribbons at the knees, and short top boots.’ He was on terms of intimacy with Cooke, Munden, John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, and ‘Romeo’ Coates, never missed a first night or a début, and often visited four theatres on the same evening.

His peculiarities soon exposed him to the satire of Gillray. He was the subject of the caricaturist's ‘Half Natural’ (1 Aug. 1799), representing him—a back view—in ‘a Jean de Bry coat, all sleeves and padding.’ Next year (1 Feb. 1800) the same satirist depicted him in a very popular caricature as dancing, and with the words underneath, ‘So Skiffy Skipt-on, with his wonted grace,’ a reference to his appearance at the birthday ball in the previous month. In January 1801 he was introduced ‘in a state of elevation’ by Gillray into a print called ‘The Union Club;’ in the following March he and a friend were represented by that artist as ‘a pair of polished gentlemen,’ the insinuation being that their polish was mainly on their boots, and he was Harlequin in Gillray's caricature of ‘dilettanti theatricals.’

Byron ironically commemorated Skeffington in his ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers’ for his ‘Skirtless Coats and Skeletons of Plays,’ and letter viii. of Moore's ‘Twopenny Post Bag’ is from ‘Colonel Th-m-s to Sk-ff-ngt-n, Esq.,’ with allusions to his ‘pea-green coat’ and his ‘rich rouge-pot’ (cf. Hist. MSS. 14th Rep. App. iv. p. 559). The ‘frivolity and ease’ of his manner are painted by William Gardiner in his account of a rubber of whist in which this man of fashion took a hand, and he narrates that one night, when on a visit to Leicester, and the 