Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/344

 series was issued in 1896 under the title ‘Summers and Winters at Balmawhapple.’ The table talk consisted chiefly of reminiscences of Froude, Dante Rossetti, and other personal friends or literary contemporaries. Quaint, almost eccentric, in treatment, Skelton's essays were always popular with men of letters, and his style won the admiration of authors so different as Carlyle, Thackeray, Huxley, and Rossetti. He is always happy in descriptions of scenery, in which he was aided by his skill as a sketcher and his intimacy with artists. Sir J. Noel Paton was one of his friends. His judgment of character is more open to question, but he wrote on subjects of heated controversy both in the past and present, and, with a chivalry which was part of his nature, often took what was at the time the unpopular side; but throughout his historical work he displayed something of the spirit of the advocate.

In 1878 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University; he was created C.B. in 1887, and K.C.B. in 1897. He died on 19 July 1897 at the Braid Hermitage, near Edinburgh. He married, in 1867, Anne Adair, daughter of James Adair Lawrie, professor of surgery at Glasgow. She survived him, with several children. Besides the works mentioned, Skelton was the author of a graphic picture of life at Peterhead, entitled ‘The Crookit Meg: a Story of the Year One,’ London, 1880, 8vo. It originally ran serially through ‘Fraser's Magazine.’ A volume of poems, ‘Spring Songs by a Western Highlander,’ is also attributed to him. He furnished introductions to the elaborately illustrated ‘Royal House of Stuart,’ 1890, fol., and to a similar work on Charles I (not yet published). Among his other publications were: 1. ‘John Dryden, “In Defence,”’ London, 1865, 8vo. 2. ‘A Campaigner at Home,’ 1865. 3. ‘The Great Lord Bolingbroke, Henry St. John,’ Edinburgh, 1868, 8vo. 4. A selection from Wilson's ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ,’ 1876, 8vo.

[Skelton's Works; Scotsman, 21 July 1897; Times, 1 April 1897 and 21 July 1897; Daily Chronicle, 22 July 1897; Men and Women of the Time, 14th edit.; List of Edinburgh Graduates, 1859–88; private information.]

 SKELTON, PHILIP (1707–1787), divine, son of Richard Skelton, a farmer, who was also a gunsmith and a tanner, and grandson of one of the English settlers in Ireland of the reign of Charles I, was born at Derriaghy, co. Antrim, in February 1707. His mother, Arabella Cathcart, was daughter of a farmer, and the tenancy, under Lord Conway, of the farm at Derriaghy was her marriage portion. Philip, who had five brothers and four sisters, was sent in 1717 to a Latin school at Lisburn. He was idle at first, and his father, hearing of this from the Rev. Mr. Clarke, the master, sent him out to carry stones on a hand-barrow, and to work and live with the labourers on the farm. After a few days, when asked if he liked to be a labourer or a scholar, he chose the latter, and was ever after diligent. His father died before he was eleven, and it was only by severe economy that his mother could educate her ten children. Candles were beyond his means, so Philip used to read after dark by the blaze made by throwing bits of dry furze on the turf fire, by which he sat on a low stool. In June 1724 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, Dr. Patrick Delany [q. v.] being his tutor, and in 1726 was elected a scholar. He graduated B.A. in July 1728, and, after teaching in the endowed school of Dundalk, was nominated curate to Dr. Samuel Madden [q. v.] of Drummilly, co. Fermanagh, and ordained deacon by Bishop Sterne of Clogher in 1729. He lived with Dr. Madden as private tutor to his sons, and their tuition taxed his energies so much that he was not able to devote much time to sermons, but he gave away half his salary in alms. Once, when he found a burnt child in a cottage, he took off his own shirt and tore it into shreds to dress the child's burns. His first publication was an anonymous pamphlet in favour of Dr. Madden's scheme for premiums in Trinity College. In 1732 he became curate at Monaghan, where the rector paid him 40l. a year, of which he gave 10l. to his mother and much of the rest in charity. He rode up to Dublin, and, appearing before the privy council, obtained the pardon of a condemned man unjustly convicted. He studied physic and prescribed for the poor, argued successfully with profligates and sectaries, persuaded lunatics out of their delusions, fought and trounced a company of profane travelling tinkers, and chastised a military officer who persisted in swearing. He published several anonymous discourses against Socinians, and in 1736 an attack on Benjamin Hoadly's views of the Lord's Supper, entitled ‘A Vindication of the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Winchester,’ whom he ironically supposes incapable of having written the book attributed to him. His next publication, ‘Some Proposals for the Revival of Christianity’ (1736), was again ironical. Swift, who was at first suspected of the authorship, complained that ‘the author of this has not continued the irony to the end.’ In 1737 Skelton published ‘A Dissertation on the Constitution and Effects of a Petty Jury,’ endeavouring to show that such juries led