Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/29

Rh and says in one of his letters that so far from forfeiting his favour of the King and Chancellor, they both told him they thought much better of him, and they esteemed him the more for it. The great qualities of his daughter are mentioned by Dean Swift in his letters.

"My grandfather had ceased all intercourse with his eldest son, who was gentleman-like and spirited, but weak and debauched, and married into a very weak family, the Earl of Cavan's. As soon as he heard that a son was born of this marriage he exclaimed, 'the House of Lixnaw is no more'; and so it literally proved, for the present Lord Kerry, after being educated under the direction of the Chancellor of Ireland and being left a good deal to himself, fell in love with a married lady twenty years older than himself, the daughter of an eminent Roman Catholick lawyer, and, obtaining a divorce, married her an extraordinary, vain woman. Having their way to fight up to get into good company, and having no posterity, they sold every acre of land which had been in our family since Henry the Second's time, converting the remainder into life-rents; to which she brought a very considerable addition of her own, which for want of children descended to her sister, and they will thus have fulfilled the singular prediction I have here related.

"My grandfather, soon after he married, had retired to the seat of his ancestors, disgusted with some injury which he conceived to have been done to him in point of military promotion. My grandmother was of an ambitious active disposition, and during her life, by dint of superior understanding, address, and temper (for he made an excessive bad husband as appears by several letters), sometimes drew him back into the world, and by a conduct which was a perfect model of sense, prudence, and spirit, educated her children well, gained her family consideration at home