Ixxxiii 



his father in 1741. He was then placed with his grandfather 

 French at Clonghballymore, his mother remaining at the family 

 residence with her other children. 



In his earliest days he gave promise of what he was to arrive 

 at in mature age. At five years old he could conjugate a French 

 verb; and at six, happening to hear some persons disputing an 

 historical question, little Richard, who had been playing with a 

 dog, undertook to illuminate the company, and actually set them 

 right on the subject. When he was seven, he made an abridg- 

 ment of the ancient history, none of the best no doubt, but a re- 

 markable undertaking for so young a child : during his subsequent 

 life, he was distinguished by his knowledge of the history of all 

 nations. Such was his devotion to study at this early period, that, 

 to avoid disturbance, he used to ascend a tree with a book, bor- 

 rowed without leave from his uncle's library, and read for hours, 

 regardless of the shouts of servants sent in search of him. He 

 read every morning in bed, from dawn until the family hour of 

 rising, and then concealed his borrowed treasure until next morn- 

 ing. It is not surprising that he should have been intended for a 

 learned profession. 



His elder brother, Patrick, in 1745, was sent to complete his 

 education at Poictiers ; the penal laws having virtually excluded 

 persons of his persuasion from the British universities. Mean- 

 while, Richard was instructed at Clonghballymore by the Reverend 

 Nicholas M'Nelly, a Dominican friar, who was resident chaplain 

 to the family ; and, on the death of his grandfather, he was sent 

 with his brothers Andrew and Hyacinth, to the free school on 

 Erasmus Smith's foundation. At this school he continued until 

 he was seventeen years of age (1750); he was then sent to Poic- 

 tiers to join his brother Patrick, and there they both remained 

 until Patrick became of age, when the latter proceeded to Italy. 

 In about a year after this period, his mother died ; Richard had been 

 devotedly attached to her, and her loss caused him the most poig- 

 nant grief. 



In that academy, Richard read the Latin classics with avidity, 

 and had so accurately committed to memory the Odes of Horace, 



