PAST AND PRESENT. 309 



and under them their dependents prospered and waxed 

 wealthy. 



Sometimes the memoir of an individual will give a more 

 graphic picture of the age wherein he flourished than a 

 more elaborate detail ; and in the strange eventful histories 

 of these two singular men, the leading characters of their 

 times will be best portrayed. 



No persons were more dissimilar none were bitterer 

 enemies none in every point, personal and physical, were 

 more essentially opposite. In one point alone there was a 

 parallel both were tyrants in disposition, and both would 

 possess power, and no matter at what price. 



George Robert Fitzgerald was middle-sized, and slightly 

 but actively formed; his features were regular, his address 

 elegant, and his manners formed in the best style of the 

 French school. In vain the physiognomist would seek in 

 his handsome countenance for some trace of that fierce and 

 turbulent disposition which marked his short and miserable 

 career. No one when he pleased it, could delight society 

 more ; and with the fair sex he was proverbially successful. 

 It is said that gallantry, however, was not his forte, and that 

 he seldom used his persuasive powers with women, but for 

 objects ultimately pecuniary or ambitious. 



Added to his external advantages, he was an educated 

 man ; and that he possessed no mean literary talent, may 

 be inferred from his celebrated " Apology," which is neatly 

 and spiritedly written. 



His courage was undoubted. In Paris and London he was 

 noted as a duellist ; and in Mayo, his personal encounters 

 are still remembered. His duel with Doctor Martin, his 

 encounter with Csesar French, the most notorious fire-eaters 

 of the day, placed him foremost in that class. He 

 was, moreover, a dead shot, and reported to be one of the 

 ablest swordsmen in the kingdom. As a sportsman he was 

 justly celebrated. He was an elegant horseman, and his 

 desperate riding was the theme of fox-hunters for many a 

 year. No park-wall or flooded river stopped him and to 

 this day, leaps that he surmounted, and points where he 

 crossed the Turlough river, are pointed out by the peasantry. 



The dark act which clouded his memory, and his unhappy 

 fate, are generally known ; and considering the other traits 

 of his strange and mingling character, the apology offered 



