, the only son of the preceding, and whose life affords an excellent moral, was born in the year
, the only son of the preceding, and whose life affords an excellent moral, was born in the year 1708, and after receiving the rudiments of education in a private school in Dublin, was sent at the age of eighteen to the university of Glasgow. His father’s int?ntion was, that he might cultivate the studies that are preparatory to entering into the ministry, but before he had resided many months at Glasgow, he contracted an attachment for a Miss Atchenson, the daughter of a tradesman in that city, and married her about a year after, probably without the consent of the parents on either side. By this imprudent match his studies were in some measure interrupted, and his expenses increased. The family of his wife were either unwilling or unable to support their new relation, and he soon found it necessary to repair to Dublin in hopes of receiving assistance from his father. On this expedition he was accompanied by his wife and her sister; but notwithstanding this additional incumbrance, and tue general levity of his conduct, his father received him with kindness, and out of the scanty and precarious income which he derived from his congregation by voluntary subscriptions, and from a small estate of eighty pounds a year in Yorkshire, endeavoured to maintain his son, and to reclaim him to the prosecution of his studies. Tenderness like this, however, which only to mention is to excite gratitude, produced no corresponding effects on t>ur poet, who abandoned his mind and time" to dissipation and idleness, without a thought of what he owed to his father or to himself. In this course too he was unhappily encouraged by the girl he married, who, while she imposed upon the good old man by a show of decency, and even sanctity, became in fact devoid of all shame, and at length shared her favours with other men, and that not without the knowledge of her husband, who is said to have either wanted resolution to resent her infidelity, or was reconciled by a share of the profits of his dishonour. Such a connection and such a mind, at an age when the manly and ingenuous feelings are usually strongest, may easily account for the miseries of his subsequent life.