, D. D. the intimate friend of
Dean Swift, is said by Shield, in Cibber’s “Lives of the
Poets,
” to have been born about 1684, in the county of
Cavan, where, according to the same authority, his parents
lived in no very elevated state. They are described as being unable to afford their son the advantages of a liberal
education; but he, being observed to give early indications
of genius, attracted the notice of a friend to his family,
who sent him to the college of Dublin, and contributed towards his support while he remained there. He afterwards
entered into orders, and set up a school in Dublin, which
long maintained a very high degree of reputation, as well
for the attention bestowed on the morals of the scholars, as
for their proficiency in literature. So great was the estimation in which this seminary was held, that it is asserted to
have produced in some years the sum of one thousand
pounds. It does not appear that he had any considerable
preferment; but his intimacy with Swift, in 1725, procured
for him a living in the south of Ireland, worth about 150l.
a year, which he went to take possession of, and, by an act
of inadvertence, destroyed all his future expectations of
rising in the church; for, being at Corke on the first of
August, the anniversary of king George’s birth-day, he
preached a sermon, which had for its text, “Sufficient for
the day is the evil thereof.
” On this being known, he was
struck out of the list of chaplains to the lord-lieutenant,
and forbidden the castle.