He had always been of a religious turn of mind, never entering on any new duty, or assuming any responsibility, without writing for himself special prayers to be used on the occasion. He attended family prayers twice a day up to the very last, received the Sacrament, selecting his fellow-communicants, and took a tender leave of his servants, thanking them for their fidelity, and regretting he had nothing to leave them, beyond a recommendation in his will to his successor. His attendants were lifting him from one side of the bed to the other when his noble spirit passed away, gently, silently, without a groan or struggle.
He had eight sons, all of whom he survived, and two daughters: of his sons, five died very young, and one under peculiar (we are tempted to say national) circumstances. The boy was taking an airing in the Phœnix Park, when the horses took fright and ran away, and the Irish nurse, anxious to save the life of her little charge, flung him headlong from the window!
In appearance the first Duke of Ormonde was tall, well-shaped, and inclined to embonpoint; his complexion was fair, which gained for him the nickname among the Irish of Bawn. He was plain, but elegant, in his dress, especially at Court, when people began to be slovenly; he wore his hat without a button, uncocked, as it came from the block, after the fashion of his Majesty. But he was given to pomp on state occasions; the service of the Viceregal Court was simply splendid,—numbers of coaches, horses, and retainers. In travelling he always carried his staff of office with him, and when they came to a town, his gentleman (bareheaded) bore it through the streets, before his Grace’s coach. He used often to revert in after days to an incident which might well ‘point a moral’ on the danger of that offence, so frequently considered venial,—a white lie. One time, when Lord Ormonde was in France, it was deemed necessary he should go over suddenly and secretly to Ireland for the King’s service, and he accordingly embarked in a small boat, on a stormy day. ‘The master came up to his noble passenger during the voyage, and inquired the hour, and Lord Ormonde, being very anxious to make as quick a passage as possible, told the man an hour later than the real time. The consequence was, that the skipper miscalculated the time of the tide and the boat was wrecked, split in two on the rocks, and Lord Ormonde had to take to the cock-boat, and, finally, to be carried ashore on the shoulders of the seamen. There was no help at hand, for the good people of Havre were all at church, it being a festival. Thus, in consequence of a white lie, told with an excellent motive, the whole crew were nearly drowned, and the delay so great as to endanger the success of the undertaking in which Lord Ormonde was engaged.
We will end a notice, which has had little that is cheerful or exhilarating in its pages, with a repartee which the Duke made to a friend of the family, one Mr. Cottington, who lived near Dublin, and had a pretty house on the sea-shore. The Duke’s third son, Lord Gowran, a most genial and popular member of society, who had given his father much anxiety on account of the laxity of his morals, had presented Mr. Cottington with a set of the Ten Commandments to place over the altar in his new chapel at his marine villa. Much delighted, and doubtless edified, by so appropriate a donation, Mr. Cottington expressed his gratification to the Duke, who thus answered him: ‘I think I can guess at the nature of my son’s generosity; he can easily part with things he does not intend to keep!’
No. 9.
PORTRAIT. UNKNOWN.
Black velvet suit. Battle-axe and armour beside him. His hand rests on a table. Landscape in background.
No. 10.