Clearing a road over fosse and fence,
His comeliness is forever changed,
On his majesty has fallen a mist.”
—Lament for Oliver Grace.
[30]. Authorities: “Memoir of Bartholomew Teeling,” by (his nephew) Bartholomew Teeling, Jun., B.L. in Madden’s “United Irishmen,” Third Series, Vol. I. (Dublin, 1846); Charles Hamilton Teeling’s “History of the Irish Rebellion of 1798,” “A Personal Narrative,” and Sequel to same; Unpublished Correspondence of the Teeling Family; “The Teelings,” by Albi Norman (article in Gentleman’s Magazine for October, 1905).
“I MUST now say a word or two of the excellent mother of Bartholomew Teeling—not so much because of the well-formed opinion that almost all distinguished men inherit their characteristics rather from the mother than from the father, as because I myself have the liveliest recollection of the amiable and endearing qualities of this venerated being; of her ardent piety; of her active benevolence; of her cheerful spirit; and her most graceful presence.
“Whilst she was still a child, she had been seen by him who was to be her husband, and who, struck with her girlish beauty, had resolved ‘to wait for her.’ She, consequently, at the very earliest age, united her fate to his; and at the end of fifty years, during which they journeyed together through all the vicissitudes of life—
“‘In all their wanderings round this world of care,
In all their griefs, and they had had their share.’
The romance of this early attachment continued fresh and unabated. The contrast, perhaps, of her bright and buoyant spirit with the stern and unbending one of the haughty politician ... was more calculated to give endurance to their love than the most perfect similarity could have done; and to the last hour of her existence, she was the pride and idol of her family.