CHAPTER II.

Mr. Grattan.-Birth and Family.-Connexion with Dean Swift.— Letter to Lord-Lieutenant: and remarks on the Grattans.-Female Branch of the Marlays.-Sir John Marlay.-Fidelity to Charles I. His grandson Chief Justice of Ireland.—Acquaintance with Lord Chesterfield.-Letter from Sons of the Chief Justice.Bishop of Waterford and Colonel Marlay-their attachment to Ireland.—Intimacy of the latter with Mr. Grattan.—Mr. Grattan's education in Dublin.-Enters College.-His Contemporaries.Letters to his friend Broome,-August 1765, June 1766.-Death of his Father.-1767 goes to the Middle Temple.-Letters to Broome, November, 1767.- Death of his Sister.- Letter to Broome, January, 1768.-Goes to Windsor Forest, February, 1768. -His love for the country.-Anecdote relating thereto.-Remarks on Mr. Hutchinson.-Letter to Robert Day, March, 1768.-To Broome, March, 1768.-To Day, May, 1768.-Acquaintance with Fitzgibbon.-Letter to Broome, May 1768.-Debates in the English Parliament-Remarks on Burke-on Grenville-on Macaulay Boyd.-Letter to Broome, August, 1768.-Remarks on English Historians, Clarendon, Burnet, and Bolingbroke.

THE date of Mr. Grattan's birth is indicated by the following entry in the registry of baptism in St. John's parish, Dublin :-" Henry, son of James and Mary Grattan, 3rd of July, 1746.” His father was for many years recorder of, and member for, the city of Dublin; he was elected to the latter situation in 1761, and served till 1766, when he died. His official station he discharged with

great honesty and diligence. He was the legal adviser of the corporation, and proposed some laws regarding them, but which were in their nature narrow and arbitrary. His personal character was respected; he was well read in law, and his opinions were held to be sound. His principles were aristocratic. He fancied himself a Whig in politics, but he was in fact a Tory. His sentiments on Poyning's law, and on the pension bill-questions which at that time occupied the public mind -were of a courtly nature; and on the subject of the octennial bill he differed from the popular party, and from Dr. Lucas, who was his colleague and his opponent, and with whom he was in perpetual collision, the Recorder being the legal adviser and champion of the corporation, and Dr. Lucas their untired, undaunted, and unceasing enemy.

To the Recorder, who was a bad speaker, irritable in his temper, and deficient in powers of argument, Dr. Lucas was a source of great annoyance, for he had the people on his side; which, in a capital city, the seat of legislature, had considerable weight, both within and without the doors of the House of Commons: and though inferior to his colleague in sound understanding, yet, by his popular principles, joined to an easy temper and an engaging deportment, he gained a seeming victory over his adversary. These petty contests were suffered to prey upon

a mind over anxious and very sensitive, so as to embitter, if not to shorten, the remainder of the Recorder's days.

Patrick Grattan, the great-grand-father of Henry, was senior fellow of the University, near Dublin, and in 1669 married a Miss Brereton, whose family resided within a few miles of that city, and who enjoyed in the county of Cavan a portion of the forfeited lands held by patent from Charles II. Of this marriage there were several children, the eldest of whom, Henry, succeeded to his father's property in that county. He intermarried with the family of the Flemyngs, and was said to have had considerable influence there. He was small in stature, but remarkably well made, and possessed of great spirit. His name is still remembered, and it is related of him that "he was the stoutest and shortest man, who wore the longest sword."

The individual just referred to was very active in pursuing the Tories and Rapparees, who were outlawed, and were then infesting the neighbourhood. His residence was at Garryross, adjoining the Lake Virginia, and not far from Quilca, the seat of Dr. Sheridan, where Dean Swift used to resort, and where originated the intimacy that subsisted between the Dean and the Grattan family. But the Dean's more intimate friends were James, a doctor of physic, John, a clergyman,

Charles, whom he calls "the Critic," master of the school at Enniskillen, and Richard, who was knighted, and Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1735.

In a letter to Dr. Sheridan, dated September in that year, (1735,) the Dean, writes-" Yesterday was the going out of the last Lord Mayor, and to-day is the coming in of the new, who is Alderman Grattan? The Duke (Dorset) was at both, but I thought it enough to go to-day, and I came away before six, with very little meat or drink."

The regard the Dean of St. Patrick's entertained for this family appears in his letters to the Duke of Dorset (then Lord Lieutenant), Lady Betty Germain, Dr. Sheridan, and Mr. Charles Ford. In a letter to Lady Betty Germain, (1736,) he writes" I went and told my Lord Duke that there was a certain family here called the Grattans, and that they could command ten thousand men. Two of them are parsons (as you Whigs call them); another is Lord Mayor of this city, and was knighted by his Grace a month or two ago; but there is a cousin of theirs who is a Grattan, though his name be John Jackson, as worthy a clergyman as any in this kingdom."

Again, in a letter to the Duke of Dorset, he writes in the following jocose style :

MY LORD,

Dublin, Dec. 30, 1735.

Your Grace fairly owes me one hundred and ten pounds a-year in the church, which I thus prove: I desired you

would bestow a preferment of one hundred and fifty pounds a-year to a certain clergyman. Your answer was, that I asked modestly; that you would not promise, but grant my request. However, for want of good intelligence in being (after a cant word used here) an expert kingfisher, that clergyman took up with forty pounds a-year, and I shall never trouble your Grace any more on his behalf. Now by plain arithmetic it follows that one hundred and ten pounds remain, and this arrear I have assigned to one Mr. John Jackson, a cousin german of the Grattans, who is vicar of Santry, and has a small estate, with two sons and as many daughters, all grown up. He has lain some years as a weight upon me, which I voluntarily took up on account of his virtue, piety, and good sense, and modesty almost to a fault. Mr. Jackson is condemned to live on his own small estate, part whereof is in his parish about four miles from hence, where he has built a family house more expensive than he intended. He is a clergyman of long standing, and of a most unblemished character, but the misfortune is, he has not one enemy to whom I might appeal for the truth of what I say."

It does not appear that the Dean was successful in this application; but Mr. Jackson's relations evinced their sense of his merit, and left his family legacies to a considerable amount.

The female branch from which Mr. Grattan is descended was of the Marlay family, of French extraction. The family of De Merly came over with William the Conqueror. Mr. Grattan's mother was Mary Marlay, daughter of Thomas,

* See Dugdale, and Brooks' Baronetage.

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