However, he did not leave Lisburn, until after Mr. Skelton had completed the course of his school studies. His father, though he lived within two miles of the town, placed him at lodgings there, that he might enjoy every opportunity of improvement. Sensible of its importance, the parent did not spare expense to give his children the benefit of education. On Saturday evening Philip always went to his father's, and returned to Lisburn on Monday morning.

At first he did not relish his grammar, which seemed dry and disagreeable, and therefore he would not confine himself to it. The master complained of this to his father, who used the following method to cure him of his idleness. He raised him one Monday morning early out of his bed, and having put a pair of coarse brogues on his feet, ordered him to go out immediately to the fields to work with the common labourers. This command he willingly obeyed, supposing it would be less laborious to toil there, than to fatigue his head with hard study. His father made him carry stones on a hand-barrow, and submit to the severest drudgery; not allowing him to come home to his breakfast, but keeping him fasting long beyond the usual time, and then sending him the coarsest food to eat in the open fields. When he returned from his day's work, he treated him as he did the lowest servant. He would not suffer him to keep company with the rest of his children, but bade him go to his companions the servants, and stay with them. Broken down at last by this hard usage he began to relent, and burst into tears. His father then said to him, "Sirrah, I'll make this proposal to you: Whether do you choose to toil and drudge all your life, as you have these few days past, living on coarse food, clad in frize clothes, and with brogues on your feet, or to apply to your books, and eat, and drink, and be dressed like your brothers here?" pointing to his brothers, who, as it was the vacation, had just come down from the university, decked out in Dublin finery. Poor Philip, whose bones ached with the hand-barrow, said, "he would readily go to school, and be attentive to his studies." He kept his resolution, and continued studious ever after.

The success of this project proved the sagacity of his father, who was remarkable for his good sense over the whole parish of Derriaghy. The gentlemen of fortune in

that place had such a high opinion of him, that they used to invite him frequently to their houses, for the sake of his conversation. A Bishop Smyth in particular, who lived there, shewed him every mark of attention, and his Lordship's daughters were pleased to make a companion of his eldest daughter, a young woman of sense and accomplishments superior to the opportunities which she had enjoyed. Mr. Richard Skelton had also some knowledge of architecture, being employed to superintend the building of the present church of Derriaghy. His circumstances, by his care and industry, were daily improving, when death carried him off from his disconsolate family in the fiftieth year of his age; while he was engaged in building a dwelling-house, and making a new tan-yard, neither of which were ever after completed. Such are the hopes of man! A few hours before he died, he called to him his ten children to give them a charge. Philip, who had been then but half a year at the Latin-school, he desired to study physic, and learn to cure the disease that was killing his father. He obeyed, as I will shew, the dying command, but fixed on divinity for his profession, to which he believed himself called by a voice more than human. Thus did he lose in his tender years an excellent father, a man of admirable sense, a strict observer of religion, and a careful instructor of his children. He retained ever after a grateful remembrance of his worth. In his Senilia he calls him "his wise and good father." He used to say with Horace, that if he were appointed to choose a father out of all the men in the world, he would take the one he had.

While he lived at Enniskillen, he was once on a visit at Mr. Armour's, of Castle-Coole, where he met with a Mr. Tench, Dr. M'Donald of the diocess of Clogher, and some others. The conversation turning upon the requisites to make a gentleman, on which they differed in opinion, Dr. M'Donald said, education made a gentleman. Skelton denied it. He said, that he only was a gentleman, as Lord Burghley defines it, who has riches derived from ancestors, that possessed them from time immemorial. He told them, there was not one of them a gentleman except Mr. Tench. "As for myself," he continued, "I am no gentleman, my father was only a tanner; yet I would not

change him for the best of your fathers, for he was a man of virtue and religion."

His mother was left with ten children. She had indeed the benefit of the family farm, but land at that time was comparatively of little value, and a great part of hers was rough and mountainous. Consequently her means of support for such a large family were not abundant; but she made amends by her care and prudence in managing her affairs. Her son Philip, who continued still to go to the Latin-school, lived, as it seemed convenient, partly at her house, and partly at lodgings in Lisburn. The sharp medicine which his father administered to him, having cured him effectually of his idleness, he was ever after, as I have said already, extremely attentive to his studies. He that gains the prize of literature must pass through a previous course of discipline while a boy. Didicit prius extimuitque magistrum. Skelton's parts, at first, were not remarkably quick or retentive, but his diligence enabled him to overcome every obstacle. When he was at a loss for candles to read at night, which frequently happened, he made use of furze, which he gathered for the purpose, and then throwing them piece by piece upon the fire, read by the glimmering light. Such was the expedient suggested by an ardent desire for learning. He used to tell us, that when he was at school, he and some of his schoolfellows, who were also remarkably studious, often met together in the fields and examined each other most strictly for halfpence. He that could not answer the question proposed was forced to give a halfpenny to the boy who examined him; which made them, as he remarked, prepare themselves with great care, for halfpence were then very scarce.

The following little incident of his life, while he was at the Latin-school, cannot, I think, be unworthy the attention of the curious. Straying one day through the fields, near Lisburn, he happened to shout out on the top of a hill there, and found that the echo repeated the same words successively in a still lower tone. He used afterward often to amuse himself with speaking loud at this place. One morning he was repeating there the first line of Virgil,

Tityre tu patula recubans sub tegmine fagi.

when the usher of the school, a Scotchman, of a sour temper, very fat, and remarkable for chewing tobacco, walking near the place, and hearing the echo, imagined he was calling to him in a jeering tone of voice, fat chops, tobaccobox. The Scotchman was so enraged at this supposed insult, that he insisted on Skelton's being turned out of school; if not, he would leave it himself. Skelton told the master the story of the echo, and appealed to his schoolfellows for the truth of what he said. But the usher would not be pacified, and at last, as a great favour, was content with his being whipped.

This odd sort of echo near Lisburn is mentioned in his Latin treatise on sounds by Dr. Hales, late of Trinity College, one of the most worthy clergymen of Ireland, whose humility can be only equalled by his learning. For he had none of that stiff dignity, and supercilious importance, which too often distinguish academic authority. The whole account of the echo, conveyed in Mr. Skelton's own words, is inserted in a Latin note at the end of the volume; but, on examination, I find it is of too philosophic a nature to be introduced into a work of this kind. I cannot now recollect any other incident of his life, while at school, worth relating. It appears indeed that he was not treated with much indulgence. by the master, who whipped him, merely to please a peevish Scotch usher. To the sons of poor or middling men it would, I think, be a disadvantage to meet with too gentle usage from their preceptors. It is fit they should, from the beginning, be trained to difficulties, with which they may be forced to struggle all their days.

On leaving school, he entered a sizer* in the university of Dublin, as the college books inform us, in June 1724. His tutor was the famous Dr. Delany, who, by his conduct, proved himself his real friend ever after. He applied there with diligence to the useful studies enjoined by that noble seminary, and soon acquired the reputation of a

It is strange, that he never even insinuated to me, or, as far as I could learn, to any other of his acquaintances, that he entered the college in that capacity. Nor had I the least suspicion of it, until, on examining the college books, I found, that there were two Skeltons, both sizers, at that time in the college. All this might be construed into a sort of pride in him. Yet why should he be ashamed of being once in that academic station, which has produced some of the greatest and most conspicuous characters in Ireland.

scholar. However, his attention to his books did not prevent him from displaying his skill in the manly exercises, in which he could find but few equal to him. He was allowed to be an excellent boxer, nor was he unwilling, if an opportunity offered, to shew his skill in this accomplishment. He was also very dexterous in the small sword, and a complete master in the backsword. He could come up to a St. George, throw an out and cut an in,* save himself, and strike his antagonist.

While he was in the college, he went once to Donybrook fair, and heard it proclaimed there, that a hat was set up as a prize for the best cudgel-player. The two cudgels with basket-hilts lying for public inspection, Skelton, like a second Dares, stepped forward, took up one of them, made a bow to the girls, and challenged an antagonist to oppose him. On this a confident young fellow came up and accepted the challenge. Immediately a ring was formed, and the two heroes began. They fought for awhile on equal terms, warding off the blows by their skill in the science of defence. But at last his antagonist was off his guard, and Skelton taking the advantage, hit him some smart strokes about the head, and made him throw down the cudgel, and acknowledge himself conquered. He thus gained the victory, and won the hat. He then took the hat in his hand, shewed it to the gaping crowd, made a bow to the girls, and told them, "he fought just to please them, but would not keep the hat, that they might have more amusement;" and then bowed again and retired. A hero in romance could not have been more complaisant to the fair sex.

The following trick of his, which has been since practised by some others, is not unsuitable to the character of a young man in the college. He and twelve more dining at an inn near Dublin, when the reckoning was to be paid, they discovered there was no money in the company. Skelton then invented the scheme of blindfolding the waiter, that the first he might catch should pay the reckoning, and thus they all escaped. However, he took care, to have the landlord paid for his dinner.

He usually associated with his fellow-students as often These are cant phrases used with teachers of fencing with the backsword.