Thomas Gilbert

“ Though Gilbert's novels were never very popular, they were highly esteemed by a select circle for their originality. A story-teller sui generis, lacking in perspective, in fusing power, and in continuity, Gilbert was, on the other hand, endowed with a style of sparkling lucidity, a clever perhaps rather than profound observation, and a very dry but subtle humour, in which there is certainly some infusion of the spirit of Democritus. ”

“ Gilbert was tall and slim, polite and affable, and had many friends. He suffered the misfortune of going blind, and died at Richmond in 1890, in the ninety-second year of his age. When barely able to distinguish large objects he walked much up and down the streets, asking persons he met to tell him the time of day, always pulling out his watch and holding it up for inspection. At one time when Gilbert was moving a part of his tavern building, Charles Newman, on passing along, inquired of the old landlord, whose house was noted for its cleanliness, how many bed bugs he found. ”

“ On the title-pages of his above-mentioned works Gilbert is designated 'bachelor of divinity and minister of the gospel at Limerick in Ireland.' In 1659 the commissioners of the revenue in Ireland were directed by government to provide a house for Gilbert while preaching in Dublin. After the Restoration Gilbert appears to have become connected with the established church in Ireland, and to have settled in Belfast as a friend of Arthur Chichester, first earl of Donegal, who in his will made him a bequest. ”

“ He’s a very intelligent young man.’
‘Rather!’ observed Otho emphatically, with a nod, and what would have been a wink, only he remembered in time that such a testimony to Gilbert’s intelligence might be thought rather compromising than otherwise by his interlocutor. In his own mind, and speaking to Gilbert in his own language, Otho called Sir Thomas ‘a rum old party, and green as grass, you know,’ and this private opinion, which he held very strongly, rendered it a little difficult to him to meet the other now on equal terms. ”

“ His letters have always come in old envelopes turned inside out; he walks whenever possible and wears a shabby white habit and broken boots. Both Frances and Gilbert loved him dearly and their rare meetings were red letter days for both. Besides the link of Distributism the two men were united in caring deeply for the reawakened interest in St. Thomas and his philosophy.
The Benedictine, as well as the Dominican, outlook and history especially appealed to Gilbert, and the friendship with Father Ignatius Rice, which had begun almost with the century, grew steadily. ”

“ While Thomas was a worldly young subdeacon in the household of Archbishop Theobald, while as chancellor he was outshining the king in luxurious splendour or riding in coat of mail at the head of his troops, Gilbert was setting the pattern of ecclesiastical discipline and furnishing the steadiest and mostii.49 valued assistance to the primate’s schemes of reform. Trained no less than Henry of Winchester in the old Cluniac traditions of ecclesiastical authority, his credit had never been shaken by rashness and inconsistency such as had marred Henry’s labours ”

“ As to the nature of the primary form itself, Gilbert agreed with Thales that it is like a soul, [195] "for the power of self-movement seems to betoken a soul." [196] With Galen and St. Thomas he placed the form of the loadstone superior to that of inanimate matter. [197] In a sense, Gilbert even made it superior to organic matter, for it is incapable of error. [198] Like the soul, the primary form cannot be fragmented; when a loadstone is divided, one does not separate the poles but each part acquires its own poles and an equator. ”

“ One of the few writers whose explanations of the loadstone Gilbert mentioned with approval is St. Thomas Aquinas. Although the medieval scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas seems foreign to our way of thinking, it formed a background to many of Gilbert's concepts, as well as to those of his predecessors, and it will assist our discussion to consider briefly Thomist philosophy and to make its terminology explicit at this point. [17]
In scholastic philosophy, all beings and substances are a coalescence of inchoate matter and enacting form. ”

“ Enthusiasts are divided only as to the comparative merit of the operas. Princess Ida and Patience are in some respects the daintiest. There is a genuine vein of poetry in The Yeomen of the Guard. Some of the drollest songs are in Pinafore and Ruddigore. The Gondoliers shows the most charming lightness of touch, while with the general public The Mikado proved the favourite. The enduring popularity of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas was abundantly proved by later revivals. Among the birthday honours in June 1907 Gilbert was given a knighthood. ”

“ After some residence with a private tutor considerations of health, inclination, and economy led him to spend several years in Italy. While there he thoroughly mastered the language, and produced a volume of poems on Italian subjects and a tragedy in blank verse called 'Morna,' based upon Romani's libretto of 'Norma.' These experiments, together with an English version of the old libretto of 'Lucia di Lammermoor,' were printed for private circulation only. Returning to England about 1825, Gilbert studied at Guy's Hospital, and was attached for a short period to the staff' ”

“ It is a matter of great regret for the historian of chemistry that Gilbert left nothing on that branch of science, to which he was deeply devoted, “attaining to great exactness therein.” So at least says Thomas Fuller, who in his Worthies of England prophesied truly how he would be afterwards known: “Mahomet’s tomb at Mecca,” he says, “is said strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible loadstone ”

“ Apart from his work on 'Punch,' he wrote songs and music for the German Reeds' entertainment, while in 1873 and 1874 he was collaborator in two dramatic productions which evoked a considerable amount of public attention. On 3 March 1873 was given at the Court Theatre 'The Happy Land: a Burlesque Version of W. S. Gilbert's "The Wicked World,"' by F. L. Tomline (i.e. W. S. Gilbert) and Gilbert a Beckett. In this amusing piece of banter three statesmen (Gladstone, Lowe, and Ayrton) were represented as visiting Fairyland in order to impart to the inhabitants the secrets of popular government. ”

“ In the county of Wicklow he established a town, to which he gave the name of Blessington, and at his own expense erected there a church, which he supplied with plate and bells. In connection with this town he in 1673 obtained the title of Viscount Blessington for his eldest son, Murragh. ”

“ Meanwhile, the community of the Irish Dominican College at Lisbon largely increased, and at the instance of Daly the queen-regent of Portugal conferred upon the order a larger building at her own cost. ”

“ On the commencement of the disturbances in Ireland in 1641, Loftus returned to Dublin and passed some time with the garrison in charge of his father's castle at Rathfarnham. He sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Naas from 1642 to 1648. Under the pseudonym of ‘Philo Britannicus,’ and at the instance of Sir William Parsons, lord justice of Ireland, Loftus wrote a treatise to deprecate the admission of measures of compromise between the English government and the Irish then in arms. ”

“ Kildare acted as governor of Dublin under the parliamentarian colonel, Michael Jones, in 1647, and in 1649 he received a pension of 46s. weekly from the government. In a subsequent petition to the chief justice of Munster Kildare stated that during eleven years he and his family had been driven to great extremities and endured much hardship in England and Ireland through his constant adherence and faithful affection to the parliament of England ”

“ Grey presided over the parliameat in Ireland in 1636-7, in which were enacted the important statutes for the abolition of papal authority, the attainder of the Earl of Kildare, the establishment of Henry VIII as head of the church, and the dissolution of houses of religion. Grey occasionally acted independently of the privy council at Dublin, with many of whose members, and especially with the Earl of Ormonde, he was soon on very bad terms. ”

“ Edmund Ludlow, lieutenant-general of the horse, mentions that, in reply to Ireton, Baron answered ‘that it was not just to exclude him from mercy, because he had been engaged in the same cause’ as the parliamentarians ‘pretended to fight for, the liberty and religion of his country.’ Baron was executed at Limerick, and met his fate with great intrepidity. ”

“ Serious complaints of Grey's conduct were sent to the king's advisers in England by discontented officials at Dublin, who alleged that Grey's temper was ungovernable, and that his main objects were the rapid acquisition of wealth and the re-establishment of the fortunes of his sister and other relatives and adherents of the attainted Earl of Kildare. ”

“ As chairman of the corporation committee for a new supply of water to Dublin, Gray actively promoted the Vartry scheme, in face of formidable opposition. On the occasion of turning the Vartry water into the new course in June 1863, Gray was knighted by the Earl of Carlisle, lord-lieutenant. In 1865 Gray was elected M.P. for Kilkenny city. He advocated the abolition of the Irish protestant church establishment, reform of the land laws, and free denominational education. Through the ‘Freeman's Journal’ he instituted a commission into the condition of the protestant church in Ireland. ”

“ Hogan's father settled in Cork, and in 1814 placed him in a solicitor's office, which he left on obtaining an engagement from an architect as a draughtsman and carver of models. Hogan carefully studied a collection of casts formed under the direction of Canova from antique statues at Rome, which had been presented to a Cork institution. After working at an anatomy school and executing several wood carvings, Hogan was in 1824 sent at the expense of friends to Rome to complete his art education. ”

“ She was at the time of her marriage in her seventeenth year, and is described as of great beauty, and endowed with rare abilities, virtues, and accomplishments. In addition to his 'ample and flourishing practice' at Dublin Boate was engaged as physician-general of the English forces in Ireland, large numbers of which were then employed there against the Irish confederates. ”

“ Auctore Amoldo Bootio, M.D. Boate's work was severely criticised by the erudite Louis Capel, professor at the protestant university at Saumur, whose treatise, entitled 'Arcanum Punctuationis revelatum,' published in 1624, was regarded as an assault on the integrity of the Hebrew text of the Bible, Boate fixed his residence at Paris, and maintained correspondence with Ussher, who acknowledged his obligations to him for valuable aid and for information in connection with continental manuscripts, and with the works of erudition in progress abroad. ”

“ He studied at Oxford, became a canon regular, and was appointed sub-prior of the convent of the Holy Trinity at Dublin, now the cathedral of Christ Church. Of that establishment Fich compiled a meagre necrology in Latin, styled ‘Mortilogium’ or ‘Obitarium.’ He was also the compiler or transcriber of a collection of memoranda, chiefly on ecclesiastical matters, known as the ‘White Book of Christ Church, Dublin,’ still preserved in that cathedral. ”

“ He entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a fellow-commoner, and while there engaged actively in the violent contests which occasionally took place between students and citizens. Daly is described as of tall stature and of elegant personal appearance, although squint-eyed. He was much addicted to gambling, and noted as a successful duellist, both with sword and pistol. ”

“ In ‘The Large and Small Farm Question Considered,’ 1844, Kane urged the formation of small farms in Ireland. He was granted the honorary degree of LL.D. by the university of Dublin in 1868; was appointed a commissioner of national education in Ireland in 1873, when he resigned his post at Queen's College, Cork; and was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in 1877. In 1880 he was made vice-chancellor of the newly created Royal University of Ireland. He died at Dublin on 16 Feb. ”

“ In this work the author treats of the history of Ireland from the earliest times to the year 1684, with synchronisms and chrono-genealogical catalogues of the kings of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the time of Charles II. He shows a thorough acquaintance with the chronicle of Tighearnach O'Braein [q. v.] , with the manuscript known as the 'Book of Lecan,' with the 'Liber Migrationum' of Michael O'Clery [q. v.] , and with much mediæval Irish literature. ”

“ In April 1649 the appointment of Boate as doctor to the hospital at Dublin was referred by the council of state at London to Oliver Cromwell, who in the preceding month had been appointed commander-in-chief for Ireland. The treasurer-at-war in the following September paid Boate fifty pounds ‘on account of his entertainment as physician for Ireland.’ Boate arrived in Ireland at the latter end of 1649, while Cromwell was in command there, but he survived only a short time. ”

“ Under a compact with the government at Dublin, an annual subvention was long paid to the head of the Cavanagh sept for protection which he agreed to afford to the English settlers in their district. In connection with this subvention, which occasionally remained unpaid, disputes from time to time arose between the governmental officials and MacMurchad. By native writers he was extolled as courageous, liberal, and hospitable. He married Elizabeth Veele, who, as heiress to Anglo-Norman settlers, was entitled to lands of considerable value in Leinster. ”