DR. SIRE'S MEMOIR OF ARCRBISROF TRENCH.

Dn. Sinit's bulky volume cannot be called a rare example of book- making, for bookmaking implies some craftsmanlike skill, and some attention to the arrangement of the matter, whatever it be ; whereas neither of these is traceable in the Memoir of the Honourable and Most Reverend Power Le Poer Trench, last Archbishop of Tuant. Except a slender and frequently suspended thread of narrative, the more strictly biographical portions of the 772 octavo pages are anecdotes, not well told ; reminiscences by personal friends, given in their original dif- fuseness; and apparently verbatim accounts from the peasantry or the poor, where the reporter has done nothing beyond diluting the original raciness. The rest consists of speeches in Parliament and at reli- gious meetings ; correspondence on the business of the diocese, or churl.. table institutions ; letters-missive touching public matters connected with education and the Church ; with a variety of epistles on the Arch- bishop's private affairs, but personal, not biographical. This, however, could not fill the volume. The reader is therefore favoured with a variety of essays in the form of chapters on sundry Irish subjects—Education, Poor-laws, Achill, and what not—wherewith the Archbishop had any-

thing - thin to do. His Grace was accused of providing for his own kith and

kin ."by the patronage of his office; so Dr. Sirr gives biographical notices of many clergymen whom Archbishop Trench promoted or favoured. Bulky, however, as is the book, we learn from the preface, that the "entreaty of the publishers" has saved us from an additional volume ; the manuscript originally sent to them having undergone a considerable abridgment. This condensation seems to have taken place in a hap- hazard kind of way ; for the author, apologizing for the defects of his book, candidly states that "neither his temper or his leisure allowed him to revise his original copy—written in the midst of much distraction— as fresh material reached him, and which he has never yet read as a whole. For the very abridgment that has taken place, and which in some respects he deplores, he has been indebted to the kindness of an affectionate friend, whose judgment he preferred to his own." Such are Dr. Sires notions of a biographical undertaking.

Neither do we see anything in the life or character of Archbishop Trench that rendered this sort of hasty disregard of the public essential in order to preserve a collection of materials that somebody else might shape. The striking characteristics of Dr. Sires subject were those of a class—the class of well-connected, political, magisterial Irish parsons ; men designed, through family interest, for the church ; rising in it through political influence, if not absolute jobbing ; attentive to its forms and decorums from good taste and an esprit de corps, but falling into ali the secular practices of a church at once dominant and militant,—though individuals, as was the case with the Archbishop, might be personally charitable, and, as life advanced, become more serious in religion. To delineate this character with spirit, accuracy, and impartiality, is difficult, and for an Irishman perhaps impossible. Seen through his spectacles, everything would be too Orange or too Green. Traces of the Orange- minded parson are visible in Dr. Sirr. We do not mean in open and somewhat vehement denunciation of Liberalism and Romanism, but in the general heraldic manner in which he passes over the power, patron- age, and doings of the great Anglo-Irish families of Trench, Bercsford, and others, and which inter dill made his hero a Bishop at thirty-two. It may be said, indeed, that Dr. Sirr cannot sec all this, or understand that there is anything wrong in it. It is quite clear that he is deficient in the requisites for a biographer—in the acumen which seizes the traits of his hero, in the spirit which can narrate his story, and the judgment to avoid narrating anything else.

Stripped of its routine, there is not much in the life of Power Le Poer Trench, third son of the first Earl of Clancarty. He was born in 1770; and we may assume, in the silence of his biographer, that the interest of his family caused him to be brought up for or rather to the church. Till he entered Dublin University, in 1787, be was chiefly educated at private schools ; and Major O'Malley, who was his schoolfellow in Mayo, describes him as being at that period (1784-54) " not very diligent," but a "most amiable, high-principled, and estimable young person, though not unmixed with the levities naturally attached to youth." He did not " take more kindly to laming" at Trinity ; being more ad- dicted to country amusements and social intercourse than to study. He was a capital horseman, fond of hunting, rode his fifty miles a-day, and had the ice cleared off the surface of his winter-bath. In 1791 lie was ordained Deacon, in 1792 Priest; and was immediately inducted into the Union of Creagh, "a small benefice in the diocese of Clonfert ; in which Garbally, the family residence, and the great fair-town of Bal- linasloe, built on his father's estate, are situated." In 1793 he became a pluralist. In 1795 he married ; and for some years contrived to com- bine the rather incongruous offices of clergyman, captain of yeomanry, justice of the peace, and agent to his father and father-in-law. He is said to have been a strict but humane steward ; never "driving" the tenantry. During the rebellion, he was a very active officer, scouring the country at the head of his troop to discover rebels ; though then, as on other occasions, he seems to have been humane and charitable, when his ideas of duty did not interfere.

"During the rebellion of '98," says an aged tenant of his father, a member of the Yeomanry corps, and therefore, we infer, an Orangeman, "he scoured the

country night and day, hunting the rebels; and only for him this country would

be a desperate place. Many a life he saved, and many a man he saved from the gallows, and from being transported. The two hard summers after the rebellion, he bought provision and sold it out to the poor at half-price; and many other creatures that was starving, and was not able to pay for it, he gave it to them for nothing. When he left this country, he was a very great loss to the tenants on this estate, and to all the poor in the neighbourhood. I am nearly ninety years of age, and I never knew a better man than Archbishop Trench. Really, he was the best man of his family ! "

In 1802, the Reverend P. Le Poer Trench was appointed Bishop of Waterford; by which, doubtless, hangs a tale of Ministerial jobbing, not

to say corruption, if we could get at it. In 1809 he was translated to the see of Elphin ; and in 1819 promoted to the Archbishopric of Tuam. Previous to his last exaltation, he had, in 1816, been converted to the Evangelical part of the Church, through the death of a sister of that persuasion, whom he attended ministerially : but neither the station of Archbishop nor greater seriousness in religion altogether overcame the habits of the Orange Yeoman. On the occasion of an apprehended at- tack by Ribandmen, he, as Magistrate, ordered out a detachment of the Third Light Dragoons, mounted as many of the Rifle Brigade behind them as they could carry, and put himself at their bead. " On a similar occasion the Archbishop had to accompany a party of the Seventy-seventh Regiment ; when fifteen Ribandmen were arrested, who were afterwards convicted at the assizes of Galway." On this or some other occasion he

exhibited a remarkable tenderness towards some men who were to be whipped. "He was so tender-hearted, he did not come out to see the menflogged, until they were whipped to the last man ; and then he was on the spot, and ordered them into the market-house, and paid every at- tention to them, and gave them wine and nourishment, and was very kind to their wives and children."

He had, however, better points about him than than the Irish Church- man militant. He was indefatigable in the business of his diocese, tem- poral and spiritual ; active in charity, especially during the disastrous season of Irish famine ; attentive to the discipline of his church and the con- duct of his clergymen,—refusing to ordain his own brother, as he thought him unfitted for the profession. He reserved to himself the appoint- ment of the curates in all the livings within his gift; a power, like all arbitrary power, which may be very excellent or very much abused. In politics, he of course opposed the Liberal Irish measures of the Whig Ministry ; as, in 1820, though holding Queen Caroline guilty, he had op- posed the divorce-clause in the Bill of Pains aud Penalties—on these grounds.

"My Lords, I will refer you to the 32d verse of the 5th chapter of St. Mat- thew's Gospel. Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of for- nication, catmeth her to commit adultery.' My mind has been long made up, from this very verse, to vote against the divorce-clause. If I can show that this illustrious lady has been put away by her husband—and if I can also show from the Holy Scriptures that God has pronounced a solemn denunciation against such

putting away—then shall I also have shown sufficient ground to induce me to vote against a clause which would release the Xing from the marriage-contract

and leave him at liberty to many again. To prove that such a putting away of the wife in this case did actually take place, I need only refer, and I may fairly do so, to the letter of her husband. To show that there is a decisive denunciation pronounced by the Lord God against putting a wife away, I have only to quote the words of the prophet Malachi, chap. ii. 13-16."

It has been said that this speech deprived him of the Irish Primacy; of which there can be no doubt, if an idea of his appointment had been en- tertained. George the Fourth, however, SO far got over the personal offenoe, that during his popularity-tour in Ireland, he received the Archbishop with grace and favour—perhaps influenced by his personal presence, whichwas very lofty and distinguished. Indeed, " the first gentleman in Europe" recorded his approbation of Dr. Trench's personal bearing in terms of more emphasis than accuracy : "That man possesses the true dignity of deportment which marks noble descent—the Peer—the Prelate: you perceive at once his high origin and station."

Dr. Trench died in 1839—the last Archbishop of Tuam, for the Arch- bishopric was among those abolished by the Whigs; and his memory re- ceived some posthumous honours from the clergy of his diocese. More minute traits of the man, and a fuller account of his personal and pro- fessional conduct, are rather matter for a complete biography than a brief sketch like this. Some of them may be picked out in the volume, by those who will undergo the moiling. We quote a few.

CLERICAL MISTAKE.

Soon after Dr. Trench's consecration, he accompanied his father one Sunday to the Magdalen Asylum, in Leeson Street, Dublin; where his person being unknown, but his dress indicating his ministerial character, the sexton approached him re- spectfully, and requested that he would, in compliance with the general rule ob- served there when any strange clergyman was present, give his assistance to the chaplain. He instantly complied with the request; read the service of the day; and, after the sermon was concluded, he was told by the unceremonious clergy- man that his duties were not yet over, and that he expected him to administer the Lord's supper to the congregation. "In fact," said his Grace, in repeating the anecdote, "the humblest curate in Dublin could not have more of the burden of the day laid upon him. However, I did everything he desired; and, after ser vice, followed him into the vestry and disrobed, whilst he scarcely condescended to notice me. When I made my bow to depart, he said, Sir, I am greatly obliged—may I ask to whom I am indebted ? " The Bishop of Waterford, said I; and I shall never forget the poor man's countenance. He seemed than derstruck; and I was glad to escape from the apologies he was forcing upon me.'

A TRAIT OF THE BISHOP AND THE NARRATOR.

With reference to this visit to Mr. Garrett, that gentleman writes—" As an anecdote, I may mention, the dear old gentleman, who never wanted the dignity of a Peer and the condescension of a Christian to remind you that he was a Pre late of the Church of Christ, breakfasted with me on his tour of church inspec tion. When he politely went into the drawingroom to bid the ladies good morn ina, (two unmanned daughters of mine were present) I said= My Lord, we have tried your Grace by a jury of my unmarried parishioners, and found yon guilty.' Ile looked up with a sweet and condescending smile= What is the offence, Sir? Your Grace has sent round six missionanes to preach here, and they were all married men.' 'Well, Sir, there is some reason in the complaint. I have left it to the Secretary; but the evil must be remedied, if possible. I am a parent my self, and can enter into your feelings !' How amiable, kind, and neat the reply. He CONDESCENDED TO LAUGH, and looked quite pleased,"

CREATING A WANT.

His Grace's manner of living was simple and temperate in the extreme—a plain joint of meat supplied his dinner. Whenever he saw one of his children about to try a new dish, not tasted perhaps at any time before, he always said, with a smile, "Now you are going to create a want."

THE POSTBOVS REBUKE.

I remember often hearing him mention a trivial circumstance, which affected him deeply at the time. Being summoned unexpectedly to London on some im- portant business, he was unavoidably obliged to travel on Sunday. Having been much delayed at an inn in an English village, waiting for horses, he called out, he said, rather impatiently, "I never saw so badly-regulated an hotel: where is the ostler? " The postboy answered, quietly, "My Lord, he is at church !" This seemed so like a reproof to him, he said, that it weighed heavily on his mind during the whole journey.

A GHOST STORY.

From his retreat in the South of France, Reverend Samuel Medlicott wrote to me on the occasion. "An interesting circumstance connected with the death of that dear servant of God our late venerated and truly beloved Archbishop, I would simply relate as follows. I was at my brother's in Wiltshire, whither I made my first move in search of health, early in March last year. There, at a very early hour one morning, (I think four delock,) the dear Archbishop, (I shall never for. get his sweet face,) though pale as death, and head uncovered, stood at the foot of my bed, and said, I am tired of, and I will or I have left Team, and will never return there! This greatly disturbed and of course roused me. I thought I had, as it were, seen a vision; and mentioned what I do here to Mrs. Eledlicott as S0011 as she awoke. But how was I, indeed, disturbed, how painfully cast down, when in due time the heartrending tidings reached me, that on that very day, and that very hour, his Grace had departed this life!"