Poems Cl. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, Regii in Academia Parisiensi Professoris, Ad ornatissimum virum ERRICUM MEMMIUN. Janus adest, festa poscunt sua dona Kalendæ, Usque adeò ingenii nostri est exhausta facultas, Ausoniæ indictum NIHIL est Græcæque Camœnæ. In bello sanctum NIHIL est, Martisque tumulta: Arcano instantes operi & carbonibus atris, Nec numeret Libycæ numerum qui callet arenæ.: Tange NIHIL, dicesque NIHIL sine corpore tangi. Vexerit & quemvis trans mœstas portitor undas. Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta, De NIHILO NIHILI pariant fastidia versus. ROSCOMMON. WENTWORTH DILLON, earl of Roscommon, was the son of James Dillon and Elizabeth Wentworth, sister to the earl of Strafford. He was born in Ireland* during the lieutenancy of Strafford, who, being both his uncle and his godfather, gave him his own sirname. His father, the third earl of Roscommon, had been converted by Usher to the protestant religion; and when the popish rebellion broke out, Strafford thinking the family in great danger from the fury of the Irish, sent for his godson, and placed him at his own seat in Yorkshire, where he was instructed in Latin: which he learned so as to write it with purity and elegance, though he was never able to retain the rules of grammar. Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, from whose notes on Waller most of this account must be borrowed, though I know not whether all that he relates is certain. The instructor whom he assigns to Roscommon, is one Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous Hall, then an old man and a bishop. When the storm broke out upon Strafford, his house was a shelter no longer; and Dillon, by the advice of Usher, was sent to Caen, where the protes *The Biog. Britan. says, probably about the year 1632; but this is inconsistent with the date of Strafford's viceroyalty in the following page. C. tants had then an university, and continued his studies under Bochart. Young Dillon, who was sent to study under Bochart, and who is represented as having already made great proficiency in literature, could not be more than nine years old. Strafford went to govern Ireland in 1633, and was put to death eight years afterward. That he was sent to Caen, is certain; that he was a great scholar, may be doubted. At Caen he is said to have had some preternatural intelligence of his father's death. "The lord Roscommon, being a boy of ten years "of age, at Caen in Normandy, one day was, as it "were, ma dly extravagant in playing, leaping, get"ting over the tables, boards, &c. He was wont to "be sober enough; they said, God grant this bodes "no ill-luck to him! In the heat of this extravagant "fit he cries out, My father is dead. A fortnight "after, news came from Ireland that his father was "dead. This account I had from Mr. Knolles, who "was his governor, and then with him, since secre"tary to the earl of Strafford; and I have heard his "lordship's relations confirm the same." Aubrey's Miscellany. The present age is very little inclined to favour any accounts of this kind, nor will the name of Aubrey much recommend it to credit; it ought not, however, to be omitted, because better evidence of a fact cannot easily be found than is here offered; and it must be by preserving such relations that we may at last judge how much they are to be regarded. If we stay to examine this account, we shall see difficulties on both sides; here is a relation of a fact given by a man who had no interest to deceive, and who could not be deceived himself; and here is, on the other hand, a miracle which produces no effect; the order of nature is interrupted, to discover not a future but only a distant event, the knowledge of which is of no use to him to whom it is revealed. Between these difficulties what way shall be found? Is reason or testimony to be rejected? I believe what Osborne says of an appearance of sanctity may be applied to such impulses or anticipations as this: Do not wholly slight them, because they may be tru; but do not easily trust them, because they may be false. The state both of England and Ireland was at this ́time such, that he who was absent from either country had very little temptation to return; and therefore Roscommon, when he left Caen, travelled into Italy, and amused himself with its antiquities, and particularly with medals, in which he acquired uncommon still. At the restoration, with the other friends of monarchy, he came to England, was made captain of the band of pensioners, and learned so much of the dissoluteness of the court, that he addicted himself immoderately to, gaming, by which he was engaged in frequent quarrels, and which undoubtedly brought upon him its usual concomitants, extravagance and distress. After some time, a dispute about part of his estate forced him into Ireland, where he was made by the duke of Ormond captain of the guards, and met with an adventure thus related by Fenton. "He was at Dublin as much as ever distempered "with the same fatal affection for play, which en"gaged him in one adventure that well deserves to "be related. As he returned to his lodgings from gaming-table, he was attacked in the dark by "three ruffians, who were employed to assassinate "a |