"Oh! Oh! Mr. Armstrong, is this the man I have trusted the care of my people to ?"--" Why, I am a better man than you are," he replied. "How can that be?"-"I'll tell you: the people you gave into my charge, I have all safe and sound; but there are you, the priest, and your curate, and you have let the devil take a man from among the middle of you." "How so?" said Skelton. "Sure," he answered, "Dick Saggerton, you know, a day or two ago, cut his throat in the town with you, and the devil has carried him off in spite of you all." This, it seems, was really the case.

The irregularity of his people required every exertion. Their heads, it appears, were too often disordered, and their manners corrupted, by whiskey, which was too plentifu by means of the private stills.

One day he met a carpenter drunk, who was repairing the church, and checked him for his drunkenness, and neglecting the business he was employed about; he then said, the people of Fintona were all beggars, yet they were still drinking. "Sir," replied the man, " Solomon gives us liberty to drink, for he says, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.'* You see then poor people should drink to keep up their spirits."

He saw a mill grinding malt for whiskey on a Sunday, and in his lecture took notice of it, as usual, saying, “We have malt on this side, and malt on that side. Ah! my poor parishioners loose their souls by it; the distillers are the cause of this, who are hanging by the tongue in hell.""Sure he lies" (one of them who was drunk in church said to another one beside him), " for you're not there, and I'm not there."

Another Sunday he carried off a parcel of boys' clothes who were stripped and playing ball.

In his own conduct he always set an example of strict piety and morality. Besides his private prayers, which were at least twice a day, he had family prayers every evening, to which he summoned the people of the town by the ringing of a hand-bell.

His neighbours frequently resorted to his lodgings, being

* Prov. xxxi. 6,7,

obstinately; on which they put a rope about his neck, and were on the point of hanging him, when one Simpson, a supernumerary gauger, who afterward got a commission in the army, bursting in on them with a pistol, rescued him out of their hands. Skelton, on his return, met Mr. Johnston in the streets of Enniskillen, and putting his hand in his pocket, took out a shilling, and gave it to him, saying, "Here, take this; I gave a shilling to see a camel in Dublin, but an honest man is a greater wonder in the county of Fermanagh."

To a gentleman, who told him once he expected to represent that county in parliament, he said, "Aye, they are all a parcel of rascals, and a rascal is the fittest to represent them." These expressions of resentment proceeded from a temporary dislike, probably occasioned by his imagining them somewhat favourable to the Oak-boys. Yet if I could judge by my own little experience of them, I should give them a very different character.

A Mr. C. of the same county invited him to spend a fortnight at his house; but when he was there a day or two, his servant came and told him, he could get no oats for the horses. This he thought a hint to him, that his company could be dispensed with; so he prepared immediately. When he was just going away, Mr. C. said to him, "I am surprised you would leave me so soon, after promising to stay a fortnight with me."-" Sir," he replied, "you have fed myself, but you starved my horses." He thus freely spoke his mind.

No hopes of private advantage could prevail on him to vary a tittle from the truth. Having a fine mare at Enniskillen, which happened once to fall under him, he resolved to part with her, and on a fair day in that town, sent her out with a servant to sell her, and soon followed himself, accompanied by Dr. Scott, who told me the anecdote. When any one who wished to buy her, asked him, "What sort of a mare is this?" he answered, "She is a very bad mare, she fell under me;" then he told all her faults, and many more imaginary ones. The people, of course, when he gave her so bad a character, went off without offering any thing. At last a Mr. Galbraith of Omagh, who came up to him, and heard the same bad account of her, said to him,

"Well, what will you take for her with all her faults?"-"Why, I don't doubt but she may be worth eight guineas for drawing the car, but she is not fit to ride."-"Tis a bargain," said the other, and gave him the money immediately. But in a week after he sold the same mare for 261. This shews Mr. Skelton was but a bad jockey, as these gentry make it a rule not to be so scrupulous in telling all the faults of the horses they wish to sell. It is a maxim of the present days, I understand, that a man may be honest in every thing else, but a rogue about horses. By these and many other instances it appears, that Mr. Skelton was void of hypocrisy, a quality which has often helped to insinuate ecclesiastics into favour.

A gentleman of great consequence near Enniskillen, who often invited him to his house, but was still disappointed of seeing him there, at last pressed to know his reason for it; "To be plain with you, sir," he answered, "you are too great a man for me to be acquainted with."

Being informed one evening while he was in Dr. Scott's, that a methodist preacher was declaiming in the streets with the usual violence, he kindly invited the preacher to drink tea with him after preaching. The man came accompanied by all his followers, who pushed after him into the parlour, to hear Mr. Skelton and him arguing. "What commission, sir," said Skelton, "have you to preach the gospel?"-" A commission from above;” replied the preacher. "By whom were you ordained?"-" By the Spirit," he answered. "Well sir, suppose you have got the Spirit, as you say, it is still necessary you should be ordained by the laying on of hands, before you attempt to preach; for you read in the Acts of the Apostles, The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.' These, it is allowed, had already got the Spirit; but they were not permitted to go abroad to preach, till they were first ordained by the laying on of hands. Hence your preaching, without being ordained, is contrary to the practice of the apostles." The man being confounded by this objection, made his escape as fast as possible.

When he was arguing again with a methodist preacher,

he said to him, "Do you advise Presbyterians to go to meeting, and church-people to go to church?"—"Yes."— "Well then," said he, " your religion is not the same as St. Paul's; for he says, Be ye all of one mind one with another." "

Once a year he went to Lisburn to see his relations, when he generally took with him sixty guineas, which he divided among them. In Derriaghy, there is a handsome rural place called the Big Glen, near Collin Mountain, which has been so often celebrated in poetry, where he used every summer to give his friends a treat on the grass, and spend one day with them in innocent relaxation.

Returning once from Lisburn, with his hat tied over his face, he met with his tithe-farmer near Enniskillen, and lifting up the brim of his hat, he saw him, and said, " Is this you, George Irwin ?"-" Yes," replied George. "Can you give me a guinea?"- "I can."- "Can you give me a shilling?"-" I can."-" O then," he said, "I'm as rich as a Jew, I'm as rich as a Jew."

--

Derriaghy, the place of his birth, belongs, it is well known, to the earl of Hertford. Before that nobleman obtained the government of this kingdom, he used frequently to say, as Mr. Skelton told me, that it was a shame for the lord-lieutenants of Ireland not to make Skelton a bishop. It was reasonable then to suppose, that these sentiments should operate with his lordship, if an opportunity offered of putting them in practice. Consequently, when he came over to us as lord-lieutenant, in the year 1765, Skelton probably expected to be raised by him to that high office, for which, from his virtues and abilities, he was so eminently qualified. But he was disappointed in his hopes, if he had any.

On former occasions, when his lordship paid a visit to Ireland, he used to send for Mr. Skelton, but, I believe, neglected to do it then. However, soon after his arrival, he passed a few days with him at lord Loftus's in the county of Fermanagh, where his excellency spent some time shooting woodcocks. Skelton then remarked to him, that he was happy to find a lord-lieutenant that could govern the kingdom and shoot woodcocks. On this occasion, he asked him what sort of a living he had?

"A very good living, a

very good living, please your excellency, much better than I deserve." Few clergymen would return such an answer to such a question from a lord-lieutenant; for the most of them think they have nothing equal to their merits.

In the disposal of his ecclesiastical preferments, his. excellency took no notice of Mr. Skelton, which might be owing to his declaring himself content with his condition; for he might suppose, there was no occasion to heap favours. on a man who did not seem to desire them, especially, when so many were anxious to snatch at them. However, Mr. Skelton mentioned to me another reason for the neglect he then met with, which I am forced to omit, lest I should give offence to persons of eminence, which one in my station should carefully avoid. In justice, however, to lord H. I must own, that he gave his brother Richard's son a commission in the army at his request. The young man was soon obliged to go out on half-pay; but when he was preparing to join the regiment again, he caught a fever and died.

His brother Richard had a daughter, who was married to one Magee; but after some time she parted from her husband, who appears not to have been without his faults. Mr. Skelton laid down rules for his niece to observe with respect to her husband, but she would not observe them. He sent her ten guineas, in 1780, on condition she would go and live with him, but she refused: he then ordered the money to be given to one of his relations at Dundalk, When any of his poor relations came to see him, he told them freely, they wanted to get something from him.

His charities, while he continued at Devenish, were as extraordinary as before. They were even, if possible, more extensive, in proportion to the increase of his living. He was the same attentive friend to the poor, the same reliever of their distress and assuager of their pain. But a particular account of these would be too similar to that which I have already given. It is necessary only to observe, that his memory is there also held in high esteem.

In 1766,* the bishop of Clogher promoted him again to

* In his Senilia he says he was at Fintona about 1765, but I was assured there that he came to it in 1766. In his fifth volume he informs us, that he got the hurt at the long-bullets when he was twenty-one years of age; but in his Senilia he says