ed in Irish affairs, and at his death was engaged upon a work on the Irish Brigades. Several other members of this branch of the family, born in France or England, have also distinguished themselves. 34 186
Dillon, Wentworth, Earl of Roscommon, poet and writer (belonging to a branch of the descendants of Sir Henry Dillon, different from preceding, whose honours are now dormant), was born in Ireland about 1633. He was the son of James, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, and of Elizabeth Wentworth, sister of the Earl of Strafford; his father was converted to Protestantism through the influence of Archbishop Ussher, He was educated principally in Yorkshire, and at Caen in Normandy. Travelling in Italy he acquired an almost perfect knowledge of the language, and according to Johnson, "amused himself with its antiquities, and particularly with medals, in which he acquired uncommon skill." After the Restoration he returned to England, and plunged into gaming and other excesses. For a time he was Captain of the Guards in Ireland, but resigned his commission to a poor gentleman who had saved his life in a brawl, and returned to London, where he became Master of the Horse to the Duchess of York, and married Lady Frances, daughter of the Earl of Burlington. The latter part of his life was entirely devoted to literary pursuits. With his friend Dryden he contemplated the formation of a society for refining the English language, and fixing its standard. Johnson says of his writings: "We must allow of Roscommon . . that he is perhaps the only correct writer of verse before Addison; and that if there are not so many or so great beauties in his composition as in those of some cotemporaries, there are at least fewer faults. Nor is this his highest praise; for Mr. Pope has celebrated him as the only moral writer of King Charles's reign. . . His great work, his Essay on Translated Verse, . . though generally excellent, is not without its faults. . Among his smaller works, the Eclogues of Virgil and the Dies Irœ are well translated, though the best line in the Dies Irœ is borrowed from Dryden. . . He is elegant, but not great; he never labours after exquisite beauties, and he seldom falls into gross faults. His versification is smooth, but rarely vigorous, and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He improved taste, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be numbered among the benefactors to English literature." On the point of retiring to live in Rome, he was carried off rather suddenly by an attack of gout in the stomach, 17th January 1684. Johnson says: "At the moment in which he expired, he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of Dies Irœ:
Do not forsake me in my end."
He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. Both Dryden and Pope have perpetuated his name in their poems. 198
Dillon, James, Marechal-de-Camp, was born in Ireland, and was with his father and family expatriated after the Cromwellian wars; he entered the service of the King of France, 26th March 1653, raised a regiment called after him, and commanded it until the peace of the Pyrenees. He served with distinction, especially at the battle of Dunkirk. General Dillon died in 1664, and his regiment was disbanded. 34 186
Dillon, John Blake, was born in the County of Mayo in 1814. When about eighteen, he was sent to Maynooth to study for the priesthood, but deciding upon adopting law as his profession, he entered Trinity College, and there made the acquaintance of Davis and the other young men who afterwards formed the nucleus of the Young Ireland party. He was a distinguished member and auditor of the Historical Society. In 1842 he was called to the Bar, and the same year took part with Davis and Duffy in establishing the Nation newspaper. From the Repeal he went forward to the Young Ireland party; and though opposed to taking the field, felt in honour bound to follow his beloved friend, William Smith O'Brien, in 1848. After the failure of the insurrection, he was for a time concealed by the peasantry in the Aran Islands and elsewhere, and then managed to escape to France by the aid of some of his old Maynooth friends. From France he went to the United States, where with other young exile lawyers of the party he was admitted to practise in the New York courts. In 1852 he returned to Ireland. For a time he took no part in politics, until his friends, feeling anxious that his judgment and talents should not be lost to his country, induced him to enter the Dublin Corporation, and afterwards, in 1865, the Imperial Parliament as member for Tipperary. He helped to found the National Association in company with his friends, Martin and The O'Donoghue. The subject he made more especially his own in Parliament was the financial relations between England and Ireland. To the last he held firm to his Repeal principles, and denounced in un-
