Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/75

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66
BARRY.

his friends purchased an annuity for his life; but his death prevented his reaping any benefit from this design. The manner of his death is thus related by his biographer:—On the evening of Thursday, Feb. 6, 1806, he was seized, as he entered the house where he usually dined, with the cold fit of a pleuritic fever, of so intense a degree, that all is faculties were suspended, and he unable to articulate or move. Some cordial was administered to him; and, on bis coming a little to himself, he was taken in a coach to the door of his own house[1], which, the keyhole being plugged with dirt and pebbles, as had been often done before by the malice, or perhaps the roguery of boys in the neighbourhood, it was impossible to open. The night being dark, and he shivering under the progress of his disease, his friends thought it advisable to drive away, without loss of time, to the hospitable mansion of Mr. Bononni. By the kindness of that good family, a bed was procured in a neighbouring house, to which he was immediately conveyed. Here he desired to be left, and locked himself up, unfortunately, for forty hours, without the least medical assistance. What took place in the mean time, he could give but little account of, as he represented himself to be delirious, and only recollected his being tortured with a burning pain in his side, and with difficulty of breathing. In this short time was the death-blow given, which, by the prompt and timely aid of copious bleedings, might have been averted; but, with this aid, such had been the re-action of the hot fit succeeding the rigours, and the violence of the inflammation on the pleura, that an effusion of lymph had taken place, as appeared afterwards upon dissection. In the afternoon of Saturday, Feb. 8, he rose and crawled forth to relate his complaint to the writer of this account. He was pale, breathless, and tottering, as he entered the room, with a dull pain in his side, a cough, short and

  1. A lycographic sketch of which, from an original drawing, we present the reader with.