found delight in the companionship of those whose cultivated tastes, intellectual prowess, and high principles, met with so warm a response in the sympathies of his own congenial heart. We dwell on this period of his history, the rather, that we have heard it alleged, that his course of life, at this time, was one of careless dissipation. Nothing could be farther from the truth; and the very fact relied upon in proof of a charge too rashly advanced, while it is easily accounted for, in what we have just written, lends no support whatever to that which it is brought forward to maintain-we mean his admiration of, and frequent presence at the theatre, and his partiality for dramatic representations. John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, and Miss O'Neill (now Lady Becher, who, for many years past has adorned, and we trust may, for many years to come, continue to adorn, by the grace of domestic virtue, the high station to which she has been so deservedly elevated), were then in the zenith of their fame. Men of rank, intellect, taste, and moral worth, were their patrons and admirers, who felt their own minds elevated in return by the silent influence upon them of those mighty creations of minds they were capable of estimating and understanding. And even at a period of much more recent date, we have known young men in the university, who resorted to the theatre for intellectual improvement, studying Shakespeare as they did Sophocles or Eschylus, and finding in the personations of Edmund Kean, Young, or Macready, commentaries more easily apprehensible than the discursive expositions of Malone, or even than the pointed and pithy glossaries of Rann. All this should fairly be borne in mind in connexion with Mr. M'Neile's young attractions to the theatre; and it might also be considered whether much of that grace and elegance of enunciation and manner for which he has always been remarkable, may not be owing to impressions unconsciously stamped upon a plastic mind, by the contemplation of those brilliant models.

However, the choice of his friends, and his own inclination, were at this time fully towards the bar, a profession at which, with Mr. M'Neile's natural and acquired qualifications and advantages, he must have risen speedily to eminence and wealth. Accordingly he entered his name a student at King's Inns, where he served all his terms; from whence, after graduating in the university, in 1814, he transferred himself to Lincoln's Inns, and all but completed his terms there also. It was about this period, that his visits to his uncle, General M'Neile, became more frequent and prolonged. The General had, since his return from India, resided chiefly at Bath, and always delighted much in the society of his young and promising nephew. Being, moreover, unmarried, he was generally considered to have adopted him, so that the young law-student was already marked out, and upon no insufficient grounds, as heir presumptive to his uncle's affluent fortune. At all events, the chief part of his time during the years 1815 to 1819 inclusive, was spent with his uncle, mixing, of course, very much in the society of Bath, where they principally resided; but occasionally visiting London, Harrowgate, and other places of fashionable resort.

The entire of the year 1816 appears to have been spent by them on the continent, where, independently of other considerations, the name of an English general was sure to meet with, especially at that time, a more than ordinary degree of respect and attention. All this was most favourable to his young attaché, and few knew better how to avail themselves of opportunities for observation and improvement. It was during the summer of that year, when General M'Neile and his nephew were staying at Secheron, a small village on the Lake of Geneva, between the city of that name and Lausanne, that the incident took place, whereby Henry, now Lord, Brougham, and Mr. M'Neile were brought together. The young man was taken suddenly and seriously ill his uncle was naturally and painfully alarmed for his safety: what was to be done? They were far from any assistance, in a strange country, at a village inn. Meanwhile the disease was rapidly gaining ground, and his nephew's strength was manifestly sinking; a few hours more, and all remedies might have been too late. At this juncture, Lord Brougham and party drove up, not purposing to make more than a few moments' halt, for refreshment or change of horses; but hearing, from "mine host," of the situation in which two of his countrymen were placed, he, in the kindest manner, proffered his ready advice, was admitted to the cham

ber of the patient, and prescribed for him some desperate remedy, in the success of which, he assured the anxious uncle, lay the only hope of his nephew's recovery. There was no alternative; the advice was eagerly followed; and the result, under God, issued in the preservation of Mr. M'Neile's valuable life. A few years ago, after Mr. M'Neile had concluded his sermon, in the Rev. Robert Lovet's Chapel of Mar bœuf, Paris, Lord Roden entered the vestry, accompanied by Lord Brougham, who, after some conversation with Mr. M'Neile upon the subject of the sermon, and after expressing his delight, especially at the accuracy of an illustration borrowed from natural philosophy, adverted to the scene and circumstances of their former rencontre at the foot of the Alps.

The late Lord Byron occupied, at that time, his own villa, at the opposite side of the Lake of Geneva, and was frequently to be met with in the same circle in which Mr. M'Neile and his uncle moved. In short, few young men ever enjoyed the opportunity of seeing continental society, in Paris and elsewhere, under circumstances more favourable, and few can be said to have turned their opportunities to better purpose; inasmuch as, even then, the impression left on his mind was rather a wholesome dread of the fascinations, than an ardent attraction (as might have been apprehended) towards the elegancies with which it abounded. His first insight into fashionable life may be said to have been at this time, and under the auspices just mentioned; and his mind, happily recoiling from the frivolous amusements and worse morality of continental life, seems, for the first time, to have discovered to itself the latent seeds of that principle and piety which have since been so signally developed, as well as the desire after that truth, of which ever since he has been such a steadfast and honoured champion. It is not the ordeal to which we would wish to see young men generally exposed; but in the case of Mr. M'Neile the undesigned experiment was eminently successful.

His

The next three years were passed principally at Bath, during the course of which, the good principle seems to have been silently at work within him. Still, he mixed in society as before, and was much courted and admired in it. Meanwhile, the study of law was becoming more and more irksome; and theology gradually took firm hold of his attention. Justinian was superseded by the Bible, and the reasoning of Butler, or the eloquence of Barrow, drew forth a more cordial response from his soul than the learned lore of Blackstone or Coke. And thus matters went on till the year 1819, when his uncle was astounded by the first intimation from his nephew, that he was contemplating to renounce the law, and embrace the Church as a profession. This was at once a death blow to all General M'Neile's fondly and reasonably cherished hopes and plans for his nephew's advancement. avowed object all along had been, that Mr. M'Neile should make the bar a stepping-stone into parliament, when his wealth and influence would easily have procured him a seat, and where his own talent and assiduity must as certainly have ensured his success. Such being his intentions, he naturally discountenanced, in every way, Mr. M'Neile's entrance into the Church. But the young man had already counted the cost; he clearly foresaw the probable consequences of the resolution that was gradually, but powerfully, assuming form and reality within him; his high resolve had not been rashly adopted, nor was it lightly to be abandoned, and at last he firmly, but respectfully communicated to his uncle his fixed determination to pursue that profession, of which only, in his conscience, he approved. Without going so far as to affirm, that for this Mr. M'Neile sunk in his uncle's affection, for which he must have risen in his esteem, since the cordial intimacy between them never suffered a moment's interruption, we are borne out in stating, that for this he lost the bulk of his uncle's fortune, which otherwise, in all human probability, had been his. Of the likelihood of this, moreover, he could not have been unaware, since many friends reasoned with him, he had ample time to reflect, and the door of return was open to him to the last; nevertheless he persevered, thereby signally marking the disinterestedness and singleness of mind with which, from the very outset, he devoted himself to his holy calling, characteristics, for which every step of his course has been as remarkable up to the present hour.

His resolution being once determined, Mr. M'Neile's course of life and study

was influenced accordingly. Even then he appears to have commenced visiting the poor in their cottages, reading to them, and instructing them in matters of the deepest moment. In the early part of the year 1820, Mr. M'Neile was appointed to the curacy of Stranorlar, a village about seven miles from the episcopal town of Raphoe, on the banks of the river Finn. Here, amid a numerous and intelligent Protestant population, was the scene of his first labours as a parochial minister.

The

It is said that the circumstances of his appointment to this curacy were singular. The living of Stranorlar was, at that time, a perpetual curacy, part of the corps of the deanery of Raphoe. The endowment of the perpetual curacy with the glebe, and a greater part of the tithes of the parish, had made the preferment equal to a rectory. Dean Allott, in whose gift the nomination was, and who was then residing on the continent, having heard of the death of Mr. Butt, the then incumbent of the living, offered to Mr. M'Neile's uncle, who had been an old friend of his, the living for his nephew, as soon as ordination would qualify him to hold it; and with a letter from the dean, communicating this intention, Mr. M'Neile presented himself to the Bishop of Raphoe. The celebrated Dr. Magee was then bishop of Raphoe, and thus became acquainted with his future son-in-law. The nomination, however, was premature. Mr. Butt recovered from the dangerous illness which had given rise to the rumour of his death; but was never able to resume the discharge of his duties. bishop proposed to Mr. M'Neile that he would recommend him for the appointment of curate, which the state of Mr. Butt's health rendered necessary. this arrangement Mr. M'Neile acceded. In the recommendation of his diocesan Mr. Butt cheerfully acquiesced, and Mr. M'Neile became curate-assistant of Stranorlar on nomination of the very man whose place, as incumbent of the living, he had came over to fill. That an introduction so strange should never for an instant interrupt the cordial harmony which, during the entire time that Mr. M'Neile held the curacy, subsisted between him and his rector, is a fact that reflects equal credit upon both. It is here, however, to be remarked, that besides his letter from the Dean Mr. M'Neile brought with him a warm letter of introduction to the Bishop, from the late learned and pious Dean Graves, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University, whose friendship he had the good fortune to secure, as the College companion of his son, Hercules, already mentioned in this memoir. Such an introduction from an old and long-esteemed friend, was not lightly regarded by the good Bishop, and, being borne out so fully, as we know it to have been, by the subsequent career of the person introduced, we cease to wonder that the acquaintance gradually ripened into close intimacy

Το

* Mr. Butt was father of Mr. Butt the eminent barrister, who has made the name familiar to our readers. He was an elegant and accomplished scholar; he passed through the Dublin University with considerable distinction. He was a scholar of the house in the same class with Lord Plunkett and Dr. Magee, and was Treasurer of the Historical Society of that day. In the celebrated contest for the representation of the University between Mr. Hutchinson and Sir Laurence Parsons he took a very warm part for the former. In several of the publications, to which that bitterly contested election gave rise, his name is mentioned as a partizan of the Provost's. Almost immediately on his ordination he retired to the remote district in which his life was passed. Although never able, after the illness which led to Mr. M'Neile's appointment, to resume his parochial duties, he lived until the year 1829.

During the period of his incapacity to discharge his own duties-the selection of his curates, whether made by himself or those to whom he entrusted it, presents a singularly rapid succession of names of eminence-Mr. M'Neile was succeeded in the curacy by the Rev. R. T. P. Pope, whose fame as a controversialist and orator not even his present inaction can obscure. He was followed after a short interval in the curacy by the Rev. Dr. Traill, whose labours among the starving poor of Schull are now exciting the attention of the empire, and whose translation of Josephus, now in progress of publication, will establish for him a character for the most solid learning and erudition, as high as that which he bears for eloquence and zeal. During the same period, and previously, the Rev. J. C. Lloyd, late chaplain to the Molyneux Asylum, was a frequent preacher in Stranorlar church,