he unexpected
appearance of the boy, who, being naturally sprightly and impatient of
restraint, had found means to break from his confinement, and wandered
up and down the streets of Dublin, avoiding his father's house, and
choosing to encounter all sorts of distress, rather than subject himself
again to the cruelty and malice of the woman who supplied his mother's
place. Thus debarred his father's protection, and destitute of any fixed
habitation, he herded with all the loose, idle, and disorderly youths in
Dublin, skulking chiefly about the college, several members and students
of which, taking pity on his misfortunes, supplied him at different
times with clothes and money. In this unsettled and uncomfortable way
of life did he remain, from the year 1725 to the latter end of November,
1727; at which time his father died, so miserably poor, that he was
actually buried at the public expense.

"This unfortunate nobleman was no sooner dead, than his brother Richard,
now earl of A--, taking advantage of the nonage and helpless situation
of his nephew, seized upon all the papers of the defunct, and afterwards
usurped the title of Lord A--, to the surprise of the servants,
and others who were acquainted with the affairs of the family. This
usurpation, bold as it was, produced no other effect than that of his
being insulted by the populace as he went through the streets, and the
refusal of the king-at-arms to enrol the certificate of his brother's
having died without issue. The first of these inconveniences he bore
without any sense of shame, though not without repining, conscious that
it would gradually vanish with the novelty of his invasion; and as to
the last, he conquered it by means well known and obvious.

"Nor will it seem strange, that he should thus invade the rights of an
orphan with impunity, if people will consider, that the late Lord
A-- had not only squandered away his fortune with the most ridiculous
extravagance, but also associated himself with low company, so that he
was little known, and less regarded, by persons of any rank and figure
in life; and his child, of consequence, debarred of the advantages
which might have accrued from valuable connections. And though it was
universally known, that Lady A-- had a son in Ireland, such was the
obscurity in which the father had lived, during the last years of his
life, that few of the nobility could be supposed to be acquainted with
the particular circumstances o