eras or farces, and some of
them had great success. Lingo, the schoolmaster in _The Agreeable
Surprise_, is a very amusing character. _The Positive Man, The
Son-in-Law, Wild Oats, Love in a Camp_, and _The Poor Soldier_ are
among his compositions. His songs are well known, such as "I am a
friar of orders grey", and there are few schoolboys who have not
sooner or later made the acquaintance of his "Amo, amas, I loved a
lass". For the last fifty-two years of his life O'Keeffe was blind,
an affliction which he bore with unfailing cheerfulness. In 1826 he
was given a pension of one hundred guineas a year from the king's
privy purse.

George Canning (1770-1827), prime minister of England, properly
belongs here, for, although born in London, he was a member of an
Irish family long settled at Garvagh in Co. Derry. Entering
parliament on the side of Pitt in 1796, he was made secretary of the
navy in 1804 and in 1812 secretary of State for foreign affairs. He
became prime minister in 1827, but died within six months, leaving a
record for scarcely surpassed eloquence. In addition to his speeches,
he is known in literature for his contributions to the _Anti-Jacobin,
or Weekly Examiner_, which ran its satirical and energetic career for
eight months (November, 1797-July, 1798.) Some of the best things
that appeared in this ultra-conservative organ were from Canning's
pen. Few there are who have not laughed at his _Loves of the
Triangles_, in which he caricatured Erasmus Darwin's _Loves of the
Plants_; at _The Needy Knife-Grinder_; or at the song of Rogero in
_The Rovers_, with its comic refrain of the

U--
niversity of Gottingen.

Like most of the great Anglo-Irishmen of his time, Canning favored
Catholic emancipation. It is interesting to note that it was a letter
of Canning's that led to the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine.

Henry Grattan (1746-1820), the hero of Grattan's parliament, was born
in Dublin and studied at Trinity College. His history belongs to that
of his country. Suffice it here to say that not only did he by great
eloquence and real statesmanship secure a free parliament for Ireland
In 1782, but also that he fought energetically, if unavailingly,
against the abolition of that parliament in 1800, and that
thenceforward he devoted his abilities to promoting the cause of
Catholic emancipation. Dying in London, he was honored by being
buried in Westminster Abbey. In an age of gr