A SPEECH ON THE CHARACTERS AND DEATHS OF THE REV. JOHN WILLIAM REID, AND JOHN SARGINT, ESQUIRE, DELIVERED FROM THE CHAIR OF The Historical Society OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, ON Wednesday, 12th of December, 1798. BY JOHN JEBB, A.B. Published at the Request of the Historical Society. DUBLIN: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM JONES, No. 26, COLLEGE GREEN, 227 SPEECH FROM THE CHAIR OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY'. GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, IT is my duty, this night, to address you on an affecting and melancholy subject. Two of the most brilliant ornaments of this Institution are no more. In the dawn of life, on the point of employing their various excellent acquirements, in promoting the interests of the community, they have been snatched away, from a numerous circle of afflicted friends. Short, indeed, but virtuous, has been their career. Gifted with fine talents, they knew it was their duty to employ them, in the cause of morality and religion. They had marked out a bright and honourable course, which would 1 Some interesting particulars respecting this Society, at a later period, are to be found in the Remains of the Rev. Charles Wolfe,' pp. 14, 15. 70—91. 3d Edition. Lond. 1827. have proved no less advantageous to society, than honourable to themselves. Their exertions in this assembly, and in the pursuit of academic honours, gave promise of their acquiring a distinguished reputation in life: and, however exalted might have been their future situation, their pious thankfulness would have attributed their exaltation, to the Giver of all good things. To their various and uncommon merits, the countenances of all around me bear the most affecting testimony. The cheerfulness, which usually enlivens our meetings, is fled; a solemn and melancholy silence evinces the keenness of your regret; and the manly tear of friendship glistens in many an eye. No address, which it is in my power, to deliver from this chair; no recital of the dignified and virtuous conduct of those excellent young men; no expressions of sorrow, at their premature decease, can so well correspond with the magnitude of your loss, as the feelings of your own hearts. To your hearts, then, I appeal; convinced, that there is engraven, in characters not to be effaced, a remembrance of the fine talents, and exalted virtues, of our lamented friends. It is not, then, to awaken slumbering recollection, or to rouse dormant feeling, that I address you this night. No, my friends: you are well acquainted with the excellencies of our two departed members. You have admired them in public, and loved them in private. You have been witnesses, to the integrity of their morals, and the purity of their minds. And I am convinced, there are those amongst you, who, with the anxiety of parental fondness, will describe to their children. the characters of those amiable young men, as objects of imitation; as models, by which, to form their understanding, to direct their conduct, to improve their hearts. I consider myself here, then, as your delegate, to give utterance to your feelings; the instrument, by which, you are about to pay the last sad debt, of gratitude and affection, to the memory of departed worth. I am well aware, how much I shall stand in need of your indulgence. My situation is painful and distressing: they were the most intimate of my friends; I was attached to them, by the most tender sentiments of affection and esteem; I looked forward, with the fondest hopes, to a future intercourse with them, as the circumstance which was to constitute one of the chief enjoyments of my life. These hopes are blasted; my prospects are saddened, by the melancholy recollection, of what I once enjoyed. But it is not for the purpose of indulging selfish sorrow, that I fill this place. It is to bear public |