was rewarded by being created Earl of Orrery.  He was the author of six tragedies and two comedies, some of which when produced proved gratifyingly popular.  He is noted for having been the first to write tragedy in rhyme, thereby setting an example that was followed with avidity for a time by Dryden and others.  He also wrote poems, a romance called Parthenissa (1654), and a Treatise on the Art of War (1677).  From whatever point of view considered, Lord Orrery was a remarkable member of a remarkable family.  His son, John Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery (1707-1762), in virtue of his translation of Pliny’s Letters, his Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift, and his Letters from Italy, has some claims to recognition in the field of literature.

Charles Leslie (1650-1722), a Dubliner by birth, was son of that John Leslie, bishop of Raphoe and Clogher, who lived through a whole century, from 1571 to 1671, and who was 79 years of age when Charles, his sixth son, was born.  Educated first at Enniskillen and afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin, Charles Leslie studied law in London, but eventually abandoned that profession and entered the ministry.  He was of a disputatious character and in particular went to great lengths in opposing the pro-Catholic activities of James II.  Nevertheless, when the Revolution of 1688 came, he took the side of the deposed monarch, and loyally adhered to his Jacobite principles for the remainder of his life.  He even joined the Old Pretender on the continent, and endeavored to convert him to Protestantism, but, failing therein, he returned to Ireland, where he died at Glasslough in county Monaghan.  Many years of Leslie’s life were devoted to disputes with Catholics, Quakers, Socinians, and Deists, and the seven volumes which his writings fill prove that he was an extremely able controversialist.  His best known work is the famous treatise, A Short and Easy Method with the Deists, published in 1698.

The Irish note, tone, or temper is not conspicuous in any of the writings so far named unless when it is conspicuous by its absence; but it appears plainly, for the first time, in Molyneux’s Case of Ireland being bound by Laws [made] in England Stated (1698).  William Molyneux (1656-1698) has always ranked as an Irish patriot.  His was one of the spirits invoked by Grattan in his great speech (1782) on the occasion on which he carried his celebrated Declaration of Independence in the Irish parliament.  When the English Act of 1698, which was meant to destroy, and did destroy, the Irish woolen industry, came before the Irish house of commons for ratification, Molyneux’s was the only voice raised against its adoption.  His protest was followed by the publication of his Case Stated, which is a classic on the general relations between Ireland and England, and contained arguments so irrefutable that it drove the English parliament to fury and was by that body ordered to be burned by the common hangman.  It is a remarkable coincidence that Molyneux opens his argument by laying down in almost identical words the principles which stand at the beginning of the American Declaration of Independence.