WALKER'S HIBERNIAN MAGAZINE: OR, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge. FOR MAY, 1808. Character of the late COUNTESS DOWAGER MOIRA. Embellished with an elegant Likeness, from an approved Drawing. TH HIS lady, whofe demife is announced in the lift of deaths for the prefent month, was uncommonly gifted with great powers of memory, great quicknefs of intellect, and a peculiar eafy yet fplendid elocution, with which the adorned whatever fubject the touched upon, whether the mere paffing events of the day, the various topics of literature, or those useful arts by which the community is benefited, and the refources of a nation enlarged. Her acquaintance with fuch branches of knowledge was by no means limited or fuperficial, on the contrary, fome learned focieties have borne refpectful teftimony to her acquirements in this particular, and the real utility which flowed from the productions of her active and difcerning genius. She was married to the late earl of Moira in Feb. 1752, and refided in Dublin, or the North of Ireland (with the exception of one year's abfence in France) for more than half a century; for the long period of fifty-fix years. Let thole who remember what Moira houfe was in the earlier days of that period, when May, 1808. fhe led, and reflected a grace upon every beneficial fashion: when the cultivated the fine arts; when the rendered her house the favourite spot where every perfon of genius or talents in Dublin, or who vifited Dublin, loved moft to refort to; let fuch perfons fay, whether Moira house, and its illuftrious lady, as well as its truly noble and beneficent lord, deferve not every panegyric which gratitude can beftow. She was the laft in a direct line of the great name of Haftings-the laft! a word when fo applied, every liberal nature will dwell upon with inelancholy fenfations, even to enthufiafm-fuch are perhaps the univerfal feelings of mankind, in favour of exalted birth, which a vain-glorious philofophy never can eradicate, that when a race of nobility, diftinguished by the length of years during which they wore their honours uninterrupted, is finally terminated, the extinction of fuch a family is regarded not without a generous fympathy; but when the tomb closes on a noble matron, the reprefentative of a great houfe, with whofe hiftory the best, K and |