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Show AUBERY DE VERE. Death of One of the Greatest Literary Men of the Age. London, Jan. 21 Aubrey Thomas de Vere is dead, aged 8S years. In these few words the cable tells of the passing of a gTeat poet, the friend of Cardinals Manning and Newman, the disciple of Wordsworth, and the associate of most of the well known men of the nineteenth century. Aubrey de Vere was almost the solitary survivor sur-vivor of that notable group of worldwide world-wide reputation which counted among its members such men as Tennyson. Southey, Sir William Hamilton, Lord Houghton, Henry Taylor, Landor, Coventry, Cov-entry, Patmore and many others. He was the last of those eye-witnesses to describe Wordsworth as he knelt at prayers, his face hidden in his hands; to tell of the tears that coursed down O Connell's cheeks as he repeated Moore's verses on the death of Emmet; to set before us Newman and Manning with the familiar touches of a personal friend. Nor was he the least among this princely company. For no poet since Wordsworth is his equal. Like most men who live a literary life, Aubrey de Vere's career was uneventful. un-eventful. The third son of the late Sir Aubrey de Vere, Bart., of Curragh Chase. County Limerick, he was born at that place in 1814, and was educated at Trintity college. Dublin. His first poems were published in 1S42, a thin volume, "The Waldenses, or the Fall of Rome." From that time for twenty-five twenty-five years he poured out i succession of books in verse, many of them devoted de-voted to Irish legends, and works in prose which contained strong pleas for justice to Ireland. Among his poetic works are "Recollections "Recol-lections of Greece," and, 1813. "Poems Miscellaneous and Sacred;" lS5i, "In-nisfail;" "In-nisfail;" 1SG1, "Alexander the Great:" a dramatic poem 1874. One of his best known poems is "A Year of Sqrrow," describing the horors of the great famine in Ireland. Among his prose works are: "English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds," "Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey." "The Church Settlement Set-tlement of Ireland," "Ireland's Church Properly and the Right Use of It," any "Pleas for Sec'arization." The most important act of bis life was his conversion to the Catholic faith in 1851, which created a tremendous tremen-dous sensation. Early in life he, had become an ardent High Churchman. When, however, the Gorman judgment judg-ment was given, he did not blind himself him-self to the issues of the cause, but joined the Church c.s the only logical alternative. To Thomas Carlyle, his friend, he epitomized the history of his conversion when, to the remonstrances remon-strances of the latter, he replied: t will teil you in a word what I am about. I have lived a Christian hitherto, hith-erto, and I intend to die one." |