MASONIC BIOGRAPHIES FAMOUS FREEMASONS 1ST EARL OF ROSSE

"'Amongst the gents of the period,' wrote John Walsh, 'was a class called 'Bucks" whose whole enjoyment and the business of whose life seemed to consist in eccentricity and violence.' Like the duelists and abductors, bucks faded away after the union when the conforming standards of the nineteenth century took over society." "The most notorious member of the [Hell-Fire] Club was Richard Parsons, the first Earl of Rosse, sorcerer, dabbler in black magic and, according to the historian, Gilbert, 'a man of humour and frolic'." "When he was dying in 1741, his neighbour, a censorious cleric named Dean Madden, felt it his duty to write and remind him that he was a blasphemer, profligate, gamester, rioter, and other unpleasant things. Noting that the letter was merely headed 'My Lord', Rosse sent it on to the ultra-pious teetotaller, the Earl of Kildare." Peter Somerville-Large, Irish Eccentrics, a selection. London : Hamish Hamilton, 1975. SBN: 241 89189 2. 286p. bibliography, index. p. 147. Also see: John E. Walsh, Sketches of Ireland Sixty Years Ago. London, 1847; J. T. Gilbert, A History of Dublin. 3 vols. Dublin, 1854-59.

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