WOLFE. The Rev. CHARLES, the son of a county gentleman of Kildare, was 15. Dec. 14, 1791, at Dublin. The family having come to England on the death of his father, which took place while he was yet quite young,..the boy received his chief edu cation at Winchester, where he showed himself an apt scholar. Being transferred in 1809 to the university of Dublin, he succeeded hisecuring a scholarship, and in 1814 his degree of bachelor of arts. During this period he was actively employed as a tutor: at this time it was also that he composed the greater part of the poetry which he left as his legacy to the world. In 1817 his celebrated lines on The Burial of Sir John Moore suggested by reading Southey's impressive account of it in the Edinburgh Annual Regis ter, were written; and soon after they found their way into the newspapers. So gener ally admired were they that even while the name of their author remained unknown, they had won for themselves a secure place in the memory of the British people. As a singularly felicitous and touching poetical record of a noble and pathetic incident in our national history, they are, perhaps, not likely to be forgotten while that history is patriotically read and remembered. Wolfe, after qualifying himself to take orders, became, in 1817, curate of Ballyclog, in the county of Tvrone, from which he was shortly transferred to the larger parish of Donough more. Ills devotion to his duties was
extreme, and was repaid by the warm affection of all with whom they brought him in contact. But they seem somewhat to have overtaxed the strength of a constitution at no time robust; symptoms of consumption appeared; and a visit which he made to Edinburgh in May, 1821, developed it. He tried in search of health, successively, Eng land, the s. of France, and finally the sheltered Cove of Cork, in which last place he died on Feb. 21, 1823..
His literary Remains, consisting of sermons chiefly and poems, were given to the world, with a Memoir, in 1825, by the rev. John A. Russell, 31.A., archdeacon of Clog 'her, an attached friend of the deceased. The work, though containing some poetry of real merit, never made any great impression, and is now quite forgotten. The one beautiful piece which preserves for us the name of Wolfe, was attributed by guess, while lie lived, to more than one of the most famous writers of the day—as, notably, Campbell and Byron. Since his death, several nefarious attempts have been made to filch from him the fame he continues to derive from it.