Yet, weighing all these, and many other extenuating causes, there still stands out testimony, abundant and reliable, that his errors were ruinous to Ireland, and that in him a great soul was clouded by a most inordinate vanity; that his conduct towards Sarsfield was unwise and untimely, alienating from him the heart of that devoted soldier, and destroying that mutual confidence so indispensable to success; that the position of Tyrconnell as commander-in-chief was a canker in his heart, and not as regarded military affairs only, but that he persistently denied him that courtesy and consideration due to his age, his services, and his position as deputy: but, above all, that through his folly he lost Athlone, and precipitated the country's fate, at a time when a strong hope pervaded every breast, when the army had reached a high standard of efficiency, and after he himself, exultant in its valor, had pronounced it invincible. Resting his character on its antecedents at this particular juncture, no special pleading could shield it from obloquy. But following it to the end, and coupling his faults with the heroic efforts he made to redeem them, the heart, deeply touched by his vicissitude, cannot restrain its sympathy; and that his memory can thus hold the heart divided between love and hatred, between disgust and admiration, is still the great singularity of his character. At one moment it would seem that he held the cause he championed unworthy of his desert, and had concluded to let it go by default; while the next, he appears to be impressed with its importance, and is seen imparting hope and animation to all around him. Yet over all his arrogance and folly a native nobility of soul predominated, and well had it been for his fame, and for the country that holds his ashes, had some reverse of a less serious nature overtaken him at a period less critical in its history and in his. But whatever were the foibles of St. Ruth, from his advent in the country to his retreat from Athlone, we have now to look on an entirely different character. There he had learned, though at a fearful cost, that his _name_ had no fears for his potent adversary; that deeds alone were to be the test of high emprise; and that his folly had narrowed down the campaign, and indeed the whole war, to the last resource of fallen heroes;--death or victory. With this feeling, all that was vainglorious in his character at once disappeared; the mist was removed from his mind, and it shone out to the end of his short career, as that of a true hero in adversity. Unlike his French predecessors, he scorned to hide his faults behind the shield of calumny, he candidly acknowledged his error, and bitterly lamented it. He became courteous to his officers, affable to his soldiers, changed at once from the despot to the patriarch, and touched by his sorrows, as much as by their own calamity, they again rallied round him, and determined on a final throw for religion and liberty.