Life
1702-1788 [Earl Nugent]; b. Carlanstown, Co. Westmeath; son of Michael
Nugent of Carlanstown and Mary, dg. Lord Trimlestown; m. Lady Estelle
Plunkett, dg. Lord Fingall, 1730; m. sister of James Craggs, Sec. of State,
1736; and m. Dowager Countess of Berkeley, 1757; three times MP for Bristol;
Viscount Clare i, 1767; Earl Nugent, 1776; ‘hooked nose and wide
countenance’ referred to in John O’Keeffe’s Recollections;
his dg. became Marchioness of Buckingham; a favourite of the Prince of
Wales; Mrs Pilkington claims that the poem ‘Happiness’ was actually
written by Rev james Sterling (Pilkington, Memoirs, Vol. 2, pp.176-78);
poss. auth of Merit, a Satire (Dublin 1746); Port. in European Magazine
(1784); Walpole coined the phrase to ‘Nugentize’ in reference
to his marriage of rich widows; friend of Prince Regent; Goldsmith’s
The Haunch of Venison dedicated to him. DNB PI DIB OCIL.
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Works
Essay on Justice, poem (Lon 1737; fol. 1738); Essay on Happiness,
poem (Lon 1737); Ode to Mrs. Pulteney (1739); Odes and Epistles
(1739 anon.); Faith, a poem (anon. 1774); The Genius of Ireland,
poem addressed to Lord Clare (1775); Life and Select Poems; printed
in The British Poets. [PI]
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Criticism
Claud Nugent, Memoir of Robert, Earl Nugent, with Letters, Poems and
Appendices (Chicago & NY 1898).
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Notes
Robert E. & Catherine Ward, eds., Letters of Charles O’Conor
(Washington 1988); letter to J. C. Walker takes the form of an encomium
of Nugent and some account of his family, ‘Through the course of
sixty years I have attended to him from his first motions as Bob Nugent
of Carlonstown ... He threw lustre back on an illustrious ancestry often,
however, ill-treated by English and Irish thorugh a course of 350 years.
They placed their glory in moderation between two jealous parties, each
claiming and each rejecting their best friends, occasionally, through
the vicissitudes of domestic animosities. ... To do goo, public and private,
was Earl Nugent’s passion in life ... [&c.] (PSPL, Gilbert MS
203; p.494)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)