It was not to be expected," he said, "that such a man as John Sheares could have escaped the destiny that befel him his doom was fixed several years before his death. His passion for liberty, as he conceived it, was incurable; for it was consecrated by its association with another passion, to which every thing seemed justifiable. You have heard of the once celebrated Mademoiselle Therouane. John Sheares was in Paris at the commencement of the revolution, and was introduced to her. She was an extraordinary creature ;-wild, imperious, and fantastic in her patriotic paroxysms; but, in her natural intervals, a beautiful and fascinating woman. He became deeply enamoured of her, and not the less so for the political enthusiasm that would have repelled another. I have heard that he assisted, in the uniform of the national guard, at the storming of the bastile, and that he encountered the perils as a means of recommending himself to the object of his admiration. She returned that sentiment, but she would not listen to his suit. When he tendered her a proposal of marriage, she produced a pistol, and threatened to lay him dead, if he renewed the subject. This I had from himself. But her rigor did not extinguish his passion. He returned to Ireland full of her image, and I suspect, not without a hope that the success of the fatal enterprize in which he embarked might procure him, at a future day, a more favourable hearing: but of this, and all his other hopes, you see," pointing to his remains, "the lamentable issue." I asked whether his mistress had heard his fate, and how she bore it. My friend replied, "When I was at Paris, during the short peace of Amiens, I asked the same question; but I met with no one who had personally known her. She was then living, in a condition, however, to which death would have been preferable. She was in a miserable state of insanity, and confined in a public institution. John Sheares" he continued "flung himself into the revolutionary cause from principal and temperament; but Henry wanted the energy of a conspirator: of this he was forewarned by an accident that I know to have occurred. Shortly after he had taken the oath of an united Irishman, it was toward the close of the year 1797, he was present at the election for the city of Dublin; a riot took place at the hustings, the military interfered, and the people fled in confusion: a tradesman, who resided in the vicinity, hearing the shout, hastily moved towards the spot to inquire the cause. The first person he met was Henry Sheares, pallid, trembling, and almost gasping for breath. He asked what had happened. Sheares, with looks and tones importing extraordinary perturbation, implored him, if he valued his life, to turn back. It was with some difficulty that the interrogator could obtain an intelligible account of the cause and extent of the danger. As soon as he had ascertained the fact, be fixed his eyes on Sheares, and said, " Mr. Sheares, I know more of some matters than you may be aware of; take a friend's advice, and have no more to do with politics you have not nerves, sir, for the business you have engaged in." But the infatuation of the times, and the influence of his brother's character and example prevailed. : "When the catastrophe came, John Sheares felt, when too late, that he should have offered the same advice. This reflection embittered his last moments. It also called forth some generous traits, that deserve to be remembered. His appeal to the court in behalf of his brother, as given in the report of the trial, is a model of natural pathos; but I know nothing more pathetic in conduct than a previous scene, which Curran once described to me as he had witnessed it. When Curran visited them in prison to receive instructions for their defence, John Sheares rushed forward, and, embracing his knees, implored him to intercede for Henry; for himself, he offered to plead guilty-to die at an hour's notice-to reveal all that he knew, with the exception of names-to do anything that might be fairly required of him, provided the government would consent to spare his brother." The preserving power of the vaults of St. Michan's was long ascribed by popular superstition to the peculiar holiness of the ground; but modern philosophy has unwrought the miracles by explaining, on chemical principles, the cause of the phenomenon.-Water is a sure decayer of dead bodies. The walls and soil of these vaults abound with carbonate of lime, and argillaceous earth; a compound, that absorbs the moisture which is necessary to the putrefactive process. In all weathers the place is perfectly free from damp: the consequence is, that animal matter being exposed to such an atmosphere, though it undergoes important chemical changes, and soon ceases to be strictly flesh, yet retains for a length of time its external proportions. I had occasion to observe a circumstance that proves the uncommon dryness of the air. One of the recesses, which is fastened up, is the burial-place of a noble family. On looking through the grating of the door, we saw two or three coronets glittering from the remote extremity of the cell, as brightly as if they had been polished up the day before. The attendants assured us that it was more than a year since any one entered the place. He inserted a taper within the grating, to give us a fuller view, when his statement was corroborated by the appearance of an ample canopy of cobweb, extending from wall to wall of this chamber of death, and which it must have cost the artificers many a weary day and night to weave. A curtain of the same sepulchral gauze overhung the spot where the Sheare's rest. I had seen the catacombs of Paris, but I was more interested, and made to feel more for others and myself, in the vaults of St. Michan's. STANZAS. If there be a rolling star in the sky, Or a heaven in thy breast, or a bliss in thine eye; As that heaven is mine,-as that eye hath shone If thy virgin breast can harbour aught When the waves shall cease to be stirr'd by the wind; ALP. 46 THE SOLDIER. Then a soldier; Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard Even in the cannon's mouth.-Shakspeare. "Bearded like a pard," or leopard, from which the poet borrows his resemblance. It should seem from this and other passages of Shakspeare, that our ancestors were very curious in the particular fashion of their beards, each having one of a different cut, according to the profession in which he was engaged. Mrs. Quickly, in the Merry Wives of Windsor," asks if Slender "does not wear a great round beard, like a glover's paring knife?" To which she receives for answer, No, forsooth; he hath a little wee face, with a little yellow beard-a Cain-coloured beard." On this passage a commentator remarks, "That Cain and Judas in the tapestries and pictures of old, were represented with yellow beards." In "Henry the Fifth," we find that the general had a beard appropriated to his profession; "And what a beard of general's cut." Beards were cut into a variety of whimsical shapes, such as spades, stilettoes, &c. instances of which may be found in many old portraits, particularly in those of the Earls of Southampton and Essex. To persons conversant with the works of the immortal Shakspeare, and who suppose, with Mr. Malone, that “ Henry the Fourth" was written three years prior to the play of "As you like it ;" there can be no doubt that the author had the character of Hotspur in his mind, when he drew his picture of the soldier. "Full of strange oaths." Profane swearing was probably, at that time, much in fashion with the army. In the historical play of "Henry the Fifth," the soldiers are represented as boasting of their valour in action, "And this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new turned oaths." To Hotspur, this part of the description is very applicable, who, among other passages that might be quoted, vehemently exclaims, Speak of Mortimer? Zounds, I will speak of him: and let my soul |