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diff --git a/old/51889-0.txt b/old/51889-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 247c4a4..0000000 --- a/old/51889-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2458 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Emmet, by Louise Imogen Guiney - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Robert Emmet - A Survey of His Rebellion and of His Romance - -Author: Louise Imogen Guiney - -Release Date: April 29, 2016 [EBook #51889] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT EMMET *** - - - - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -[Illustration: _Robert Emmet._ - -AET XXV.] - - - - -ROBERT EMMET - - A SURVEY OF HIS REBELLION - AND OF HIS ROMANCE - - BY - - LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY - - WITH A PORTRAIT - - OF - - ROBERT EMMET - - LONDON - DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACRE - 1904 - - - - - Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. - At the Ballantyne Press - - - - - _To_ - - LIONEL JOHNSON - - _in the Land of the Living to remind him of - old thoughts and of things once dear_ - - - - -PREFATORY NOTE - - -THE following unscientific monograph, a sort of little historical -descant, is founded upon all the accurate known literature of the -subject, and also largely on the Hardwicke MSS. These, in so far as -they relate to Emmet, the writer was first to consult and have copied, -last winter, before they were catalogued. But while these sheets were -in press, several interesting fragments from the MSS. appeared in -the _Cornhill Magazine_ for September, 1903, thus forestalling their -present use. This discovery will condone the writer’s innocent claim, -made on page 60, of printing the two letters there as unpublished -matter. - -The portrait is after Brocas’s hurried court-room sketch, made the day -before the execution. The original print is in the Joly Collection of -the National Library of Ireland. The head is too sharp and narrow, and -yet it bears a marked resemblance, far exceeding that of either of the -other portraits, to some of Robert Emmet’s collateral descendants. On -such good _à posteriori_ evidence it was chosen. - - Oxford, _Dec. 9, 1903_. - - - - -ROBERT EMMET - -A SURVEY OF HIS REBELLION AND OF HIS ROMANCE - - -THE four who lived to grow up of the seventeen children born to -Robert Emmet, M.D., of Cork, later of Dublin, and Elizabeth Mason, -his wife, were all, in their way, persons of genius. The Emmets -were of Anglo-Norman stock, Protestants, settled for centuries in -Ireland. The Masons, of like English origin, had merged it in repeated -alliances with women of Kerry, where the Dane, the Norman, and later -invaders from nearer quarters had never settled down to perturb the -ancient Celtic social stream. Dr. Emmet was a man of clear brain -and incorruptible honour. The mother of his children, to judge by -her letters, many of which have been privately printed, must have -been an exquisite being, high-minded, religious, loving, humorous, -wise. Her eldest surviving son, Christopher Temple Emmet, was named -for his two paternal grandparents, Christopher Emmet of Tipperary -and Rebecca Temple, great-great-granddaughter of the first Baronet -Temple of Stowe, in Buckinghamshire. The mention of that prolific, -wide-branching, and extraordinary family of Temple as forebears of the -younger Emmets is like a sharply accented note in a musical measure. -It has never been played for what it is worth; no annalist has tracked -certain Emmet qualities to this perfectly obvious ancestral source. -The Temples had not only, in this case, the bygone responsibility to -bear, for in a marked manner they kept on influencing their Emmet -contemporaries, as in one continuous mood thought engenders thought. -Says Mr. James Hannay: “The distinctive ηθος of the Temples has been -a union of more than usual of the kind of talent which makes men of -letters, with more than usual of the kind of talent which makes men -of affairs.” The Emmets, too, shared the “distinctive ηθος” in the -highest degree. Added to the restless two-winged intelligence, they -had the heightened soberness, the moral elevation, which formed no -separate inheritance. The Temples were, and are, a race of subtle but -somewhat austere imagination, strongly inclined to republicanism, and -to that individualism which is the norm of it. The Temple influence in -eighteenth-century Ireland was, obliquely, the American influence: a -new and heady draught at that time, a “draught of intellectual day.” If -we seek for those unseen agencies which are so much more operative than -mere descent, we cover a good deal of ground in remembering that Robert -Emmet the patriot came of the same blood as Sidney’s friend, Cromwell’s -chaplain, and Dorothy Osborne’s leal and philosophic husband. And he -shared not only the Temple idiosyncrasy, but, unlike his remarkable -brothers, the thin, dark, aquiline Temple face. - -Rebecca Temple, only daughter of Thomas, a baronet’s son, married -Christopher Emmet in 1727, brought the dynastic names, Robert and -Thomas, into the Emmet family, and lived in the house of her son, the -Dublin physician, until her death in 1774, when her grandchildren, -Temple and Thomas Addis, were aged thirteen and ten, Robert being -yet unborn. Her protracted life and genial character would have -strengthened the relations, always close, with the Temple kin. Her -brother Robert had gone in his youth from Ireland to Boston, where -his father was long resident; and there he married a Temple cousin. -This Captain Robert Temple died on April 13, 1754, “at his seat, Ten -Hills, at Boston, in New England.” His three sons, the eldest of whom, -succeeding his great-grandfather, became afterwards Sir John Temple, -eighth Baronet of Stowe, all settled in New England and married -daughters of the Bowdoin, Shirley, and Whipple families—good wives -and clever women. John Temple had been “a thorough Whig all through -the Revolution,” and had suffered magnanimously for it. He had to -forfeit office, vogue, and money; and little anticipating his then -most improbable chances of a rise in the world, he forfeited all these -with dogged cheerfulness, in the hour when he could least afford to do -so. The latter-day Winthrops of the Republic are directly descended -from him, and the late Marquis of Dufferin and Ava from his brother. -A certain victorious free spirit, an intellectual fire, whimsical and -masterful, has touched the whole race of untamable Temples, and the -Emmets, the very flower of that race. Love of liberty was, in both -Robert Emmet and in Thomas Addis Emmet, no isolated phenomenon, but -their strengthened and applied inheritance. Captain Robert Temple’s -second son, Robert, came back with his wife, Harriet Shirley, after -the Declaration of Independence, to Allentown, Co. Dublin. His widow -eventually received indemnification for the loss of their transatlantic -estates. It is thus proved that Robert Temple was a loyalist to some -appreciable degree. Earlier and later, however, he did considerable -thinking, cherished liberal principles, and had much to say of the -rights of man and other large theses to his namesake first cousin, -Robert Emmet, M.D., with whom he lived for eighteen months after his -return. This community of ideas was further cemented by the marriage -of Anne Western Temple, Robert Temple’s daughter, to Dr. Emmet’s -eldest son, Temple Emmet. Dr. Emmet was faithful to the unpopular -convictions which he found himself sharing in increased degree with his -cousin. Up to 1783 he was always voluntarily abandoning one position -of eminence after another, as he came to dissent from English rule in -Ireland. He held among other offices that of State Physician; and from -a bland condemnatory notice of his youngest son in _The Gentleman’s -Magazine_ for October 1803, we learn that he was also physician to -the Lord-Lieutenant’s household. It is clear, then, that he also began -his career as a trusted Conservative. But as his opinions changed, -he gave up, Temple-like and Emmet-like, every position and emolument -inconsistent with them; when the ’98 broke out he had even ceased to -practise his profession. He and his wife and their children felt alike -in these matters so adversely and intimately affecting their chances -of worldly success. The boys and the girl were brought up to think -first of Ireland and her needs. An amicable satirist and distinguished -acquaintance was wont facetiously to report Dr. Emmet’s administration -of what the visitor named “the morning draught” to his little ones: -“Well, Temple, what are you ready to do for your country? Would you -kill your sister? Would you kill me?” For after this perilous early -Roman pattern the catechism ran. Even if only a beloved joke, it would -have been enough to seal the young Emmets for fanaticism, had not their -good angels intervened. As it turned out, they were all of a singularly -judicial cast. The only daughter, Mary Anne, had what used to be -called, by way of adequate eulogy, a “masculine understanding,” and -wrote pertinently and well. Her husband was the celebrated barrister -and devoted Irishman, Robert Holmes. He was the true friend and adviser -of the whole Emmet family, and survived his wife, who died during his -imprisonment in 1804, for five-and-fifty years. Of Dr. Emmet’s three -sons, Temple, Thomas Addis, and Robert, the former had an almost -incomparably high repute for “every virtue, every grace,” to quote -Landor’s mourning line for another. It is no disparagement to him to -say that this was partly owing to the pathos of so short a career, -and to the fact that he died ten years before the great Insurrection, -twelve before the Union; seeming to belong to a prior order of things, -it was the easier to praise the Emmet who did not live long enough to -get into trouble, at the expense of the Emmets who did. - -Temple Emmet, with his beautiful thought-burdened head, a little like -the young Burke’s, passed by like a wonderful apparition in his day. -His success at Trinity College was complete; it is said the examiners -found their usual maximum of commendation, _Valde bene_, unequal to -the occasion, and had a special _O quam bene!_ given to him with his -degree. This has a sort of historic parallel in the incident at Wadham -College, Oxford, just a century before, when Clarendon, Lord Chancellor -of the University, set a kiss for eulogy upon the boyish cheek of John -Wilmot, Master of Arts. Again serving as his own precedent, Temple -Emmet became King’s Counsel at twenty-five. Two years later he was -in his grave, whither his young wife quickly followed him. All his -contemporaries qualified to appraise his worth, deplored him beyond -common measure. Said the great Grattan, long after: “Temple Emmet, -before he came to the Bar, knew more law than any of the judges on -the Bench; and if he had been placed on one side and the whole Bench -opposed to him, he could have been examined against them, and would -have surpassed them all; he would have answered better both in law and -divinity than any judge or bishop in the land.” His premature death -called his next brother from the University of Glasgow, where he had -just graduated in medicine, to the profession of the law. - -The Emmet name was not destined to rise like a star where it had -fallen, for bitter times were drawing nigh, and his own generosity and -integrity were to bring Thomas Addis Emmet into fatal difficulties. -With a great number of other zealous spirits, he flung himself with -all his force of protest against the legalised iniquities destroying -Ireland. Examined before the secret committee of the House of Lords, -August 10, 1798, the young man, then as always quietly intrepid, let -fall brave prophetic words. Asked if he had been an United Irishman, -he righted the tense in answering: “My Lords, I am one”; then he -continued: “Give me leave to tell you, my Lords, that if the Government -of this country be not regulated so that the control may be wholly -Irish, and that the commercial arrangements between the two countries -be not put upon a footing of perfect equality, the connection [with -England] cannot last.” Lord Glentworth said: “Then your intention was -to destroy the Church?” Mr. Emmet replied: “No, my Lord, my intention -never was to destroy the Church. My wish decidedly was to overturn the -Establishment.” Here Lord Dillon interrupted: “I understand you. And -have it as it is in France?” “As it is in America, my Lords.” When the -chance for self-expatriation came, when “to retract was impossible, to -proceed was death,” Thomas Addis Emmet followed the ancestral trail, -and founded a new family in his approved America. The only one of -his circle spared to continue the Emmet name, he came to flower sadly -enough, because his hopes were broken, on what was not to him alien -soil. Everyone knows the rest: how, admitted to the New York Bar by -suspension of rules, without probation, he died in all men’s honour, in -1827, Attorney-General of the State. - -Robert Emmet was even surer of an illustrious career. Alas! There is -no documentary proof forthcoming for it as yet, but it is painfully -probable that his little afterglow of a rebellion was long fostered, -for reasons of their own, by great statesmen, and that their secret -knowledge of it arose from Irish bad faith; that, in short, he was let -dream his dream until it suited others to close the toils about him. -The two or three highest in authority in Dublin, Lord Hardwicke chief -among them, were kept ignorant as himself. Emmet was really victim and -martyr. But to die prodigally at twenty-five, and to be enshrined with -unwithered and unique passion in Irish hearts; to go down prematurely -in dust and blood, and yet to be understood, felt, seen, for ever, in -the sphere where “only the great things last,” is perhaps as enviable -a privilege as young men often attain. His is one of several historic -instances in which those who have wrought little else seem to have -wrought an exquisite and quite enduring image of themselves in human -tradition. With none of the celebrities of his own nation can he in -point of actual service, compare; but every one of them, whether known -to ancient folk-lore or to the printed annals of yesterday, is less -of a living legend with Thierry’s “long-memoried people,” than “the -youngest and last of the United Irishmen,” “the child of the heart of -Ireland.” A knot of peasants gathered around a peat fire in the long -evenings, pipe in hand, are the busy hereditary factors of apocryphal -tales beginning “Once Robert Emmet (God love him),” &c.; and a certain -coloured print, very green as to raiment, very melodramatic as to -gesture, hangs to-day in the best room of their every cabin, and stands -to them for all that was of old, and is not, and still should be. - -He was born March 4, 1778, in his father’s house in St. Stephen Green -West, Dublin, now numbered 124-125. As a boy he was active out of -doors, yet full of insatiable interest in books, and developed early -his charming talent for drawing and modelling. He was always rather -grave than gay; but the best proof, if any were needed, that he had -nothing of the prig in him, is that he was a favourite at school; -the potential Great Man, in fact, to whom the others looked up. His -one serious early illness was small-pox, which left his complexion -slightly roughened. He entered Trinity College, in his native city, -at fifteen. Either at this time, or just before, occurred an incident -so characteristic as to be worth recording, for it illustrates both -his power of mental concentration, and his still courage in facing -the untoward haps of life alone. Like Shelley, he had a youthful -fascination for chemistry. He had been dabbling with corrosive -sublimate, not long before bedtime. Instead of going upstairs, he sat -down, later, to figure out an allotted algebraic problem which, by way -of whetting adventurous spirits, the author of the book in question -acknowledged to be extremely difficult. Poring earnestly over the -page, the boy fell to biting his nails. He instantly tasted poison, -and pain and fear rushed on him. Without rousing a single person from -sleep, he ran to the library, got down his father’s encyclopædia, -turned to the article he needed, and learned that his antidote was -chalk and water; then he went in the dark to the coach-house where -he had seen chalk used, got it, mixed and drank it, and returned to -his interrupted task. His tutor could not fail to notice the agonised -little face at breakfast. Robert confessed the mischance, and that he -had lain perforce awake all night; but he added, modestly, that he had -mastered the problem. One of Plutarch’s heroes, at that age, could -hardly have done better. The antique world, with its heroic simpleness, -was indeed Robert Emmet’s own ground. At Trinity he earned, without -effort, a golden reputation, partly due to his scientific scholarship, -partly to his goodness, partly, again, to his possession of a faculty -of animated fluent speech, a faculty dear to the Irish, as to every -primitive people. He had a presence noticeably sweet and winning, with -“that gentleness so often found in determined spirits.” His classmate, -Moore, the poet, bore witness long after to his “pure moral worth -combined with intellectual power.... Emmet was wholly free from the -follies and frailties of youth, though how capable he was of the most -devoted passion events afterwards proved.” Mr. Charles Phillips wrote -in 1818: “[Emmet at Trinity] was gifted with abilities and virtues -which rendered him an object of universal esteem and admiration. Every -one loved, every one respected him; his fate made an impression on the -University which has not yet been obliterated. His mind was naturally -melancholy and romantic: he had fed it from the pure fountain of -classic literature, and might be said to have lived not so much in the -scene around him as in the society of the illustrious and sainted dead. -The poets of antiquity were his companions, its patriots his models, -and its republics his admiration. He had but just entered upon the -world, full of the ardour which such studies might be supposed to have -excited, and unhappily at a period in the history of his country when -such noble feelings were not only detrimental but dangerous.” - -When Emmet was in his twentieth year the so-called Rebellion, in which -Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald were leaders, broke out. In the -agitation which led up to it and sustained it, Thomas Addis Emmet was -deeply implicated, nor did his younger brother go unsinged by the -travelling flame. Sitting once by the pianoforte in Thomas Moore’s -rooms, listening to _Let Erin Remember_, he stood up suddenly, with a -brief pregnant speech, such as was habitual with him: “O that I were -at the head of twenty thousand men, marching to that air!” As it was, -he made one of the nineteen of her best spirits whom his University -then thought fit to dismiss without benisons. One of these was no fiery -undergraduate, but a Fellow and a famous scholar, Dr. Whitley Stokes. -Their chief offence was that they had refused to tell what they knew -of others who shared their outspoken opinions. There is no need here -to dwell upon the memorable rising of 1798, or upon the rooted general -opposition to that Union with Great Britain which wholesale bribery was -so soon to consummate. One need but bear in mind that the Anglo-Irish -(chiefly the Presbyterians and members of the dominant Church, the -landed classes, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by their -championship of disenfranchised Catholics and the countless poor) -came angrily to the fore as the defenders of nationalism, at a time -when exile, the dungeon, and the axe, active for two generations, had -deprived Ireland of the last of her native Jacobite gentry. Saurin, the -great jurist, had written: “Whether it would be prudent in the people -to avail themselves of that right would be another question; but if a -Legislative Union were forced on the country against the will of its -inhabitants, it would be a nullity: ... [To take issue with it] would -be a struggle against usurpation, not resistance against law.” Emmet -had only to cross the street from his College to hear the debates in -either House of Parliament, to hear the like doctrine from Grattan in -his glory; and with “malignants” of the loftiest character, like Lord -Cloncurry, then the Rt. Hon. Valentine Lawless, he and his associated -every day. It was inevitable, with such counsels of perfection brought -to bear upon his daring and his entire disinterestedness, that Robert -Emmet should attempt a popular emancipation, and succeed but in ruining -himself. It was a poignant case of chronological and topographical -misplacement. In his expulsion, or rather, withdrawal from College -(for he had anticipated the action of the authorities), his father, of -course, approved and stood by him, although Robert’s entry upon any -professional career was fatally compromised. His “highly distinguished -family, striking talents, and interesting manners,” could not mend -that. He may even have taken at once the plain godly oath of the -United Irishmen, and become an active agent for the cause. Within the -twelvemonth he had bestirred himself so effectually that a warrant -was actually issued for his arrest. For some reason or other it was -not put in force: even thus early there began to be woven about him -the web of curious cross-purposes in which, in the end, he was to be -caught and strangled. It became advisable to go to France, to see the -First Consul and Talleyrand on an all-important matter. It would be -well to reach a quiet place beyond espionage, where inhibited rites -might go on. The young conspirator had military histories in process -of annotation, plans of campaign in mountainous districts to perfect, -seditious conferences to hold with colleagues and subordinates, and, -incidentally, even poems to commit for his sad country’s sake. And -there was another excellent reason why he found it convenient to go -away. - -One of Robert Emmet’s college mates was Richard, youngest son of the -John Philpot Curran, “ugly, copious, full of wit and ardour and fire,” -the Curran of “fifty faces and twice as many voices,” of Byron’s -lasting admiration. Richard had a sister Sarah, aged not quite eighteen -when Robert Emmet, three years her senior, fell in love with her. -Sentimental invention has placed their first meeting at a ball in a -Wicklow country-house; but it would rather seem as if, in the compact -society of a gay little city like Dublin before the Union, they must -have known each other fairly well from childhood, especially as the -two families were then acquainted. That fatal mutual affection was to -endure long vicissitudes and to prove invincible. - -We must infer from a passage in Mr. W. H. Curran’s _Life_ of his father -that Emmet’s reserve, for once, but imperfectly concealed evidences -of some strong passion, political or extra-political, or both, from -the oracular host of the Priory at Rathfarnham. Parenthetically, and -without emphasis, Mr. Curran saw fit to warn his household against too -implicit a cherishing of their engaging visitor. That Sarah’s interest -in him was particular, that it was already awakened and deepening, -seems never to have been surmised. According to such evidence as we -have, it looks as though he had declared to her the state of his -feelings before he went to Paris. It was not an hour, however, when -Sarah dared to be happy. Her family had but just gathered together -after a most harrowing break-up; she herself had been away for several -years under the roof of a beloved clergyman in Lismore, and her -homecoming was recent. Her mother, how driven to that point of revolt -we know not, had eloped in 1794 with a too sympathetic neighbouring -vicar. Sarah was fourteen then, and of a peculiarly sensitive -temperament; and she had worshipped her mother. Her sensitiveness was -not allayed by her father’s increased mental aloofness from his family, -after his misfortune. Incomparably genial, when he chose, to strangers, -he visited his resentments in private upon his children, her children, -especially upon his son Henry, who stood in lifelong dread of him. -The one little daughter of his inordinate love, Gertrude, had died by -accident at twelve years old. - -Sarah’s sad young face was typically Irish, her noble and touching -beauty stamped in every feature with irony, melancholy, and fatalism. -To her lover, with his head full of all poetic ideas, she must have -looked like the very spirit of Innisfail. His intensely sanguine and -resolute nature may have kept him from reading in such a face their -own common rune of sorrow. It is clear that his forgetting her, while -he was absorbed in the grave business abroad, was out of the question. -No one knows, he tells Mme. la Marquise de Fontenay, in one of his -few recovered letters, what his return to Ireland and to “the sorrows -before him” is costing. Memories of the past (of that long-distanced -past which is proper to blasted youth) must assail him; and it will be -hard to affect that he has not known “tender ties, perhaps,” which he -is forbidden to resume. The lad was writing in French, and does it in -character. But then, as ever, he was radically sincere. His thoughts -seem to have turned towards Dublin, from motives of filial duty. His -father and mother had agreed to the elder brother’s first suggestion -from Paris that Robert should be induced to go to America with him; and -Robert felt that so generous a permission laid its own obligation on -him not to accept the parting. Everything seemed to conspire to restore -him to Ireland. And with his yet-to-be-liberated Ireland, like - - “Flame on flame and wing on wing,” - -shone the remote sweetness of Sarah Curran. He was told that -revolutionary hopes were ripening fast; he was thus lured back in -October, 1802. His absence had lasted nearly three years. - -The separation had probably taught Sarah something more of her own -heart. Immediately Emmet’s visits to the Priory were resumed, as if -in the general stream of homage which brought so many enthusiastic -young men into Mr. Curran’s presence, at evening, to listen and gather -wisdom. Dr. Emmet died in April, much lamented, and by his will -Robert came into possession of considerable ready money. He spent -it instantly, effectively, and entirely on preparations for armed -resistance. No one suspected it; those in his confidence were yet -faithful. Still less did others suspect the now plighted attachment, -the innocent love hungry for joy, and yet hurried on to dark ends -through devious and hidden ways. Mr. Curran’s strenuous opposition, on -all grounds, was necessarily taken for granted, until some prodigious -success should befall Emmet, and as if by a spell free the daughter who -so feared her father. Sarah knew detail by detail of the conspiracy as -it arose, and was fain with all her soul to encourage its progress. For -the two sensitive creatures under so complicated a strain there passed -an anxious and exciting year. The most disagreeable surprise of Mr. -Curran’s life was yet to come before it ended. - -Robert Emmet took lodgings under an assumed name in Butterfield -Lane, in the suburb of Rathfarnham. His agents came to him by night -and reported their progress. The record of all he had meant to do, -drawn up with manly composure at the brink of the grave, may be read -elsewhere. As has been noted, his plan for the capture of Dublin and -the summoning of the patriotic Members of Parliament was clearly -founded on an inspiring precedent, that of the Revolution of 1640 -in Portugal, when but two-score clever and resolute men served to -deliver the whole country from the yoke of Spain. But when the hour of -Ireland’s destiny struck, every clock-wheel went wrong. If the failure -were not so piteous, because of one’s interest in the doomed wizard -and his suddenly disenchanted wand, it would be grotesque. Emmet had -studied with enormous industry, and arranged with masterly precision, -directing, among pikes and powder in his dingy depôts, each needful -move and counter-move for a concerted rising; he thought it strange -that in every conceivable way, major and minor, the whole scheme -simultaneously miscarried. - -If one could believe him as free as he believed himself, one might -regret that he maintained too perfect a secrecy, and counted too much -upon the elasticity of Irish impulse. He had been careful to avoid -what he thought the error of the United Irishmen in establishing -too many posts for revolutionary action, and confiding knowledge of -preliminaries to innumerable persons all over the country, some of -whom would be almost certain to play him false. He worked in the -dark, with but a dozen friends at his elbow, spending his money -freely but heedfully on manufacturing and storing weapons of war in -Dublin. He looked towards a moment when a disaffected legion would -arise at a summons, like the men from the heath in _The Lady of the -Lake:_ a legion which he could arm and command and weld, in one magic -moment, for Ireland’s regeneration. He leaned overmuch, not on human -goodness, but on human intelligence in making opportunity: and it -failed him. He was like the purely literary playwright labouring with -the average theatre audience; he was never in the least, for all his -wit, cunning enough to deal scientifically with a corporation on whom -hints, half-tones, adumbrations, are thrown away; the law of whose -being is still to crave a presentation of the “undisputed thing in -such a solemn way.” As drama through its processes, act after act, -does well to assume that we are all blockheads, and then, as the -case requires, to modify, so any flaming revolutionary genius would -do well to trust nothing whatever to a moral inspiration only too -likely to be non-existent. It is a terribly costly thing to be, as -we say, equal to an emergency, before the emergency is quite ready -to be equalled. And that was Emmet’s plight. A French fleet had been -promised to begin military operations towards the end of August, but -an unforeseen explosion in one of Emmet’s Dublin magazines led him -to declare his toy war against the English Crown prematurely. The -local volunteer troops were to be reinforced by others, well armed, -from the outlying counties, at the firing of a rocket agreed upon; -the Castle was to be seized as the chief move, and a Provisional -Government, according to printed programme, set up. The time for -assembling was hurriedly fixed for July 23, 1803, early in the evening. -The gentlemen leaders and the trusty battalions failed to appear, -kept away by mysterious quasi-authentic advices; appeared instead, as -time wore on, many unknown, unprepossessing insurgents, the drunken -refuse of the city taverns. The cramp-irons, the scaling-ladders, the -blunderbusses, the fuses for the grenades, were not ready; signals -had been delayed or suppressed; the prepared slow-matches were mixed -in with others; treachery was at work and running like fire in oil -under the eyes of one who could believe no ill of human kind. Beyond -Dublin, the Wicklow men under Dwyer, an epic peasant figure, received -no message; the Wexford men waited in vain for orders all night; the -Kildare men, whom Emmet meant to head in person, actually reached the -city, and left it again. They had met and talked with him, and were -not satisfied with the number and quality of the weapons, chiefly -primitive inventions of his own; and because Dublin confederates were -not produced for inspection (such was Emmet’s caution where others were -concerned), the canny farmers returned homewards, spreading the ill -word along the roads that Dublin had refused to act. Each imaginable -prospect grew darker than its alternative. But the curtain had to -rise now, let results be what they might. About nine o’clock, Emmet -being in such a state of speechless agitation as may be conceived, one -Quigley rushed in with the false report that the Government soldiery -were upon them. There was nothing to do but sally forth in the hope -of augmented numbers, once the move was made. The poor “General,” in -his green-and-white-and-gold uniform, at the head of some eighty -insubordinates, took in the bitter situation at a glance: he foresaw -how his holy insurrection would dwindle to a three-hours’ riot, how his -dream, with all its costly architecture, was ending like snow in the -gutter. Hardly had he set out on foot, with drawn sword, through the -town, accompanied by the faithful Stafford and two or three associates, -followed confusedly by the uncontrollable crowd, when an uproar rose -from the rear; there was a sudden commotion which ended in wounds and -death to a citizen and an officer; then the spirit of rowdyism, private -pillage, and indiscriminate slaughter took the lead. While it ran high, -Arthur Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden, Lord Chief-Justice, the one unfailingly -humane and deservedly beloved judge in all Ireland, was killed. He -was driving in from the country with his daughter and his nephew, the -Rev. Richard Wolfe; finding the carriage stopped in Thomas Street, he -put his grey head out at the window in the pleasant evening light, -announcing the honoured name which, as he thought he knew, would be -his passport through the maddest mob ever gathered. A muddle-brained -creature, quite mistaken as to facts, and acting in revenge for a -wrong never inflicted, unmercifully piked him: a fate paralleled only -by the unpremeditated assassination in our own time of that other -kindest heart, Lord Frederick Cavendish. It is significant that some in -the ranks afterwards made separately in court the unasked declaration -that had they been near enough, Lord Kilwarden’s life should have -been saved at the expense of their own. Such, indeed, was the general -feeling. It has been carelessly stated that Emmet was not far from the -scene of the outrage, and arrived, in a fury, just too late to prevent -the second horror, the stabbing to death of Mr. Wolfe; and that it -was he who took the unfortunate Miss Wolfe, to whom no violence was -offered, from the carriage. But records now show conclusively that (as -he once said) he had withdrawn from that part of Dublin before the -murders came to pass. He had addressed his followers in Francis Street, -setting his face against useless bloodshed, and made for the mountains -hard by, commanding those who retained any sense of discipline to go -along with him. A quick retreat was the only sagacious course to follow -in this gross witless turmoil, so contrary to his purpose: for his -printed manifesto had expressly declared life and property were to -be held sacred. His secret, up to this point, was practically safe, -and his losses reparable. The “rebels” abroad that night were but -diabolical changelings; he would break away with the few he could rely -upon, nurse hope to life with the courage that never failed, and take -his chances to fight again. He reached safety, unchallenged; Dwyer even -then implored for leave to call out on the morrow his disappointed -veterans for a new assay; but Emmet was firm. No lust of revenge on -fate, no recoil from being thought, for one hot moment, a coward, could -shake him from his shrewd and rational acceptance of present defeat. -He had no personal ambition, no vicarious tax to pay it. Ireland could -wait the truer hour. He seems never once to have bewailed aloud the -miserable end of his own long minute study of military strategy, the -foul check to aspirations founded in honour, and breathed upon by the -dead of Salamis and Thermopylæ. - -It is an almost incredible fact that the authorities, meanwhile, -whether aware or unaware of the projected outbreak, were virtually off -their guard, and the garrison was so little in condition to repel an -onset that not a ball in the arsenal would fit the artillery! Public -attention in Great Britain was fixed on the difficulties with France, -and this preoccupation everywhere affected social life. Dublin had been -almost deserted on July 23; the Castle gates stood wide open, without -sentries. Two entire hours passed before the detachments of horse and -foot arrived to clear the streets. “Government escaped by a sort of -miracle,” as _The Nation_ remarked half a century after, “by a series -of accidents and mistakes no human sagacity could have foreseen, and no -skill repair.” Though there was treachery behind and before as we now -see, Emmet, mournfully closing his summary of events, took no account -of it. “Had I another week [of privacy], had I one thousand pounds, had -I one thousand men, I would have feared nothing. There was redundancy -enough in any one part to have made up in completeness for deficiency -in the rest. But there was failure in all: plan, preparation, and men.” -Three days after the abortive rising, the disturbance was completely -over and the country everywhere quiet. The whole number of the slain -was under fifty. - -None among those who have written of Robert Emmet have noted for what -reason the news of the death of Lord Kilwarden must have been to him -a last desperate blow. Quite apart from his natural horror of the -blundering crime, he had the most intimate cause to lament it. Lord -Kilwarden was the person in all the world whom John Philpot Curran most -revered: “my guardian angel,” he was wont to call him, summing up in -the words all his tutelary service of long years to a junior colleague. -It would have gone hard with Mr. Curran, so high was partisan passion -at the time, if, in his defence of the State prisoners during the -terrible series of prosecutions in the ’98, he had not been protected, -day after day, by the strong influence of Kilwarden. Emmet, if he -could have leaned for once on a merely selfish motive, might have -looked forward, as to the blackness of hell, to that hour when Curran -should learn that his dearest friend’s indirect murderer was none other -than his daughter’s betrothed lover. Apprehensions of danger to his -sweetheart must have haunted Robert Emmet through the sleepless nights -among the outlawed folk on the wild fragrant Wicklow hillsides. Below, -in a little port, was a fishing-smack under full sail, which meant -liberty and security, would he but abandon all and come away. But the -insistent beat of his own heart was to see his beautiful Sarah again; -to learn how she looked upon him, or whether she would fly with him now -that his first great endeavour was over, and only the rag of a pure -motive was left to clothe his soiled dream and his abject undoing. -It was a mad deed; but Robert Emmet, in relics of his tarnished -regimentals, stole back to Dublin. He was so young that the adventure -took on multiple attractions. - -He hid himself in a house at Harold’s Cross, where he had masqueraded -once before, when his country’s need constrained him. Now he was there -chiefly because the road in front ran towards Rathfarnham, and because, -at least, he could sometime or other watch his own dear love go by. A -servant, a peasant wench who was devoted to him, Anne Devlin, carried -letters under her apron to the Priory, carried letters “richer than -Ind” back to the proscribed master. She was a neighbouring dairyman’s -daughter, and her coming and going were unquestioned. Forty years -after, in her pathetic old age, she told Dr. Madden how Miss Sarah’s -emotion would all but betray her: “When I handed her a letter, her -face would change so, one would hardly know her.” And again: “Miss -Sarah was not tall, her figure was very slight, her complexion dark, -her eyes large and black, and her look was the mildest, the softest, -and the sweetest look you ever saw!” All this is beautifully borne out -by the Romney portrait, save that the pensive face which Romney must -have begun to paint before the time of her betrothal (for after 1799 -he painted hardly at all) is not olive-skinned and not black-eyed. The -eyes are, in truth, very dark, but of Irish violet-grey. Every Anne -Devlin in the world would have called them “black.” But one hastens to -contradict a hasty phrase: there is but one Anne Devlin, a soul beyond -price, who suffered afterwards and without capitulation, for her “Mr. -Robert’s” sake, tortures of body and mind which read like those in the -_Acta Sanctorum_. Her name will be with his when that “country shall -have taken her place among the nations of the earth;” until then there -is no fear but that those who care for him will keep a little candle -burning to his most heroic friend. - -At every house where Emmet lived, as “Mr. Huet” or “Mr. Ellis,” during -his fugitive and perilous months, he had his romantic trap-doors, and -removable wainscots, and sliding panels. Even at Casino, his own home -in the country, closed after his father’s death, with its summer-house -and decaying garden, he provided like subterfuges and inventions of -his own, for he had a turn for mechanism as well as for the plastic -arts. It is hard to be both a hunted rebel and an anxious lover, to -have equal necessity for staying in and for sallying forth! Just so -had “Lord Edward,” dear to every one who knew him, managed to exist, -in and out of a hole, before his seizure and death. It has been justly -said that “a system of government which could reduce such men as Robert -Emmet and Lord Edward Fitzgerald to live the life of conspirators, -and die the death of traitors, is condemned by that alone.” It seems -hardly possible but that Robert and his Sarah made out to meet again, -as they had met after the lamentable no-rising, when for a night and a -morning he had lingered in the alarmed city before escaping into the -mountains. One may be not far wrong in believing that the girl was by -this time too overwrought, dismayed, and grief-stricken, to come to any -immediate decision about joining him, and breaking away while there was -yet opportunity. He must have realised fully the alternative, whether -she did so or not, that to remain in Ireland was but to beckon on his -fate. At any rate, on August 23, at his humble dining-table, he was -suddenly apprehended. The informer has never been discovered; from the -Secret Service Money books we know that he received his due £1000. The -captor was Major Sirr, the unloved fowler of that other young eagle of -insurrection but just mentioned, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. He was able to -recognise Emmet by the retrospective description obligingly furnished -by Dr. Elrington, Provost of Trinity, of an undergraduate whom he -had not loved. The captive was bound and led away, bleeding from a -pistol wound in the shoulder. He had tried to get off, and some rough -treatment followed, for which apologies were tendered. “All is fair in -war,” said the prince of courtesy. The Earl of Hardwicke, then Lord -Lieutenant of Ireland, writes two days after, in his usual covertly -kind way, of the arrest of young Emmet, now consigned to Kilmainham -Gaol on the charge of high treason. “I confess I had imagined that -he had escaped,” he says to his brother, his confidential daily -correspondent. “His having remained here looks as if he had been in -expectation of a further attempt.” Not yet was the Lord Lieutenant -aware of the love-story intertwined with the one-man insurrection. - -When enclosed in his cell, Emmet became the object of apparent concern -and affection on the part of two acquaintances: the accomplished -advocate and litterateur, Mr. Leonard M’Nally, and Dr. Trevor, -Superintendent of Prisons. If these persons had stepped out of an -ancient epic or some fancied tragedy to show what human genius could -do by way of creating hypocrites, no plaudit ever yet given could be -worthy of the play. They were both moral monsters, paragons of evil, -beyond the Florentine or Elizabethan imagination. How they played -with the too noble and trusting creature in their hands, how they -tricked him with illusory plans of escape, and beguiled him into -inditing documents which were promptly handed over to headquarters, -need not detain us, though it supplies a long thrilling chapter in the -humanities. Emmet’s first move was to empty his pockets of coin for -the gaoler, under the man’s promise that he would carry in person a -communication to Miss Curran. The recipient was not that distracted -maid, but the Attorney-General. The Lord Lieutenant wrote to the Hon. -Charles Yorke on September 9 as follows: “A curious discovery has -been made respecting Emmet, the particulars of which I have not time -to detail to you fully. There were found upon him two letters from -a woman, written with a knowledge of the transactions in which he -had been engaged, and with good wishes for the success of any future -attempt. He has been very anxious to prevent these letters being -brought forward, and has been apprehensive that the writer was arrested -as well as himself. Till yesterday, however, we were entirely ignorant -of the person who had written these letters, which are very clever and -striking. The discovery was made last night by a letter from Emmet, -intercepted on its passage from Kilmainham Prison to Miss Sarah Curran, -youngest daughter of Curran the lawyer. Wickham has seen him, and he -professes entire ignorance of the connection; but I think he must -decline being counsel for Emmet in a case in which his daughter may -be implicated. It is a very extraordinary story, and strengthens the -case against Emmet.” A rumour of the fate of his letters was allowed -to reach Emmet, and cut him to the quick. He wrote at once begging -that the third letter (surely with news of his arrest, and with such -assurances and sorrowful endearments as the occasion called for), might -not be withheld; and in exchange for the service demanded, knowing -that the Government already feared what that eloquent tongue might -have to say in court, he offered to plead guilty, and go dumb to the -grave. He who had staked so much on the purity of his public motive, -he who cared only, and cared fiercely, for the clearing of his name -from the misconceptions of posterity, he who was one of the elect -souls loving his love so much because he loved honour more—he, Robert -Emmet, was willing to forfeit every chance of his own vindication -for the sake of the sad girl brought into abhorrent publicity by his -rashness. He said he had injured her; he pleaded for the delivery of -the letter, and offered his own coveted silence as the price of it. -“That was certainly a fine trait in his character,” said Grattan, who -looked upon him as a visionary broken justly upon the wheel of things -ordained. Sarah never received her letter. But the discovery that -there had been a correspondence between herself and the arch-rebel -was a highly important-looking circumstance, and with all apologies -to its distinguished owner, the Priory at Rathfarnham was ordered to -be searched. Mr. Curran was not at home, but he returned in season to -meet Major Sirr and the armed escort riding down his drive-way, and -aglow with virtuous wrath at the possibility of suspicion alighting -upon him or his, he went to clear himself before the Privy Council. -Though his action secured its ends, being voluntary and merely formal, -it was a singular humiliation to the paternity concerned. But the -culminating shock he had to endure arose from another cause. Sarah’s -apartments had been searched; Emmet’s glowing letters, openly alluding -to his purposes, had been seized, and tied up and carried away. Here -was complicity indeed! and the knowledge of it came upon him like a -thunderbolt. - -Within a few days, towards the end of this month of August, Mr. Curran -himself received a letter from Robert Emmet. It was neither signed -nor dated, and opened abruptly, waiving all formalities, not from any -hidden defiance, but from entire absorption in the mournful retrospect -it called up. As we know from Lord Hardwicke’s communication, Emmet -had retained Mr. Curran for his counsel, and it was thought fitting -that the latter should decline the brief for the defence. Of course Mr. -Curran threw it up; no man could have done otherwise. But his general -turmoil, and the apparent motives of it, are not a particularly noble -spectacle. The young prisoner, meanwhile, had something to say to him. - -“I did not expect you to be my counsel. I nominated you, because not -to have done so might have appeared remarkable. Had Mr. ——[1] been -in town, I did not even wish to have seen you, but as he was not, I -wrote to you to come to me at once. I know that I have done you very -severe injury, much greater than I can atone for with my life; that -atonement I did offer to make before the Privy Council by pleading -guilty if those documents were suppressed.... My intention was not to -leave the suppression of those documents to possibility, but to render -it unnecessary for anyone to plead for me, by pleading guilty to the -charge myself. The circumstances that I am now going to mention I do -not state in my own justification. When I first addressed your daughter -I expected that in another week my own fate would have been decided. I -knew that in case of success many others would look on me differently -from what they did at that moment; but I speak with sincerity when -I say that I never was anxious for situation or distinction myself, -and I did not wish to be united to one who was. I spoke to your -daughter, neither expecting nor (under those circumstances) wishing -that there should be a return of attachment, but wishing to judge -of her dispositions, to know how far they might be not unfavourable -or disengaged, and to know what foundation I might afterwards have -to count on. I received no encouragement whatever. She told me she -had no attachment for any person, nor did she seem likely to have any -that could make her wish to quit you. I stayed away till the time -had elapsed, when I found that the event to which I allude was to be -postponed indefinitely. I returned, by a kind of infatuation, thinking -that to myself only was I giving pleasure or pain. I perceived no -progress of attachment on her part, nor anything in her conduct to -distinguish me from a common acquaintance. Afterwards I had reason to -suppose that [political] discoveries were made, and that I should be -obliged to quit the kingdom immediately. I came to make a renunciation -of any approach to friendship that might have been formed. On that very -day she herself spoke to me to discontinue my visits; I told her it was -my intention, and I mentioned the reason. I then for the first time -found, when I was unfortunate, by the manner in which she was affected, -that there was a return of affection, and that it was too late to -retreat. My own apprehensions also I afterwards found were without -cause; and I remained. There has been much culpability on my part in -all this, but there has also been a great deal of that misfortune which -seems uniformly to have accompanied me. That I have written to your -daughter since an unfortunate event [the arrest], has taken place, was -an additional breach of propriety for which I have suffered well; but -I will candidly confess that I not only do not feel it to have been -of the same extent, but that I consider it to have been unavoidable -after what had passed. For though I shall not attempt to justify in the -smallest degree my former conduct, yet, when an attachment was once -formed between us (and a sincerer one never did exist), I feel that, -peculiarly circumstanced as I then was, to have left her uncertain of -my situation would neither have weaned her affections nor lessened her -anxiety; and looking upon her as one whom, if I lived, I hoped to have -had my partner for life, I did hold the removing of her anxiety above -every other consideration. I would rather have the affections of your -daughter in the back settlements of America, than the first situation -this country could offer without them. I know not whether this will -be any extenuation of my offence; I know not whether it will be any -extenuation of it to know that if I had that situation in my power at -this moment I would relinquish it to devote my life to her happiness; -I know not whether success would have blotted out the recollection of -what I have done; but I [do] know that a man with the coldness of death -on him need not to be made to feel any other coldness, and that he may -be spared any addition to the misery he feels, not for himself, but for -those to whom he has left nothing but sorrow.” - -It is apparent from this page that the great Mr. Curran had not -withheld from one under misfortune some crumbs of that verbal opulence -for which he was famous. Emmet’s disclaimer of any eagerness on -Sarah’s part in reciprocating his devotion is a knightly one. The -interpretation of her maidenly conduct, purely chivalric, was designed -to exculpate her in her over-lord’s eyes. - -Poor Sarah, thus rudely informed by events of her Robert’s arrest, in -an hour of unprecedented torment, did not lack the tender consideration -from the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General, which her innocent -misery deserved. Lord Hardwicke, too, directed that no action of any -kind should be taken against her. But the stress of this last summer -day was too much for her after the intense emotional life she had been -bearing so long alone. In the breath of her love’s exposure and of her -father’s anger head and heart seemed to break together, and for months -to come she was to be wholly and most mercifully exempt from the “rack -of this rough world.” On September 16, the Home Secretary was able to -felicitate the Lord Lieutenant from Whitehall on his generous treatment -of the implicated rebel at the Priory: “Your delicacy and management,” -he says, “with regard to the Curran family is highly applauded. The -King is particularly pleased with it. It is a sad affair. Mademoiselle -seems a true pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft.” This, of course, amounts to -the accusation that gentle little Sarah, with her sweet eyes and her -“most harmonious voice,” was guilty of doing her own thinking, and of -doing it, which was worst of all, upon political matters. It supplies -us, at any rate, with evidence of the wide and deep grounds for Emmet’s -true passion for the girl whose national ideals could so fearlessly -keep pace with his own. Heart and brain, soul and body, she would have -been his perfect mate. Her father’s harshness was the one element -needed to perfect Sarah’s desolation. Her real life closed without -conscious pain, and remained for a decent space buried. She never had -to look in the face the day of Emmet’s death, the all-significant day -“under her solemn fillet;” for that had tiptoed past her while her -reason slept. The good sister Amelia, afterwards Shelley’s friend -and portrait-painter in Italy, as soon as Sarah could be moved, took -her away from the intolerable home, and left her with loving Quaker -friends, the Penroses of Cork. During all the time of her affliction -and illness at the Priory, Mr. Curran is said never to have looked upon -his youngest daughter’s face; and from the hour of her leaving Dublin, -presumably under an allowance made for her support, he seems neither -ever to have sent her a message, nor to have thought of her again. - -There are several historic instances of a like fatherliness in fathers, -a century ago. Mr. Curran doubtless felt outraged in every fibre, and -not more indignant at the independent conduct of his meek domestic -vassal than at the astounding ignorance in which she had contrived to -keep him. Yet there were powerful pleas for compassion in such a case -inherent in his own history. In early manhood he himself had figured -as collaborator in a similar headlong falling in love, a similar -breach of parental discipline. John Philpot Curran had been for a -short time tutor in the family of a fellow-Whig, Dr. Richard Creagh -of Creagh Castle, near Spenser’s Doneraile, when with Miss Creagh, a -young lady of beauty and of moderate fortune, he contracted a private -marriage. The discovery brought on storms; but on further reflection -Dr. Creagh saw fit to forgive the offenders, to receive them once -more beneath his roof, and even to allow his daughter’s portion to be -expended without stint on Mr. Curran, until he had completed his legal -studies in London, and begun to establish his inevitable ascendancy -at the Bar. The match, however, seems never to have been a happy one. -Conjugal differences seldom lack their annotation. Without adopting -the adjective missiles of either faction, let it suffice to say that -they parted, in the summary fashion of which we are already aware. -Mr. Curran had earned a right, he may have thought, to his opinion of -women. The memory of his calamity may well have operated to make him -both excessively exacting as to female behaviour and pitiless towards -any supposed violation of it. In one touching story of domestic ruin, -at least, he had a deplorable influence. Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick, in his -_Life, Times, and Contemporaries of Lord Cloncurry_, records that after -the Lady Cloncurry’s trespass, her generous husband would have taken -her back, “were it not for his well-beloved J——n P——t C——n, who urged -him, in strong and persuasive language, to the contrary.” Moreover, -an Irish father is as likely as not to cherish spacious ideas of his -own governing prerogative, and refuse to be tied in the matter to -“anything so temporal,” as Lowell says in another application, “as a -responsibility.” Mr. Curran could have bespoken for his children other -destinies if they had ever known freedom of the heart at home. - -Again, his attitude towards Emmet may have seemed to him no exaggerated -hatred, but the mere tribute of virtuous scorn. In that, however, -he was self-deceived. To any publicist in Ireland with the seed of -compromise in him, even if the compromise never amounted to the -smallest sacrifice of actual principle, Robert Emmet’s straight career -must have been like a buffet in the face. Naked logic was Emmet’s -element, and the expedient his negligible quantity. Every agitation -sincerely founded on a popular need breeds, in time, its extremists. -They are the glory and the difficulty of all reform. It might have been -said of Emmet, as at the outset of the Oxford Movement it was said of -Hurrell Froude, that “the gentleman was not afraid of inferences.” -Curran’s thoughts dwelt in no such simplified worlds. Like all the -best Irishmen of his blazingly brilliant day, he was for Parliamentary -Reform and Catholic Emancipation, and against the Union. It was even -he who appeared to defend the revolutionists of 1798, who had obtained -the writ of _habeas corpus_ for Wolfe Tone on the very morning set for -his execution under court-martial (a reprieve frustrated by suicide), -and who was the first to plead, though with vain eloquence, at the -bar of attainder for the Fitzgerald heirs. But though his convictions -seemed close enough to Emmet’s, there was wide variance in their -bearing and momentum. Initial or generic differences take on an almost -amatory complexion when contrasted with those springing from the final -consideration in like minds. Both men vehemently desired the framing -of fresh good laws, and the unhampered operation of existing good -laws, for Ireland. To Curran, incorruptible as he was, England was an -excellent general superintendent and referee to set over the concerns -of other nations, including his own, provided that she could be got to -abstain scrupulously from undue interference, and hold tenure under -a more than nominal corporal withdrawal. Poor Emmet’s ideal of Irish -independence was remote enough from this. He had read somewhere that -his country used to be a proud kingdom, and not a petted province. -Surely, Curran in his latter years, when he “sank” (the word is -Cloncurry’s, and used of his friend) to office, could have no patience -with a Separatist son-in-law. But the Master of the Rolls continued to -be a great man, and Emmet at twenty-five ceased to be a fool. - -The trial came off before Lord Norbury, Mr. Baron George, and Mr. Baron -Daly on September 19, 1803, at the court-house in Green Street. It is -an extraordinary circumstance that it lasted eleven hours in a crowded -room, the prisoner standing for all that time in the dock without -proper food or rest. Mr. Emmet firmly refused to call any witnesses, -to allow any statement by his counsel, or to furnish any comment upon -the evidence. Long afterwards, Mr. Peter Burrowes told Moore of the -continual check put upon his own attempts to disconcert those who were -giving testimony. “No, no,” Emmet would protest, “the man is speaking -the truth.” The indictment was in part strengthened by the reading in -court of passages of his own captured love-letters to Miss Curran. -Thanks to the consideration of the Attorney-General the reading was -brief and as non-committal as possible, Miss Curran’s name being of -course suppressed. The Attorney-General (Mr. Standish O’Grady) showed, -throughout the poor girl’s troubles, a most fatherly solicitude towards -her, and pleaded for her with her own father, without appreciable -results. - -Emmet had other annoyances to bear. Mr. Conyngham Plunkett, as counsel -for the Crown, took an unfair advantage of the silence of the counsels -for the prisoner (Messrs. Ball, Burrowes, and M’Nally), and delivered -at great length a very able oration, in which, _more Hibernico_, he had -rather more to say of the Creator of men, and of His implicit support -of the existing Government, than was strictly necessary; neither did he -forget to recommend “sincere repentance of crime” to “the unfortunate -young gentleman.” And when Emmet himself was invited to speak, and -did so, or would have done so, to really magnificent purpose, he -was causelessly and continually interrupted by the presiding judge, -lectured on the virtues and the standing of his long-deceased elder -brother, and on the abominable anomaly of “a gentleman by birth” -associating with “the most profligate and abandoned ... hostlers, -bakers, butchers, and such persons!” A sprig of lavender was handed -him by some woman in the close court-room; it was snatched away as -soon, on the groundless suspicion that it had been poisoned by one -who would save the youth from his approaching fate. The jury, without -leaving the box, brought in a verdict of guilty. It was to them a clear -case. As the Earl of Hardwicke wrote to his brother, the Honourable -Charles Yorke, “it was unanimously admitted that a more complete case -of treason was never stated in a court of justice.” Of Emmet himself he -adds conclusively: “He persisted in the opinions he had entertained, -and the principles in which he had been educated.” - -It was late in the evening when the Clerk of the Crown, following -the usual form, ended: “Prisoner at the bar, what have you therefore -now to say why judgment of death and execution should not be awarded -against you according to law?” Emmet was weary, but had body and mind -under triumphant control, and he filled the next half-hour with words -which were overwhelming at the time, and will never fail to thrill the -most casual reader who can discern in them the victory of the human -spirit over the powers which crush it. It is an immortal appeal. The -rich phrases, the graceful, quick gestures, were unprepared and born -of the moment. We are told that Emmet walked about a little, or stood -bending hither and thither, in his earnestness. “He seemed to have -acquired a swaying motion, when he spoke in public, which was peculiar -to him; but there was no affectation in it.” It was a habit which -the young man shared with a great contemporary singularly free from -mannerisms: the Grattan to whom he used to listen, spell-bound, in his -early years. Emmet has been misreported in one important particular. -He had a fine understanding of the uses of irony; but it is his praise -that he was also scrupulously, persistently, and invincibly courteous. -To know him is to know that sentences such as those figuring in some -reports of his speech, about “that viper,” meaning (Mr. Plunkett), -or “persons who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your (that -is, Lord Norbury’s) blood-stained hand,” are, as attributed to him, -all but impossible. The truth seems to be that his admirers, finding -him unaccountably lacking in invective, and the vituperative power of -the Gael, have amended, between them, this evidence of his undutiful -shortcomings. It were a pity to summarise or paraphrase that living -rhetoric, so fit in its place. We are disposed to forget nowadays that -emotional speech is natural speech: its many and seemingly exuberant -colours are but primal and legitimate, whereas it is our subdued daily -chatter which is artificial. Emmet did not occupy himself with refuting -the charge of having revolted against existing political conditions -with “the scum of the Liberties behind him,” for he had a concern more -intimate. It had been reported broadcast, and it had been taken for -granted at the trial, that he had become an agent of France because -he sought to deliver the country over to French rule. Hopeless, there -and then, of being understood on the main issue, he was determined to -make himself plain in this. He admitted that he had indeed laboured -to establish a French alliance, but expressly under bond that aided -Ireland, once freed, should be as completely independent of France as -he would have her of England. He sought, as he said, such a guarantee -as Franklin had secured for America. For the reassertion of his own -position as a patriot, Emmet spent his last energies. Like some few -other selfless reformers known to history, he had taken little pains -to proclaim himself, and in consequence had been translated into terms -of expected profit and personal ambition, in the generalising minds -of bystanders. It was nothing to him to go to his untimely grave -legally convicted of Utopianism, precipitation, madness, or even of -monstrous wickedness; but why he had plunged into such folly, or such -crime, or such pure passion for freedom, as the case might be, seemed -to demand some explanation from the person best qualified to give -it. To risk that his informing intent should be misread hereafter, -was more than he could bear. And thus it came about that, reserved -as he always was, humble as he always was, he blazed out at last, -and feared not to base himself proudly on “my character.” The word -recurs: its numerical strength is almost equal to that of the beloved -other one, “my country.” This was clearly a tautologous egotist, this -young belated Girondin, to those who knew him not. As he talked on, -in his beautiful round tones, into the night, the dingy lamps begun -to sputter as if tired of their unexpected vigil. “My lamp of life is -nearly extinguished,” he said, looking sadly down. And then: “My race -is run. The grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I -have but one request to make, at my departure from this world: it is -the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man -who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice nor -ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace; let my -memory remain in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other -times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country -shall have taken her place among the nations of the earth, then, and -not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.” There was -perceptible emotion in every breast but his, when sentence of death by -hanging and beheading was given at half-past ten o’clock, and ordered -to take place next day. - -Emmet’s strong slight frame had stood the long ordeal perfectly, and -his mood had wings. He whispered cheerfully through the grating: “I -shall be hanged to-morrow!” as he passed John Hickson’s cell on his way -back to his own. - -We know he read the Litany there; and he also indulged a turn for -secular, and even profane employment. In fact, it pleased Mr. Robert -Emmet to draw himself (he drew exquisitely) as a posthumous serial in -two parts. Some one found and recognised the grim _R. E., head_, the -disconcerted _R. E., body_, on separate scraps of paper: they lay on -his little table, when all was over, witnesses to the detached humour -possible to an easy conscience. His industry was great during the few -remaining hours. He possessed a lock of his absent Sarah’s hair, which -she may have given him years before: this he wished to wear in his -dying hour. As he sat plaiting it minutely, and tenderly fastening -it into the fold of his velvet stock, he was noticed and questioned. -Fearing that the treasure might be taken from him, he said that his -occupation was “an innocent one.” The only persons allowed to see him -were the chaplains and M’Nally, the fine flower of infamy, happy in -Government pay, who to the end played with success the part of the -assiduous friend. It was he who brought to Emmet on his final morning -the news, then ten days old, of his mother’s death. The son took it, -as he took all his losses, with what Mr. W. H. Curran briefly calls -his “unostentatious fortitude.” After an instant of silence he looked -up and found his voice. “It is better so,” he answered quietly. Her -delicate proud heart had broken at the menace hanging over her darling: -that much he had divined at once. She had written, during that last -year, that she was “a parent supremely blest” in the virtues and -dispositions of her children. - -Mr. M’Nally was intimate with Mr. Curran, for whom he had an -affection as genuine as he was capable of feeling. It was like -“Janus” Wainewright’s affection for Charles Lamb, and as exempt from -the poison-cup otherwise dealt impartially to divers and sundry. -It is possible, therefore, that Mr. M’Nally chose to acquaint his -much-deceived client with the true state of Sarah’s health: a -life-in-death which also was surely “better so.” But this is mere -conjecture, as Emmet would never have inquired; rather than name his -“nut-brown maid,” the truly “banished man” would still have endured all -the inner turmoil of lonely love, - - “—surges - Which wash both Heaven and Hell.” - -No credit need be given to the tale that as Emmet went forth to his -death through the Dublin streets, a young lady, believed to be Miss -Curran, was seen in a carriage despairingly taking leave of him, and -fluttering a handkerchief until he was out of sight, when she sank in -a swoon. It is not the fashion of persons of deep feeling, save on the -stage, to have recourse at solemn moments to fluttering handkerchiefs. -If any young lady interested in Robert Emmet were abroad in a carriage -on that autumn morning, it would be his only sister, Mrs. Holmes, fated -to outlive him but one melancholy year. As for poor lovely Sarah, she -had disappeared like an underground stream during his last weeks and -days, ever since her letters were seized as spoils of war. Major Sirr -is believed to have destroyed them all, in due course, not without a -flow of tears! The sweet lady was indeed an object of pity; and Emmet, -putting in never a stroke of conscious work, had a most unaccountable -faculty for melting hearts. The reign of Sensibility was not over; -able-bodied persons in 1803 were only beginning to be carried out of -the pit, more dead than alive, when Mrs. Siddons played. But something -in Emmet’s uncomplaining presence overcame stern men habituated to -political offenders. The honest turnkey at Kilmainham fell fainting -at his feet, only to hear the affectionately-proffered good-bye; and -it was generally noticed that Lord Norbury, facing him, could with -difficulty steady his voice, though he was popularly believed to revel -in pronouncing capital sentence. - -Emmet busied himself with letters in his cell. He slept and ate as -usual; and his firm handwriting witnessed the unshaken soul within. -Several of his last letters have been recovered; two or three have been -published, in Mr. W. H. Curran’s _Life_ of his illustrious father, in -Dr. Madden’s moving but chaotic _Memoirs of the United Irishmen_, and -elsewhere. On the day set for his execution Robert Emmet wrote to his -old friend Richard Curran:— - - “MY DEAREST RICHARD: I find I have but a few hours to - live; but if it was the last moment, and the power of - utterance was leaving me, I would thank you from the - bottom of my heart for your generous expressions of - affection and forgiveness to me. If there was any one - in the world in whose breast my death might be supposed - not to stifle every spark of resentment, it might be - you. I have deeply injured you; I have injured the - happiness of a sister that you love, and who was formed - to give happiness to every one about her, instead - of having her own mind a prey to affliction. Oh, - Richard! I have no excuse to offer, but that I meant - the reverse: I intended as much happiness for Sarah - as the most ardent love could have given her. I never - did tell you how much I idolised her. It was not with - a wild or unfounded passion, but it was an attachment - increasing every hour, from an admiration of the purity - of her mind, and respect for her talents. I did dwell - in secret upon the prospect of our union; I did hope - that success, while it afforded the opportunity of our - union, might be a means of confirming an attachment - which misfortune had called forth. I did not look to - honours for myself; praise I would have asked from - the lips of no man: but I would have wished to read, - in the glow of Sarah’s countenance, that her husband - was respected. My love, Sarah! it was not thus that I - thought to have requited your affection. I did hope - to be a prop round which your affections might have - clung, and which would never have been shaken; but a - rude blast has snapped it, and they have fallen over - a grave. This is no time for affliction. I have had - public motives to sustain my mind, and I have not - suffered it to sink; but there have been moments in my - imprisonment when my mind was so sunk by grief on her - account that death would have been a refuge. God bless - you, my dearest Richard. I am obliged to leave off - immediately. ROBERT EMMET.” - -This touching letter has been printed before, but the two which follow, -long lost and newly found, have never been made public. The original -letters seem to have disappeared. The contemporary copies figure in -the Hardwicke or Wimpole collection, which has very recently been -made accessible to readers by the issue of the current Catalogue of -Additional Manuscripts at the British Museum. The shorter of them was -intended by Emmet for Thomas Addis Emmet and his wife Jane Patten, his -brother and sister-in-law. With it was sent a long historical document, -called _An Account of the late Plan of Insurrection in Dublin, and the -Causes of its Failure_. Hurriedly penned, in order to give the beloved -relatives a unique and direct knowledge of all that the writer had -meant and missed, it is a masterly detailed statement, as free from -all traces of morbidity, or even of agitation, as if it had been drawn -up “on happy mornings with a morning heart,” in the tents of victory. -Thanks to the practised duplicity of Dr. Trevor, to whose care it was -confided, Mr. Thomas Addis Emmet, then in Paris, never received it; -he complained bitterly of its suppression, and was only towards the -close of his life enabled to read it through the medium of the press. -But neither he nor any of his American descendants, inclusive of the -distinguished compiler of the quarto, privately printed in New York, -entitled _The Emmet Family_, seems to have suspected the existence -of the little personal note in which the _Account_ was enclosed. The -official draft of it figures in Hard. MS. 35,742, f. 197:— - - “MY DEAREST TOM AND JANE: I am just going to do my - last duty to my country. It can be done as well on the - scaffold as in the field. Do not give way to any weak - feelings on my account, but rather encourage proud ones - that I have possessed fortitude and tranquillity of - mind to the last. - - “God bless you, and the young hopes that are growing - up about you. May they be more fortunate than their - uncle, but may they preserve as pure and ardent an - attachment to their country as he has done. Give - the watch to little Robert; he will not prize it - the less for having been in the possession of two - Roberts before him. I have one dying request to make - to you. I was attached to Sarah Curran, the youngest - daughter of your friend. I did hope to have had her - my companion for life; I did hope that she would not - only have constituted my happiness, but that her - heart and understanding would have made her one of - Jane’s dearest friends. I know that Jane would have - loved her on my account, and I feel also that, had - they been acquainted, she must have loved her for her - own. None knew of the attachment till now, nor is it - now generally known; therefore do not speak of it to - others. [I leave her][2] with her father and brother; - but if those protectors should fall off, and that no - other should replace them, [take][2] her as my wife, - and love her as a sister. Give my love to all friends.” - -It is to be feared that “little Robert” (the eldest of the children, -afterwards Judge Robert Emmet of New York) did not receive his legacy. -According to what testimony can be gathered, the watch which Emmet -carried to the last was either presented to the executioner, or passed -over to him with some understanding which has not transpired. Poor -Emmet’s seal, a beautiful design of his own for the United Irishmen, -went safely into friendly keeping; but most of his personal belongings -worn on the scaffold, including his high Hessian boots and the stock -with the precious hair sewed inside the lining, were actually sold -at auction in Grafton Street, Dublin, during December, 1832. In this -letter to his brother and sister, how piercing is the “I did hope,” -iterated to them as to Richard Curran! It reminds us what a network -of beneficent will and forethought made up that intense nature, and -how the perishing leaf was but in the green. When the Lord Lieutenant, -in the course of his industrious correspondence with his brother, -sent to him, as a literary curio, a copy of Robert Emmet’s letter -(Robert himself being newly dead), in reference to it, he hastens to -add this significant sentence: “The letter to his brother will not -be forwarded; but the passage respecting Miss Sarah Curran has been -communicated to her father.” The Chief Secretary and Lord Hardwicke -were joint contrivers of what seems to us (from the point of view of -the most helpless of the persons chiefly concerned) an unnecessary if -not unfeeling move. And Mr. Curran promptly replied to the former, the -Right Honourable William Wickham, on the morrow (Hard. MS. 35,703, f. -158):— - - “_Sept. 21st, 1803._ - - “SIR: I have just received the honour of your letter, - with the extract enclosed by desire of His Excellency. - I have again to offer to His Excellency my more than - gratitude, the feelings of the strongest attachment - and respect for this new instance of considerate - condescension. To you also, sir, believe me, I am most - affectionately grateful for the part that you have been - so kind as [to] take upon this unhappy occasion; few - would, I am well aware, perhaps few could, have known - how to act in the same manner. - - “As to the communication of the extract, and the motive - for doing so, I cannot answer them in the cold parade - of official acknowledgment; I feel on the subject the - warm and animated thanks of man to man, and these I - presume to request that Lord Hardwicke and Mr. Wickham - may be pleased to accept: it is, however, only justice - to myself to say, that even on the first falling of - this unexpected blow, I had resolved (and so mentioned - to Mr. Attorney-General), that if I found no actual - guilt upon her, I would act with as much moderation - as possible towards a poor creature that had once - held the warmest place in my heart. I did, even then, - recollect that there was a point to which nothing but - actual turpitude or the actual death of her parent - ought to make a child an orphan; but even had I thought - otherwise, I feel that this extract would have produced - the effect it was intended to have, and that I should - think so now. I feel how I should shrink from the idea - of letting her sink so low as to become the subject of - the testamentary order of a miscreant who could labour, - by so foul means and under such odious circumstances, - to connect her with his infamy, and to acquire any - posthumous interest in her person or her fate. Blotted, - therefore, as she may irretrievably be from my society, - or the place she once held in my affection, she must - not go adrift. So far, at least, ‘these protectors will - not fall off.’ - - “I should therefore, sir, wish for the suppression of - this extract, if no particular, motive should have - arisen for forwarding it to its destination. I shall - avail myself of your kind permission to wait upon you - in the course of the day, to pay my respects once more - personally to you, if I shall be so fortunate as to - find you at leisure. I have the honour to be, with very - great respect, your obliged servant, JOHN P. CURRAN.” - -But it is time to return to our death-doomed “miscreant.” At half-past -one, on the afternoon of September 30, the order was given to start. -The scaffold had been built in Thomas Street, nearly opposite S. -Catherine’s Church. He was dressed all in black, and maintained the -serene and undemonstrative demeanour which was thought scandalously -unbefitting by some spectators and some scribes. On the principle -that the game was up, that “no hope can have no fear,” Robert Emmet -became, not indifferent, but beautifully gay towards the end, as gay -in irons as Raleigh or Sir Thomas More. He was quite sure that he had -nothing to repent of, now that the account was cast and cancelled. Of -course his care-free conduct was misconstrued: it passed officially -for “effrontery and nonchalance,” and the single-minded Christian, -never quite out of touch with the Church in which his holy mother -had brought him up, was darkly given forth as an impenitent atheist. -The ordinary attitude of the revolutionary late eighteenth-century -mind was irreligious enough, but it was not Robert Emmet’s. One of his -colleagues in the dream and the disaster, Thomas Russell, an elder -figure in Emmet’s never-marshalled “army,” and a nobly interesting one, -was extraordinarily pious: as pious as General Gordon. On the scaffold -at Downpatrick (brought to that by his thwarted outbreak in the North), -he recalled, for a memory well suited to encourage him, “my young -hero, my great and dear friend, a martyr to the cause of his country -and to liberty.” Russell’s hospitality of mind was not such that he -could have made an exemplar of an infidel. But there is so much proof -on this point, that the old charge may be laid aside in that limbo of -all inaccuracies for which the invention of printing is responsible. -The Englishman at the helm of affairs in Dublin, by no means (as we -have seen) a wholly unsympathetic annalist, bequeaths us an account -of Emmet’s final interview with the chaplains. It cannot escape the -reader that two distinct issues were, in the minds of those worthy -gentlemen, vaguely blended. No person in Mr. Robert Emmet’s situation, -unless he repented of his politics, had any chance of being considered -otherwise than unsound in his religion. Individualism, looked upon as -the exact science it undoubtedly is, was not quite at its best in the -self-righteous era of George the Third, and under the Establishment -which was regulated by a now almost obsolete basilolatry. - -“Mr. Gamble, the clergyman who attends the prisoners in Newgate, -visited [Mr. Emmet] yesterday evening, and again this morning, in -Kilmainham Prison, in company with the Reverend Mr. Grant, a clergyman -who resides at Island Bridge. In the report which they have made to -me of what passed in their communications with Mr. Emmet, they state -that though their conversation did not produce all the good they had -hoped, it had nevertheless the effect of bringing him to a more calm, -and in some respects a better temper of mind, than they had reason to -expect from a person professing the principles by which they supposed -him to be directed. They repeatedly urged to him those topics which -were likely to bring him to a better feeling, and acknowledgment of -the crime for which he was to suffer, but were not successful in -persuading him to abjure those principles by which he was actuated in -his conspiracy to overthrow the Government. He disclaimed any intention -of shedding blood; professed a total ignorance of the murder of Lord -Kilwarden, before which, he declares, he had left Dublin; and also -professed an aversion to the French. He declared that though persons -professing his principles, and acting in the cause in which he had -been concerned, were generally supposed to be Deists, that he was a -Christian in the true sense of the word; that he had received the -Sacrament, though not regularly and habitually, and that he wished to -receive it then; that what he felt, he felt sincerely, and would avow -his principles in his last moments; that he was conscious of sins, and -wished to receive the Sacrament. The clergymen consented to join in -prayer with him, and administered the Sacrament to him, considering -him as a visionary enthusiast, and wishing him to bring his mind to a -proper temper and sense of religion. - -“On their way to the place of execution they conversed with him upon -the same topics, but could never persuade him to admit that he had -been in the wrong. In answer to their question whether, if he had -foreseen the blood that had been spilt in consequence of his attempt, -he would have persisted in his design to overthrow the Government, he -observed that no one went to battle without being prepared for similar -events, always considering his attempt as free from moral reproach in -consequence of what he conceived to be the goodness of the motive that -produced it. At the place of execution he was desirous of addressing -the people. He intended to have declared that he had never taken any -oath but that of the United Irishmen, and by that oath he meant to -abide. The clergymen who were present explained to him that an address -to that effect might possibly produce tumult and bloodshed, and that -it ought not to be permitted. He was therefore obliged to acquiesce, -and did so without appearing to be disturbed or agitated.” (Hard. MS. -35,742, ff. 191 _et seq._) - -What Robert Emmet did say to the people, a sentence seemingly of -puzzling platitude, was, in him, one of profound truth: “My friends, -I die in peace, and with sentiments of love and kindness to all men.” -There is another and more animated contemporary account of his exit in -_The Life and Times of Henry Grattan_. The whole passage may as well be -quoted:— - -“Robert Emmet [was] devoid of caution, foresight, and prudence: ardent, -spirited, and impetuous. ... He was an enthusiast, he was a visionary. -Without a treasury, without officers, without troops, he declared war -against England and France, and prepared to oppose both!—the one, if -she sought to retain possession of Ireland, and the other, if she -attempted to invade it. With a few followers, he rose to take the -Castle of Dublin and defeat a disciplined garrison. He put on a green -coat and a cocked hat, and fancied himself already a conqueror. If no -lives had been lost he probably would not have suffered, although Lord -Norbury was the judge who tried him.... When asked the usual question -why sentence should not be passed on him, he exclaimed: ‘Sentence of -death may be pronounced: I have nothing to say. But sentence of infamy -shall not be pronounced: I have everything to say.’ He was as cool and -collected before his death as if nothing was to happen. Peter Burrowes -saw him on his way, and related a circumstance that occurred as he was -going to execution. He had a paper that he wished to be brought to Miss -Curran, to whom he was strongly attached: he watched his opportunity, -and in passing one of the streets, he caught a friendly eye in the -crowd, and making a sign to the person, got him near; then he dropped a -paper. This was observed by others, and the person who took it up was -stopped: the paper was taken from him and brought to the Castle. Mr. -Burrowes and Charles Bushe saw it, and said it was a very affecting and -interesting letter.” - -And so to poor Emmet, Fate, in her most diabolical mood, had for -the last time played the postman. He shook hands with the masked -executioner, removed his own stock, and helped to adjust both the cap -and the noose. The correspondent of the _London Daily Chronicle_, after -a fervent “God forbid that I should see many persons with Emmet’s -principles!” adds in unwilling tribute—and those were the days when a -hanging was a favourite spectacle with persons of elegant leisure—“As -it was, I never saw one die like him.” When all was over, and the head, -with every feature composed and pale as in life, had been held up with -the formula proper to traitors, that and the body were brought back to -the gaol, and shortly after buried in the common ground, Bully’s Acre, -none of Emmet’s few living kindred appearing then to claim it. His -parents were not long dead; his only brother was in exile; his sister -was a delicate woman, probably crushed by her latest grief, and her -husband, Mr. Robert Holmes, a most serviceable friend, was in prison; -John Patten, Thomas Addis Emmet’s brother-in-law, was far away; St. -John Mason, a cousin of the Emmets, and one heart and soul with them -in all that pertained to the wished-for welfare of Ireland, was, like -Mr. Holmes, and for the same reason, the tenant of a cell. Others, -more remotely connected by affection with Robert Emmet, might have -come forward in time had any one realised the blight, the paralysis, -which events had imposed simultaneously on the entire family. It seems -pretty conclusive from a valuable pamphlet just published by Mr. David -A. Quaid (though the facts are not yet verified), that Robert Emmet -was laid to rest in his father’s vault in the churchyard of St. Peter, -Aungier Street. There one may leave that sentinel dust until the day of -conciser habit than his own shall carve the good word above it which he -foreknew. - -Sarah Curran’s quiet annals are ungathered by any one hand, but the -main outlines are henceforth discernible, and some celebrated writers -have found them of interest. Washington Irving, in _The Broken -Heart_, has given her an exquisite immortality; and the pathetic -central incident of his narration is also the inspiration of Moore’s -haunting song: _She is far from the land_. It was not, however, at -the Rotunda in Dublin, but in a festal room in the friendly house -where, after the death of her betrothed, she lived on in a dispirited -convalescence, that she wandered away from the company, and sitting -alone on the stair, began singing softly a plaintive air, “housed in -a dream, at distance from the kind.” This happened at Woodhill, in -Cork. Her voice seems to have been singularly beautiful: there was -a general development of musical genius in her father’s family. The -incident was reported at firsthand to Irving, as to Moore. To those who -knew her story, the little forgetful act was poignant enough: for she -was singing to the dead. In her sorrow, her deprivations, her entire -withdrawal from the world, Miss Curran was blest with tender friends -and champions. The poet just named, who was one of Robert Emmet’s early -comrades, knew how admiration followed her like her shadow. - - “And lovers are round her, sighing: - But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, - For her heart in his grave is lying.” - -Among those who looked with infinite sympathy and respect on the -gentle girl moving like a soulless phantom in an unreal world, was a -very young Englishman, barely her senior, a newly commissioned captain -of Royal Engineers, a lineal descendant of Strafford, and full of -Strafford’s strong singleness of heart. Henry Robert Sturgeon was -third son of William Sturgeon, Esquire, and the Lady Henrietta Alicia -Watson-Wentworth; grandson of the first, and nephew of the second -Marquis of Rockingham. He conceived for Sarah Curran an instinctive -affection, ardent and profound, and free from stain of self as Emmet’s -own. It was as if Emmet, absented for ever, had breathed himself into -another for the comfort and protection of the well-beloved. But the -well-beloved would not be comforted nor protected: not though she knew, -as she knew perfectly, both what her suitor’s worth was, and what -were his fortune and standing in the great world; not though every -member of the Penrose family, devoted to him, encouraged his hope; not -though all of them, of their own accord, interceded with their ward -and guest. In the _Literary Souvenir_ for 1831, there is an agreeable -paper of fifteen pages entitled _Some Passages in the History of Sarah -Curran_, signed “M.” It has been conjectured that the writer was one -of the Crawfords of Lismore, who had been very kind to Sarah when her -mother’s flight broke up the Curran household. Whoever “M.” was, her -devotion to her friend, of whose character and mental qualities she had -the highest opinion, is conspicuous, and one may glean much information -from what she has to tell us. Captain Sturgeon, she says in the -slightly stilted Georgian phrases, was everything which is good. “Had -not her heart been seared by early grief and disappointment, he could -not have failed to have experienced the most flattering reception.” -Sarah herself was entirely open with him: one would expect no less of -her nobly sweet nature. “She pleaded his own cause for him by proving -how little he deserved a divided affection;” but “the constancy and -tenderness of her attachment to Emmet seem only to have rendered her -the more interesting.” Two difficult years and more went by for Henry -Sturgeon. He never wavered in his purpose: much as society sought after -him, there was but one woman in the world to that patient and dedicated -lover. Time was on their side. Sarah was gaining some measure of -content and also of health, although she never definitely rallied from -the heartbreak of 1803. It touched her at last that as she was, as she -had told him so often that she was, with no life to live and nothing to -give him, he prayed her still to become his wife, to lend him the one -ultimate privilege of humblest service, from which otherwise he would -be debarred. Some expectation of leaving the south of Ireland, or the -actual arrival of orders from headquarters, seems to have lent a sudden -heightened earnestness to his addresses; and Sarah, being pressed, gave -her sad consent. They were married at Glanmire Church, near Woodhill, -in the February of 1806. - -A dismal wedding it must have been! “M.” was told by one of the -bridesmaids, long after, of the melancholy drive in the closed -carriage, with the bride in tears. For a time Captain Sturgeon’s -affairs kept him in England; then he was transported, with his -regiment, to Malta and Sicily. The first journey, fully a half-year -after the marriage, must have taken him and his wife through the -capital, the Dublin of all racking memories, for we hear of Mrs. -Sturgeon visiting Mr. James Petrie’s studio there. From the sketches he -had made of Robert Emmet in the court-room, and from the mask in his -possession, he had painted a portrait unhappily not wholly successful. -But we know what peculiar interest belongs to a portrait, when there -is, and can be, but one; and no person, surely, in all the world, can -have longed to scan this one with the longing of Sarah Sturgeon. Dr. -William Stokes, the biographer of George Petrie, says that George, then -the artist’s little son, happened to be alone, playing in his father’s -studio, when a veiled lady entered and went over to the easel. He never -forgot her nor the moment. “She lifted her veil, and stood long in -unbroken silence, gazing at the face before her; then suddenly turning, -moved with an unsteady step to another corner of the room, and bending -forwards, pressed her head against the wall, heaving deep sobs, her -whole form shaken with a storm of passionate grief. How long that agony -lasted the boy could not tell; it appeared to him to be an hour. Then -with a supreme effort she controlled herself, pulled down her veil, and -quickly and silently left the room. Years after, the boy learned from -his father that this was Sarah Curran, who had come by appointment to -see her dead lover’s portrait, on the understanding that she should -meet no one of the family.” - -Captain Sturgeon was glad of the duty which turned his face -southwards, as he could not but believe that the softer climate would -help his frail Sarah. It is curious that Moore, in making her the -unconscious heroine of his lovely lyric, should have placed the scene -of her abstracted singing “the wild song of her dear native plains,” -and of her abstracted turning from “lovers around her sighing,” in -Italy! quite as if Captain Sturgeon, “curteis and mylde, and the most -soofering man that ever I met withal,” had no existence. The poet, in -all probability, heard late of the incident, and thus did not assign it -to Woodhill. Only too accurate was one foreboding stanza: - - “Nor soon will the tear of his country be dried, - Nor long will his love stay behind him.” - -But before 1808 set in, Sarah’s strength seemed to be establishing -itself in the kindly foreign air; in that and in her growing happiness -her husband began to reap the moral reward he had so hardly won. -Abruptly, and not without alarm, the English in Sicily were driven -homewards by the descent of the French on those shores. Captain and -Mrs. Sturgeon hurried aboard a crowded transport bound for Portsmouth. -The poor lady had great excitement and considerable hardship to -undergo, and in the course of that most luckless voyage was prematurely -born her only child. The deep-seated sadness of her soul, as if -unjustly alienated from her, returned in all its fulness after his -death. She settled with her husband at Hythe in Kent, and there she -made haste to die. The laburnums were coming into blossom when she -entered upon her eternity, six-and-twenty years old. She had a meek -request to make of her father, who was oftentimes as near to her new -home as London: it was that she might be buried in a garden grave at -the Priory, where the sister who died in childhood had been laid. -One need have no very romantic imagination to guess that the remote -green spot bordering the lawn (a natural trysting-place screened by -great trees that grow near the little grave), was dear to her also -for another’s sake, for some old association with him who loved her -in his hunted youth. For his own reasons, Mr. Curran, approached on -the subject, saw fit to refuse. During the first week of May, 1808, -Sir Charles Napier thus wrote his mother: “I rode over to Hythe this -morning to see poor Sturgeon, who has lost his little wife at last, -the betrothed of Emmet. Young Curran is here: his sister was gone -before his arrival. They are going to take the body to Ireland.” It -was Richard Curran, faithful in every human relationship, who went on -to his brother-in-law. The bereaved two brought Sarah home to her own -country, to the tomb in Newmarket of the grandmother of whom she had -been fond, and for whom she was named: Sarah Philpot. The headstone -was prepared, and seen by some local antiquary, and remembered; but -it disappeared before it was placed. Emmet’s love sleeps, like Emmet, -without an epitaph. - -The letter which Richard Curran wrote to “M.” about his dead sister was -printed by her twenty-three years after. In it was enclosed a fragment -of Sarah’s own:— - - “RADISH’S HOTEL, ST. JAMES’S STREET, - “LONDON, _May 8, 1808_. - - “MY DEAR MADAM: I know how heartily you’ll participate - in the feelings with which I announce to you the - death of your poor friend, my lamented Sarah. I would - willingly spare myself this distressing office; but - I cannot expose one whom she so loved to the risk of - stumbling inadvertently in a public paper on a piece - of intelligence so affecting.... I wish also to convey - to you a testimony that her thoughts never strayed from - you, and that to the hour of her death you were the - object of her affection. The enclosed unfinished letter - is the last she ever wrote. In it you will find a very - mitigated statement of her sufferings. I can anticipate - the satisfaction you will derive from the strong sense - of religious impressions which marks her letters; and - I at the same time congratulate and thank you for - having cultivated in her the seeds of that consoling - confidence which cheered her departing moments, and - stripped death, if not of its anguish, yet of its - greatest horrors. The hopes held out by her physicians - were, alas! more humane than well-grounded: she expired - at half-past five, on the morning of the 5th inst., - of a rapid decline. To describe my sorrow would be - but to write her eulogy. You know all the various - qualities with which she was so eminently gifted, and - the consequent pangs I must feel at so abrupt and - calamitous a dispensation. I am now on my way, with her - afflicted widower, accompanying her remains, which she - wished to lie in her native land. I enclose you a lock - of her hair; it was cut off after her death. Adieu, - my dear madam. I make no apology for this melancholy - intrusion, and I beg to assure you that one in whose - acquirements and disposition she found so much that was - kindred to her own, can never cease to be an object of - most respectful esteem and attachment to a brother that - loved her as I did.—I remain, your obliged friend and - humble servant, RICHARD CURRAN.” - - _To_ MRS. HENRY W——. - - -[_Enclosure._] - - “MY DEAR M——: I suppose you do not know of my arrival - from Sicily, or I should have heard from you. I must - be very brief in my detail of the events which have - proved so fatal to me, and which followed our departure - from that country. A most dreadful and perilous - passage occasioning me many frights, I was, on our - entrance into the Channel, prematurely delivered of a - boy, without any assistance save that of one of the - soldiers’ wives, the only woman on board except myself. - The storm being so high that no boat could stand out - at sea, I was in imminent danger till twelve next - day, when at the risk of his life a physician came - on board from one of the other ships, and relieved - me. The storm continued, and I got a brain fever, - which, however, passed off. To be short: on landing - at Portsmouth, the precious creature for whom I had - suffered so much God took to Himself. The inexpressible - anguish I felt at this event, preying on me, has - occasioned the decay of my health. For the last month - the contest between life and death has seemed doubtful; - but this day, having called in a very clever man here, - he seems not to think me in danger. My disorder is a - total derangement of the nervous system, and its most - dreadful effects I find in the attack on my mind and - spirits. I suffer misery you cannot conceive. I am - often seized with icy perspirations, trembling, and - that indescribable horror which you must know, if you - have ever had the fever. Write instantly to me. Alas, - I want everything to soothe my mind. O my friend! - would to Heaven you were with me: nothing so much as - the presence of a dear female friend would tend to my - recovery. But in England you know how I am situated: - not one I know intimately. To make up for this, my - beloved husband is everything to me. His conduct, - throughout all my troubles, surpasses all praise. - Write to me, dear M——, and tell me how to bear all - these things. I have, truly speaking, cast all my - care on the Lord; but ah, how our weak natures fail; - every day, every hour, I may say. On board the ship, - when all seemed adverse to hope, it is strange how an - overstrained trust in certain words of our Saviour gave - me such perfect faith in His help, that although my - baby was visibly pining away, I never doubted his life - for a moment. ‘He who gathers the lambs in His arms,’ - I thought, would look down on mine, if I had faith in - Him. This has often troubled me since——” - -Richard Curran, who took pains to send that broken letter to a woman -who valued it above fine gold, was always a good brother. Concerning -his dear Sarah he had to be reticent, too, in reticent company. A lady -who knew W. Henry Curran long and well, heard him mention his youngest -sister only once. They were searching for something in a garret, when -an exquisite picture standing laced with cobwebs, the picture of a girl -about eighteen, caught her eye. “My sister Sarah, by Romney,” Henry -said shortly, seeing that he had to say something. “Family pride had -been deeply hurt by the publicity attached to poor Sarah’s unfortunate -love-episode.” The Romney, sold by auction when Henry Curran died, is -now the property of the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby; it has been beautifully -engraved for Miss Frances A. Gerard’s _Some Fair Hibernians_, 1897. -The delicately powdered hair, the low frilled dress with the line of -black velvet about the neck, the gracious shoulders, the purely Irish -mouth and eyes, half-scornful of life, half-resigned to it, which never -knew illusion, and can never know abiding joy—-these are most tenderly -painted, and remain among the things one does not forget. The last word -of this haunting personality shall be loyal “M.’s”:— - -“In person Mrs. Sturgeon was about the ordinary size, her hair and eyes -black. Her complexion was fairer than is usual with black hair, and -was a little freckled. Her eyes were large, soft, and brilliant, and -capable of the greatest variety of expression. Her aspect in general -indicated reflection, and pensive abstraction from the scene around -her. Her wit was keen and playful, but chastised [_sic_]; although no -one had a quicker perception of humour or ridicule. Her musical talents -were of the first order: she sang with exquisite taste. I think I never -heard so harmonious a voice.” - -As for Captain Henry Sturgeon, he only betook himself anew to his -post. His more active military career was now to begin. Throughout -the Peninsular War he served as Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, and later -as Colonel of South Guides on the Duke of Wellington’s staff; and -Wellington’s despatches ring again and again with his commended name. -Riding across a vineyard during the fight near Vie Begorre, on a -March morning of 1814, in the sixth year of his widowerhood, and the -thirty-second of his age, he was shot dead in the saddle. He never -had his dues in a profession where official recognition was then not -stinted; and perhaps he cared little that it was so. _The Dictionary -of National Biography_, which does not mention his all-significant -marriage, yet quotes from _The War in the Peninsula_ what is said of -Henry Sturgeon: “Skilled to excellence in almost every branch of war, -and possessing a variety of accomplishments, he used his gifts so -gently for himself and so usefully for the service that envy offered -no bar to admiration, and the whole army felt painfully mortified that -his merits were passed unnoticed.” This is one comrade’s glowing praise -of another. Has it gone unguessed, the cause of the neglect at home of -one of the most brilliant and devoted officers of his generation? Can -the cause be hidden from those who have scrutinised the Government -of that day, with its spites, its partisanships, its incapacity for -distant outlooks, its severance from ideals? This Englishman, whatever -his eminence of courage and skill might be, had been the husband of -Emmet’s sweetheart; and Emmet was an Irish rebel and felon. The young -soldier had probably weighed well what he was inheriting, before his -marriage, and found all that endurable enough, until he died. In a -world where earthly accidents wither away at a breath, and men of like -temper see each other as they are, Henry Sturgeon must have smiled from -the blood-wet Spanish grass straight into Robert Emmet’s eyes. - -One likes the unexpected epilogue, as one likes the mournful play. It -is all satisfactory: “nothing but well and fair, and what may quiet -us,” in the odd pattern of the plot. Emmet lives in it, and outlives. -It is the compensation of a lot cast in a planet where even our own -honourable action has a trick of turning hostile and smearing us, -that there is something in the best of us which cannot be smeared. -Robert Emmet’s large soul has, like a magician, pieced together his -broken body, the symbol of his broken, mistimed, and because mistimed, -unhallowed effort. But only his own soul has done it, and by a power -within, shaking herself clear of censure. Mr. Henry Curran devotes -to him a reticent paragraph obliquely affectionate. “He met his fate -with unostentatious fortitude; and although few could ever think of -justifying his projects or regretting their failure, yet his youth, his -talents, the great respectability of his connections, and the evident -delusion of which he was the victim, have excited more general sympathy -for his unfortunate end, and more forbearance towards his memory, -than are usually extended to the errors or sufferings of political -offenders.” At the end of a hundred years, the feelings which may -temperately be described as sympathy and forbearance do survive, ranged -on the side of this political offender; but is it to be thought for -a moment that five-and-twenty years of life, intellectuality, social -standing, above all the capacity for being fooled (adorable as that may -sometimes be), are alone able to commend any man to the remembrance of -posterity? No: to dominate a moral distance there must be moral height. -Emmet was magnanimous. The word was nobly applied to him by Lord -Hardwicke, the head of the Government which hanged and beheaded him. -Now to be magnanimous is not to possess a definite grace or virtue: -magnanimity, like a sense of humour, is a spirit, a solvent merely; to -exercise it in any one emergency is to show greatness equal to all. -Robert Emmet said that he had received, immediately on his return from -France, official invitations from conspirators in high quarters at -home: the “first men in the land” were those who “invited him over.” Of -his truthfulness there was but one opinion. Said Curran, who loved him -little: “I would have believed the word of Emmet as soon as the oath of -any other man I ever knew.” The Attorney-General at the trial referred -to the prisoner as “a gentleman to whom the rebellion may be traced, -as the origin, life, and soul of it.” This was Emmet’s reply, when, -after nightfall, his turn came to speak: “My lords, let me here observe -that I am not the head and lifeblood of this rebellion. When I came to -Ireland I found the business ripe for execution: I was asked to join -in it.” And again: “I have been charged with that importance in the -efforts to emancipate my country as to be considered the keystone of -the combination of Irishmen, or, as it has been expressed, the life and -soul of this conspiracy. You do me honour overmuch. You have given to -the subaltern all the credit of the superior.” He turned half-smiling -to the presiding judge. “There are men concerned in this conspiracy -who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conception -of yourself, my lord.” At the final moment of his life Emmet stood -motionless with a handkerchief in his hand, the fall of which was to be -the signal for the cart to be drawn away. To the usual “Are you ready, -sir?” he twice answered “No.” As it was, another and obeyed signal -was impatiently given before he had dropped the handkerchief. Why did -he hesitate? Was he perhaps expecting these concealed associates, -his leaders and long-silent abettors, to reprieve or rescue him? So -romantic a fancy, implying so much belief in human generosity, was only -too natural to Robert Emmet. Many thinking heads, even under coronets, -had been hot for reform in that unfavourable hour; there were many who -desired the removal of religious disabilities, popular representation -in Parliament, death to the vile system of local laws under which one -witness, and only one witness, was sufficient to convict a man of high -treason. Reform being disallowed, they declared themselves eloquently -as ready to be driven to armed resistance against England: that is, -towards total divorce and reconstruction. To poor Emmet alone, the -thing so unavoidable which was good enough to long for and to talk -about, was the thing good enough to do. The “first in the land” kept -their heads; and in death as in life he kept their secret. There is a -great unwritten chapter of perfidy behind his lonely ineffectual blow -struck for national freedom. Anyone who has studied well these events -of 1803, and weighed well the astonishing confidential information -about the historical papers at Dublin Castle, which was given not long -ago to Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, of New York, by Sir Bernard Burke, and -incorporated in _The Emmet Family_, can hardly doubt that revelations -on that subject are yet to come which will lengthen the story of Mr. -Pitt, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Under-Secretary Marsden, and their dealings -with Ireland. And English gold and English terrorism had too truly won -their way at last with Emmet’s humble colleagues at home. - -There are minor instances of Emmet’s magnanimity no less striking -in their way. “We are all Protestants!” he said in a delighted and -congratulatory spirit to Russell, implicated with him; he could not -forget how much more heavily suspicion would bear upon those others -yet shackled by the penal laws. To this beautiful inborn openness of -mind was due his allusion before Lord Norbury (a judge as well-hated as -Jeffreys, and for much the same reasons), to “that tyranny of which you -are only the intermediate minister.” From his cell, within a few hours -of the end, he sent a manly letter of thanks to the Chief Secretary, in -which he addresses him thus:— - - “SIR: Had I been permitted to proceed with my - vindication, it was my intention not only to have - acknowledged the delicacy with which (I feel with - gratitude) I have been personally treated, but also - to have done the most public justice to the mildness - of the present Administration in this country; and - at the same time to have acquitted them, as far as - rested with me, of any charge of remissness in not - having previously detected a conspiracy, which, from - its closeness, I know it was impossible to have done. - I confess that I should have preferred this mode if it - had been permitted, as it would thereby have enabled me - to clear myself from an imputation under which I might - in consequence lie, and to have stated why such an - Administration did not prevent, but (under the peculiar - situation of this country) perhaps rather accelerated - my determination to make some effort for the overthrow - of a Government of which I do not think equally highly. - However, as I have been deprived of that opportunity, - I think it right now to make an acknowledgment which - justice requires from me as a man, and which I do not - feel to be in the least derogatory from my decided - principles as an Irishman.—I have the honour to be, - sir, with the greatest respect, your most obedient - humble servant, - - “ROBT. EMMET.” - - (Hard. MS. 35,742, f. 196.) - -The Lord Lieutenant makes a comment on this, in that letter to his -brother, the Home Secretary, from which much has already been cited:— - -“I enclose copies of two letters which he wrote this morning [September -20, 1803]. One of the acts of kindness to which he particularly refers, -in his letter to Mr. Wickham, was his being removed from the cell at -Newgate, in which he had been placed after the sentence, to his former -apartment at Kilmainham, as had been originally intended. He had -alluded to this in his conversation with the clergymen, and admitted -that the general conduct of those who administered the Government was -likely to conciliate the people, though he did not approve the form of -the Government and the British connection, both of which he had been -desirous to overthrow.” - -In regard to this forwarded letter, the Home Secretary utters his -congratulatory mind, and gives his opinion of our hero:— - -“At the same time that one cannot but deplore the wicked malignity and -wonder at the enthusiastic wildness which appears to have actuated the -conduct of this miserable man, one cannot but admire the judgment, -the temper, and delicacy which appear to have been manifested in -the conduct of your Excellency’s Government towards this person, -and all concerned or in any manner connected with him. I cannot but -take advantage of this occasion to express the satisfaction I feel -in observing that the justice, moderation, and mildness of your -Excellency’s Government have extorted even from a condemned traitor the -same sentiments of respect and reverence which we have been accustomed -to hear from the loyal part of the community.” - -It does not seem to have been revealed to the Hon. Charles Yorke, -that what “extorted” Emmet’s assurances was his own extreme, almost -fantastic, chivalry; and that those assurances set off deeply by -contrast, as he vehemently meant they should do, his abhorrence of the -underlying system of which Lord Hardwicke’s conduct was merely the -agreeable accident. Lord Hardwicke, at least, had understood. - -Even one intelligent modern has fallen foul of Emmet’s unusually -scrupulous care in such matters, and of his attitude of regal courtesy, -like that of the battling foes on Crécy field: such a care and such -an attitude indicate, it is thought, “weakness of character!” What it -really indicates is a diplomacy so high that if generally practised -it might render human intercourse very difficult. We cannot all be as -Apollo Musagetes, daring to employ nothing but the amenities, the major -force, in a universe inured to cheap thunderbolts. As Thoreau shrewdly -says: “The gods can never afford to have a man in the world who is -privy to any of their secrets. They cannot have a spy here: they will -at once send him packing!” - -A postulate of true magnanimity is modesty. Emmet’s was unique. It -is the testimony of John Patten, who was well aware of his kinsman’s -immense self-reliance, that “Robert had not one particle of vanity in -his composition. He was the most free from conceit of any man I ever -knew. You might live with him for years ... and never discover that he -thought about himself at all. He was vain neither of his person nor of -his mind.” La Comtesse d’Haussonville cannot refrain, in her graceful -memoir, from contrasting him with another excellent youth of genius, -André Chénier, who very properly expressed his pang of self-pity -in face of the guillotine. “_Et pourtant_,” he cried, striking his -forehead with that gesture of Gallic candour which is so odd to us -and so winning: “_et pourtant il y avait quelque chose ici_!” _Il y -avait quelque chose ici_ in Emmet too, although it was not great lyric -poetry. He had almost every other capacity. The Rev. Archibald Douglas, -in his old age, when Robert Emmet had been nearly forty years in his -grave, summed up his conviction about him to Dr. R. R. Madden: “So -gifted a creature does not appear once in a thousand years.” - -We have no portrait of Emmet which antedates his trial. Three artists -in good repute sketched him, that day, on bits of waste paper or else -on the backs of envelopes, and did it surreptitiously for dread of -prohibition: these were Comerford, Brocas, and James Petrie. The -two first, viewing Emmet in profile, gained better results than the -third; yet Petrie’s drawing serves as the basis of the only well-known -engraved pictures. It was Petrie, moreover, who was allowed to take the -death-mask of Robert Emmet. The good material accumulated was put to no -very memorable use. The Petrie Emmet is somewhat heavy and glowering, -and distinctly wry-necked. It is meant, in fact, to be impressive; and -the note of artificiality disqualifies it as a true representation of -its subject, a man of shynesses and simplicities. Comerford, on the -other hand, and Brocas, as effectively, have given us a face to look at -which one instinctively believes in. It is stamped with concentration -and resolve, but has in it something serene and gentle and sweet, and -it harmonises with all we can learn of Emmet’s physical appearance from -the printed page. He was about five feet seven inches in height, wiry, -slender, erect, healthy, full of endurance, quick of movement. His dark -eyes were small and rather deep-set, and sparkling with expression; -his nose was straight and thin, his mouth delicately chiselled. He had -the powerful chin and jaw-bone never absent from the bodily semblance -of a strong-willed personality. The fine pendulous hair bespoke the -enthusiast, but it was not worn long save over the forehead, which was -noticeably broad and high. What gave a faun-like idiosyncrasy to the -whole countenance was the slight upward curve of the perfect eyebrows -at the inner edge. If we are to accept Brocas as our best authority -(though his hand at work has somehow captured a momentary scorn not -seen by Comerford), this idiosyncrasy had in it no touch of frowning -severity such as was foreign, according to all report, to Emmet, but -added rather a final whimsical attraction to a sad young face which a -child or a dog would readily love. As Anne Devlin said once of “Miss -Sarah’s,” it was “not handsome, but more than handsome.” The one face -it resembles is the Giotto Dante. - -Some critics on the spindle side will find it easier to forgive an -unsuccessful patriot than an uninventive and unauthoritative lover. -Emmet in hiding near the Priory, between the no-rising and the arrest, -had his almost certain chances of escape; but he could not persuade -the girl, born, like Hamlet, to a tragic inaction, to strike hands -with him and make the dash for liberty. Habit sat too heavily on her -defrauded spirit, and insufficient faith in herself kept her where she -was. The secrecy of their relations seems to have hurt and weakened -her. She could no more stand up then against her father’s displeasure -than she could part long after with dejection and a sort of remorse, -when the face of her outer world had beautifully, almost miraculously, -changed. And Emmet loved her as she was, a day-lily on a drooping stem. -To quarrel with them because no fleet-footed horse, as in a novel, -pranced by night to Rathfarnham to bear them away together, is to -quarrel with a perfected sequence. To mark the look of this Robert, -hungry for the heroic, the look of this Sarah, mystical as twilight, is -but to forecast casualties. Perhaps as every soul has a right to its -own kind of welfare and happiness, so it has a right to its own kind of -sorrow. The second alternative suits the innocent, although it shocks -the moral sense of most persons far more than would the choice of error -instead of truth. To be an Emmet at all meant to get into trouble for -advanced ideals. To be a Curran meant to have a keen intelligence -always besieged hard, and eventually overcome, by melancholia, as John -Philpot Curran’s was at the end, as Richard Curran’s was in his prime. -Emmet and the young creature of his adoration were hardly used; but -Fate chose not ill for them. A _révolution manquée_ with an elopement; -expatriation with a marriage certificate; a change of political front -with the parental blessing—all look somehow equally incongruous and -out of key with those sensitive faces elected, let us say, to better -things. Their story, with all deductions which can be made, has already -done something to deepen the sense of human love in the world, and to -broaden the dream of human liberty. Perhaps either of those games may -be considered as always worth the candle. - -Rashness, and the immediate ruin consequent upon it, two things which -men can taste, smell, handle, hear, and see, are not redeemed, in their -opinion, by anything so unsubstantial as motive. History, a tissue of -externals, cannot afford to take account of that. Hence it falls out -that certain spirits are finally given over, with their illegitimate -deeds in arm, to folk-lore and balladry. Of these are Charlotte Corday, -and John Brown of Ossawatomie, and Robert Emmet. There is no need of -exculpating them in the forum of the people, where they were never held -to be at fault; and exculpation is a waste of words to the rest of us. -We understand too well what social havoc these pure-eyed hot-hearted -angels bring in their wake, when they condescend to interfere with -our fixed affairs. They call into being in their own despite our most -self-protective measures: measures, in short, which amount to an -international coalition against the undesirable immigrant. Relentless -inhospitality to such innovators, in every generation and in every -clime, is the habit of this planet. Such as our affairs are, we do not -seem to wish them made over into duplicates of those of the Kingdom of -Heaven. The executed meddlers, however, often take on an unaccountable -posthumous grace, and may even be approached upon anniversaries in a -mood none other than that of affectionate congratulation. The anomaly -of our own situation has passed with their death: though they never -change, we grow up in time to be Posterity, and to see with them the -ultimate correlations of things, in a region of intellectual space -where nothing goes by its old name. To be unbiassed and Irish is to -love Robert Emmet; to be generously English is to love him; to be -American is to love him anyhow. - - “Aristogeiton! here is for thy sword - A myrtle of Mount Vernon, plucked this day.” - - -THE END - - - - - Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. - Edinburgh & London - - - * * * * * - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The name in the original MS. was probably Burrowes. - -[2] The bracketed words are conjectures of the present writer. The MS. -has suffered greatly from the damp, so as to be practically illegible -in places. - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Note: Page 84, “n” changed to “in” (in a very clever) - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Emmet, by Louise Imogen Guiney - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT EMMET *** - -***** This file should be named 51889-0.txt or 51889-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/8/8/51889/ - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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