impossibility. He had entered the Dublin
University at sixteen, and had even then been
notorious for his wild republicanism. Moore
the poet mentions him as his colleague at a
juvenile debating-club, and even then in great
repute, not only for his learning and eloquence, but
for the purity of his life and the grave suavity
of his manner. The dangerous subjects
propounded by these hot-headed young politicians
were such as "whether an aristocracy or
democracy is more favourable to the advancement
of science and literature;"  and " whether
a soldier was bound on all occasions to obey
his commanding-officer." The object of these
stripling conspirators was to praise the French
republic, and to denounce England by innuendo
or open sedition. The students were fired by
recollections of Plutarch's heroes and Plato's
Utopia; there were often real wrongs enacting
before their eyes; their own fathers and brothers
had been slain or hung; and, looking across
the water, they could see French sympathisers
stretching out their hands with promises of
aid. The conclusion of one of Emmet's boyish
speeches shows how much of the William Tell
there was even then in his heart:

"When a people advancing rapidly in knowledge
and power," said the debating club orator,
"perceive at last how far their government is
lagging behind them, what then, I ask, is to be
done in such a case? Why, pull the government
up to the people."

Next day Emmet was struck off the college
roll, and the plotting publicans and farmers
were glad of a gentleman leader.

From a portrait of Emmet in later life, we
can picture him in '98 with his tall ascetic
figure, his long Napoleonic face, and his thin,
soft hair brushed down over his high forehead.
In 1802, care and thought had bent his brows
into a too habitual frown, had compressed his
lips, and turned down the outer angles of his
mouth to a painful and malign expression;
but still bend the brows or tighten the lips as
time might, the face was always the face of a
man of singular courage, and of acute though
unbalanced genius.

There is a story told of this young politician
in early life that proved his secretive power and
resolution. He was fond of studying chemistry,
and one night late, after the family had gone to
bed, he swallowed a large quantity of corrosive
sublimate in mistake for some acid cooling
powder. He immediately discovered his mistake,
and knew that death must shortly ensue unless
he instantly swallowed the only antidote—
chalk. Timid men would instantly have torn
at the bell, roused all the family, and sent
for a stomach-pump. Emmet called no one,
made no noise; but, stealing down-stairs and
unlocking the front door, went into the stable,
scraped some chalk which he knew to be there,
and took sufficient doses of it to neutralise the
poison.

In 1798, when that self-willed and reckless but
still generous and single-hearted young officer
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, commenced to conspire
against the English government, the two
Emmets conspired with the United Irishmen,
and Thomas, the barrister, was seized, with
the other Leinster delegates. That seizure
addled the whole conspiracy as far as Dublin
was concerned. Thomas Emmet said before
the Secret Committee of Safety that he was
sure that Lord Edward would have ceased to
arm and discipline the people the moment that
their wrongs were redressed, and force had
become unnecessary. He denied that the
conspirators had any intention of murdering the English
judges and noblemen, they wished only to have
held them as hostages for the conduct of England.
At that same committee, Thomas Emmet
told the Lord Chancellor boldly to his face that
the '98 insurrection had been produced by the
oppressive free quarters granted to the soldiers
and yeomanry, the burning of houses, the
tortures, and the military executions in the counties
of Kildare, Carlow, and Wicklow. There is no
doubt that the cruelties of Vinegar Hill and
Wexford led to retaliations almost as cruel.
The yeomanry, half of them raw lads, flushed
with newly acquired power, and savage
because their families had either suffered or
been in danger, were often brutal and ruthless;
innocent persons were shot, and harmless
persons were plundered. Juries were too eager to
condemn; judges inclined always to death. The
chance had come to bleed the rebels, and the
lancet was keen and cut deep.

In the prisons, well-born and refined men like
Thomas Emmet suffered cruelly. The cells
were crowded and unhealthy, the jailers
insolent and cruel. There was no discipline, and
the thieves' orgie was interrupted only by the
tolling of the death-bell. In such a den the brave
wife of this sincere but misguided man immured
herself for twelve months, refusing to
go out unless dragged away by force; only once
stealing out at night, and in disguise (by the
connivance of the jailer's wife, whose rough
nature she had softened by her tears), to visit
a sick child, for whom her heart was almost
breaking. The sufferings of his brother and
his brother's wife no doubt increased Emmet's
hatred to the existing government more even
than all the sabrings and platoon firing in Wicklow
and Wexford. The Union Bill passed in
1801, after Grattan's scornful and passionate
invectives; and Lord Castlereagh's triumph and
cold arrogance frenzied the United Irishmen,
and drove such men as Emmet to believe in
open insurrection as their only hope.

Wolf Tone had spoken highly of the talents
of the Emmet family. He described Thomas
Emmet as a man of a great and comprehensive
mind and a warm heart, one who would
adhere to his principles through all sacrifices,
and even to death. Of another brother Grattan
said: "Temple Emmet, before he came to the
bar, knew more law than any of the judges on
the bench; and he would have answered better
both in law and divinity than any judge or
bishop of the, land." The heart of the young
conspirator, fresh from exile, burned as he
heard with perfect faith all the exaggerated
stories of the recent Protestant cruelties. He