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St. Lawrence, Sir Armoric, the progenitor of the present Earl of Howth, a knight, who, about 1177, accompanied his brother-in-law and sworn companion, Sir John de Courcy, in an expedition to the Irish shores. After a bloody battle at the "bridge of Ivora," near Howth, in which several of his relatives were killed, he won the district that has ever since remained in his family. He afterwards accompanied De Courcy on his northern ex­peditions. In 1189, when St. Lawrence, with 30 knights and 200 footmen, was absent on an incursion into Connaught, news reached him that his friend was sorely pressed by the Irish, and he hastened to join him. His band was intercepted by an overwhelming force under 0'Conor, King of Connaught. Escape was impossible, unless the knights were willing to abandon the footmen. Lodge gives us the words of a stirring appeal of St. Lawrence to his companions: "Who will, may save his life by flight on horseback, if he can; but assuredly my heart will not suffer me to leave these my poor friends in their neces­sity... My heart to my brother, Sir John Courcy and wife; my force, might, pain, and good will to my poor friends and fellows here." The narrative continues: "Thus he spoke kneeling, and kissing the cross of his sword, thrust it through his horse, say­ing he ihould never serve against them with whom he so truly and worthily had served afore. His example was followed by all the horsemen, except two young gentlemen, whom he ordered to stand on the next hill to see the battle, and after it was over, to carry the news to his brother. .. This done, he engaged the enemy; .. but, being overpowered by numbers, he and his party perished to a man." His two youngest sons were slain in helping to defend their uncle, De Courcy, against De Lacy's men, in the churchyard of Downpatrick, on Good Friday, 1203 or 1204. His eldest son, Sir Nicholas, was confirmed in the lordship of Howth, by King John. Sir Armoric's sword is said still to hang in the hall of Howth Castle.

St. Leger, Sir Anthony, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, was first sent over by Henry VIII. in 1537, as one of the commissioners for settling the waste lands on the borders of the Pale. He was appointed Lord-Deputy in 1540, and filled the same office again in 1544, 1546, 1550, and 1553. He received the submission of the Earl of Desmond and other chiefs, and presided at the Parliament in which Henry was declared King of Ireland. As his portion of the spoil consequent on the suppression of the monasteries, he was granted Grany, in the County of Carlow, and other ecclesiastical lands. In Edward VI.'s reign, for successful expeditions against the O'Conors and O'Mores, he was granted estates in England. Mr. Froude speaks of him as a man of great ability: "The policy of St. Leger had been 'to make things quiet;' to overlook small offences so long as the general order was unbroken, and to be contented if each year the forms of law could be pushed something deeper beyond the borders of the Pale. His greatest success had been in prevailing upon an O'Toole to accept the decent dignity of sheriff of Wicklow. As a further merit, and a great one, he had governed economically... His maxim had been - Ireland for the Irish; he had recommended Henry to return to the old plan of appointing an Irish deputy." Sir Anthony died at his seat of Ulcomb, in Kent, in 1559. [His grandson, Sir Warham St. Leger, received large grants of land in Munster in Elizabeth's reign. Lord Ormond writes of him in 1583 as "an old ale-house knight, malicious, impudent, void of honesty; an arrogant ass that had never courage, honesty, or truth in him, nor put him on a horse one hour in the field to do any service." This cannot have been true, as he fell in an encounter with Hugh Maguire, Lord of Fermanagh, near Cork, in March 1600.]

St. Leger, Sir William, son of Sir Warham St. Leger, received extensive grants of land from James I., and was, in April 1627, appointed President of Mun­ster and a member of the Privy Council. Charles I. presented him with a considerable sum of money for his loyalty to the crown. In 1640 he was given the command of the Irish troops raised for service in Scotland. In the early part of the War of 1641-'52, he distinguished himself on the government side - amongst other exploits, recovering large cattle preys which the Confederates had driven into the Commeragh mountains. He died after a lingering illness, 2nd July 1642. Viscount Doneraile is his descendant.

St. Ruth, a French general, sent over by Louis XIV. to command the Irish army, in May 1691. He had already led some regiments of the Irish brigade in Savoy, where he acted with the greatest barbarity towards the Protestants. He is stated to have been of "great bravery, energy, and experience;" events proved him to be vain and self-confident. Macaulay says he showed much energy in organizing the Irish army - "Day and night in the saddle, galloping from post to post, from Limerick to Athlone, from Athlone to the northern extremity of Lough Rea, and from Lough Rea back to Limerick." He undertook the command of the castle and western bank of the Shannon at Athlone, against DeGinkell, in June 1691. From the 19th till the 29th of June the place sustained a fierce bombardment. St. Ruth believed the position to be impregnable, and haughtily refused to listen to Sarsfield's advice as to necessary measures for defence. On the morning of the 29th the enemy forded the Shannon in face of the Irish batteries. St. Ruth was taken unawares; Colonel Grace, who had nobly defended the town a year previously, fell in the storm, and St. Ruth and his army were obliged to retreat into Connaught. On the slope of Kilcominadan Hill, near Aughrim, he drew up his army on Sunday, 12th July, and received De Ginkell's attack. Dreading the displeasure of Louis XIV. at his loss of Athlone, he saw the necessity of a supreme effort. Macaulay says: "He exerted himself to win by indulgence and caresses the hearts of all who were under his command... The whole camp was a ferment of religious excitement." St. Ruth had 15,000 troops and nine field pieces, to meet the Williamite army of 20,000 men and a well-appointed park of artillery. His dispositions were made with great ability; but he had not communicated his plans to any of his subordinates -even to Sarsfield, second in command, whom he had placed on the left, with directions not to leave his post. De Ginkell's attack did not begin until five in the afternoon. The early part of the battle went entirely in St. Ruth's favour. The Irish fought with stubborn resolution. In high spirits, St. Ruth headed a charge of cavalry, and just as he cried in French, "The day is ours, my boys, we will drive them before us to the walls of Dublin," a chain-shot took off his head. On the loss of their leader the cavalry were thrown into a state of confusion, which communicated itself to the rest of the army. De Ginkell pressed the attack, and the battle was lost to the Irish. St. Ruth's corpse, wrapped in his cloak, was carried from the field and laid in the old monastery at Loughrea. His spurs, his crest, and the shot by which he was killed, hang on the wall of the south transept of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, over Schomberg's monument.

Sampson, William, a distinguished United Irishman, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, was born in Londonderry, 17th January 1764. When eighteen, he held a commission in a Volunteer corps; and shortly afterwards entered Trinity College. In 1790 he married, and removed to London to complete his terms at Lincoln's Inn. Returning to Belfast, he entered warmly into politics, and became a United Irishman and a contributor to the Northern Star. He more than once acted as counsel for members of the brotherhood, when brought to trial. His name was included in the list of those marked for arrest on 12th March 1798. He escaped to England, was arrested at Whitehaven, and sent to Carlisle jail, whence he was returned to Ireland. He was eventually permitted to retire to the Continent, and in July 1806 removed to the United States, where he was called to the Bar, was joined by his wife and family in 1810, and rose to considerable eminence. The latter part of his life was largely devoted to literature. He edited American reprints of Curran's Life by his Son, and Taylor's History of the Irish Civil Wars. He published his Memoirs in 1807, and a work on the Catholic Question in America in 1813. He died in New York, 28th December 1836, aged 72. His daughter married a son of Wolfe Tone.

Sandford, Daniel, Bishop of Edinburgh, was born at Delville, near Dublin, in 1766. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he proceeded to D.D. in 1802. He subsequently settled in Scotland, and became a popular preacher, and in 1806 was consecrated Bishop of Edinburgh. The Gentleman's Magazine says: "He became the happy means of commencing and completing the union of Scottish and English Episcopalians. .. His piety was pure and unaffected." He died 14th January 1830, aged 63, and was interred in the burying-ground adjoining St. John's Chapel, Edinburgh. His Remains, with a Memoir, edited by his son, were published a few months after his death.

Sandford, Francis, an author of some note, was born in the County of Wicklow in 1630. Upon the Restoration he was made Pursuivant-at-Arms, which office he sold in 1689, because he could not take the oaths to William and Mary. His principal works were: A Genealogical History of the Kings of Portugal (London, 1664), and A Genealogical History of the Kings and Queens of England (Savoy, 1677). An edition of this last work, continued to the Scottish Union by Samuel Stebbing, is "considered as among the great guns, even of magnificent collections." He died in January 1693.

Sarsfield, Patrick, Earl of Lucan, was born at Lucan about the middle of the 17th century. [An ancestor, William Sarsfield, Mayor of Dublin, was knighted by Sir Henry Sidney in 1566, for his services against Shane O'Neill. On the female side he is said to have been descended from Rury O'More. His father's estates at Lucan and elsewhere were sequestrated by Cromwell, but were recovered after the Restoration through the influence of the Queen-mother. Patrick's elder brother, William, married Mary, natural daughter of Charles II., and sister of the Duke of Monmouth.] Patrick Sarsfield bore a commission in the English Life Guards; he fought under Monmouth on the Continent, and against him at Sedgemoor, where he was severely wounded. He retired with James II. to France, and accompanied him to Ireland in March 1689, ranking as a brigadier-general. Soon after, upon the death of his elder brother, William, he succeeded to the family estates, considered to be worth,£2,000 per annum. It was probably about this period that he married Honora Burke, daughter of the 7th Earl of Clanricard. Macaulay says: "He had, Avaux wrote, more personal influence than any man in Ireland, and was, indeed, a gentleman of eminent merit, brave, upright, honourable, careful of his men in quarters, and certain to be always found at their head in the day of battle. His intrepidity, his frankness, his boundless good nature, his stature, which far exceeded that of ordinary men, and the strength which he exerted in personal conflict, gained for him the affectionate admiration of the populace. It is remarkable that the Englishry generally respected him as a valiant, skilful, and generous enemy, and that, even in the most ribald farces, which were performed by the mountebanks in Smithfield, he was always excepted from the disgraceful imputations which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish nation." He did not at first receive a command equal to his talents. James II, in whose Irish Parliament he sat for the County of Dublin, considered him " a brave fellow, but very scantily supplied with brains." After Mountcashel's defeat before Enniskillen, he marched to Sligo with a force for the defence of Connaught; and after the relief of Londonderry, occupied Athlone. He subsequently secured Galway for James, and expelled the last of William's garrisons from Connaught. Sarsfield held a command at the battle of the Boyne, 1st July 1690, on which occasion he is said to have protested against James's precipitate retreat. His regiment formed part of the army that fell back on Limerick, where he was made second in command under Major-General Boiseleau. William's army, numbering 38,000 men, appeared before the walls on 8th August. In the city were bat 10,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, and the English expected that it would prove an easy conquest. Tirconnell and Lauzun, with the French troops, retired to Galway; but the citizens, inspired mainly by Sarsfield's enthusiasm, determined to hold out to the last. Boiseleau conducted the engineering operations of defence, whilst Sarsfield, in command of the Irish horse, defended the passages of the Shannon above the town. On the 9th, Sarsfield obtained private information that a convoy, with King William's siege battery, pontoon train, and supplies, was approaching from Waterford. Selecting a body of 500 picked men, he left Limerick on Sunday, the 10th, and advanced cautiously to Killaloe, but finding the bridge there held in force by the enemy, he passed on and crossed the Shannon at Ballyvally, and, guided by Hogan, a rapparee chief, turned into the deep gorges of the Silver Mines mountains, where the party lay concealed all Monday. At night they again started, and at three o'clock on the following morning surprised the convoy at Ballyneety, some ten miles from Limerick. The guards were sabred or taken prisoners, and eight heavy battering cannons, ixve mortars, eighteen tin pontoons, and 200 waggons loaded with ammunition and supplies, fell into his hands. The artillery was spiked, and the other supplies were collected together and destroyed. "If I had failed in this attempt," Sarsfield remarked to one of his prisoners, "I should have been off to France." The party returned in safety to Limerick, driving before them 500 captured horses. William managed to bring together another battering train, and on the 17th the trenches were opened, and a regular bombardment commenced. The efforts of Boiseleau and Sarsfield for the defence of the town were enthusiastically seconded by the inhabitants. Mr. Lenehan remarks in his History of Limerick: "The soul of the defenders was Patrick Sarsfield... It had been resolved long before this to remove all the women and children from the city; but even the adverse historians avow that very large numbers of women could not be induced to abandon the post of danger... They mingled with husbands, sons, and brothers in the streets. They appeared on the walls during the hottest cannonade; they supplied the gunners with ammunition; they attended the sick, removed the disabled, bound up the limbs of the wounded,.. They infused life unto the drooping spirits of those who fought for their country." The heroic repulse of the assault of the 27th August, in which the English official returns admit a loss of 1,689 killed and wounded, led to the raising of the siege. When Tirconnell went to France in September 1690, Sarsfield was one of those put in commission to direct the inexperienced Duke of Berwick, to whom the supreme command of the Irish army was entrusted. In the course of the winter he made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Birr; but baffled the efforts of the English to cross the Shannon, and turn the Irish positions at Limerick and Athlone. In February 1691 Tirconnell returned, bringing a patent from James II. creating Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount of Tully, and Baron of Rosberry. He was also made Colonel of the Life Guards and Commander-in-chief in Ireland. He was soon afterwards superseded in the latter office by the French general, St. Ruth, sent over by Louis XIV., but made no difficulty about serving under him. Sarsfield took part in the defence of Athlone. At Aughrim, 12th July 1691, though second in command, and at the head of a fine body of horse, he was kept so completely in ignorance of the plans for the battle, that on St. Ruth's death he could not prevent the ensuing defeat. After the fall of Galway and Sligo, Limerick remained the last hope of the Irish party. De Ginkell invested the town on 25th August. When, on Tirconnell's death, D'Usson, the senior officer, assumed command, Sarsfield attended to all the details of the defence, the repairs of the fortifications, and the supply of provisions, forage, and ammunition. "His vigilance and activity admitted of no relaxation; and his ardour inspired the troops with confidence." The siege lasted four weeks, and the garrison and inhabitants again made a vigorous defence. Several attacks were repulsed, and the city would have held out much longer than it did, but for the treachery of Henry Luttrell. So late as the 17th September it was seriously debated by De Ginkell and his officers, whether the siege should not be abandoned for the surer but more tedious operations of a blockade. A parley was beat by the besieged on the 23rd September, and the Treaty of Limerick was signed on 3rd of October, by De Ginkell and the Lords- Justices, on behalf of William III., and by D'Usson, Sarsfield, and six other generals, on behalf of the French and Irish. Under the provisions of the treaty, all persons were accorded liberty to leave Ireland for the Continent, with their household goods, plate, and jewellery, and to proceed in regiments, parties, or otherwise, to ports of embarkation; seventy vessels of 200 tons each, and two men-of-war, were to be provided and provisioned for their transport; liberty was accorded to take away 900 horses; the sick and wounded were to be tended, and afterwards permitted to join their comrades in France; and the garrison of Limerick were to march out with all the honours of war, taking away eight pieces of ordnance and half the ammunition in the city. The civil articles, afterwards practically violated, provided: "That the Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles the Second, and their Majesties.. will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such further security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion." The soldiers and inhabitants in the districts of Limerick, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Sligo, and Mayo, who submitted, were secured their estates as they held them in the reign of Charles II. The full text of the treaty will be found in Story's Wars of Ireland. The terms are such as would have been accorded only to a still powerful people assisted by able allies, capitulating after a prolonged and heroic resistance. "De Ginkell," says Story, "was resolved to do all things possible to prevent the Irish going in so great numbers out of the kingdom, as being a strengthening of our adversaries, and weakening of ourselves;" but when the appointed day came, and the soldiers were called upon to decide finally, mainly through Sarsfield's influence, out of 15,000, but 1,000 entered William's service, while about 2,000 elected to go to their homes. Including the French troops, 19,059 of the Irish army were conveyed to France, reviewed by King James at Brest, and drafted into the armies of Louis XIV., principally as additions to the Irish Brigade. Many deserted on their way to the Irish seaports; and no doubt there is much truth in the sad picture drawn by Macaulay, of what took place at the ports where the Irish troops embarked, leaving large numbers of women and children behind: "Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and perished in the waves. The vessels began to move. A wild and terrible wail rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith." But the historian omits to mention that this suffering was said by Irish contemporary writers to be due mainly to the absence of some of the stipulated transports. Sarsfield refused all solicitations to remain in Ireland. True to his religion and to King James, he accompanied his fellows-in-arms to France, where he was given command of the second troop of Irish Guards. In 1692 he addressed more than one letter to De Ginkell regarding the delays in carrying out the provisions of the treaty to which they had mutually attached their names. In the same year Sarsfield joined the French army in Flanders. He commanded his Guards at the battle of Steenkirk, and was complimented by the French commander. Marshal Luxembourg, for his share in the action. In the following March he was created Marechal-de-Camp. His career was terminated by a wound received at the battle of Landen, where he commanded Luxembourg's left wing, 19th July 1693. On withdrawing his hand from his breast, as he lay on the ground, and finding it covered with blood, he is said to have exclaimed: "Oh, that this was for Ireland!" He died on 23rd July, of his wounds, or rather of a fever consequent on them, at the town of Huy, whither he had been removed from the field of battle. "Patrick Sarsfield," says a writer cited by Mr. D'Alton, "may be quoted as a type of loyalty and patriotic devotion. In his public actions, firm and consistent; in his private character, amiable and unblemished; attached, by religious conviction and hereditary reverence for the right divine of kings, to the falling house of Stuart, he drew a sharp sword in the cause of the monarch he had been brought up to believe his lawful sovereign, and voluntarily followed him into exile, when he could wield it no longer." A contemporary portrait, exhibited in Dublin in 1872, depicts his countenance as round, fresh, and pleasant, with tender, deep blue eyes. His widow married the Duke of Berwick in 1695. His only son, James, who died unmarried in Flanders, fought under his illustrious stepfather, and for his bravery at the taking of Barcelona, was decorated and provided for by Philip V. Sarsfield's daughter married Baron de Neuburg, styled King of Corsica.

Saurin, William, an eminent lawyer, was born in the north of Ireland in 1757. His father, a Presbyterian minister, was the son of a Huguenot refugee, said to have been a relative of the celebrated French preacher of the same name. William was educated at the University of Dublin, and was called to the Bar in 1780. His progress was slow; for thirteen years he remained almost unknown; but at length, more by plodding industry and high principle than brilliant talents, he achieved success, and in 1798 was at the head of his profession in Ireland. With indignant ardour he threw himself into the agitation against the proposal for the Union. He called the Bar together, and upon his motion a resolution was passed by a large majority, protesting against the merging of the country in the imperial amalgamation. He was elected a member of the House of Commons for Blessington, and spoke twice in opposition to the measure he so deprecated - in the debate of the 5th February 1800, and more at length and effectively on the 21st of the same month. Mr. Sheil says: "His more splendid allies rushed among the ranks of their adversaries, and dealt their sweeping invective about them; while Saurin, in an iron and somewhat rusty armour, and wielding more massive and ponderous weapons, stood like a sturdy sentinel before the gates of the constitution. Simple and elementary positions were enforced by him with a strenuous conviction of their truth. He denied the right of the legislature to alienate its sacred trust. He insisted that it would amount to a forfeiture of that estate which was derived from, and held under, the people, in whom the reversion must perpetually remain; that they were bound to consult the will of the majority of the nation, and that the will of that majority was the foundation of all law." For at least twenty-three years after the passing of the Act of Union he never set foot upon English soil. In 1807 he was appointed Attorney-General, and he may be said to have governed Ireland for fifteen years. In the Castle cabinet he was almost supreme; his authority being the more readily submitted to, as it was exercised without being openly displayed. He instituted prosecutions against the Catholic Board; popular excitement was the result; and "reciprocal animosity was engendered out of mutual recrimination." From being one of the most popular men in Ireland, he grew to be an object of national aversion; and this was not without exercising a deteriorating influence upon his character. In 1822, on some official changes, he was offered, and in a fit of vexation refused, the place of Chief Justice of the King's Bench, whereupon he returned to his old position at the Bar. His contemporary, Sheil, already quoted, thus describes him: "His eye is black and wily, and glitters under the mass of a rugged and shaggy eyebrow. There is a certain sweetness in its glance... His forehead is thoughtful; but it is neither bold nor lofty: it is furrowed by long study and recent care... His features are broad and deeply founded:.. they are not finished with delicacy and point. .. A lover of usage, and an enemy of innovation; one who can bear adversity well, and prosperity still better: something of a republican by nature, but fashioned by circumstances into a Tory; honourable, but not chivalrous; affectionate, but not tender." Mr. Saurin married a sister of the Marquis of Thomond. He died at his residence in Stephen's-green, Dublin, 11th February 1839, aged 82.

Savage, Marmion W., an author, was born in Ireland early in the 18th century. He took his B.A. degree at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1824, and for many years filled a responsible government office in Dublin. He was the author of several novels that enjoyed considerable popularity, the first of which, The Falcon Family or Young Ireland, was published anonymously in 1845. This was followed by The Bachelor of the Albany (1847) and My Uncle the Curate (1849), both anonymous. His fourth novel, Reuben Medlicott (1852), was the first published in his own name. The Woman of Business, 1870, was his last work. The Annual Register says: "The comparative obscurity of his name in the literary world was owing to the circumstance that, as his early productions touched upon political topics,.. the author not deeming it advisable in his official capacity to engage in party politics, assumed a nom de plume, to which he subsequently clung from habit." He settled in England in 1856, and for several years edited the Examiner. His health broke down, partly from over exertion, and he removed from London to Torquay, where he died, 1st May 1872, after prolonged sufferings. His first wife was a niece of Lady Morgan. "Mr. Savage was a thorough scholar, and his writings are as much distinguished for correct taste and exquisite finish, as by that quiet humour for which the present generation, somewhat blunted by the stronger manner of its own sensational writers, seems rapidly to be losing all relish." He was possessed of a rich fund of humour and brilliant social qualities.

Schomberg, Armand Frederick, Duke of Schomberg, Marshal, styled in his time "the first captain in Europe," was born in Schonburg Castle on the Rhine, between Coblentz and Bingen, in 1618. He commenced his military career in the Swedish army, during the Thirty Years' War, for his part in which his property was confiscated by the Emperor. He next entered the Dutch army, and afterwards served France with distinction from 1650 to 1685, and was created a Marshal. In 1686, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and his consequent expulsion from France as a Protestant, he entered the Portuguese service, then that of the Elector of Brandenburg, and lastly he joined William, Prince of Orange, when about to make his expedition to England in 1688. In April 1689 he was created a duke by William III., and in August came to Ireland with a force of from 10,000 to 20,000 men, chiefly German, French, Danish, and Dutch mercenaries. Sailing from Highlake on the 12th August 1689, the fleet reached Belfast Lough on the 13th; the disembarkation of the troops was immediately proceeded with, and before many days Belfast and the surrounding country were safe from any possible attack of the Jacobites. Carrickfergus held out for more than a week, the garrison surrendering on terms to be permitted to march out and join a division of James's army at Newry. The siege train was shipped and sent round to Carlingford, and on the 2nd September Schomberg marched his army south, the enemy burning Carlingford, Newry, and other towns on his approach. On the 7th September he encamped a mile north of Dundalk, where before many days his troops began to sicken and die in great numbers. James and Marshal Rosen marched against him with superior forces, and employed every stratagem to induce him to leave his entrenchments and risk a battle. On the 20th October Schomberg had to evacuate his camp, and retreat northwards, the dead and dying strewing the roads. He disposed the remains of his army in such of the Ulster towns as acknowledged the authority of William. Story, a contemporary writer in William's interest, gives a deplorable picture of the straits to which Schomberg's forces were reduced. There were several engagements of minor importance during the winter. In March 1690 a reinforcement of Danish troops, under the Duke of Wittemberg, arrived at Belfast - "lusty fellows, well clothed and armed" -and in May Charlemont fort was invested. When the fort was summoned to surrender, the governor desired the messenger to "tell Schomberg from Teague O'Regan, that he's an old knave, and by St. Patrick he shall not have the town at all." Colonel MacMahon with 400 men attempted to throw a supply of provisions and ammunition into the place, but O'Regan would not let them in, saying he had enough already. MacMahon was unable to fight his way back, and had to take up a miserably exposed position on the counterscarp, until the place surrendered on the 12th May, when the Irish marched out with all the honours of war, and proceeded to Dundalk. When William III. landed at Carrickfergus in June, Schomberg met him, and surrendered the supreme command. At the council of war, held the night of 30th June, before the battle of the Boyne, Schomberg opposed the plan of crossing the river. It was at his suggestion that a detachment was sent round by the bridge of Slane. He commanded the horse, on the right wing, on the morning of the battle, and was one of the first to fall. Story says: "The Irish troopers as they rid by, struck at him with their swords; and some say that our own men firing too hastily, when the Duke was before them, shot him themselves; however it was, his mortal wound was through his neck, and he had one or two cuts in the head besides. He fell down, and did not speak one word... We never knew the value of him till we really lost him, which often falls out in such cases; and since it was in our quarrel that he lost his life, we cannot too much honour his memory, which will make a considerable figure in history whilst the world lasts. He was certainly a man of the best education in the world, and knew men and things beyond most of his time, being courteous and civil to everybody, and yet had something always that looked so great in him, that he commanded respect from men of all qualities and stations. Nor did we know any fault that he had, except we might be jealous he sometimes was too obliging to the French. As to his person, he was of a middle stature, well proportioned, fair complexioned, a very sound hardy man of his age, and sate an horse the best of any man; he loved constantly to be neat in his clothes, and in his conversation he was always pleasant." His body was brought to Dublin, and interred in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where a monument to his memory was subsequently raised by Dean Swift.

Scott, John, Earl of Clonmel, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, an Irish lawyer, who, in the latter part of the 18th century amassed a large fortune, and from obscurity raised himself to some of the highest offices in the state. Mr. FitzPatrick has devoted a portion of his Ire­land before the Union to the not very profit­able history of Lord Clonmel. He died 23rd May 1798. Barrington says he was "courageous, vulgar, humorous, artificial; he knew the world well, and he profited by that knowledge. He cultivated the powerful; he bullied the timid; he fought the brave; he flattered the vain; he duped the credulous; and he amused the convivial. Half liked, half reprobated, he was too high to be despised, and too low to be respected. His language was coarse, and his principles arbitrary; but his passions were his slaves, and his cunning was his instrument. He recollected favours received in his obscurity, and in some instances had gratitude to requite the obligation; but his avarice and his ostentation contended for the ascendancy; their strife was perpetual, and their victories alternate." Sheil writes of "the matchless imperturbability of front to which the late Lord Clonmel was indebted for his brazen coronet." His mansion in Harcourt-street, Dublin, now divided into two houses, has given his name to a street opposite.

Scully, Denys, a prominent leader in the cause of Catholic Emancipation, was born at Kilfeacle, County of Tipperary, 4th May 1773. He was the eldest surviving son of James Scully, an extensive landed proprietor. In 1794 he entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, being the first Catholic student admitted for upwards of two hundred years. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1796, and in February 1805, was one of a deputation of Catholic noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, appointed by their co-religionists to wait on Pitt with a petition for Emancipation. Pitt declined to present it to Parliament; but Fox and Lord Grenville, after an interview with the deputies, presented it on 25th March. Mr. Scully had private interviews with Castlereagh, Fox, Huskisson, Cobbett, and other public men, regarding the question he had so much at heart; and amongst his many correspondents on Catholic affairs, were Grattan, O'Connell, and Lords Holland, Grenville, Hardwicke, and Donoughmore. He wrote more than one pamphlet on the subject, and joined Edward Hay, secretary of the Catholic Board, in preparing a statement of the cruelties to which the people of Wexford had been subjected previous to the Insurrection of 1798. The work by which he is chiefly known is his Statement of the Penal Laws, published in 1812, a standard authority in regard to those oppressive enactments, and a powerful agent in preparing the public mind for Emancipation. This book attracted so much attention that the government of the day, being opposed to Emancipation, prosecuted the publisher, FitzPatrick, for libel on the Lord-Lieutenant, and FitzPatrick was fined.£200, and imprisoned for eighteen months. To the prolific pen of Denys Scully may be traced many of the petitions and resolutions of the Catholic clergy and laity of his day, as well as many able articles in the Morning Post, and Dublin Evening Post, bearing on the Catholic question. He lived to see the fruition of his labours in the Emancipation Act of 1829, and died at Kilfeacle, 25th October 1830, aged 56, having been paralysed for some years previously. He was buried with his ancestors on the Rock of Cashel. [His son, Vincent Scully, for some years member of Parliament for County Cork, and the author of some valuable treatises on the facilitation of the transfer of land, died on 4th June 1871.

Sedulius, a "Scot of Ireland," an eminent divine, orator, and poet, flourished about 490. The following account of him is given in Harris's Ware: - "Sedulius, a Scottish priest, was from his youth upof the Scots. He was a man well versed in the knowledge of the Scriptures, of great accomplishments in human learning, and had an excellent taste both for prose and verse. For the love of learning he left Scotia (Ireland), travelled into France, and from thence into Italy and Asia; at length, departing from the borders of Achaia, he came to be in high esteem in the city of Rome, on account of his wonderful learning. He writ many works both in prose and verse." An edition of his writings was published in Edinburgh in 1701.

Senan, Saint, was born about 488, in Corcavaskin, in Thomond. Disgusted with the wars and outrages going on round him, he placed himself under the abbot Cassidan, took the monastic habit, and about 534 founded the religious establishment of Inishscattery, on the Shannon, and afterwards several of the cells and oratories on the remote islands off Clare and Kerry. Dr. Lanigan relates how a lady of Bantry, afterwards canonized as St. Cannera, sought permission to receive the viaticum, and to be buried in Inishscattery. At first the Saint positively refused; but at length, understanding she was near her death, permitted her to spend the last few days of her life on the island, and there gave her body a resting place. Senan himself died about 544. Lanigan says: "The reputation of St. Senan has not been confined to Ireland, and his acts have been published amongst those of the saints of Brittany, on the supposition, whether well founded or not, that he was the same as St. Sane, one of the chief patrons of the diocese of St. Pol de Leon. Yet, notwithstanding the great fame of this saint, and in spite of the many monuments still recording his name and transactions in the island of Inishscattery, a pseudo-antiquary of our days has had the impudence to write that he was no other than the river Shannon personified." His festival is the 1st of March.

Senchan Torpeist, was a distin­guished bard, Chief Poet of Ireland, who liourished about the year 600. He was a native of Connaught, and was a pupil of Dalian Forgaill, whom he succeeded. O'Curry tells how he called a meeting of the bards of Ireland to ascertain whether any of them remembered the whole of the celebrated tale of the Tain Bo Chuailgne (Cattle Spoil of Cuailgne). All said that they remembered only fragments, whereupon Murgen, Senchan's only son, and his friend Emine went in search of it. Resting by the grave of the renowned chief, Fergus MacRoigh, on the banks of Lough Ein, in Roscommon, it is fabled to have been revealed to them by the shade of that chief. The story is beautifully told in Ferguson's "Tain Quest," one of the Lays of the Western Gaill.

Sharman-Crawford, William, an Irish politician, was born 3rd September 1780, at Moira Castle, in the County of Down. He was the eldest son of Colonel William Sharman, for many years member for Lisburn in the Irish Parliament, who died in 1803, leaving him large estates. In 1805 he married a wealthy heiress, Mabel Crawford, whose surname and arms he added to his own. He represented Dundalk in Parliament, from 1834 to 1837, was subsequently returned for Rochdale without cost to himself; and sat many years for that borough. He greatly increased the prosperity of the tenants on his large estates by extending and confirming the Ulster custom of tenant- right; and the main object for which he strove during a long parliamentary career was to give legal effect to this right, and to extend it to other parts of Ireland. The tenant farmers justly regarded him as their champion. He brought before Parliament several Bills for the settlement of the tenant-right question. Though none of them passed, his untiring efforts, both in and out of the House, did much to direct public attention to the subject, and to lay the foundations for future ameliorative legislation. He supported O'Connell in his efforts for Catholic Emancipation, but could not join him in the Repeal movement, rather advocating a federal connexion between Great Britain and Ireland. After the tenant-right agitation subsided, he took no part in public affairs, devoting himself to the management of his estates, and to his duties as a Deputy-Lieutenant of the County of Down, where he was greatly venerated by the people. He died at his residence, Crawfordsburn, near Bangor, County of Down, 16th October 1861, aged 81, and was succeeded in his estates by his eldest son. Considering the important place William Sharman-Crawford occupied in Irish politics for many years, there appear to be singularly few particulars attainable regarding his career.

Shaw, Sir Frederick, Bart., Recorder of Dublin, was born in Merrion-square, Dublin, 11 th December 1799. He was son of Sir Robert Shaw, Bart., once member of Parliament for Bannow. He entered Trinity College in 1814; but took his degrees at Oxford. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1822, for one year represented the City of Dublin in Parliament, and in 1832 was, with Sergeant Lefroy, elected member for the University of Dublin, which he represented for sixteen years. He was made a Privy-Councillor in 1834, at which time he was considered one of the most brilliant orators and ablest leaders and debaters Ireland ever sent to the Imperial Parliament. One of his greatest parliamentary triumphs was a speech in 1834 against O'Connell's motion for a select committee, to enquire into the conduct of Baron Smith in introducing politics into his charge to a grand jury. In 1840 he supported Lord Morpeth's Irish Municipal Corporations Bill, and thereby almost forfeited the confidence of his Conservative friends. In 1845 advocated the establishment of the Queen's Colleges, and next year spoke earnestly and at length against the repeal of the Corn Laws. In 1848 he resigned his seat, probably from failing health consequent on overwork. In 1869 he inherited the title and estates on the death of his elder brother, the second Baronet. He held the position of Recorder of Dublin for about forty-eight years, from 1828 until within a few weeks of his death. It was always matter of surprise that his splendid abilities never secured for him a higher judicial position. Even his bitter political opponent, O'Connell, bore testimony to his "able, upright and impartial conduct on the Bench." His decisions were marked by great perspicuity and common sense; and he often lightened the tedium of litigation by brilliant witticisms. Although his health had been giving way for some time, there was little to indicate the collapse that followed his retirement from the Bench in April 1876. Sir Frederick died at Crumlin,near Dublin, 30th June 1876, aged 76, and was interred in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

Shaw, John, Captain, United States Navy, was born at Mountmellick in 1773. He received but an ordinary education, accompanied an elder brother to America in 1790, adopted a sea-faring life, and became a lieutenant in the United States Navy in 1798, on the breaking out of hostilities with France. In the course of 1800, in command of the schooner Enterprise he took no fewer than eight privateers and letters-of-marque, and fought five spirited actions, two with vessels of superior force. He cruised in the Mediterranean in the George Washington in 1801; was appointed a captain in 1807; served in the war of 1812 against the United Kingdom; and in 1816 and 1817 commanded a squadron in the Mediterranean. Subsequently he had charge of the navy yards of Boston and Charleston. He died in Philadelphia, 17th September 1823, aged about 50.

Shea, Daniel, an Oriental scholar, was born in Dublin about 1771, and was educated at Trinity College, where he became distinguished for his classical attainments. He obtained a scholarship. Several of his dearest friends were United Irishmen; and for refusing to give evidence against them, or the society of which they were members, he was expelled from College at the instance of Lord Clare. Without money or interest, he with considerable difficulty obtained employment as a tutor in England, and afterwards as a clerk in a merchant's office at Malta. There he applied himself to the study of Arabic and Persian, and upon his return to England published a translation of Mirkhond's History of the Early Kings of Persia, warmly praised both for its spirit and fidelity by some of the best Oriental scholars. At the time of his death (10th May 1836) he was engaged upon a translation of the Dabistan. "A kinder friend, a better-hearted man, never breathed. On many occasions he submitted to great personal inconvenience, that he might relieve others whose necessities he deemed greater than his own."

Sheares, Henry and John, United Irishmen, brothers, were the sons of Henry Sheares, a Cork banker, member of Parliament for Clonakilty from 1761 to 1767, who died in 1776. They were both born in Cork - Henry in 1753, John in 1766 - and were educated at Trinity College. Henry entered the army; but renounced it for the law, and was called to the Bar in 1789. His wife died in 1791, after a union of but five years, and his children were taken charge of by Mr. and Mrs. Sweet, their grand-parents. John was called to the Bar in 1788. Both brothers were possessed of ample fortunes, besides the emoluments they derived from their profession. They sympathized deeply with the progress of the French Revolution, and in 1792 went to Paris, ostensibly to visit the Sweets, who were then residing there. They attended many political meetings, became acquainted with Roland, Brissot, and other revolutionary leaders, and were present at the execution of Louis XVI. They crossed to England in the same vessel with Daniel O'Connell and his brother, returning from Douay - the Sheareses glorying in all they had seen; the O'Connells tearing the tricolor cockades from their hats the moment the vessel left port. Henry married a second time. The brothers became members of the Society of United Irishmen, John often taking the chair at public meetings. They both attended the funeral of the Rev. William Jackson in 1795. After this they were so strongly suspected of complicity in a treasonable conspiracy against the Government, that warrants were drawn out for their arrest. On the seizure of most of the members of the Leinster Directory at Bond's, early in March 1798, and the enforced concealment of Lord Edward FitzGerald, John took his place as chief organizer of the proposed rising. To what extent Henry was implicated, it is difficult to ascertain. Early in May, one Captain Armstrong wormed himself into their confidence, was invited to their house, and betrayed their designs and plans to the Government. On Monday, 21st May, they were, both arrested-Henry, at their house in Baggot-street (now No. 128), John, at the house of his friend, Surgeon Lawless, in French-street. The brothers were brought up for trial at Green-street, on 12th July. The principal witness against them was Captain Armstrong. There was little to criminate Henry but a wild "proclamation" written by John the night before their arrest, and left in Henry's desk without his knowledge. They were defended by Curran, Plunket, and McNally. It was past midnight when the examination of witnesses was concluded. The proceedings had already occupied fifteen hours; yet Toler, the Solicitor-General, opposed Curran's motion for adjournment. The trial went on, and at eight o'clock next morning, the jury, after a retirement of but seventeen minutes, brought in a verdict of guilty. As it was pronounced, the brothers stood up and embraced each other. Sentence was deferred until three o'clock in the afternoon. Henry was completely unmanned by his position. When they were brought up for sentence, John made an earnest appeal for his brother's life. They were both condemned to be executed on the following day. In the few hours that remained to them, John acted with calmness and fortitude. He took up the pen Henry was unable to hold, to commend their sister to the care of their mother, his child to his sister, and Henry's children to the affection of their grand-parents. The brothers were executed in front of Newgate. on the morning of 14th July 1798. Henry was aged about 45; John 32. Their remains were laid in the vaults of St. Michan's Church, where the earth has the property of preserving bodies in a dried condition. Dr. Madden thus describes the Sheares: "They were inseparable as brothers, and were united by an almost unparalleled attachment... [Henry] was, indeed, ill-adapted for the strife of political life. The influence of a beloved brother, possessed of superior mental powers, whose political opinions were firmly established and boldly asserted, drew him away from the social and family- circle in which his enjoyments chiefly centred... In his person he was tall and finely proportioned, nearly six feet in height, more robust and muscular than his brother John, but not too large. His step was stately, not to say haughty, and his air more that of a military man than a lawyer. His features were not ill-formed, but his face was not at all pleasing. His eye was proud, and the lower part of his face disfigured by what are called claret- marks, which gave rather a fierce expression to his countenance... Henry talked about republicanism, but John was an enthusiast in his attachment to it: all his habits of thinking tended that way. It suited the simplicity of his character, and the total absence of vanity that distinguished him; but he often said it would not do for Ireland. As to his personal appearance, he was tall, and rather slender than full; not what is termed muscular, but well-proportioned and active. In his person, he differed strikingly from his brother. His air was gentle and unassuming, but animated and interesting. He was pale, rather light-complexioned, with full blue eyes and open countenance, well- formed nose, large, eloquent mouth, and white teeth. His voice was fine, his articulation very clear, his language rich, but quite unaffected; he had much playful wit and humour, but was easily made serious. You ask, was he of a sanguinary disposition? He was quite the reverse. He had a most tender heart and benevolent disposition. While he was himself, he would not give pain of mind or of body to anything that lived. The brothers agreed, as I have said, in thinking Ireland ill- governed, and the administration corrupt." Their aged mother died at Clifton in 1803. Henry left six children. His widow survived until 1850. She resided at Kingstown, and was accustomed to pass the anniversary of her husband's death in fasting and prayer. John was never married. He left a daughter, Louisa, about eight years of age, who was taken charge of by a friend in Cork. Captain Armstrong survived until 1858, and for sixty years enjoyed a pension of.£500 a year, the fruits of his intimacy of one fortnight with the Sheareses.

Shee, Sir Martin Archer, President of the Royal Academy, F.R.S., was born in Dublin, 20th December 1769. His mother died a few months after his birth; his father became blind, and was consequently reduced in circumstances, and had to retire to a cottage near the Dargle, where many of young Shee's early years were spent. He evinced a taste for drawing, was admitted to the schools of the Royal Dublin Society, and before long was enabled to support himself in Dublin by painting portraits. In 1788, after his father's death, he removed to London, where he studied with the utmost diligence, Edmund Burke's personal introduction to Sir Joshua Reynolds procuring for him admission to the schools of the Royal Academy. His first picture was exhibited in 1789; in 1798 he was elected an Associate, and in 1800 a Member of the Academy. His reputation as a fashionable portrait painter soon became widely extended. He married, and established himself in a fine mansion. On the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830, he was elected President of the Academy, and he was knighted in the same year. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and other honours were showered upon him, to which Catholics in England were little accustomed. Ottley, in his Dictionary of Painters, observes: "It would be a mistake to attribute Sir Martin Shee's success in his profession, and above all the high official position to which he was elected, to his merit as an artist. The latter, at least, maybe more truly assigned as a tribute to his literary attainments .. and to his courteous manners, combined with certain gifts in diplomacy, which qualified him in an eminent degree to act as the champion [of the Royal Academy]. If he did not achieve anything great as a painter, he was always ready, to use his own words, 'to break a lance with the vandalism of the day.'" He wrote several poetical pieces of minor merit, and two novels, Harry Calverley, and Old Court, in which were embodied many of his early reminiscences of the neighbourhood of Bray. Lord Holland said of his inaugural address as President of the Academy: "I never heard a better speech." "And I,” added Lord Grey, "never heard so good a one." Sir Martin was instrumental in procuring the charter for the Royal Hibernian Academy. As might be supposed, he was on intimate terms with many of the great men of the time - Grattan and Curran, as well as Englishmen and foreigners of wider fame. A Civil List pension of £200 a year was conferred upon him shortly before his death, which took place at Brighton, 19th August 1850, in his 81st year. He was buried in Brighton Cemetery. Two of his paintings, "The Infant Bacchus," and a portrait of Morton, the dramatist, are hung in the National Gallery in London. He had six children, all of whom survived him.

Sheehy, Nicholas, Rev., a Catholic clergyman, executed at Clonmel in 1766, in consequence of his opposition to the Government. He was born at Fethard, in the County of Tipperary, in 1728, was educated in France, and for many years officiated as parish priest at Clogheen. He openly denounced the collection of Church rates, and made no secret of his sympathy with the people in their impoverished and oppressed condition. Early in 1764 he was arrested for alleged complicity in Whiteboy offences, was brought up to Dublin, released on bail, tried, and acquitted; but was immediately re-arrested on a charge of being concerned in the murder of John Bridges, an informer. Conscious of his innocence, he neglected measures for his defence; and although there was no satisfactory evidence to inculpate him, and the body of the alleged murdered man was never "discovered, he was convicted, and hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Clonmel, on 15th March 1766. His head remained spiked over the porch of the old jail for twenty years. There can be little doubt that he fell a victim to the party animosity of the time. Mr. Froude expresses the belief that Sheehy was guilty of the charges brought against him, and mentions his having been engaged in a plot in the interest of the Pretender; but admits that his trial was informal.

Sheil, Richard Lalor, author, politician, and orator, was born at Drumdowney, near Waterford, 17th August, 1791. His father had amassed a considerable fortune in the Spanish trade, and occupied a fine mansion on the Suir. The lad's early recollections were all connected with the neighbourhood of Waterford. At eleven years of age he was placed in a Catholic school at Kensington, kept by a French emigrant nobleman. There he almost forgot his own language. Thence he passed to Stonyhurst, and in November 1807 he entered Trinity College, Dublin. During his college course his father lost all his property through neglect of technicalities in connexion with a limited- liability company, in which he had invested a portion of his fortune, and young Sheil was indebted to the generosity of a friend for means to finish his terms, and to his uncle Richard for enabling him to complete his studies for the Bar, to which he was called in 1814. He made his first appearance in public in 1810, when he spoke with effect at a meeting in favour of Emancipation, assembled at Kilmainham. The years between 1814 and 1823 were largely devoted to dramatic authorship. His plays of Adelaide, The Apostate, Bellamira, and Evadne, were remarkably successful, more from the acting of his countrywoman, Miss O'Neill, than from their intrinsic merit. Montoni was withdrawn after a few representations; The Fatal Dowry somewhat retrieved his reputation; whilst the failure of The Huguenot, which he considered his best play, contributed in no slight degree to divert him from a path he had found beset with disappointment, though not unrewarded by success. At this time he had married, and become a widower. In 1822 the first of his admirable Sketches of the Irish Bar appeared in the New Monthly Magazine. They were afterwards published in a collected form, and still afford the best sources for information concerning the leading Bar celebrities of the time in Ireland. They were written in conjunction with William H. Curran, who was the author of some of the most important of them. Whilst not neglecting his profession, Sheil's life for many years was devoted to the struggle for Catholic Emancipation. His position as a public man daily became more recognized and denned, and his earliest dreams of oratoric fame gradually came to be realized. "At this time, and up to the termination of the great struggle in 1829," wrote one who had himself shared in many of the hazards of the period, "Sheil was in the most exposed position of any man in Ireland, for he went further than all others to provoke the attacks of the Crown." In 1827 a prosecution was instituted against him for remarks publicly made upon Theobald Wolfe Tone's career. The grand jury brought in a true bill against him, but further proceedings were abandoned in consequence of ministerial changes. He showed no little moral courage in 1828, when, hearing of a proposed meeting of freeholders and inhabitants of Kent to oppose any concessions to the Catholics, he purchased a small holding in the county, attended the great meeting on Pennington Heath, and raised his voice in protest against the resolutions. After the passing of the Emancipation Act he was called to the inner Bar. In July 1830 he married Mrs. Power, a widowed lady of considerable means, with whom he lived in uninterrupted happiness the rest of his life. This marriage made him independent of his profession, and enabled him to carry into effect a long-cherished desire of entering Parliament. Defeated in a contest for Louth, he was brought in by Lord Anglesea for Milborne Port, in Dorsetshire, in 1831, and occupied a seat in the House of Commons for the next eighteen years, most of the time for Tipperary, and latterly for Dungarvan. In 1832 he was enthusiastically welcomed on the platform of the Repeal Society, by those who had been for so many years accustomed to hear his spirit-stirring harangues in favour of Emancipation. He took part in the Repeal debate of April 1834, when the motion was defeated by 523 to 38, and as a parliamentary question set at rest for many years. After the general election consequent on the death of William IV., and the friendly expressions of the Government towards Ireland, he accepted office as Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital. In 1839 he was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade. Although ho was able to retain his seat, his acceptance of office was generally resented by his old friends in Ireland. That it had a considerable influence on his opinions cannot be doubted. He opposed the revival of the Repeal agitation; and some years later he had the courage to declare upon the hustings at Dungarvan that he considered Repeal to be a "splendid but unattainable fancy" - justifying his change of opinion by reference to the altered attitude of the government of Great Britain towards Ireland. Yet he acted as one of John O'Connell's counsel at the State trials in 1844. In 1845 he accompanied his wife and invalid son to Madeira, in the vain hope of benefiting the health of the latter, who died and was buried on the island. Mr. Sheil was Master of the Mint from 1846 to 1850. During that period the new silver florin was put into circulation, those first coined being conspicuous by the omission of the initials of the legend: "Defensatrix Fidei: Dei gratia." The design was made by Mr. Wyon, chief engraver of the Mint, and approved by the Privy Council; but a considerable turmoil was raised, the change being attributed to Mr. Sheil being a Catholic. In reply to questions in the House, he accepted the responsibility of the omission of the words, avowed he had seen no objection to following the precedent which was found in a portion of the silver coinage struck in her Majesty's name at Calcutta, and briefly and emphatically repudiated the imputation of sectarian motives. With the session of 1850 his parliamentary career closed. Mr. McCullagh says: "For twenty years he had occupied a prominent place in the varied controversies of the senate. He had seen most of the great principles for which he had contended finally adopted and engrafted into the policy of the state; and the suffrages of the many and the few had concurred in ascribing to his advocacy no humble share in the accomplishment of these results. As an orator his success had equalled, if not exceeded, his most sanguine expectations; and even the judgment of friendship will hardly be deemed erroneous in awarding him as many and as varied triumphs in debate as any of his most gifted contemporaries." In December 1850 he was appointed Minister at the court of Tuscany, and accordingly removed with his wife to Florence. His enjoyment of life in that beautiful city, and of the treasures of art opened to him, was intense. His knowledge of French, which he had kept up through life, was a source of great pleasure, and he at once set about the acquisition of Italian. The British residents were delighted with his genial manners and his talents. His successful efforts on behalf of Count Guicciardini, imprisoned for reading the Bible to a circle of friends in his own house, proved the freedom of his mind from sectarian intolerance. The Count afterwards wrote of him as "a gentleman and a man of talent; but, what was still better, a Christian, who adored God in spirit and in truth... He seemed to me to be deeply impressed with sentiments of piety, devotion, and love of God." Mr. Sheil did not long live to enjoy what his friend Charles Lever styled his first holiday in a long life of labour." He died of a sudden access of an old complaint, gout, 28th May 1851, aged 59. His remains were conveyed home in a British ship-of-war, and interred at Long-orchard, in the County of Tipperary. Mr. Sheil's manner was peculiar; his figure was by no means striking; but his face was intellectual and massive, somewhat resembling O'Connell's. The Memoirs of Richard Lalor Sheil by W. T. McCullagh, London, 1855, give an admirable history of the agitation that preceded Catholic Emancipation. [Dr. Reeves says "Saidhail" (pronounced Sheil) is the Irish form of the name, which is of great antiquity, and was Latinized at a very early date in the form "Sedulius".]

Sheridan, William, Bishop of Kilmore, was born at Togher, in the County of Cavan, about 1635. He was the son of the Rev. Dionysius Sheridan, a Catholic clergyman converted to Protestantism by Bishop Bedell, and was godson of the Bishop, who bequeathed to him forty shillings to buy a mourning ring. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1652, and at the termination of his course, took orders, and was appointed chaplain to the Duke of Ormond, then Lord-Lieutenant. In 1667 he became rector of Athenry, in 1669 made Dean of Down, and in 1681-2 was advanced to the bishopric of Kilmore. In 1691 he was deprived of his see for refusing to take the oaths to William and Mary. The latter part of his life he resided in London, where non-jurors and others who shared their opinions resorted to his house for private devotions. He died in great poverty, 3rd October 1711. Six volumes of his sermons were published between 1665 and 1706. [His brother Patrick was consecrated Bishop of Cloyne in 1679, and dying in 1682, was buried in the College Chapel, Dublin. A nother brother, Thomas, obtained a fellowship in Trinity College, which he was obliged to resign on becoming a Catholic. In 1680 he was imprisoned for supposed complicity in a Popish plot, but was subsequently knighted by James II., who made him his secretary].

Sheridan, Thomas, D.D., a friend of Dean Swift's, son of Thomas Sheridan before-mentioned, was born in the County of Cavan in 1684. His parents were poor. He was placed by a friend at Trinity College, Dublin, entered the Church, and opened a school in Dublin, at the old Mint house, 27 Capel-street. His good nature, powers of conversation, and literary abilities attracted the attention of Swift, and they became intimate friends. The Dean took a warm interest in his school, occasionally taught classes in it, and materially contributed to its success. Swift wrote of him after his death: "He was doubtless the best instructor of youth in these kingdoms, or perhaps in Europe, and as great a master of the Greek and Roman languages.. He has left behind him a very great collection, in several volumes, of stories, humorous, witty, wise, or some way useful... His chief shining quality was that of a schoolmaster, and here he shone in his proper element. He had so much skill and practice in the physiognomy of boys, that lie rarely mistook at the first view. His scholars loved and feared him. .. Among the gentlemen in this kingdom who have any share of education, the scholars of Dr. Sheridan infinitely excel, in number and knowledge, all their brethren sent from the other schools... He was in many things very indiscreet, to say no worse. He acted like too many clergymen who are in haste to get married when very young, and from hence proceeded all the miseries of his life." Sheridan owned Quilca, a small country seat in the County of Cavan, where Swift, who wrote an amusing account of its "blunders and deficiencies," often sojourned with Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley. Not content with two residences alone, a fancy sprung in his head, Swift wrote, "that a house near Dublin would be commodious for himself and his boarders to lodge in on Saturdays and Sundays. Immediately, without consulting with any creature, he takes a lease of a rotten house at Rathfarnham, the worst air in Ireland, for 999 years, at £12 a year... He expends about £100 on the house and garden wall, and in less than three years contracts such a hatred to the house that he lets it run to ruin." Swift was greatly distressed at Sheridan's extravagant habits, and hoping to remove him from a position in life which involved ruinous expenditure, obtained for him a nomination to the mastership of the Royal School of Armagh. This Sheridan unwisely declined, on the advice of some of the Fellows of College. Swift then procured for him a living in the south of Ireland, and a chaplaincy to the Lord- Lieutenant; but Sheridan spoiled all by his foolish imprudence in preaching a sermon at Cork on the King's birth-day, from the text, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." He was forbidden again to appear at the Castle, although Swift interceded for him in vain. He subsequently obtained the living of Dunboyne, near Dublin, from which, with his unbusiness-like habits, he was able to extract but,£80 a year. His son says his grief for Esther Johnson's loss was almost as great as the Dean's. "He admired her above all human beings, and loved her with a devotion as pure as that which we would pay to angels." His latter years were embittered by a quarrel with Swift, resulting from an overlong visit of his at the deanery. Yet in November 1736, we have a very warm letter of his, dated from Quilca, to Mrs. Whiteway, enquiring after her health and that of the Dean. In it he deplores the Protestant exodus then going on from the north of Ireland to America - "the dismal circumstance of some thousands of families preparing to go off... Some squires will have their whole estates left to themselves and their dogs." Sheridan died at Rathfarnham, 10th October 1738, aged about 54. His marriage appears to have been most unfortunate. In his will we find but five shillings bequeathed to his "unkind wife, Elizabeth." Dean Swift, in his sketch of Sheridan, penned shortly after his death, speaks of her in the coarsest terms; and we must charitably suppose that nothing but approaching mental illness induced him to reflect as he did upon Sheridan himself in the same document. There are no fewer than 142 references to Sheridan in the index to Scott's Life of Swift. The Earl of Orrery writes of him as "ill-starred, good-natured,improvident, .. a punster, a quibbler, a fiddler, and a wit. Not a day passed without a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal. His pen and his fiddle-stick were in continual motion, and yet to little or no purpose." In 1725 Dr. Sheridan published a translation of the Philoctetes of Sophocles, and in 1739 the Satires of Persius in English verse.

Sheridan, Thomas, son of preceding, was born at Quilca, in the County of Cavan, in 1721. Swift was his godfather. He was educated at Westminster School and at Trinity College, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1739. After his father's death he remained without a profession, and was destitute of expectations. He went on the stage, and in January 1743 met with decided success in the character of "Richard III." Next year he played at Covent-garden; and in 1745, with Garrick, at Drury-lane. Returning to Dublin, he leased Smock-alley Theatre (upon the site of which the church of St. Michael and St. John is now built) and effected reforms in the decorum and moralities of the stage. In 1754 he was driven from this theatre by a popular tumult, consequent on his bravely protesting against insults offered by some of the audience to certain actresses. He visited Dublin again in 1756, and in 1759 made a lecturing tour on oratory (his favourite study), in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, also in Scotland. In 1760 he again appeared at Drury-lane; but disagreements with Garrick led him to abandon the stage. On the accession of George III., a Civil List pension was granted him, whereupon Dr. Johnson exclaimed: "What, give him a pension - then I must give up mine." Johnson had a very low opinion of his talents, according to Boswell, who quotes him as saying: "Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what now see him. Such an excess of stupidity is not in nature... Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his declamation to a point. I ask him a plain question, 'What do you mean to teach?' Besides, sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais." Sheridan was so annoyed at the failure of the public to appreciate his theories regarding oratory, that at one time he purposed emigrating to America. Late in life he managed Drurylane for his son, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and his partners; but for a long period father and son were completely estranged. Mr. Sheridan was often obliged to reside on the Continent because of money difficulties. He was the author of numerous works, chiefly on oratory and education. Sheridan's Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1780, which saw many editions, is said by Allibone to be "of more phonetic than philological value." His Life and Works of Jonathan Swift, (17 vols., 1784) has been superseded by later writers. He died 14th August 1788, aged 66, at Margate, where his remains were interred. Dibdin says: "He was an excellent actor, a man of strict honour, and a perfect gentleman;" whilst Macklin writes of "the dissonance of his voice, the laboured quaintness of his emphasis, the incessant flux of his speech." His daughter Alicia married Joseph LeFanu. [See LEFANU, ALICIA.]

Sheridan, Frances, wife of foregoing, was born in 1724. Her father, Dr. Philip Chamberlaine, was opposed to female education, and it was only by stealth that, principally with the help of her brothers, she obtained her knowledge of books. At the early age of fifteen she published, unknown to her father, Eugenia and Adelaide, a romance, in two volumes. She became acquainted with Sheridan through a pamphlet she wrote in his favour on the occasion of his theatrical difficulties with the Dublin public. Mrs. Sheridan is described as an accomplished and amiable woman: "Quite celestial: both her virtues and her genius were highly esteemed." Of her numerous works, Sidney Biddulph is the best known and most successful; part of it was dramatized. Johnson remarked to her upon passages therein: "I know not, madam, that you have a right upon moral principles to make your readers suffer so much." Fox thought it "the best novel of our age." Mrs. Sheridan died in September 1766, of a a lingering illness, at Blois, in France. "She appears to have been one of those rare women, who, united to men of more pretensions, but less real intellect than themselves, meekly conceal this superiority even from their own hearts, and pass their lives without a remonstrance or murmur, patiently endeavouring to repair those evils which the indiscretion or vanity of their partners has brought upon them."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, orator and author, son of the two preceding, was born at 12 Dorset-street, Dublin, in September 1751. At the age of seven, he was, with his elder brother Charles, placed at Whyte's academy in Graftonstreet, where he was considered very dull. His parents removed to England, and in 1762 he was sent to Harrow, where, Moore says, "he was remarkable only as a very idle, careless, but, at the same time, engaging boy, who contrived to win the affection and even admiration of the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the mere charm of his frank and genial manners, and by the occasional gleams of superior intellect which broke through all the indolence and indifference of his character." During the greater part of his stay at Harrow, his family resided in France. He left Harrow when he was about eighteen, and went to live with his father in London, and sometimes at Bath. He spent his time perfecting himself in fencing and other accomplishments. He formed an intimacy with a Mr. Halhed, and they wrote in partnership, Jupiter, a farce, and some other ephemeral productions, and in August 1771 published a translation of Aristsenetus, which proved a total failure. Both young men fell in love with Miss Linley, a beautiful singer of sixteen. She had been on the point of marriage to a rich elderly gentleman, whose suit her father favoured from mercenary reasons, but who, on her assurance that she could never really love him, showed the sincerity of his attachment by settling £3,000 upon her. It was probably at this period that, inspired by Miss Linley's beauty, Sheridan wrote "Dry be that tear," and others of his beautiful love verses. Mr. Halhed eventually resigned the pursuit of Miss Linley and went to India; and Sheridan eloped with her to Calais, where they were secretly married in March 1772. He was then little more than twenty, and she was entering but her eighteenth year. The young couple were married at Bath about a year afterwards. As he declined to allow his wife to sing in public, and as he was without a regular profession, the remnants of her fortune, and his talents were all they had to live upon. He wrote occasionally for Woodfall's Public Advertiser. In January 1775, his comedy of The Rivals was brought out at Covent-garden. It proved a brilliant success almost from the first, and has ever since held its place on the stage. Towards the end of the same year his opera of The Duenna was first acted. It was equally successful, and had a run of seventy-five nights the first season, longer even than the first run of The Beggars' Opera. About this time it became known that Garrick meant to part with his moiety of the patent of Drury-lane Theatre, and retire from the stage. After some negotiation, Sheridan, then only in his twenty-fifth year, became patentee and manager - the price of the moiety (£35,000) being made up between himself, Mr. Linley, and Dr. Ford. We are not informed how he managed to raise his share - £10,000. Mr. Moore remarks: "There was, indeed, something mysterious and miraculous about all his acquisitions, whether in love, in learning, in wit, or in wealth. How or when his stock of knowledge was laid in, nobody knew; it was as much a matter of marvel to those who never saw him read, as the mode of existence of the chameleon has been to those who fancied it never eat. His advances in the heart of his mistress were, as we have seen, equally trackless and inaudible; and his triumph was the first that even rivals knew of his love. In like manner, the productions of his wit took the world by surprise - being perfected in secret, till ready for display, and then seeming to break from under the cloud of his indolence in full maturity of splendour. His financial resources had no less an air of magic about them; but the mode by which he conjured up, at this time, the money for his first purchase into the theatre, remains, as far as I can learn, still a mystery." The sketch of his masterpiece, The School for Scandal, was perhaps written before The Rivals, or at latest soon after; it was first represented in May 1777. Such, was the predominant attraction of this comedy, says Mr. Moore, “during the two years subsequent to its first appearance, that, in the official account of receipts for 1779, we find the following remark subjoined by the Treasurer: `School for Scandal damped the new pieces.' I have traced it by the same unequivocal marks of success through the years 1780 and 1781, and find the nights of its representations always rivalling those on which the King went to the theatre, in the magnitude of their receipts." The merits of this comedy are so universally acknowledged, that it is unnecessary to expatiate upon them. Sheridan wrote many plays, but The Rivals, The School for Scandal, and The Critic stand out pre-eminently as his best. In 1778 he bought Mr. Lacy's moiety of the theatre for £45,000, and portions of his partners' shares, so as to make up his own interest to three-fourths of the whole. This arrangement was brought about by a series of financial operations and loans that afterwards involved him in disgrace and misery. His increased influence in the affairs of the theatre enabled him to appoint his father to the management, and thus put an end to an unhappy estrangement which for years had existed between them. His mind must have been for some time gravitating towards politics. Amongst his manuscripts were the sheets of an essay on absentees, written about 1778, when The School for Scandal was in its first blush of success. His intimacy with Fox, Burke, Windham, and other public men, and the habit of discussing with them questions of the day, tended to foster a taste for public life. His thirst for distinction, and quick apprehension of the service his talents might render in the warfare of party, hastened the result that both he and his friends desired. In 1780 he supported Fox's resolutions on the state of the representation (including a declaration in favour of annual parliaments and universal suffrage), and, in October 1780, he took his seat as member for Stafford, and bade adieu for ever to dramatic authorship. His seat in Parliament (including £5 5s. each to 248 burgesses) cost him £1,440, besides £800 spent during the six subsequent years "in keeping it warm." Sheridan's maiden speech on 20th November was listened to with breathless attention. After its conclusion, he went to Woodfall in the gallery, and asked with much anxiety what he thought of his first attempt. "I am sorry to say I do not think that this is your line," he replied; "you had much better have stuck to your former pursuits." Sheridan rested his head on his hand for a few minutes, and then vehemently exclaimed: "It is in me, however, and by it shall come out." His speech on 5th March 1781 was most effective, yet he spoke but seldom - even on the question of the American war, in which he took a deep interest. His friends came into power in 1782, and he was appointed one of the Under-Secretaries of State, and in 1783 Secretary of the Treasury. The efforts of Grattan's party for the elevation of Ireland received his hearty support. Through his influence, his brother Charles was appointed Secretary of War in Ireland. In 1785 he strenuously opposed Orde's Commercial Propositions, which were so unfavourably regarded by the Irish national party. Sheridan entered with zeal into the impeachment of Warren Hastings - on 7th February 1789, delivering a speech on the charge relative to the Begum Princesses of Oude, the effect of which is said to have been without parallel. Burke described it as "the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition;" whilst Fox said: "All that he had ever heard, all that he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun." Pitt acknowledged that this great speech "surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish, to agitate and control the human mind." No report of this famous five-hour speech exists - Sheridan's habits of procrastination preventing him answering the appeals of his friends on the subject. On opening the impeachment he occupied four days with an address, which Burke said was unmatched for its splendour. Moore writes as follows: "Good sense and wit were the great weapons of his oratory-shrewd- ness in detecting the weak points of an adversary, and infinite powers of raillery in exposing it. These were faculties which he possessed in a greater degree than any of his cotemporaries.... His attempts at the florid or figurative style, whether in his speeches or writings, were seldom very successful. That luxuriance of fancy which in Burke was natural and indigenous, was in him rather a forced and exotic growth." In the summer of 1788 he lost his father, and his wife lost her sister, Mrs. Tickell, to whom she was tenderly attached, and to whose children she devoted herself the rest of her life. Sheridan was a special favourite with the Prince of Wales; he advocated in Parliament the payment of his debts, and in 1788 took an active part in the negotiations and debates regarding the Regency. He may be considered at this period as at the summit of success. Among the brilliant circle in which he shone, the gaiety of his spirits amounted almost to boyishness; - he delighted in dramatic tricks and disguises; and the lively parties with which his country-house was always filled were ever kept in momentary expectation of some new device for their mystification and amusement. At the same time he was plunging deeper and deeper into debt, and was obliged to put forth all his ingenuity to avoid writs, bonds, and judgments. Mrs. Sheridan died in June 1792, after lengthened illness. She had been a true wife, the sharer of all his cares; yet the marriage had not been particularly happy. His grief, at first apparently intense, was essentially shallow. Within five months of her death he offered his hand to the child Pamela, believed to be the daughter of Madame de Genlis, who was afterwards married to Lord Edward FitzGerald. Circumstances gradually tended to alienate Sheridan, not only from his great countryman Burke, but also to some extent from Fox. One cause of estrangement between him and Burke arose in the progress of the French Revolution. In the spring of 1795 Sheridan married Miss Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Winchester. With her fortune of £5,000, and £15,000 raised by the sale of Drury-lane shares, he bought the estate of Polesden, in Surrey, which he settled upon her. In the session of 1795 Sheridan again supported a proposal for the payment of £630,000 of the Prince's debts, and he endeavoured to excuse the violation of the Prince's promise, made eight years before, when his debts were being cleared off, that he would contract no more. His prompt action and wise advice during the mutiny at the Nore, raised him considerably in public estimation, and showed that while favouring popular measures he was sincerely opposed to all revolutionary movements. During the Insurrection of 1798 he vindicated the action of the liberal party in Ireland, and denounced in Parliament "those wicked ministers who have given up that devoted country to plunder - resigned it a prey to this faction by which it has so long been trampled upon, and abandoned it to every species of insult and oppression by which a country was ever overwhelmed, or the spirit of a people insulted... When conciliation was held out to the people of Ireland, was there any discontent? When the government of Ireland was agreeable to the people, was there any discontent?" Nor was he less strenuous and consistent in his opposition to the Union. Concerning the misgovernment of Ireland, and the disabilities of the Catholics, his action, later on, continued to be uniform and consistent - he even opposed Grattan in his support of an Insurrection Act. Early in 1804 the office of Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall was bestowed upon him by the Prince of Wales, "as a trifling proof of that sincere friendship his Royal Highness had always professed and felt for him through a long series of years." In his letter of thanks Sheridan speaks of the Prince as one "by whom to be esteemed is the glory and consolation of my private and public life;" and concludes with the words: "There never did exist to monarch, prince, or man, a firmer or purer attachment than I feel, and to my death shall feel, to you, my gracious prince and master." In 1806 Sheridan was elected member for Westminster. The loss of this seat at the next election was a great mortification and a serious blow to his prestige, although he was returned for Ilchester. The destruction of Drury-lane Theatre by fire in 1809 completed his financial ruin. He was called out of the House of Commons on the occasion, and is reported to have said to a friend who remarked on the philosophical calmness with which he sat in view of the fire taking some refreshment: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fire-side." Mr. Whitbread endeavoured to lighten Sheridan's difficulties by taking upon himself the responsibilities of the theatre and its rebuilding, but received the return too often accorded to those who strive to help men hopelessly involved. Sheridan before long came to regard him as his bitterest enemy-the author of all his misfortunes. Whitbread was perhaps the only person he had ever found proof against his powers of persuasion-and this rigidity naturally mortified Sheridan's pride full as much as it thwarted and disconcerted his plans. His failure, in 1812, to be returned for Stafford ended his political career. He was now excluded from the theatre and from Parliament - his two dependencies in life were gone, and he was left a helpless wreck. It is to his credit that he refused the Prince's offer again to bring him into Parliament. He was forced to part with all his pictures, books, and presents. The handsome cup given him on one occasion by the electors of Stafford was sold, and the portrait, by Reynolds, of his first wife in the character of St. Cecilia, was pawned. In the spring of 1815 he was arrested, and carried to a sponging-house. Illness supervened, brought on by irregular living, and increased by harassing cares. Moore and Rogers proved his best helpers, and Mrs. Sheridan's care and watchfulness were unceasing. Some assistance was obtained from friends through a newspaper appeal. He was again arrested, and would have been carried to prison but for the firmness of his doctor. He lingered until the 7th July 1816, when, after a succession of shivering fits, he fell into a state of exhaustion, and expired. He was in his 65th year. His residence, 17 Savillerow, was then in the possession of the bailiffs, and his body had to be removed to a friend's house, whence a few days afterwards a train of the highest in the land followed his remains to Westminster Abbey. Sheridan's speeches cost much labour in the preparation, and his most brilliant, and apparently least premeditated repartees and witty sayings were generally thought out long before he produced them. In person he was above the middle size, robust and well-proportioned; handsome in youth. In later years his beautiful eyes were the only remains of early grace of person. He was often guilty of appropriating the sentiments and work of others, both in his speeches and writings. Lord Byron says: "Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do, has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy {School for Scandal), the best drama (The Duenna), the best farce (The Critic - it is only too good for a farce), and the best address ('Monologue on Garrick'), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous 'Begum speech') ever conceived or heard in this country." Lord Macaulay says: "No writers have injured the comedy of England so deeply as Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily they made all their characters in their own likeness. Their works bear the same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a painting. There are no delicate touches, no hues imperceptibly fading into each other; the whole is lighted up with an universal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten in the common blaze which illuminates all. The flowers and fruit of the intellect abound; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not of a garden - unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from its very plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every valet is a man of wit." Sheridan left two sons, Thomas, who died in 1817, at the Cape, where he held the post of Colonial Paymaster, and Charles, who obtained a limited reputation as a poet. Thomas had three daughters, all born out of Ireland: (1) Selina (born 1807, died 1867), married the Hon. Price Blackwood, afterwards Lord Dufferin and Clandeboy. After his death, she married the Earl of Gifford when on his death-bed. She was mother of the present Earl of Dufferin. She was the authoress of “The Irish Emigrant," "Katie's Letter," "Terence's Farewell," and other ballads. (2) Caroline, (born in 1808, died in 1877), married the Hon. G. C. Norton, and after his death Sir William Stirling-Maxwell. Her first marriage was unhappy, and led to protracted legal proceedings. She was widely known as a poet and novelist. (3) Jane, married the Duke of Somerset.

Sidney, Sir Henry, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, was born early in the 16th century. He was knighted and sent Ambassador to France by Edward VI., and was Lord-Justice of Ireland in 1557 and 1558. Early in Elizabeth's reign he again filled the latter post for a few months, and was afterwards Lord-President of Wales, and was sent upon a confidential mission to France. His Irish career will be found narrated at length in Froude's England. It was with great reluctance he consented to go over as Deputy in 1565 - "If the Queen would but grant him leave to serve her in England, or in any place in the world else, saving Ireland, or to live in private, it should be more joyous to him than to enjoy all the rest and to go thither." He stipulated that he should have a military chest of at least £10,000, and 200 horse and 500 foot, in addition to those already in Dublin. He would not go as others had gone to "twine ropes of sand and sea-slime to bind the Irish rebels with." "To go to work by force," he said, "will be chargeable, it is true; but if you will give the people justice and minister law among them, and exercise the sword of the sovereign and put away the sword of the subject - omnia haec adjicientur vobis - you shall drive the now man of war to be an husbandman, and he that now liveth like a lord to live like a servant; and the money now spent in buying armour and horses, and waging of war should be bestowed in building of towns and houses. By ending these incessant wars ere they be aware, you shall bereave them both of force and beggary, and make them weak and wealthy. Then you can convert the military service due from the lords, into money; then you can take up the fisheries now left to the French and the Spaniards; then you can open and work your mines, and the people will be able to grant you subsidies." Leaving London in December, he was detained six weeks at Holyhead by contrary winds, and did not reach Dublin until the middle of January 1565-'6. He found the Pale, as he said, "overwhelmed with vagabonds; " the English soldiers "worse than the people, so insolent as to be intolerable; so rooted in idleness as there was no hope by correction to amend them." "Not two gentlemen in the whole of it able to lend £20." In Munster, as the fruit of the Desmond wars, "a man might ride twenty or thirty miles and find no houses standing." Connaught was tolerably quiet. "In Ulster there tyrannizeth the prince of, pride; Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than that O'Neill is; he is at present the only strong and rich man in Ireland, and he is the dangeroustest man, and most like to bring the whole estate of this land to subversion and subjugation, either to him or to some foreign prince, that ever was in Ireland." He invited O'Neill to Dublin; but Shane, subscribing himself Sidney's "loving gossip to command," reminded him that Sussex had twice attempted his assassination, and that, however desirous he might be to visit the Lord-Deputy, his "timorous and mistrustful people" would not trust him any more in English hands. Sidney made immediate preparations for an expedition again Shane, who appealed to France for aid, and commenced the campaign by invading Tirconnell. Sidney had difficulty in impressing the gravity of the occasion upon Elizabeth, who ultimately consented to send 1,000 men under command of Colonel Randolfe. He took the field with his own forces in September 1566, marching into Shane's country, burning and destroying in every direction. In his own words, he "found by experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most hurt." Early in October he joined Randolfe, who had landed in Lough Foyle. They erected a fort where the city of Derry now stands, agreeing that it was the best spot in all the north to build a fort to curb O'Neill. Sidney next pushed on to Donegal, leaving Randolfe in command, reduced one of Shane's strongholds, and put O'Donnell into possession of it. On 19th October he was at Ballyshannon; on the 22nd at Sligo; on the 24th he passed over the bogs and mountains into Roscommon, and then, "leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in England or Ireland, all utterly waste," the army forded the Shannon at Athlone on the 26th, and so back to the Pale. Sidney declared that now "her Majesty's honour was re-established amongst the Irishry, and grown to no small veneration;" while one of his admirers wrote to Cecil that the expedition was "comparable only to Alexander's journey into Bactria." Mr. Froude adds that, "the weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that when the English were once roused to effort they could crush them as the lion crushes the jackal." Randolfe fell soon afterwards in an engagement with Shane's kerns. By the middle of March the garrison at Derry was reduced by want and disease from 1,100 to 300 men; and in April the stronghold was burnt and blown up by an accidental fire in which thirty men perished. The remainder of the garrison was drawn off to Carrickfergus. Nevertheless Sidney's expedition and the forays from Derry demoralized Shane's forces. His ruin was completed by the Scots, and in the following June he was assassinated. In August 1569 war broke out in Desmond, and Sidney, reinforced from England, hurried to the scene of action. Waterford refused to open its gates to him. He marched west, burning villages, blowing up castles, killing the garrisons, and flinging their bodies from the battlements, for a terror to al] others, putting every man to death whom he caught in arms, and garrisoning many strongholds. Through Kilmallock he moved to Limerick, to Galway, to Roscommon, and thence across to Armagh and the borders of Tyrone, through Turlough Luineach O'Neill's country, reaching Dublin in October. "The expedition had been swift, vigorous, and not without effect," says Mr. Froude. "Some of the Irish had committed 'outrages too horrible to hear,' says Sidney. If he told but the bare truth, the English had set the example of ferocity, and had little right to complain." The account the same writer gives in the tenth volume of his History of England, of the doings of Sidney's officers in the County of Wicklow, is almost too barbarous to be believed. On 25th March 1571, Sir Henry obtained the recall for which he had sued so long. He left the country in a miserable condition. In 1572 the government of Ireland was again pressed upon him, but he firmly refused it; but three years afterwards he was induced to accept what he called his thankless charge. Dreading a plague then raging in Dublin, he landed at Drogheda in November, and commenced a progress through the provinces. Passing into Ulster, he met Sorley Boy MacDonnell, whom he propitiated by restoring to him Rathlin island. He paid a friendly visit to O'Neill. Rapidly crossing Leinster, which he reported as for the most part depopulated, burnt up, and waste, he proceeded on through Waterford, Dungarvan, and Youghal, to Cork. The Earls of Thomond, Desmond, and Clancarthy attended him with their retinues. The MacCarthys, O'Sullivans, O'Carrolls, McTeigues, and Roches came to his levees. Grace O'Malley, to do him honour, sailed round from Achill to Cork, with her three pirate galleys manned by 200 men. Several Catholic Bishops appeared. He says: "We got good and honest juries there [at Cork], and with their help twenty-four malefactors were honourably condemned and hanged." Mr. Froude observes, that the gallows "might have worked better had justice been even-handed, and had scoundrels of both nations been hung upon it indifferently." From Cork the progress was continued to Limerick and Galway. The state of the Church was a matter of great concern to him. In Meath there was not a single resident clergyman in the 105 government benefices. In the autumn of 1576 he held an itinerant court in the southern provinces; at Cork he executed forty-three notable malefactors (including one pressed to death, and two drawn and quartered); at Limerick, twenty-three; at Kilkenny, thirty-six (including two for treason, and a "blackamoor and two witches"). He thought it necessary to apologize for his moderation - "I have chosen rather with the snail slenderly to creep, than with the horse swiftly to run." Mr. Froude again remarks: "When the people were quiet, there was the rope for malefactors, and death by "natural law " for those whom the law written would not touch. When they broke out there was the blazing homestead, and death by the sword for all; not for the armed kerne only, but for the aged and infirm, the nursing mother, and the baby at the breast. These, with ruined churches, and Irish rogues for ministers-these, and so far only these, were the symbols of the advance of English rule." The re-establishment of the presidencies was one of Sidney's chief administrative acts during his second tenure of power. In 1578 it was apparent that at heart the princes and people were more bitterly opposed than ever to the acceptance of the Reformed religion and English habits and laws, and Sidney, perhaps unable to encounter the expense involved by tenure of office under Elizabeth, made haste out of the country before the storm burst. "Three times has her Majesty sent me as her Deputy to Ireland. I returned from each of them three thousand pounds worse than I went." Sir Henry Sidney died in 1586. The great Sir Philip was his son.

Simnel, Lambert, the son of an Oxford tradesman, was, in 1486, brought to Ireland by Richard Simond, a clergyman, and presented to the chief personages of the Anglo-Irish colony as Richard, Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence, and heir to the English throne. Of noble appearance and demeanour, he acted his part to perfection. Simond alleged, that having rescued the child from death, he had brought him to a land known to be specially attached to the cause of the White Rose, and relied that the Yorkists of Ireland would vindicate the rights of a boy whose deceased father, the Duke of Clarence, had been born amongst them in Dublin Castle. Kildare and other Anglo- Irish lords, personally acquainted with Clarence and his family, subjected the lad to a searching examination, and satisfied themselves that he was the rightful heir to the crown. He was lodged in the Castle, every deference was paid to him, and messengers were despatched to the friends of the House of York in England, and to the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, his supposed aunt. The citizens of Waterford boldly opposed his pretensions; and in the name of Henry VII. enlisted soldiery from the Munster towns and the Ormond district, where the people were most inimical to the Leinster Geraldines. The Duchess sent a force of about 2.000 men, under the command of Martin Swart, a soldier of great experience, who landed at Dublin in May 1487, accompanied by the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovel, and other Yorkist refugees from Flanders. On Whit-Sunday, the 24th May, Simnel was solemnly anointed and crowned King of England, under the name of Edward VI., in Christ Church, Dublin, in presence of the chief dignitaries of the Pale, who renounced their allegiance to Henry VII., and swore fealty to him. He was then borne in state to the Castle on the shoulders of tall men, that he might be seen by the enthusiastic populace. A parliament was convened, coins were struck, and proclamations issued in his name, and an expedition was organized for the invasion of England, which landed on the coast of Lancashire, 4th June 1487, and advanced into Yorkshire. Sir Thomas FitzGerald commanded the Irish contingent. Henry collected a large force, and the armies met on 16th June at Stoke, near Newark-on-Trent, where an engagement was fought. The Irish, according to the chronicles, "fought boldly and stuck to it valiantly," and it was not until 4,000 had fallen that the Yorkists gave way. Simnel and Simond were captured by Robert Bellingham, a squire of Henry's house. The priest was immured for life, in fetters, in a dark dungeon. Simnel, according to one account, was incarcerated in the Tower of London; according to another, Henry employed him as a turnspit in the royal kitchen, and afterwards made him master of the falcons. Many Irish lords and their followers fell at Stoke. The subsequent expedition of Sir Richard Edgecomb to Ireland was for the purpose of bringing back to their allegiance the lords of the Pale, who for many months after the fall of Simnel cherished plans of revolt.

Sirr, Henry Charles, Town-Major of Dublin, was a prominent actor in Irish affairs for many years. He was born about 1756, became a wine merchant, and in 1796 received the appointment of Town Major of Dublin, in which capacity he rendered important services to the Government, as the seizure of the Press newspaper, and the capture of Lord Edward FitzGerald in 1798, and Robert Emmet in 1803. He was a man of undaunted bravery, overbearing in his manners, and was equally feared and hated by the people at large. Lord Castlereagh thus eulogizes him: "The services Major Sirr has rendered to the King's Government since I have been in office are such as to make me feel it an incumbent duty to bear testimony, in the strongest terms, to his merits... He has been constantly employed confidentially by Government on every occasion which called for great personal exertions, discretion, and courage. .. The metropolis was peculiarly indebted for its tranquillity to the unceasing activity of Major Sirr." He latterly held the post of police magistrate. He was a connoisseur in the fine arts. Major Sirr died 11th January 1841, and was buried in St. Werburgh's churchyard, Dublin, near the vault where rest the remains of Lord Edward FitzGerald, whom he had made prisoner and mortally wounded forty-two years previously. His papers, which contain much valuable information relating to the events of the times in which he lived, are preserved in the Library of Trinity College.

Sitric the Blind, one of the Norse invaders of Ireland, arrived at Dublin with a "prodigious royal fleet" in 888. In 902 he retreated to Scotland; but in 918 he recovered Dublin, and in 919 fought the battle of Kilmashogue with Niall Glundubh. He left Ireland in 920, and in 925 was King of the Northumbrians. He is supposed to have died in 927.

Sitric Silkiskegg (Silken-beard), one of the Norse Kings of Dublin, was in 994 driven from his seat by Ivar of Waterford; but next year he re-established his authority. After the battle of Glenmama, in 1000, he took refuge with the northern Irish chieftains, but was delivered by them to Brian Borumha, who reinstated him in the government of Dublin, and gave him his daughter in marriage. Sitric's sister, Maelmuire, was married to Malachy II. With the other Northmen he was defeated at Clontarf, but not long afterwards regained possession of Dublin. In 1018 he blinded Bran, son of the King of Leinster. Ten years later Sitric went on a pilgrimage to Borne. He died abroad in 1042, leaving his kingdom to his nephew. During his reign, the Danish bishopric of Dublin was created, and the foundations of Christ Church Cathedral were laid.

Skeffington, Sir William, was in 1529 appointed by Henry VII. commissioner to Ireland - "to restrain the exactions of the soldiers; to call a parliament; and to provide that the possessions of the clergy might be subject to bear their part of the public charge." This commission he discharged to the entire satisfaction of the King, and he received the honour of knighthood. Next year he was made Lord-Deputy to the Duke of Richmond., and signalized his appointment by marching against O'More and O'Conor. In 1531 "he neglected not the service of the publick, but.. made an inroad into Ulster, and having taken and demolished O'Neill's Castle of Kinard, destroyed the neighbouring territories, burned the villages, and thereby terrified O'Donnell into a submission." A violent enmity existed between him and the Earl of Kildare, who procured his recall in the following year. On the breaking out of the insurrection under Thomas FitzGerald, Sir William was again made Lord-Deputy, landed at Dublin on 11th October 1534, with a well furnished army, and "was received by the mayor and citizens with great joy, to whom he delivered the King's letters of thanks for their approved fidelity." On 28th October he raised the siege of Drogheda, and next spring reduced Maynooth by the aid of his heavy ordnance. In July 1535 he concluded a treaty with Con O'Neill at Drogheda, and received him into favour. He died in Dublin on the 31st of December 1535, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Amongst the Irish, Sir William was known as "The Gunner," on account of the extent to which he employed artillery in reducing their strongholds. The Massareene family are his descen­dants.

Skelton, Philip, Rev., author and philanthropist, was born in the parish of Derryaghy, near Lisburn, in February 17O6-'7. His father was a farmer, gunsmith, and tanner. Philip entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, under Dr. Delany, in 1724, passed through his course with credit, commenced Bachelor of Arts in 1728, and was shortly afterwards ordained on being nominated to a curacy at Drummully, near Newtownbutler. In addition to the duties of the cure, lie taught the children of his rector, Dr. Samuel Madden, known as "Premium Madden." In 1732 he obtained a curacy at Monaghan, at £40 a year; in 1750 was given the vicarage of Pettigo, a remote and then very uncivilized parish in Donegal; in 1759 he was removed to the parish of Devenish, near Enniskillen, worth £300 a year; and in 1766 made his last change to Fintona, in the County of Tyrone. Mr. Skelton was never married. He was the author of numerous sermons which had a large circulation, and of Deism Revealed, an important work, published in London in 1749. He had previously published Some Proposals for the Revival of Christianity, which was attributed to Swift. His sermons were warmly commended by Wesley and other divines, and were as eagerly listened to by London audiences as by his own simple parishioners. Olapham says: "In his reasoning he is as clear as Sherlock, in his warnings as solemn as Seeker, in his piety as engaging as Porteus, and in his exhortations as vehement as Demosthenes." One who heard him at St. Werburgh's, Dublin, tells how he was made to "shiver in his place," at his description of the torments of hell. He was bitterly opposed to all dissent, yet was the friend of Wesley when he visited Ireland to preach. In character he was simple and chivalrously honest. In manners he was outspoken, if not uncouth and rude, and he was careless in his dress. His biographer says, "he was of large gigantic size." He was an adept at cudgels and the use of his fists, and was not backward in the use of either when he considered occasion required - whether to chastise the insolence of a young officer, to protect the property of his parishioners, or to pretend to destroy an evil spirit about which a sick old woman consulted him. His whole life was one of self- devotion. He lived on the sparest diet. Even when he had but £40 a year, he devoted a large part of his stipend to the relief of the suffering poor. His books were almost his sole amusement; yet he sold them to relieve the poor in a period of famine, and when an admirer sent him money to buy them back he devoted it also to the purchase of food for those in want. He was extremely fond of flowers, and would send twenty miles for a curious specimen. Philip Skelton died in Dublin (whither he had gone on account of a painful ailment), 4th May 1787, aged 80, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard. His Life by Samuel Burdy, is a most entertaining work, illustrative of the semi-civilized condition of parts of Ireland during the eighteenth century.

Sloane, Sir Hans, Bart., M.D., an eminent physician, founder of the collection that formed the basis of the British Museum, was born at Killyleagh, County of Down, 16th April 1660. From his youth he evinced quick parts, keen powers of observation, and a wonderful taste for natural science. In his eighteenth year he went to London with the object of increasing his knowledge of chemistry and botany. He pursued his studies under Staphorst, and ere long acquired the friendship of John Ray and Robert Boyle. After six years of steady labour, he went to France, in 1683, and in July took the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Orange. Next year he returned to England, in 1685 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, in 1687 a fellow of the College of Physicians, and he early laid the foundation of that London practice which eventually led him to social eminence and to fortune. In 1687 he accompanied the Duke of Albemarle, on his appointment as Governor of the West Indies, as his physician and as chief physician to the West Indian fleet. Sloane named his own terms - £600 per annum, and £300 for outfit. Without in any way neglecting his medical duties, he devoted himself enthusiastically to the investigation of the fauna and flora of the islands, and during his eighteen months' residence made large collections of natural objects. He returned to England in consequence of the Duke's death. He made a fortunate investment in the importation of a quantity of cinchona bark, the value of which as a drug he made more widely known in England. His additions to botanical knowledge were important. In 1693 he was elected to the secretaryship of the Royal Society, and a year afterwards was made Physician to Christ's Hospital. In 1696 he published his Catalogus Plantarum quae in Insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt; but the work which contributed most to his reputation was his Natural History of Jamaica, which was not completed until after thirty-eight years' labour. The first volume appeared in 1708. He filled the office of physician to George I., who, in 1716, created him a baronet In 1719 he became President of the College of Physicians, and in 1727 he received the crowning honour of his life - being made President of the Royal Society on the death of Sir Isaac Newton. During all these years he had been getting together a splendid museum and library, which in 1741 he removed to his villa at Chelsea. His mental vigour long outlived his powers of locomotion; to the last it was his delight to be wheeled in a chair about his museum, and to examine its contents. He appears to have acted on the maxim he often repeated to patients: "I never take physic when I am well. When I am ill, I take little, and only such as has been very well tried." Sir Hans Sloane died 11th January 1753, aged 92, and was buried at Chelsea, in the same vault in which, twenty-eight years before, he had laid his wife. Two daughters survived him, who carried his wealth to the Stanleys and Cadogans. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "Sir Hans, being extremely solicitous lest his cabinet of curiosities, which he had taken so much pains to collect, should be again scattered at his death, and being at the same time unwilling that so large a portion of his fortune should be lost to his children, bequeathed it to the public, on condition that £20,000 should be made good by Parliament to his family. The sum, though large in appearance, was scarcely more than the intrinsic value of the gold and silver medals, the ores and precious stones, that were found in it; for in his last will he declares that the first cost of the whole amounted at least to £50,000. Parliament accepted the legacy, and fulfilled the conditions, and from this ample collection the British Museum had its origin." Sir Hans Sloane's collection contained about 44,000 books, manuscripts, drawings, and volumes of hortus siccus; 32,000 medals and coins; 1,100 antiquities; 3,000 cameos, seals, and precious stones; 500 vessels of agate and jasper; 1,800 crystals; 6,000 shells; and all the other objects in proportion, which are usually to be found in a museum. Besides devoting such large sums to science, Sir Hans was a munificent reliever of distress and suffering amongst his fellow men. Sloane-street in London perpetuates his name, and the Earl of Cadogan now represents him in that region of the Metropolis.

Smith, Charles, M.D., was born in the south of Ireland, and took his medical degree at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1738. He devoted most of his time to historical and topographical researches, and was the author of county histories of Waterford, Cork, and Kerry. They were published in 1746, 1750, and 1756, respectively, under the patronage of the Physico-Historical Society of Dublin, formed for the purpose of collecting materials for a work on the plan of Camden's Britannia, to be entitled Hibernia, or Ireland Ancient and Modern. No particulars are attainable concerning his life.

Smith, Erasmus, the founder and endower of a number of Protestant schools in Ireland, was a wealthy Turkey merchant, and an alderman of London. According to one account he was living in 1683, aged 73. His town residence was in St. John's, Clerkenwell; his country seat, Weald Hall, in Essex. He married a daughter of Lord Coleraine, and had three daughters and six sons, all of whom died without issue, except Hugh, who succeeded to his father's estates. There is a portrait of Erasmus Smith in Christ's Hospital, London. He was one of the adventurers under the Cromwellian settlement, and was granted in return for his "adventure" of £300, 666 plantation acres in the barony of Clanwilliam, and County of Tipperary. This must, however, have been but a small portion of his landed property in Ireland, as in 1657 he by deed made over 13,000 acres in different counties, for the formation and endowment of grammar schools in Ireland. The trustees being all Non- conformists - "men after Cromwell's own heart" - were unable to execute their functions after the Restoration; and, in 1669, on Erasmus Smith's petition, a new charter was granted, placing the schools practically under Episcopal supervision. It cannot be clearly ascertained whether the donor himself was a Churchman or a Dissenter. The future visitation and government of the schools founded by him was entrusted to a board of thirty-two governors, with the power of electing their successors. When the Endowed Schools Commission enquired into his foundations in 1857, they numbered 4 grammar schools, and 140 English schools, in different parts of Ireland; having 7,170 children on the rolls, and an average attendance of 4,357. The nett income from lands and investments was £8,162. After paying £600 a year for exhibitions to Trinity College, and £100 to Christ's Hospital, £7,462 was available for the support of the schools. Full particulars regarding their condition and management, will be found in the report of the before- mentioned Commission. It is much to be regretted that so few particulars are attainable concerning the life of one who was such a benefactor to Ireland.

Smith, James, one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, was born in Ireland about the year 1720. His father emigrated to America in 1729, and settled as a farmer on the Susquehanna. James was educated at the College of Philadelphia, studied law, and for a time resided near Shippensburg as a lawyer and surveyor, but afterwards removed to York, where he continued to practise his profession the remainder of his life. He was esteemed a man of education and refinement. In 1774 he raised the first volunteer company in the State, for the purpose of resisting the domination of Great Britain, and he was a member of the convention to consider the expediency of abstaining from the importation of British goods, and of assembling a general congress. His essay on The Constitutional Power of Great Britain over the Colonies in America is said to have given the first strong impulse to the revolution in his district. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Convention of January 1775, and of the Provincial Conference of 18th June, where he seconded Dr. Rush's resolution in favour of a declaration of independence. He was a member of Congress until November 1778, and in 1780 had a seat in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. Drake says: "He was a man of great wit, and possessed of an original species of drollery, which was heightened by an uncouthness of gesture, a certain ludicrous cast of countenance, and a drawling mode of utterance." He died at York, Pennsylvania, 11th July 1806, aged about 86.

Smith, Sir William Cusack, Bart., Baron of the Court of Exchequer, was born in Ireland, 23rd January 1766. He studied at the University of Oxford, spending his vacations with his friend, Edmund Burke, at Beaconsfield, or at his house in London. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1788; in 1795, obtained the rank of King's Counsel; and the same year was returned to Parliament for the borough of Donegal. He gave his firm support to all government measures, including the Union, and in 1800 was appointed Solicitor- General. Two years afterwards, on his father's appointment as Master of the Rolls, he took his place as a Baron of the Exchequer; and on his father's death in 1808, succeeded to a baronetcy. In 1834, on account of the expression of some strong political sentiments while on the Bench, an unsuccessful attempt was made in Parliament to have him removed. He died at Newtown, near Tullamore, 21st August 1836, aged 70, and was buried at Geashill. The Gentleman's Magazine observes: "His decisions were distinguished by clearness, vigour, and promptitude... In a refined and classical taste, and in a