his sentiments and language disgraced his family and his education, but more particularly his father, Dr. Emmet, who was a man, if alive, that would not countenance such opinions.  To which Mr. Emmet replied:—­

“If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, oh! ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a moment, deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and for which I am now about to offer up my life.  My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice.  The blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim—­it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven.  Be yet patient!  I have but a few more words to say—­I am going to my cold and silent grave—­my lamp of life is nearly extinguished—­my race is run—­the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom.  I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world, it is—­THE CHARITY OF ITS SILENCE.  Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them.  Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times and other men can do justice to my character.  When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written.  I have done.”

This affecting address was spoken—­as we learn from the painstaking and generous biographer of the United Irishmen, Dr, Madden—­“in so loud a voice as to be distinctly heard at the outer doors of the court-house; and yet, though he spoke in a loud tone, there was nothing boisterous in his manner; his accents and cadence of voice, on the contrary, were exquisitely modulated.  His action was very remarkable, its greater or lesser vehemence corresponded with the rise and fall of his voice.  He is described as moving about the dock, as he warmed in his address, with rapid, but not ungraceful motions—­now in front of the railing before the bench, then retiring, as if his body, as well as his mind, were spelling beyond the measure of its chains.  His action was not confined to his hands; he seemed to have acquired a swaying motion of the body when he spoke in public, which was peculiar to him, but there was no affectation in it.”