was not in my nature to press upon this moment of agony; but telling
him, that nothing but compassion prevented my ordering his arrest on
the spot, I again warned him to make his peace in time with the
government, by a solemn abjuration of his design.

I have the whole scene before me still. This man was destined to a
memorable and melancholy fate. I never remember a countenance more
expressive of intellectual refinement; but there was a look of strange
and feverish restlessness in his large grey eye, almost ominous of his
future career. He was still young, though he had already gone through
vicissitudes enough to darken the longest life. He had been, a few
years before, called to the bar, the favourite profession of the Irish
gentry, where he had exhibited talents of a remarkable order; but an
impatience of the slow success of this profession drove him to the
hazards of political change. He had married, and this increased his
difficulties, until party came athwart him with its promises of
boundless honour and rapid fortune. His sanguine nature embraced the
temptation at once; but the parliamentary opposition was too
deliberate and too frigid for his boiling blood; he plunged into the
deeper and wilder region of conspiracy, took the lead, which is so
soon assigned to the brilliant and the bold, and became the soul of
the tremendous faction which was ready to proclaim the separation of
the empire.

He had but now returned from France, with a commission in the army of
the Republic, and a plan agreed on with the Directory for the invasion
of Ireland; but these were discoveries to be made hereafter. On this
night I saw nothing but a gallant enthusiast, filled with classic
recollections, inflamed with the ardour of early life, and deluded by
the dreams of political perfection. My sense of the utter ruin which
he was preparing for himself was so strong, that I pressed him from
point to point, until he was forced to take refuge in flight, and,
rushing from me, burst open a door which led to the demesne. While I
paused, not unwilling to give him the opportunity to escape, I heard a
wild burst of wailing, and a confusion of voices outside. In the next
moment, I saw the fugitive return, with a tottering step, a bloodless
countenance, and a look of horror. Without a word, he pointed to the
door; I followed the direction, and saw what might well justify his
feelings. The troop of yeomanry had been attacked on their return from
p