He was born March 4, 1778, in his father’s house in St. Stephen Green West, Dublin, now numbered 124-125. As a boy he was active out of doors, yet full of insatiable interest in books, and developed early his charming talent for drawing and modelling. He was always rather grave than gay; but the best proof, if any were needed, that he had nothing of the prig in him, is that he was a favourite at school; the potential Great Man, in fact, to whom the others looked up. His one serious early illness was small-pox, which left his complexion slightly roughened. He entered Trinity College, in his native city, at fifteen. Either at this time, or just before, occurred an incident so characteristic as to be worth recording, for it illustrates both his power of mental concentration, and his still courage in facing the untoward haps of life alone. Like Shelley, he had a youthful fascination for chemistry. He had been dabbling with corrosive sublimate, not long before bedtime. Instead of going upstairs, he sat down, later, to figure out an allotted algebraic problem which, by way of whetting adventurous spirits, the author of the book in question acknowledged to be extremely difficult. Poring earnestly over the page, the boy fell to biting his nails. He instantly tasted poison, and pain and fear rushed on him. Without rousing a single person from sleep, he ran to the library, got down his father’s encyclopædia, turned to the article he needed, and learned that his antidote was chalk and water; then he went in the dark to the coach-house where he had seen chalk used, got it, mixed and drank it, and returned to his interrupted task. His tutor could not fail to notice the agonised little face at breakfast. Robert confessed the mischance, and that he had lain perforce awake all night; but he added, modestly, that he had mastered the problem. One of Plutarch’s heroes, at that age, could hardly have done better. The antique world, with its heroic simpleness, was indeed Robert Emmet’s own ground. At Trinity he earned, without effort, a golden reputation, partly due to his scientific scholarship, partly to his goodness, partly, again, to his possession of a faculty of animated fluent speech, a faculty dear to the Irish, as to every primitive people. He had a presence noticeably sweet and winning, with “that gentleness so often found in determined spirits.” His classmate, Moore, the poet, bore witness long after to his “pure moral worth combined with intellectual power.... Emmet was wholly free from the follies and frailties of youth, though how capable he was of the most devoted passion events afterwards proved.” Mr. Charles Phillips wrote in 1818: “[Emmet at Trinity] was gifted with abilities and virtues which rendered him an object of universal esteem and admiration. Every one loved, every one respected him; his fate made an impression on the University which has not yet been obliterated. His mind was naturally