Another heroine of a ’98 romance is Maria Steele, the “Stella” of John Sheares’s love verses. It was from her that Dr. Madden learned much of the information he has embodied in his memoir of the ill-fated brothers. The question of using or withholding her name in connection with the sad story was left by the lady to Dr. Madden’s own discretion. “Exercising,” as he states, “that judgment to the best of my ability, and with all the consideration that would be due to the feelings of that most estimable lady were she living, and that I owe to her memory now that she is no more, I give her name without reserve; because I feel in all sincerity that the name of Maria Steele will be associated with that of John Sheares, as that of Sarah Curran is with Robert Emmet’s; and that these names will be remembered with tenderness and pity.” It was in 1794 that John Sheares first became acquainted with Maria Steele, the elder daughter of the deceased Sir R. Parker Steele. The widowed Lady Steele and her girls were then living in Merrion Square, not very far from the Baggot Street residence of the Sheareses. In the early part of 1798 John Sheares made formal proposals to Lady Steele for her daughter’s hand, but though Maria’s mother was very fond of the young man, and he was on the most affectionate and familiar footing with her, the impression she had gathered of his religious sentiments made her refuse to entrust her child’s future to him. This decision is held responsible for having thrown John more violently into politics, than had hitherto been the case. As for Maria’s own feelings there is no doubt but that they were deeply engaged. Up to her latest hour she never mentioned his name “without tenderness and sorrow”; she treasured the piteous little relics which were associated with her brief romance. He had been lying for nearly forty years in the tragic vaults of St. Michan’s, when she sketched the portrait of him which adorns Madden’s pages. That picture is so lifelike because love guided the artist’s hand. Mary McCracken’s portrait of Thomas Russell, and Maria Steele’s of John Sheares, these two, are painted under the same inspiration. I find infinite pathos in the lines with which Maria, then an old woman, accompanied the copies of the papers in her possession which she had promised to Dr. Madden: “I should have sent the originals of these sad memorials to you had I suspected that I could still feel as I felt while copying them. I thought age and infirmity had made me a better philosopher. Three of these have never been opened except when you saw them, for more than thirty-four years.” The romance of Surgeon Lawless, the friend of John Sheares, and Miss Evans does not, strictly speaking, belong to ’98. But it is connected with it by sufficiently close ties to justify its inclusion here.