tailed in the preceding account, which is given by those most hostile to them, there is too much reason to believe, were not to be ascribed to the "awkwardness," which is assigned as a reason for part of the unnecessary violence practiced on the elder brother. The amount of violence done to the other, forty-four years after the event, remains still visible on the face and head of John Sheares.

EXTRAORDINARY APPEARANCE OF THE BODIES AFTER INTERMENT.

In the church-yard of St. Michan's, the remains of some of their former friends and associates are interred-those of Bond and of Dr. William Jackson, whose funeral the Sheaves had attended in 1795, and who, for so doing, had incurred the displeasure of Lord Fitzgibbon.

There is some peculiarity in the soil of this place of burial, as well as in the atmosphere of the vaults beneath the church of St. Michn's, the tendency of which is to resist decomposi tion, and to keep the dead bodies, especially those déposited in the vaults, in a state of preservation the most extraordinary known in any country, with the exception of a cemetery in the Is and of Sicily, where the same process of embalming, naturally effected, has gone on for centuries.

Bodies, which have been interred for upwards of a century, in St Michan's, are still to be seen in the vaults, in a state of preservation as perfect as that of the exsiccated mummies of the humbler classes of the Egyptians, which were preserved by a less expensive process of embalming than that used fr persons of distinction

In this dry and shrivelled state, the integuments remain perfect, the features preserve their character, the hair undergoes no alteration, and the limbs even, in some degree, retain their shape.

"One of these bodies," Mr. Madden, in his United Irishman, speaking of this singular phenomenon, continues to saywhose antiquity is of ancient date, for the tenants of European sepulchres, is still existing in the same vault in which the Sheares' remains are interred: the remains are those of a per

son, in former time renowned for piety-a member of a relig ious community-of the name of Crookshank, some sixty or seventy years ago, the wonder-working effects produced by this good lady's remains, used to bring vast numbers of visitants to her tomb-till the spirit of whiskey unfortunately mingled a little too much with the spirit of veneration for the virtues of the nun, and the rudiments of a fine "pattern" were spoiled by the intervention of the authorities. Poor Miss Crookshank's relics, from that period till about the year 1816, when I first saw them, were visited only by curious boys and scientific gentlemen. In the month of February in the present year, after a lapse of twenty-six years, I found the remains of the nun removed from the place where they were originally deposited, as likewise those of John and Henry Sheares, and deposited in what is called the Parish Vanlt. Up to the time of the removal, which took place about five or six years ago, the remains continued, I was informed, in the same perfect state in which they have been long known to exist. But the exposure to the air, consequent to the removal of her remains, and those of the Sheares on the same occasion, had proved injurious to them, and to the latter especially.

When I first saw the remains of the Sheares, about twentysix years ago, I was accompanied to St. Michau's by a schoolfellow, of the name of Blake. When I visited the place in the month of January last, the same companion was with me likewise on that occasion. I found the remains of the Sheares in a state of dissolution. The features were no longer discernible; the coffins even had mouldered away, after the exposure to the external air, on their removal from an adjoining vault. O.1 examining the head of the body described as that of John Sheares. I was surprised to find the head was that of a person extremely aged, the sutures entirely obliterated, and the alveolar processes quite worn down. I said to the Sexton, "This is not the head of John Sheares; he replied, "that it could be no other."

For some days subsequently to this visit to the place of interment of the Sheares, the circumstances connected with it were uppermost in my mind, and were spoken of to several persons. At length, I received a communication from a gentleman well known in the city of Dublin, which removed all doubt as to the correctness of the opinion I had expressed

with respect to the head shown with the remains of John Sheares.

This gentleman informed me that, when a mere boy, about twenty years ago, he went with some other lads of his own age, to see the remains of the Sheares. The idea had come into his mind, to take away the head of John Sheares, whom he had often heard spoken of with enthusiasm by one of his companions, a young fellow of rather democratic opinionsand, it was added, of the Roman Catholic religion-[my informant was of neither one nor the other]. He took a boy with him into the vault, whom he had seen in the church-yard, and promised to reward him if he carried away the head unperceived.

The head was attached to the body by a strip of the integuments of the back part of the neck. The boy was supplied with a penkite, and the head was removed and carried home to the person's house, where it had remained for the last twenty years. This gentleman told me he had often regretted taking it; and as he knew that I was interested in matters appertaining to the Sheres, I might have it. I willingly accepted the offer, on condition of doing with it what might seem best to me, and it was sent to me the day following. It was in the state precisely in which I had seen it twenty-six years ago, as perfect as any New Zealand or Egyptian head of the inferior class of nummies. The head was finely formed, but the expression of the face-that of the most frightful agony. The mark of very violent injuries, done during life to the right eye and nose, were particularly apparent; the very indentation round the neck, from the pressure of the rope, was visible; and the e was no injury to the cervical vertebræ occasioned by any inst ument-in fact, the had had not been entirely separate from the body at the time of execution.

The marks of violence on the fice, there can be little doubt, were occasione 1 by the barbarous act committed by the executioner, before he was launched into eternity, as d scribed in a Cork paper. The circumstance of the head having been found attached to the body at the time of its removal, is connected with a matter somewhat singular. I may observe, that the head thus slightly attached to the trunk, was seen by Mr. William H. Curran, about twenty-one years ago. John Sheares, after sentence was pronounced on him, in order to prevent or

put some difficulty in the way of the executioner holding up his head pursuant to the sentence, after execution, had his hair cut close, and the act had the effect he intended; for though the barbarous ceremony of cutting through the neck was performed, the head was not separated from the body. Barrington saw the executioner holding up the head of his friend (Henry) on his arrival, but he makes no mention of the same being done with John's.

The hair on the head, as it was when sent to me, was of a light brown color; and was cut, or rather clipped, extremely short.

In the latter end of January, 1842, having obtained the necessary permission from the clergyman of St. Michan's church, the remains of the Sheares were placed in coffins of lead, and the best Irish oak that could be procured for them, in the presence of one who had been in his young days a member of the same society to which they belonged, and of two other individuals.

The head of which I have spoken was placed with the remains of John Sheares, a plaster cast of it having been previously taken, which is now in the possession of Mr. Donovan, a London phrenologist.

The two coffins were laid side by side, and so far, I trust, the possibility is prevented of their remains being disturbed

in future.

The remains of Mr. Samuel Rosborough, a man once of some notoriety in Dublin; and likewise those of the nun, Miss Crookshank, semi-canonized nearly a century ago in the minds of thousands of her-Catholic-fellow citizens, are deposited in the same vault of Henry and John Sheares.

THE BURNING OF THE SHEAS

TERRIBLE AGRARIAN OUTRAGE COMMITTED IN IRELAND IN 1821.EIGHTEEN HUMAN BEINGS BURNED TO DEATH IN THEIR OWN HOUSE. -A CHILD BORN IN THE FLAMES.—SINGULAR CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING THE DETECTION OF THE CULPRITS.-AN EYE-WITNESS TO THE SCENE KEEPS THE SECRET SIXTEEN MONTHS.-THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE FIENDS WHO COMMITTED THE MURDER.— RICHARD LALOR SHIEL'S GRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE TRAGEDY, AND SPEECH AT CLONMEL IN RELATION THERETO, &C. &C.

In Ireland very many murders have been committed, growing ont of the horrible tyranny of the landlord, and their grinding oppres sion over the poor tenants, who by rents, tythes, taxes and English statutes, were and are reduced to a state inferior to that of abject slavery. The misfortunes of this long-suffering people are familiar to every reader of history. These misfortunes can be traced in letters of blood. Yet nothing could justify or palliate the horrible barbarities which were perpetrated under the goading and maddening despotism exercised over them. In the catalogue of these crimes, the "burning of the Sheas" stands foremost as the bloodiest record in the book of crime. This tragic affair is so well told in "Sketches Legal and Political,” by the late Richard Lalor Shiel, edited by M. W. Savage, and published in London in 1855, that we transcribe it almost literatim. These sketches were written by Mr. SHIEL for one of the magazines of the day, and it was not known for some time who the author was.

"The assizes of Clonmel (Ireland), held there in 1828, presented a dreadful miscellany of the most barbarous crimes, most of which were of an insurrectionary character, and re

• The same sketches were edited by Dr. SHELTON MCKENSIE, and published in New York some years ago.