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parliamentary career closed. Mr. McCul- lagh says : " For twenty years he had occupied a prominent place in the varied controversies of the senate. He had seen most of the great principles for which he had contended finally adopted and engrafted into the policy of the state; and the suflfrages of the many and the few had concurred in ascribing to his advocacy no humble share in the accomplishment of these results. As an orator his success had equalled, if not exceeded, his most sanguine expectations ; and even the judgment of friendship will hardly be deemed erroneous in awarding him as many and as varied triumphs in debate as any of his most gifted contemporaries." In December 1850 he was appointed Minister at the court of Tuscany, and accordingly removed with his wife to Florence. His enjoyment of life in that beautiful city, and of the treasures of art opened to him, was intense. His know- ledge of French, which he had kept up through life, was a source of great pleasure, and he at once set about the acquisition of Italian. The British residents were delighted with his genial manners and his talents. His successful efforts on behalf of Count Guicciardini, imprisoned for reading the Bible to a circle of friends in his own house, proved the freedom of his mind from sectarian intolerance. The Count afterwards wrote of him as "a gentleman and a man of talent ; but, what was still better, a Christian, who adored God in spirit and in truth. . . He seemed to me to be deeply impressed with sentiments of piety, devotion, and love of God." Mr. Shell did not long live to enjoy what his friend Charles Lever styled his " first holiday in a long life of labour." He died of a sudden access of an old complaint, gout, 28th May 1851, aged 59. Hi: remains were conveyed home in a British ship-of-war, and interred at Long-orchard, in the County of Tipper- ary. Mr. Shell's manner was peculiar ; his figure was by no means striking ; but his face was intellectual and massive, somewhat resembling O'Connell's. The Memoirs of Richard Lalor Sheil by W. T. McCuUagh, London, 1855, give an admir- able history of the agitation that preceded Catholic Emancipation. [Dr. Reeves says
- ' Saidhail " (pronounced iikeil) is the Irish
form of the name, which is of great an- tiquity, and was Latinized at a very early date in the form " Sedulius ".] ^33 303
Sheridan, William, Bishop of Kil- more, was born at Togher, in the County of Cavan, about 1 63 5 . He was the son of the Rev. Dionysius Sheridan, a Catholic clergy-
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man converted to Protestantism by Bishop Bedell, and was godson of the Bishop, who bequeathed to him forty shillings to buy a mourning ring. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1652, and at the termi- nation of his course, took orders, and was appointed chaplain to the Duke of Or- mond, then Lord-Lieutenant. In 1667 he became rector of Athenry, in 1669 was made Dean of Down, and in i68i-'2 was advanced to the bishopric of Kilmore. In 1 69 1 he was deprived of his see for refusing to take the oaths to William and Mary. The latter part of his life he re- sided in London, where non-jurors and others who shared their opinions resorted to his house for private devotions. He died in great poverty, 3rd October 171 1. Six volumes of his sermons were published be- tween 1665 and 1706. [His brother Pati'ick was consecrated Bishop of Cloyne in 1679, and dying in 1682, was buried in the College Chapel, Dublin. A nother brother, Thomas, obtained a fellowship in Trinity College, which he was obliged to resign on becoming a Catholic. In 1680 he was imprisoned for supposed complicity in a Popish plot, but was subsequently knight- ed by James II., who made him his sec- retary]. "^ 339
Sheridan, Thomas, D.D., a friend of Dean Swift's, son of Thomas Sheridan before-mentioned, was born in the County of Cavan in 1684. His parents were poor. He was placed by a friend at Trinity College, Dublin, entered the Church, and opened a school in Dublin, at the old Mint house, 27 Capel-street. His good nature, powers of conversation, and literary abilities attracted the attention of Swift, and they became intimate friends. The Dean took a warm interest in his school, occasionally taught classes in it, and materially contributed to its success. Swift wrote of him after his death : " He was doubtless the best instructor of youth in these kingdoms, or perhaps in Europe, and as great a master of the Greek and Roman languages . . He has left behind him a very great collection, in several volumes, of stories, humorous, witty, wise, or some wayuseful. . . His chief shining quality was that of a schoolmaster, and here he shone in his proper element. He had so much skill and practice in the physiognomy of boys, that he rarely mistook at the first view. His scholars loved and feared him. . . Among the gentlemen in this king- dom who have any share of education, the scholars of Dr. Sheridan infinitely excel, in number and knowledge, all their brethren sent from the other schools. . . He was in many things very indiscreet, to say no
