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xii |
PREFACE. |
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oration of his, one night, that Emmet, much to the mortification of us who gloried in him as our leader, became suddenly embarrassed in the middle of his speech, and, to use the parliamentary phrase, broke down. Whether from a momentary confusion in the thread of his argument, or possibly from diffidence in encountering an adversary so much his senior,—for Emmet was as modest as he was high-minded and brave,—he began, in the full career of his eloquence, to- hesitate and repeat his words, and then, after an eifort or two to recover himself, sate down.
It fell to my own lot to be engaged, about the same time, in a brisk struggle with the dominant party in the Society, in consequence of a burlesque poem which I gave in, as candidate for the Literary Medal, entitled "An Ode upon Nothing, with Notes, by Trismegistus Bustifustius, D. D." &c. &c. For this squib against the great Dons of learning, the medal was voted to me by a triumphant majority. But a motion was made in the following week to rescind this vote; and a fierce contest between the two parties ensued, which I at last put an end to by voluntarily withdrawing my composition from the Society's Book.
I have already adverted to the period when Mr. Bunting's valuable volume first became known to me. There elapsed no very long time before I was myself the happy proprietor of a copy of the work, and; though never regularly instructed in music, could play over the airs with tolerable facility on the pianoforte. Bobert Emmet used sometimes to sit by me, |
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