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PREFACE. |
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again to Duigenan, and, after a few words with him," Said to me: —" When such are the answers you are-able to give *, pray what was the cause of your great repugnance to taking the oath?" "I have already told your Lordship my chief reason; in addition to which, it was the first oath I ever took, and the hesitation was, I think, natural." f ■ I was now dismissed without any further questioning ; and, however trying had been this short operation, was amply repaid for it by the kind zeal with which my young friends and companions flocked to congratulate me;—not so much, I was inclined •to hope, on my acquittal by the court, as on the manner in which I had acquitted myself. Of my reception, on returning home, after the fears entertained of so very different a result, I will not attempt any description;—it was all that such a home alone could furnish.
* There had been two questions put to all those examined on the first day, — " Were you ever asked to join any of these societies?"— and " By whom were you asked ?"—which I should have refused to answer, and must, of course, have abided the consequences.
j" For the correctness of the above report of this short examination, I can pretty confidently answer. It may amuse, therefore, my readers, —as showing the manner in which biographers make the most of small facts, — to see an extract or two from another account of this affair, published not many years since by an old and zealous friend of our family. After stating with tolerable correctness one or two of my answers, the writer thus proceeds : —" Upon this, Lord Clare repeated the question, and young Moore made such an appeal, as caused his lordship to relax, austere and rigid as he was. The words J cannot exactly remember; the substance was as follows: — that he entered college to receive the education of a scholar and a gentleman; that he knew not how to compromise these characters by |
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