ra House, the history of that country
during the past century would have been a widely different one. The
members of that brilliant circle were thorough anti-Unionists, and Lord
Moira and his sons-in-law, the earls of Granard and Mountcashel, proved
that they were not to be conciliated by bribes, either in money or
honors, by entering their formal protest against that measure on the
books of the Irish House of Lords.

When the delegates on behalf of Catholic claims came to London in 1792,
it was this enlightened Irish nobleman who received them, and who, in
the event of the minister declining to admit them, intended as a peer to
have claimed an audience of the king. Lord Moira both in the English and
Irish Houses of Peers denounced the oppressive measures of the
government, and his opposition gave so much offence that the English
general Lake was reported to hayer declared that if a town in the North
was to be burnt, they had best begin with Lord Moira's, causing him so
much apprehension that he removed his collection, which was of
extraordinary value, from his seat, Moira Hall, in the county Down, to
England.

The celebrated John Wesley visited Lady Moira at Moira House in 1775,
"and was surprised to observe, though not a more grand, a far more
elegant room than he had ever seen in England. It was an octagon, about
twenty feet square, and fifteen or sixteen high, having one window (the
sides of it inlaid throughout with mother-of-pearl) reaching from the
top of the room to the bottom: the ceiling, sides and furniture of the
room were equally elegant." It was here that two of the greatest members
of their respective legislatures--Charles Fox and Henry Grattan--first
met in 1777, and Moira House continued to be the scene of splendid
entertainments up to the death of the first Lord Moira, in 1793. Wesley
concludes his letter about Moira House by asking, "Must this too pass
away like a dream?" Whether like a dream or no, it certainly has been
signally the fate of this whilom proud mansion to pass from the highest
to the very humblest almost at a bound. For some years after Lady
Moira's death (in 1808) the house was kept up by the family, but in 1826
it was let to an anti-mendicity society. The upper story was removed,
the mansion was stripped throughout of its splendid decorations--some
of the furniture is now at Castle Forbes, the seat of the earl of
Granard, Lady Moira's great-grandson, a worthy descendant--and the
sal