intelligent and lively, became a favorite with his master, and a leader in
the dramatic recreations.

His aptitude for verse appeared at an early age. In 1790 he composed an
epilogue to a piece acted at the house of Lady Borrows, in Dublin; and in
his fourteenth year he wrote a sonnet to Mr. Whyte, which was published in
a Dublin magazine.

Like other Irish Roman-Catholics, galled by the hard and stiff collar of
Protestant ascendancy, the parents of Thomas Moore hailed the French
Revolution, and the prospects which it seemed to offer of some reflex
ameliorations. In 1792 the lad was taken by his father to a dinner in
honor of the Revolution; and he was soon launched upon a current of ideas
and associations which might have conducted a person of more
self-oblivious patriotism to the scaffold on which perished the friend of
his opening manhood, Robert Emmet. Trinity College, Dublin, having been
opened to Catholics by the Irish Parliament in 1793, Moore was entered
there as a student in the succeeding year. He became more proficient in
French and Italian than in the classic languages, and showed no turn for
Latin verses. Eventually, his political proclivities, and intimacy with
many of the chiefs of opposition, drew down upon him (after various
interrogations, in which he honorably refused to implicate his friends) a
severe admonition from the University authorities; but he had not joined
in any distinctly rebellious act and no more formidable results ensued to
him.

In 1793 Moore published in the _Anthologia Hibernica_ two pieces of verse;
and his budding talents became so far known as to earn him the proud
eminence of Laureate to the Gastronomic Club of Dalkey, near Dublin, in
1794. Through his acquaintance with Emmet, he joined the Oratorical