Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/60

 but before it appeared his comparatively youthful coadjutor was no more.

In August, 1835, Motherwell was summoned to London, to appear before a committee of the House of Commons which had been appointed to take evidence as to the constitution and practices of the Orange Society with a view to its suppression. He had unluckily allowed himself to be enrolled as a member of that association, and was one of the district secretaries for the West of Scotland. There is no incident in his history which it more perplexes me to account for than this. He had no connexion with Ireland, direct or indirect, nor had he ever been in that island in his life, and few men, in my opinion, were less qualifedqualified [sic] by previous habits of study to appreciate the value of the mixed questions of civil and ecclesiastical polity which that body professed to discuss: yet he entered with characteristic warmth into its schemes, and became one of the agents employed in the extension of its principles. To his mind Orangeism would seem to have presented itself under the guise of a wholesome influence of general applicability which it was desirable to perpetuate, instead of