any circumstances, to criminate his associates. How old are you, sir? Fitzgibbon interpolates. Between seventeen and eighteen(Tom looked little more than fourteen or fifteen). The Chancellor now turns to the assessor, and having exchanged a few sentences in an under-tone, resumes-We cannot allow any person to remain in our University who would refuse to take the oath. I shall then, my Lord, take the oath, still reserving to myself the power of refusing to answer any such questions as I have described. The oath is administered, and Tom has taken his seat in the witness's chair. To every question put respecting his connection with the conspirators, he is able to give such very decided negatives, that the Chancellor who, no doubt, fancied his contumacy could have but one cause, at length exclaims-When such, sir, are the answers you are able to give, pray what was the reason for your great repugnance to taking the oath? To this interrogation Tom replied I have already told you, my Lord, my chief reasons; in addition to which it was the first oath I took, and it was, I think, a very natural hesitation. This narrative reveals the "head and front" of Moore's offending as a patriot. The candid reader will have some difficulty in discovering in it anything very damaging to his loyalty. This conspiracy, with which it had been thus vainly sought to identify Moore, burst into rebellion when he was confined by a severe illness, and wholly unable either to handle a pike or shoulder a musket.

In the spring of 1799, University studies are finished. Moore, bidding adieu to Dublin scenes and Dublin friends, takes his way to London to enter himself a member of the Middle Temple. The money to accomplish this is supplied by his mother, who, ambitions to see her son occupying a conspicuous position at the English bar, had long been saving every sixpence she could scrape together for his legal education. Mrs Moore appears to have been no believer in a paper currency. Tom was not troubled carrying any bank cheques to the metropolis. The needful guineas were sewed into the waistband of his pantaloons; and a scapular, which the priest had blessed, was stowed away in the same secure retreat. Thus equipped Tom reached London, and hires a lodging at six shillings per week. While yet a student at Trinity College, Dublin, in the hope of obtaining a classical premium, Moore had translated the Odes of Anacreon. A speciinen of the work was laid before the Provost of the College. The Provost thought the translation good, but the subject not one likely to be patronised by the board. This translation Tom carried with him to the great metropolis. Not long after settling there he has arranged for its publication, has made the friendship of Lord Moira, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Duke of Bedford, and the Prince, all of whom have become subscribers for his work. Dr Laurence reads the manuscript, and pronounces it in many parts elegant and poetical. The English dress in which Moore presented the Tean bard is, indeed, more accurate and faithful than the paraphrase of Cowley, but it is too studiously brilliant to convey the exact idea of the original. Moore's lines had, however, fallen in pleasant places, and among partial critics. Everything (he writes) goes on delightfully. The full tide of London gaiety roars around him, and never did any son of the

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muses take more kindly to the pomp and circumstance of the great Babel. The first gentleman in Europe" has permitted Anacreon to be dedicated to him. The poet thanks the Prince for the honour, but is assured the honour is entirely his, in being allowed to put his name to a work of such merit. Everybody is charmed with Anacreon translated-everybody, save the authorities of his college, who do not even so much as subscribe for the work. For this inability to appreciate merit, Moore, with becoming modesty, denounces them as "a corporation of boobies, without even sense enough to thank Heaven for anything like an effort of literature coming out of their leaden body."

Anacreon is followed by a volume of Poems under a feigned name, which reflected but little credit on their author, though even so great a purist and so grave a moralist as Sir James Mackintosh recommends them. Moore's social and literary success go together. His singing is the rage in every fashionable circle. The great people begin to think something must be done for so very promising a young man. The translator of Anacreon and the beautiful pianist has deserved well of his country. A laureateship is offered him, but declined, in consequence of unseemly conditions with which the gift is clogged. The interest of Lord Moira procures him the office of Registrar in the Admiralty Court of Bermuda. This appointment necessitates a visit to the island. Bermuda was, however, a place but little to the taste of Moore, who tarried there just long enough to arrange for the performance of his duties by deputy. Before returning to London he visits America. He has a quick eye for all the faults, but is wholly unable to discern the virtues of the men of the New World. Having returned from his Bermudian and American tour, "Epistle Odes and other Poems," by Thomas Moore, Esq., appeared in 1806. Fashionable London might go on mistaking the sparkle of sensuous fancy for the outpouring of celestial passion, but the " facile princeps" of British critics is not to be so deceived. In the July number of the Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey denounced the work with even more than his wonted pungency. Lord Cockburn, in his life of Jeffrey, has justly remarked, that though meant to be restricted to the poetry, there was a cordiality and a personal application in the satire which made it natural for the public, and nearly irresistible for the poet, to refer to the man. His scathing criticism is the talk of all London circles, when, to make matters worse, Jeffrey arrives in the metropolis. This was more than the irate bard could bear. A hostile meeting was arranged, and, on the 11th August 1806, poet and critic have met to obtain the satisfaction of gentlemen. "From information received," the police discovered what was intended, and the belligerents are apprehended in the very act of proceeding to extremities. In a day or two the duellists met amicably at Rogers', and are ever after friends. Jeffrey not only admires the genius of his adversary, but formed a sincere affection for the man; and Moore, in one of his prefaces, exultingly tells how, in the most formidable of all his censors, he found the most cordial of all his friends. Twenty years after this ren contre Moore visits Scotland, chiefly to visit Jeffrey; and is so often asked to sing his last new song, "Ship Ahoy," that in an

other preface he playfully tells how the upland echoes of Craigcrook ought long to have had its burden by heart.

In 1808" Corruption and Intolerance," a satire, was published, and in the following year "The Sceptic," a philosophical satire, appeared. These caustic effusions were a mistake. The manner belonged to the past, and no felicity of execution could avail for its resuscitation. Moore was scarcely earnest enough to succeed as a satirist of the more solemn order; and the scepticism which lurked within his soul was of that cowardly character which Carlyle graphically describes as sticking its head into the nearest bush of church tippets. It was in the singing robes of the troubadour, not the gown of the moralist, that Erin's bard shone most advantageously. In March 1811, Moore, who had hitherto remained a mateless bird, married a girl of Kilkenny-Miss Bessy Dyke. The lady had acquired some distinction on the Irish stage, and possessed remarkable personal attractions. Rogers, the fastidious Rogers, calls her the "Madonna della Sedia"-and "Psyche." No matrimonial union could possibly have been more suitable to the poet. Uniting great sweetness of disposition with great selfcontrol and superior economical talent, Bessy administered Moore's resources with the utmost skill, while she made his home a haven of rest, where, weary with the dissipation of London life, he could ever find a peaceful and secure repose. Querulous critics have censured Moore for not fully returning the affection of Bessy. But if Lord John Russell is to be esteemed an authority in such a matter, we have his testimony, that from the year of his marriage to the year of his death, this excellent and beautiful person received from him the homage of a lover, enhanced by all the gratitude and all the confidence which the daily and hourly happiness he enjoyed were sure to inspire.

In 1812 Moore commenced another series of satirical effusions. The vein now adopted was incomparably better adapted to his genius than the solemn and heavy style formerly attempted. His quondam patron, the Prince, has broken with the Whigs, and Moore's parody on the Prince's letter throws Holland House into ecstacy. Nor is it Holland House alone that laughs with the satirist. Fourteen editions of the "Twopenny Post Bag," in which Prince and Minister are satirised, are issued within the first year of its publication. In the pasquinades that compose that production, Moore is elegant without being dull, and pungent without being truculent. The wit, variety, ease, and playfulness of the satire directed against Ministers were the talk and the charm of every circle. The poet's popularity has now reached a point where he can make his own terms with publishers. His songwriting alone yields him L.500 a-year. How much wiser in his generation is Thomas Moore than Robert Burns. Vegetating in Dumfries, upon a gauger's salary, the Scottish bard does his songwriting gratuitously, and threatens Thomson, if he talks of payment, that the outraged muse will " sleep in silence evermai."

London publishers have now discovered that Moore's name has become a thing to conjure with. Murray offers him the editorship of a new Quarterly. The offer is declined, because the poet is at work upon an Eastern romance. The record of the negotiation for the publication of this greatest effort of Moore's creative

powers is worthy of perusal. Those who fancy the poet is never blessed with any more substantial reward of his industry and genius than the enjoyment of his own splendid visions, will be agreeably disappointed by this narrative, which we transcribe as Moore has given it. The poet, his publisher, and Mr Perry, of the "Morning Chronicle "-who has kindly agreed, on behalf of Moore, to arrange the mutual terms, have met. "I am of opinion," said Mr Perry, "that Mr Moore ought to secure for his poem the largest price that has been given in our day for such a work." "That was," answered the Messrs Longman, "three thousand guineas." "Exactly so," replied Mr Perry; " and no less a sum ought he to receive." It was then objected, and very reasonably, on the part of the firm, that they had never yet seen a single line of the poem, and that a perusal of the work ought to be allowed them before they embarked so large a sum in the purchase. But no; the romantic view my friend Perry took of the matter was, that this price should be given as a tribute to reputation already acquired, without any condition for a previous perusal of the new work. This high tone, I confess, not a little startled and alarmed me; but to the honour and glory of romance-as well on the publishers' as on the poet's side, this very generous view of the transaction was, without any difficulty, acceded to, and the firm agreed before we separated that I should receive three thousand guineas for my poem. The bargain thus concluded, Moore, stimulated by the confidence reposed in his powers, retires from London society to a cottage in Derbyshire, gets crammed with all kinds of Oriental learning, and within some four years from the date of his negotiation with the Longmans, Lalla Rookh is got up. The success of the work fully justified the confidence of Perry. Within a fortnight after its publication the first edition is exhausted, and before six months have passed away a sixth edition is demanded. Lalla Rookh was the marvel of old Indians. How a man, who had never trod the Orient, had been able to reproduce" its barbaric splendours" with so much faithfulness, was an enigma that baffled solution. Has Moore never been in India? Colonel Wells, the historian of British India, inquires of Sir James Mackintosh. Never, rejoins Sir James. Well, that shows me, replied the Colonel, that reading D'Herbelot is as good as having ridden an elephant. Perhaps a still truer test of its success is found in the fact, that the Orientals themselves recognised its truthfulness and power. Lalla Rookh, in its principal passages, appeared in a Persian translation, and the poet heard how the streets of Ispahan had resounded with his strains. Never was the scene of a romance more admirably selected. The ideal East was precisely the region where the fancy of a love-poet like Moore could revel at its own sweet will. The romantic beauty, the fertility of soil, the temperature of the atmosphere, and the picturesque variety of the landscapes of the vale of Cashmere have been the immemorial themes of the eastern travellers. It is "the happy valley " "_" the garden in perpetual spring"-" the Paradise of India.'

Need we wonder that the imagination of the poet, luxuriating in this voluptuous region, should sometimes be found to dazzle, even more than to enchant, and occasionally to fatigue attention, by the constant succession of glittering images and high-strained

emotions. These faults of the poem sprung not more from the innate tendency than from the environment of the bard. "Lalla Rookh" was an inspiration of the Row. A brilliant article was what was wanted. Plainness, simplicity, and repose were at a discount. Not three thousand guineas, but a "this will never do" was the reward of bards so far forgetful of their own interest as trouble themselves with the homely. What now are deemed the faults of Lalla Rookh, were, on its publication, the essentials of its success. Jeffrey hailed it as "the finest Orientalism we have had yet;" and from every possible source, tributes to the genius of the bard are poured forth. Moore's poetical fame had now reached its zenith; but sadly and sternly he is soon to learn the secret of vicissitude. The death of his beloved Barbara is the first shadow that falls upon what is henceforth to be a darkly chequered domestic existence. The sharp grief which, with his daughter's loss, pierced his soul was yet unassuaged, when intelligence arrives that his deputy in Bermuda has been guilty of embezzlement, and Moore is responsible for a loss of L.6000. In this emergency, Rogers and Jeffrey have each L.500 at his service, Lord Lansdowne will become his security, Lord John Russell offers to mortgage the Life of his patriotic ancestor, and the Longmans are willing to advance any sum necessary. Moore resolves to reject the kindness of friends, and rely exclusively on his own resources. At first matters wore a rather threatening aspect; an attachment is issued against his person, and the poet is compelled to retreat to Paris. Ultimately, however, the affair was compromised, and the L.6000 reduced to L.740. " Rhymes on the Road," "The Epicurean," a prose story, and "The Loves of the Angels," were the product of his Parisian exile. "The Loves of the Angels," in its original form, was not quite a judicious production. A wag of a Dublin friend assured the poet, that while reading the work he could not help figuring to himself Tom, Jerry, and Logic on a lark from the sky. The Longmans express a fear that the angels may prove a drag upon the popularity of the poem. Tom's genuine practical talent comes to the rescue of his publishers. With D'Herbelot's assistance, the angels are transformed into Turks, and the objectionable connection with the Scriptures got rid of.

Allusion has already been made to Moore's song-writing; a more specific reference to that special department of poetic effort in which he excelled is now necessary. In the last days of his college curriculum, the poet's attention had been attracted to Bunting's collection of Irish Melodies. In 1807 he entered into an engagement with Mr Power to produce a work founded on them, in which he was to adapt the airs and furnish the words, while Sir J. Stevenson was to provide the accompaniments. This work engaged him at intervals throughout more than a quarter of a century, and upon it his fame will permanently rest. songs of Moore have not the passion or the power of the lyrics of Burns. But Burns aside,-in pathos, tenderness, play of wit, brilliancy of fancy, and rich adornment, the bard of Erin must ever claim a high, if not the highest, place among our song writers It may, probably it must, be acknowledged that there is too great uniformity in the efforts of his muse, and that, more frequently

The