begun a prose story; and in which, as a theme for poetry, he was now anticipated by Lord Byron, who was at work on his poem of "Heaven and Earth," which was founded on the same beautiful legend. Byron's fame was high, and Byron's power was greater than Moore's; and hence, the latter, fearing he should be lost in the shadow into which so gigantic a precursor would cast" him, endeavoured by speed of composition to get the start of his lordship in the time of publication. In this he failed, for both works appeared at the same time.

Thus was produced the second in point of value of Moore's works, "The Loves of the Angels ;" a series of three simple stories, arrayed in the brightest garb of eastern scenery and metaphor. It exhibits the fall of the soul from its original purity, the loss of light and happiness it suffers in the pursuit of this world's unsubstantial pleasures, and the punishments, both from conscience and Divine justice, with which impurity, pride, and presumption, inquiring into the awful secrets of heaven, are sure to be visited. A subject of this nature was, however, scarcely one to which the peculiar genius of Moore, light and fantastical, could render justice. We do not meet with the grandeur of the angelic character, such as it shines forth in the sublime pages of Milton, whose adoring imagination approaches things sacred to surround them at all times with awe. The seductive fancy of Moore, it must be confessed, ventures to the sanctuary only to profane it. The angels of Milton descend upon the earth to console the family of man, but not to mingle with humanity. The angels of Moore, not only take part in the business of earth, but, like the weakest of mortals, fall over head and ears in love with the fairest of earth's daughters. Still it is the most airy, and at the same time the most chaste and elegant of his works. It combines the best qualities of his polished style with the most round and complete grasp of his subject anywhere to be found among his poems. Many of the scenes and incidents in "Lalla Rookh," particularly the last scene in the "Veiled Prophet," have a dramatic force which lifts them quite out of the honeyed beauty of the verse in which they are told, to the infinite relief of the reader

when cloyed with the oppressive sweetness of the imagery and melody. But none of the scenes in that rich composition have comparison, in point of vividness and dramatic force, with that fearful catastrophe which closes the "Second Angel's story," where the wild anguish of the sorrowful angel is so sustained, so full of reality, that the reader's heart thumps again as each fresh couplet heightens his excitement, till a climax of horror closes the scene. The transition from this doom of the maiden, consumed to ashes by the glories of the demigod she loved, to the simple, homely, narrative of Zaraph's love, is one of the most artistic accomplishments of this most artistic of modern poets. The second angel has told his tale, and, bowed down with sorrow, kneels with the other two in prayer :

Not long they knelt, when, from a wood
That crowned that airy solitude,
They heard a low, uncertain sound,
As from a lute, &c.

It is Nama singing amid the trees, to call Zaraph, her "angel lord," prayer:

Come pray with me, my seraph love,

My angel lord, come pray with me;
In vain to-night my lip hath strove
To send one holy prayer above;
The knee may bend, the lip may move,
But pray I cannot, without thee!
I've fed the altar in my bower

With droppings from the incense-tree;
I've sheltered it from wind and shower,
But dim it burns the livelong hour,
As if, like me, it had no power

Of life or lustre, without thee !
A boat at midnight sent alone

To drift upon the moonless sea,
A lute, whose leading chord is gone,
A wounded bird, that hath but one
Imperfect wing to soar upon,

Are like what I am, without thee!
Then ne'er, my spirit-love, divide,

In life or death, thyself from me;
But when again, in sunny pride,
Thou walk'st through Eden, let me glide,
A prostrate shadow, by thy side-

Oh! happier thus than without thee!

to

In September, 1822, he received a letter from the Messrs. Longman conveying the welcome intelligence that he might now safely return to England, and he lost no time in availing himself of the privilege to sit with his family within the walls of Sloperton Cottage, under the grey skies of Derbyshire, once more. Arriving in England, he

learnt that, after a tedious negotiation, the amount of the claims of the American merchants had been reduced to the sum of one thousand guineas; towards the discharge of this, the uncle of his Bermuda deputy had contributed three hundred pounds, and a personal friend of his own had deposited in the hands of a banker the remaining £750, to be there in readiness for the final settlement of the demand. On receiving his publishers' account in the June following, he found £1,000 placed to his credit, from the sale of the "Loves of the Angels," and £5,000 from the fables of the Holy Alliance;" to which may be added, that, owing to the growth of their popularity, Mr. Power had agreed to pay £500 a-year for the exclusive right of publishing the "Irish Melodies," the first two numbers of which had been sold for £50 each; thus restoring him once more to home, comfort, and social peace, with no less credit to his honourable determination.

At Sloperton Cottage he continued to reside, still working industriously with his pen, foregoing the solicitations of rhyme for the less attractive, though more solid, labour of prose composition. He returned once more to his long-meditated "Life of Sheridan," which, after some smart skirmishing with Sheridan's creditors, who laid claim to his papers, and some dallying with publishers, he published in a quarto volume, in 1825. The book passed through two editions, and was then reprinted in two octavo volumes; it was by no means equal to the expectations which had been formed respecting it, though rich in those dashes of sparkling composition by which, chiefly, Moore had won his fame. In 1827 he published "The Epicurean,” a prose tale, dedicated to Lord John Russell. The story had been long begun in the form of verse, under the title of the "Alciphron," and the fragments of this unfinished poem were afterwards appended to the "Epicurean," as he himself confesses," as a makeweight." The appearance of the "Epicurean" was due chiefly to the solicitations of Mr. Macrone, who persuaded Moore to write a story which might open a field for Turner's pencil; and it was adorned with a series of exquisite illustrations, engraved after the designs of that eminent painter. It is the least popular of his chief works, and from the refinement of its style is likely to remain such, as it

demands in the reader ar appreciation the most delicate to render that enjoyment which a reader seeks. The "Epicurean" was followed, in 1830, by "The Life of Lord Byron," in two volumes quarto, the first volume appearing in January of that year, and the second in the December following. For this work Moore received from Murray 2,000 guineas. It is partial as a biography, though a noble monument of private friendship; a prose in memoriam, in fact, which yields as much fascination to the reader as it does honour to the author and his theme.

Adhering chiefly to prose, and writing verse only occasionally, in the shape of political satires, for the Times or the Morning Chronicle, his next work was a "Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald ;' followed by the "Summer Fete," - a series of songs suggested by a fete given at Boyle Farm in 1837. After this his "History of Ireland," written for "Lardner's Cyclopædia," appeared,-the last production of a fertile and a useful pen. He could not say with Thomson, "I have written no line I would wish to blot," but had fully atoned in mature life for the follies of his unripe youth. "Ode to his Birthday," he thus feelingly alludes to his past weaknesses: Vain was the man, and false as vain,

In an

Who said "Were he ordained to run
His long career of life again,

He would do all that he had done."
Ah! 'tis not thus the voice that dwells
In sober birthdays speaks to me;
Far otherwise of time it tells

Lavish'd unwisely-carelessly;
Of counsel mock'd; of talents, made,
Haply, for high and pure designs,
But oft, like Israel's incense, laid
Upon unholy, earthly shrines.

"And could I trace
The imperfect picture o'er again,
With power to add, retouch, efface,

The lights and shades, the joy and painHow little of the past would stay! How quickly all should melt away!

His race was run, and all that he accomplished after this was the arranging of his works in ten volumes, with short prefaces attached to each, into a colfected and complete form. These appeared in 1841 and 1842. As age grew upon him, bodily affliction came also, and in 1848 he became a victim to that form of disease from which both Swift and Southey suffered, and which consisted of a gradual softening of the brain and the reduction of the mind to a state of childishness. Since 1835 he

had received a pension of £300 a-year, which rendered his age and weakness less afflicting, and, easing his mind of the turmoils of pecuniary trouble, left him time to contemplate the hereafter. He died on the 25th of February last, in the seventy-second year of his age, at Sloperton Cottage, where he had resided for thirty-four years, and which, long before, he had described as

That dear house, that saving ark,

Where Love's true light at last I've found; Cheering within, when all grows dark, And comfortless, and stormy round.

His ashes rest in the green churchyard of Bromham, beside those of two of his children,-the one, Anastasia Mary Moore, born March 16, 1813, died March 8, 1829; the other, John Russell Moore, godson of Lord John Russell, who died a victim to consumption, November 23, 1842, aged nineteen years. Only one of the many with whom he had mingled in the years of his youth and fame was standing by his grave when his body was lowered into it, and that was Mr. Longman, the publisher of his collected works. To Mrs. Moore a pension of £100 a-year was granted in 1850. She is said to possess a mass of the poet's papers, including numerous letters, an autobiographical sketch, and fragments towards a life of Sydney Smith, which, when published, are expected to awaken great public interest.

In Moore's character the man of the world was well blended with the lover of the ideal. He was a bon vivant as well as a poet; an economist of his pecuniary means as well as a literary enthusiast. He was a gentleman all through; conviviality never robbed him of his healthy sympathies, and neither the scandal of satire nor the latitude of amatory lore rendered him coarse or spiteful. Moving through life in high circles, courted, flattered, and caressed, he knew the weaknesses of the wealthy only to shun them, and maintained a manly independence of mind, which suffered him never to prostitute his powers; while in all his relations to the world a gentlemanly dignity and honour secured to him individual friendship and universal

esteem.

* Such is the inscription on his coffin; the public journals, however, have all given the 26th of February as the date of his death.

In literature he occupies, and will for ever occupy, a high place; though, viewed as a poet, in the most limited sense of the word, posterity will not award him so bright a crown of glory as she is now weaving for more than one of his contemporaries. His exquisite sensibility in all that relates to the artistic properties of verse wins him audience and applause, when frequently the sentiment from its shallowness, and the purpose from its want of force, would bring neither the one nor the other. That he possessed high traits of poetic feeling is to be seen in those outbursts of rich song which are scattered through the " Irish Melodies," the "National Airs," and particularly in some of the scenes of "Lalla Rookh" and the "Loves of the Angels;" but, after feasting on these glorious passages, we are thrown back on the conviction that there is but too often a want of depth, a want of reality, a want of penetration. He seldom passes into the sanetuary of the inner life, whence Byron brought melodies so thrilling that it seemed as if the soul had warbled them and he had caught them up, as the shell catches the wailings of the sea. This is not to be expected, however; for, besides Moore's jovial tone of surfacegaiety-a love of sunshine, because of its lustre, rather than a passion to know whence it comes, he had not suffered; his experiences were too shallow; and, however polished his numbers, however erudite his allusions, however brilliant the coruscations of his fancy, he was but too often a mere parlour poet, writing for the ear rather than the heart, and caring more for a merry jingle on the piano than a sweep of the harp-strings that should bring forth tears. Such a portrait of his muse he has himself written when, in "Lalla Rookh," he says:—

For mine is the lay that lightly floats,
And mine are the murmuring dying notes,.
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly.
Mine is the charm whose mystic sway
The spirits of past delight obey;
Let but the tuneful talisman sound,
And they come like genii hovering round.
And mine is the gentle song that bears
From soul to soul the wishes of love,
As a bird that wafts through genial airs
The cinnamon-seed from grove to grove.
"Tis I that mingle in one sweet measure
The past, the present, the future of pleasure

When Memory links the tone that is

gone With the blissful tone that's still in the ear, And Hope from a heavenly note flies on

To a note more heavenly still that is near. With Ireland for his love-though he practised absenteeism in its fullest extent and Ireland for his theme, he stands high in the ranks of national poets; and the happy marriage which he effected between those sweet, wild airs of the elder bards which antiquity has spared to modern times, and the rich, full, playful, and patriotic compositions of his own, entitle him to the veneration of all who love song for its own sake, or for its historical and legendary associations, and win for him a popularity which is sound, and will, therefore, endure. His fame will, doubtless, rest chiefly on these national songs, and that this was his own belief we have his memorable wordswords most fitting for the inscription on his monument:"My fame, whatever it is, has been acquired by touching the harp of my country, and is, in fact, no more than the echo of the harp."

As a politician, he appears to have passed through the phases which are common to every man of individuality and sincere thinking. Every youth of spirit begins life by wearing the moustache, frequenting debating clubs, doubting the truth of his inherited religion, vowing that marriage is a false institution, and involving himself in a madness of republican frenzy; but when he has tasted the bitter waters of experience in ever so small a draught, he shaves, stops away from the discussion to pay proper attention to his books, goes to church, and believes in salvation; takes unto himself a wife; and votes all radicalism a bore, and monarchy the only enduring and healthy form of government. For Moore's co-operation with Emmett and Hudson, for the sin of dropping a letter or two into the editor's box of "The Press,"-and for his subsequent adherence through thick and thin to the Whig cause and party, we must make allowances without dubbing him a rat, or using any of those mob phrases which fall like showers of frogs upon the heads of men who have the courage to profit by their accessions of wisdom. But he dies, and there is a blank left. Blessed conviction that for the man whose life has been like a welltilled field, producing harvests for im

mortality. Blessed conviction that he will leave a blank; that thousands, millions, will miss him. How many of us who pace Cheapside this present hour, will, in dying, leave a blank? John Smith dies, and mutes stand at the door, and four relations follow "the body" to the grave; but the same torrent of hastening feet hurry through Cheapside to-morrow. John left no blank behind. Blessed gift, that genius, though it bring suffering and trial, and aching of the heart, there is the healing balm at last, the precious and imperishable joy that when the lamp goes out, the world will miss its radiance. And so have gone a whole circle of bright spirits: Southey, Coleridge, Byron, Wordsworth, Moore,-Rogers of the group only left; and he totters under grey hairs, and knows that his time is nearly come, and that he, too, will be missed. Blessed be their names and memories.

BENEDICT SPINOZA.

BIGOTRY does not like to confess its blunders, otherwise it would long have abandoned as a deplorable error and a flagrant injustice the ignorant and stupid calumny which places Spinoza foremost among blasphemers and Atheists. Those who reject popular idols are always classed by popular prejudice with such as deny God, and few have suffered more from this cruel wrong than the great thinker, whose career we propose to chronicle in all honesty, and in no partial and proselytising spirit, and whose holy deeds are the best vindication of his sublime ideas. Yet we cannot wonder that vulgar cant and priestly venom should have done their best to kill the fair fame of Spinoza when we find a writer so eminent as Dugald Stewart asserting that Spinozism and Atheism are one and the same thing, the probability being that Stewart, who was more remarkable for the elegance of his mind than the extent of his erudition, and whose single faculty was that of ingeniously and clearly illustrating metaphysical common-places, had never read a word of Spinoza's works-Latin not being well understood at Scotch Universities-and had contented himself with a slovenly repetition of slanders to which years had given a certain authority. It would be enough to

to be kind and obedient to their parents. When he had not been at church himself, he asked the family about the sermon, and what profit and edification they had received from it. Frequently, after a day of intense and incessant philosophical meditation, he came down to the fireside, and while smoking a pipe chatted cheerfully about ordinary occurrences. One of his amusements was to watch spiders fight, and it is said that this often made him laugh till the tears streamed from his eyes. He also found both recreation and instruction from observing insects through the microscope. Those with whom he lodged, while praising everything in his character and manners, enlarged gratefully on the care that he took to give them as little trouble as possible. If Spinoza had not been so grossly misrepresented, such minute particulars would be less worthy of a record here. But it is of some importance to show to those who persist in calling Spinoza an atheist, though they have never read either his life or his works, how like a child he was in playfulness, innocence, and simplicity.

They who sought Spinoza to discourse with him on philosophy, might not always be gained to his theories, but few could wholly resist the fascination of his words. While avoiding the elaborate, and scorning affectation, he took the ear captive by suavity and unction, joined to an impressive directness of purpose. It is so rare to find in the same man grand thought, natural statement, and abounding geniality, that merely to listen was almost to be convinced. Not that Spinoza had any desire to make converts; but to those who honestly yearned for light and truth, he felt impelled by something better than propagandist zeal to unfold the whole wealth of his being, a more powerful pleader than rhetoric or sophistry.

Proofs have already been given of Spinoza's great disinterestedness, and of his disregard of sordid advantages. Two other examples of his exceeding indifference for what the rest of the world so much esteems, may be presented. John De Witt had settled on Spinoza a pension of two hundred florins a-year. After De Witt's tragical death, which Spinoza deeply deplored, De Witt's heirs made some difficulty about continuing the pension. Spinoza, so far from insisting on his legal claim, placed

in their hands the document on which that claim rested, and which contained De Witt's signature, and intimated that he had no desire to enforce his right. This unselfishness on the part of one so poor, struck them so much, that they immediately resolved to continue the pension. One of Spinoza's most ardent and devoted disciples was Simon De Vries, of Amsterdam. He was wealthy, and thought he could not bestow his wealth better than by assisting the philosopher. He therefore on one occasion wished to make him a present of two thousand florins, which Spinoza, without a moment's hesitation, refused. When dying, he wanted to leave Spinoza heir to all his property. To this Spinoza would not consent, and showed him that though he had neither wife nor child, yet that he had a brother at Schiedam to whom the heritage fairly belonged. De Vries agreed to make a will in his brother's favour on condition that Spinoza would accept a pension of five hundred florins. Even this our philosopher thought too much, but was persuaded, at last, to receive a pension of three hundred florins, which was always honourably paid, and which, perhaps, smoothed the declining years of the great man's life.

His

Spinoza's health had for many years been very delicate. In the beginning of 1677, consumption made rapid progress on his feeble body. He died on the 21st February of that year, aged rather more than forty-four. death, though not unexpected, was sudden. Only a day or two before, he had been conversing cheerfully with his landlord's family while smoking his pipe. No one was present with him in his last hours but a physician whom he had summoned from Amsterdam. Many stupid stories were circulated about his conduct and utterances when he felt that he was about to quit this earth for ever. In those stories it need not be said there was not an atom of truth. Spinoza had lived with God since his earliest days, and could only long for closer contact and communion with God, either in the visible or the invisible. No good cause is served by the falsehoods which it is thought by many a holy duty to invent and to propagate about the death-bed remorses and death-bed blasphemies of unbeliev It would be absurd to claim for Spinoza an accordance with popular

ers.