paying Murray the £2000, and handed it over to the representatives of Mrs. Leigh, by whom it was destroyed. In the whole of the transaction Moore behaved with delicacy and honour, declining to be reimbursed the money which he paid to Murray. Of the manuscript itself, Lord Russell, who had perused it, declares that it contained little traces of Lord Byron's genius, and no interesting details of his life, and that, on the whole, the world is no loser by its destruction. In November of that year Moore communicated to Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh his intention to write a life of Byron, in accordance with the wish of the latter; and adding that he thought it must be equally the wish of his own family that a hand upon whose delicacy they could rely should undertake the task, rather than leave his memory at the mercy of scribblers who dishonour alike the living and the dead. With this task he accordingly new occupied himself, collecting such materials as he could procure, and published the first volume early in 1830, and the second in a year after. Of that work Lo:d Macaulay observes, "It deserves to be classed amongst the best specimens of English prose which any age has produced," and that, "it would be difficult to name a book which exhibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty." This last testimony is the more valuable, as Moore was most unjustly assailed as having reflected upon the character of Lady Byron. In September, 1830, Moore visited Dublin, and took part in the meeting held there to celebrate the "Trois jours glorieux" of the French revolution. His speech on the occasion told, as might be expected, on the auditory he had to address, and was received with shouts of applause. Sheil said with much warmth, "He is a most beautiful speaker." The "Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald" appeared in 1831, a work which demanded great judgment, moderation, and temper. To one of Moore's temperament and politics the task was beset with peculiar dangers; but it is alike to his honour and his manliness, that while he did not fail to condemn where condemnation was deserved, he compromised neither truth nor principle. A blow, heavy though not unexpected, fell upon him in May, 1832, in the death of his mother. Ilow he loved and honoured her his whole life bears witness, and his constant habit of writing to her at least once a week. "The difference it makes in life," he writes in his journal, "to have lost such a mother, those only who have had that blessing and have lost it can feel it is like part of one's life going out of one." In this year he published "The Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion,” a polemical work full of theological learning, of which Dr. Doyle said, "If St. Augustine were more orthodox, and Scratchinbach less plausible, it is a book of which any of us might be proud." : It is not surprising that one of Moore's politics, added to his genius and popular talents as a speaker, should have been looked to as a fitting representative for the Irish Catholics in Parliament. When in Limerick in 1830, Sheil told him he should have no difficulty whatever in getting into Parliament for an Irish constituency if he desired it. More than one seat, we believe, would have been at his service; and Lord Anglesey, then viceroy of Ireland, was anxious that he should start for Trinity College, promising him the support of the government. In November, 1832, a deputation from Limerick, consisting of Gerald Griffin, the author of "The Collegians," and his brother, waited on Moore at Sloperton, conveying the carnest wish of the electors of that city that he would permit himself to be put in nomination, and "Were I proposing to remove the obstacle that would arise from the sacrifice of his time and means, by purchasing a property for him of £400 a-year. Though the request was supported by the influence of O'Connell, Moore declined to accede to it. obliged to choose," he wrote, "which should be “which should be my direct paymaster, the government or the people, I should say without hesitation, the people; but I prefer holding on my free course, humble as it is, unpurchased by either." In truth Moore was too honest, and too independent in his notions, to bend his political views to any one, and in many respects he disagreed with the great Irish leader. "Thus," says Loid Russell, "in the midst of an agitation purely Irish, the most gifted of Irish patriots held aloof, foregoing the applause in which he would have delighted, and the political distinction for which he often sighed, that he might not sully the white robe of his independence, or defile. his soul for any object of ambition or of vanity." A proposal had been made to Moore to write a Ïlistory of Ireland for Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopædia," which after some consideration he accepted, and on this he was much occupied for many years. It was a task little suited to his taste, and for which he was by no means qualified by his previous studies. In prosecution of these labours he visited Dublin in 1835, at the time that the British Association was holding its session there. His reception was as enthusiastic as ever. A courted guest at the table of the viceroy and the salons of the aristocracy, he found the climax of his popularity at the theatre. If the Edinburgh audience were demonstrative, that of Dublin was uproarious, and shouts of applause greeted his first appearance. The Whigs, upon their accession to office, obtained for Moore a pension of £300 a year. The limits assigned to our memoir force us to be brief, and the remaining events of the life of the great Irish poet are not of importance to require us to dwell on them. "The Songs of Greece" and "The Fudge Family in England" had been published, and but the one work remained dragging its weary length along till it was finished. And as years passed over him the cloud began to grow larger and darker. Troubles came from a quarter that tried him most severely. His two surviving sons, to whom he had given the best education, were both in the army--Russell, the younger, in India, where. his health broke down, and he returned home to die in November, 1842. Thomas, the elder, was long a subject of great anxiety to his father. A youth of a high spirit and a genial nature, he had little restraint over himself, and in the indulgence of expensive habits he contracted debts which his father more than once contrived to liquidate; but at last in a thoughtless moment he sold his commission. A sum of £400 would have saved it to him, but Moore was unable to give it, and too independent in spirit to put himself under an obligation to friends to advance it. The young man obtained a commission in the Foreign Legion of Algiers, where he soon fell a victim to exposure and fatigue, and died in March, 1846. A month previously his sister Ellen, to whom he was tenderly attached, died, so that, as he wrote in his journal, “We are left desolate and alone. Not a single relative have I now left in the world!" His diary had for some time back given evidence of failure of memory, health, and spirits. A long and dangerous illness prostrated him in body and mind. A slow recovery left but the wreck of Thomas Moore; the brilliant conversationist, thẻ ready wit, the fine fancy, the noble intellect, all but the mockery of what they had beensmouldering embers on a hearth now cold and dark. Let us not look in upon Moore aging, failing, dying out. We would prefer ever to think of him as in his vigour of mind and body, in the immortal youth of his verse. Enough for us to know that his last years were not without consolations, and were full of peace. Friends whom he loved, and who loved him to the last, cheered him with their converse; and she, the tenderest, the truest, the noblest of all, ministered to his wants, the sunshine of his life even to the valley of the shadow of death. And so he passed away, leaning upon her and "leaning upon God," as he exhorted her to do. On the 26th of February, 1852, he died calmly and without pain. With four of his children and that faithful wife, who rejoined him in 1865, he now rests in the little churchyard of Bromham. What need of an elaborate criticism of one whose genius won its own way to the highest fame? As a lyrist, what age or nation has produced his superior? The vigour of Burns has not Moore's exquisite polish; the grace and glow of Berenger has not half his wit. Both masters in political satire, that of Moore was at times wrapped up in figures with inimitable skill. As a patriot he was independent, honest, uncompromising; and his opinions, whether right or wrong, he maintained at all hazards. He stooped for no favours; he fettered his free action by no obligations. He loved aristocratic society, but it was for the refinement and accomplishments to be found in that order; and let us remember that the strength and purity of his affections for his own kin were neither weakened or sullied by his intercourse with the great, and that he could decline a dinner with the viceroy to dine at home with his sister Ellen on "salt fish and biscuit." He was an idolizing father and a fond husband; and though the records in his journal tell of frequent visits, which the quieter tastes of his wife declined, yet the numerous entries, spreading over days and weeks, of "worked at home,” are volumes of calm and happy domesticity. Perhaps, after all, the wonder is that the worship of his intellect, the flatteries and fascinations of men and women, did not utterly spoil him. That they did not is a proof of a heart sound at the core, of a nature noble and self-respecting, WHENE'ER I SEE THOSE SMILING EYES. WHENE'ER I see those smiling eyes, So full of hope, and joy, and light, To dim a heav'n so purely bright- For time will come with all its blights, AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly Then I sing the wild song 'twas once such pleasure to hear! |