Even now, delusive hope will steal
Amid the dark regrets I feel,
Soothing as yonder placid beam

Pursues the murmurers of the deep, And lights them with consoling gleam, And smiles them into tranquil sleep. Oh! such a blessed night as this

I often think if friends were near, How should we feel and gaze with bliss Upon the moon-bright scenery here! The sea is like a silvery lake,

And o'er its calm the vessel glides, Gently, as if it feared to wake

The slumber of the silent tides. The only envious cloud that lowers

Hath hung its shade on Pico's height,
Where dimly 'mid the dusk he towers,

And, scowling at this heaven of light,
Exults to see the infant storm
Cling darkly round his giant form!

Wanted-Authors of all work to job for the season,
No matter which party, so faithful to neither;
Good hacks, who, if posed for a rhyme or a reason,
Can manage, like *******, to do without either.

Nine times out of ten, if his title is good,

The material within of small consequence is;
Let him only write fine, and if not understood,
Why that's the concern of the reader, not his.
Nota Bene-an Essay, now printing, to show

That Horace, as clearly as words could express it,
Was for taxing the Fundholders, ages ago,
When he wrote thus Quodcunque in Fund is,
assess it."*

In 1813 Mr Moore entered upon his noble poetical and patriotic task-writing lyrics for the ancient music of his native country. His Irish Songs displayed a fervour and pathos not found in his earlier works, with the most exquisite melody and purity of diction. An accomplished musician himself, it was the effort, he relates, to translate into language the emotions and passions which music appeared to him to express, that first led to his writing any poetry worthy of the name. 'Dryden,' he adds, has hap pily described music as being "inarticulate poetry;" and I have always felt, in adapting words to an ex

The warmth of the young poet's feelings and imagination led him in these epistles to make some slight trespasses on delicacy and decorum, and a second publication of poems, two years afterwards, under the assumed name of Thomas Little-a playful allusion to his diminutive stature-aggravated this offence of his muse. He has had the good sense to be ashamed of these amatory Juvenilia, and genius enough to redeem the fault. Mr Moore now became a satirist not strong and masculine, like Dryden, nor possessed of the moral dignity of Pope-but lively and pungent, with abundance of humorous and witty illustration. The man of the world, the scholar, and the poetical artist, are happily blended in his satiri-pressive air, that I was bestowing upon it the gift of cal productions, with a rich and playful fancy. His articulation, and thus enabling it to speak to others Twopenny Postbag, The Fudge Family in Paris, Fables all that was conveyed, in its wordless eloquence, to for the Holy Alliance, and numerous small pieces myself.' Part of the inspiration must also be attriwritten for the newspapers on the passing topics of buted to national feelings. The old airs were conthe day, to serve the cause of the Whig or liberal secrated to recollections of the ancient glories, the party, are not excelled in their own peculiar walk valour, beauty, or sufferings of Ireland, and became by any satirical compositions in the language. inseparably connected with such associations. Of is difficult to select a specimen of these exquisite the Irish Melodies, in connection with Mr Moore's productions without risk of giving offence; but per- songs, nine parts have been published in succession: haps the following may be found sufficiently irre- they are understood to have been materially useful proachable in this respect, at the same time that it to the poet's fortunes. Without detracting from the contains a full proportion of the wit and poignancy merits of the rest, it appears to us very forcibly, that distributed over all. It appeared at a time when an the particular ditties in which he delicately hints at abundance of mawkish reminiscences and memoirs the woes of his native country, and transmutes into had been showered from the press, and bore the verse the breathings of its unfortunate patriots, are title of Literary Advertisement.' the most real in feeling, and therefore the best. This particularly applies to When he who adores thee,' Oh, blame not the bard,' and 'Oh, breathe not his

It

•

•

* According to the common reading, 'Quodcunque infundis, acescit.'

1

name; the first of which, referring evidently to the fancy of almost any other poet. It was amidst the fate of Mr Emmett, is as follows:

•

•

snows of two or three Derbyshire winters, he says,
while living in a lone cottage among the fields, that
he was enabled, by that concentration of thought
which retirement alone gives, to call up around him
some of the sunniest of those Eastern scenes which
have since been welcomed in India itself as almost
native to its clime. The poet was a diligent stu-
dent, and his oriental reading was as good as riding
on the back of a camel.' The romance of Vathek'
alone equals 'Lalla Rookh,' among English fictions,
in local fidelity and completeness as an Eastern tale.
After the publication of his work, the poet set off
with Mr Rogers on a visit to Paris.
The 'groups
of ridiculous English who were at that time swarm-
ing in all directions throughout France,' supplied
the materials for his satire entitled The Fudge
Family in Paris,' which, in popularity, and the run
of successive editions, kept pace with Lalla Rookh.'
In 1819 Mr Moore made another journey to the
continent in company with Lord John Russell, and
this furnished his Rhymes on the Road, a series of
trifles often graceful and pleasing, but so conversa-
tional and unstudied as to be little better (to use his
own words) than 'prose fringed with rhyme.' From
Paris the poet and his companion proceeded by the
Simplon to Italy. Lord John took the route to
Genoa, and Mr Moore went on a visit to Lord Byron
at Venice. On his return from this memorable tour,
the poet took up his abode in Paris, where he re-
sided till about the close of the year 1822. He had
conduct of the person who acted as his deputy at
become involved in pecuniary difficulties by the
Bermuda. His friends pressed forward with eager
kindness to help to release him-one offering to place
£500 at his disposal; but he came to the resolution
of gratefully declining their offers, and endeavour-
ing to work out his deliverance by his own efforts.
In September 1822 he was informed that an ar
rangement had been made, and that he might with
safety return to England. The amount of the
claims of the American merchants had been re-
duced to the sum of one thousand guineas, and to-
wards the payment of this the uncle of his deputy-
a rich London merchant-had been brought to con-
tribute £300. A friend of the poet immediately
deposited in the hands of a banker the remaining
portion (£750), which was soon repaid by the grate-
ful bard, who, in the June following, on receiving
his publisher's account, found £100 placed to his
credit from the sale of the Loves of the Angels, and
£500 from the 'Fables of the Holy Alliance.' The
latter were partly written while Mr Moore was
at Venice with Lord Byron, and were published
under the nom de guerre of Thomas Brown. The
Loves of the Angels' was written in Paris. The
poem is founded on the Eastern story of the angels
Harut and Marut, and the Rabbinical fictions of
the loves of Uzziel and Shamchazai,' with which
Mr Moore shadowed out the fall of the soul from
its original purity-the loss of light and happiness
which it suffers in the pursuit of this world's perish-
able pleasures-and the punishments both from con-
science and divine justice with which impurity,
pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful
secrets of heaven are sure to be visited.' The
stories of the three angels are related with grace-
ful tenderness and passion, but with too little of
the angelic air' about them. His latest imagi-
native work is The Epicurean, an Eastern tale,
in prose, but full of the spirit and materials of
poetry; and forming, perhaps, his highest and best
sustained flight in the regions of pure romance.
His lives of Sheridan and Byron we shall afterwards
allude to in the list of biographical writers. Thus,

•

When he who adores thee has left but the name

Of his fault and his sorrow behind,
Oh, say, wilt thou weep when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resigned?

Yes, weep! and, however my foes may condemn,
Thy tears shall efface the decree;

For Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,
I have been but too faithful to thee!

With thee were the dreams of my earliest love,
Every thought of my reason was thine;

In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above,
Thy name shall be mingled with mine!

Oh, blessed are the lovers and friends who shall live
The days of thy glory to see;
But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give,
Is the pride of thus dying for thee!

Next to the patriotic songs stand those in which a moral reflection is conveyed in that metaphorical form which only Moore has been able to realise in lyrics for music-as in the following exquisite example:

I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on:
I came, when the sun o'er that beach was declining
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.
Ah! such is the fate of our life's early promise,

So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known:
Each wave that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us,
And leaves us, at eve, on the black shore alone.
Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning

The close of our day, the calm eve of our night; Give me back, give me back, the wild freshness of morning,

Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best
light.

Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning,
When passion first waked a new life through his
And his soul-like the wood that grows precious in
burning-

frame,

Gave out all its sweets to Love's exquisite flame!

In 1817 Mr Moore produced his most elaborate poem, Lalla Rookh, an oriental romance, the accuracy of which, as regards topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, has been vouched by numerous competent authorities. The poetry is brilliant and gorgeous-rich to excess with imagery and ornament-and oppressive from its very sweetness and splendour. Of the four tales which, connected by a slight narrative, like the ballad stories in Hogg's Queen's Wake, constitute the entire poem, the most simple is Paradise and the Peri, and it is the one most frequently read and remembered. Still, the first-The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan-though improbable and extravagant as a fiction, is a poem of great energy and power. The genius of the poet moves with grace and freedom under his load of Eastern magnificence, and the reader is fascinated by his prolific fancy, and the scenes of loveliness and splendour which are depicted with such vividness and truth. Hazlitt says that Moore should not have written 'Lalla Rookh,' even for three thousand guineas -the price understood to be paid by the booksellers for the copyright. But if not a great poem, it is a marvellous work of art, and contains paintings of local scenery and manners unsurpassed for fidelity and picturesque effect. The patient research and extensive reading required to gather the materials, would have damped the spirit and extinguished the

2427

remarkable for industry, genius, and acquirements, ancient fathers-now diving into the human heart, Mr Moore's career has been one of high honour and and now skimming the fields of fancy-the wit or success. No poet has been more universally read, imagination of Moore (for they are compounded toor more courted in society by individuals distin-gether) is a true Ariel, a creature of the elements' guished for rank, literature, or public service. His that is ever buoyant and full of life and spirit. His political friends, when in office, rewarded him with very satires give delight, and hurt not.' They are a pension of £300 per annum, and as his writings never coarse, and always witty. When stung by an have been profitable as well as popular, his latter act of oppression or intolerance, he can be bitter or days will thus be spent in comfort, without the sarcastic enough; but some lively thought or spor anxieties of protracted authorship. He resides in a tive image soon crosses his path, and he instantly cottage in Wiltshire, preferring a country retire- follows it into the open and genial region where he ment to those gay and brilliant circles which he loves most to indulge. He never dips his pen in occasionally enriches with his wit and genius; and malignity. For an author who has written so much he has recently given to the world a complete collec- as Mr Moore has done on the subject of love and tion of his poetical works in ten volumes, to which the gay delights of good fellowship, it was scarce possible to be always natural and original. Some of his lyrics and occasional poems, accordingly, present far-fetched metaphors and conceits, with which they often conclude, like the final flourish or pirouette of a stage-dancer. He has pretty well exhausted the vocabulary of rosy lips and sparkling eyes, forgetting that true passion is ever direct and simple-ever concentrated and intense, whether bright or melancholy. This defect, however, pervades only part of his songs, and those mostly written in his youth. The Irish Melodies' are full of true feeling and delicacy. By universal consent, and by the sure test of memory, these national strains are the most popular and the most likely to be immortal of all Moore's works. They are musical almost beyond parallel in words-graceful in thought and sentiment often tender, pathetic, and heroic-and they blend poetical and romantic feelings with the objects and sympathies of common life in language chastened and refined, yet apparently so simple that every trace of art has disappeared. The most familiar expressions become, in his hands, instruments of power and melody. The songs are read and remembered by all. They are equally the delight of the cottage and the saloon, and, in the poet's own country, are sung with an enthusiasm that will long be felt in the hour of festivity, as well as in periods of suffering and solemnity, by that imaginative and warm-hearted people.

•

Moore's Cottage, near Devizes.

are prefixed some interesting literary and personal details. When time shall have destroyed the attractive charm of Moore's personal qualities, and removed his works to a distance, to be judged of by their fruit alone, the want most deeply felt will be that of simplicity and genuine passion. He has worked little in the durable and permanent materials of poetry, but has spent his prime in enriching the stately structure with exquisite ornaments, foliage, flowers, and gems. He has preferred the myrtle to the olive or the oak. His longer poems want human interest. Tenderness and pathos he undoubtedly possesses; but they are fleeting and evanescent-not embodied in his verse in any tale of melancholy grandeur or strain of affecting morality or sentiment. He often throws into his gay and festive verses, and his fanciful descriptions, touches of pensive and mournful reflection, which strike by their truth and beauty, and by the force of contrast. Indeed, one effect of the genius of Moore has been, to elevate the feelings and occurrences of ordinary life into poetry, rather than dealing with the lofty abstract elements of the art. His wit answers to the definition of Pope: it is

Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. Its combinations are, however, wonderful. Quick, subtle, and varied, ever suggesting new thoughts or images, or unexpected turns of expression-now drawing resources from classical literature or the

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE.

In 1817 Mr Murray published a small poetical volume under the eccentric title of Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar-Makers. Intended to comprise the most Interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table. The world was surprised to find, under this odd disguise, a happy imitation of the Pulci and Casti school of the Italian poets. The brothers Whistlecraft formed, it was quickly seen, but the mask of some elegant and scholarly wit belonging to the higher circles of society, who had chosen to amuse himself in comic verse, without incurring the responsibilities of declared authorship. To two cantos published in the above year, a third and fourth were soon after added. The poem opens with a feast held by King Arthur at Carlisle amidst his knights, who are thus introduced:

They looked a manly generous generation;
Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and
thick,

Their accents firm and loud in conversation,
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,
Showed them prepared, on proper provocation,
To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick;
And for that very reason it is said
They were so very courteous and well-bred.

In a valley near Carlisle lived a race of giants; Oft that wild untutored race would draw, and this place is finely described:

Led by the solemn sound and sacred light,
Beyond the bank, beneath a lonely shaw,
To listen all the livelong summer night,
Till deep, serene, and reverential awe
Environed them with silent calm delight,
Contemplating the minster's midnight gleam,
Reflected from the clear and glassy stream.

Huge mountains of immeasurable height
Encompassed all the level valley round
With mighty slabs of rock, that sloped upright,
An insurmountable and enormous mound.
The very river vanished out of sight,
Absorbed in secret channels under ground;
That vale was so sequestered and secluded,
All search for ages past it had eluded.

A rock was in the centre, like a cone,
Abruptly rising from a miry pool,
Where they beheld a pile of massy stone,
Which masons of the rude primeval school
Had reared by help of giant hands alone,
With rocky fragments unreduced by rule:
Irregular, like nature more than art,
Huge, rugged, and compact in every part.

A wild tumultuous torrent raged around,
Of fragments tumbling from the mountain's height;
The whistling clouds of dust, the deafening sound,
The hurried motion that amazed the sight,
The constant quaking of the solid ground,
Environed them with phantoms of affright;
Yet with heroic hearts they held right on,
Till the last point of their ascent was won.
The giants having attacked and carried off some
ladies on their journey to court, the knights deem it
their duty to set out in pursuit; and in due time
they overcome these grim personages, and relieve
the captives from the castle in which they had been
immured:-

The ladies-They were tolerably well,
At least as well as could have been expected:
Many details I must forbear to tell;
Their toilet had been very much neglected;
But by supreme good luck it so befell,

That when the castle's capture was effected,
When those vile cannibals were overpowered,
Only two fat duennas were devoured.

I've a proposal here from Mr Murray.
He offers handsomely-the money down;

My dear, you might recover from your flurry,
In a nice airy lodging out of town,

At Croydon, Epsom, anywhere in Surrey;
If every stanza brings us in a crown,
I think that I might venture to bespeak
A bedroom and front parlour for next week.
Tell me, my dear Thalia, what you think;
Your nerves have undergone a sudden shock;
Your poor dear spirits have begun to sink;
On Banstead Downs you'd muster a new stock,
And I'd be sure to keep away from drink,
And always go to bed by twelve o'clock.
We'll travel down there in the morning stages;
Our verses shall go down to distant ages.
And here in town we'll breakfast on hot rolls,
And you shall have a better shawl to wear;
These pantaloons of mine are chafed in holes ;
By Monday next I'll compass a new pair:
Come now, fling up the cinders, fetch the coals,
And take away the things you hung to air;
Set out the tea-things, and bid Phoebe bring
The kettle up. Arms and the Monks I sing.
Near the valley of the giants was an abbey, con-
taining fifty friars, fat and good,' who keep for a
long time on good terms with their neighbours. Be-
ing fond of music, the giants would sometimes ap-
proach the sacred pile, attracted by the sweet sounds
that issued from it; and here occurs a beautiful
piece of description :-

But chiefly, when the shadowy moon had shed
O'er woods and waters her mysterious hue,
Their passive hearts and vacant fancies fed
With thoughts and aspirations strange and new,
Till their brute souls with inward working bred
Dark hints that in the depths of instinct grew
Subjective-not from Locke's associations,
Nor David Hartley's doctrine of vibrations.
Each was ashamed to mention to the others
One half of all the feelings that he felt,
Yet thus far each would venture-Listen, brothers,
It seems as if one heard Heaven's thunders melt
In music!'

The solemn mountains that surrounded
The silent valley where the convent lay,
With tintinnabular uproar were astounded
When the first peal burst forth at break of day:
Feeling their granite ears severely wounded,
They scarce knew what to think or what to say;
And (though large mountains commonly conceal
Their sentiments, dissembling what they feel,
Yet) Cader-Gibbrish from his cloudy throne
To huge Loblommon gave an intimation
Of this strange rumour, with an awful tone,
Thundering his deep surprise and indignation;
The lesser hills, in language of their own,
Discussed the topic by reverberation;

This closes the second canto. The third opens in Discoursing with their echoes all day long,
the following playful strain :-

Their only conversation was, 'ding-dong."

Unfortunately, this happy state of things is broken up by the introduction of a ring of bells into the abbey, a kind of music to which the giants had an insurmountable aversion:

These giant mountains inwardly were moved,
But never made an outward change of place;
Not so the mountain giants-(as behoved
A more alert and locomotive race);
Hearing a clatter which they disapproved,
They ran straight forward to besiege the place,
With a discordant universal yell,
Like house-dogs howling at a dinner-bell.

This is evidently meant as a good-humoured satire against violent personifications in poetry. Meanwhile, a monk, Brother John by name, who had opposed the introduction of the bells, has gone in a fit of disgust with his brethren to amuse himself with the rod at a neighbouring stream. Here occurs another beautiful descriptive passage:

A mighty current, unconfined and free,

Ran wheeling round beneath the mountain's shade,
Battering its wave-worn base; but you might see
On the near margin many a watery glade,
Becalmed beneath some little island's lee,
All tranquil and transparent, close embayed;
Reflecting in the deep serene and even
Each flower and herb, and every cloud of heaven;
The painted kingfisher, the branch above her,
Stand in the steadfast mirror fixed and true;
Anon the fitful breezes brood and hover,
Freshening the surface with a rougher hue;
Spreading, withdrawing, pausing, passing over,
Again returning to retire anew:
So rest and motion in a narrow range,
Feasted the sight with joyous interchange.