mate of the Regent, owing this appointment to the personal will and protection of his royal master, was utterly incapacitated from extending his patronage to the notorious satirist of that master. Without going so far as to ascribe to the Prince any interposition in the matter, the simple fact of Moore's having kept up a running fire of ridicule and amused the town with lampoons against the Regent, for many months previous, ought, we should have imagined, to have been amply sufficient to account for Lord Moira's conduct.* And when we recall the peculiarly stinging and personal quality of those epigrammatic thrusts, we may doubt whether the objects of his satires would admit the truth of Lord John's description of them, when he says, in a note referring to the Twopenny Post-bag,' that 'they are full of fun and humour, but without ill-nature.'t

But whatever he felt or his friends thought about this constructive desertion on the part of Lord Moira, the truth was that Moore found himself thereby completely cast adrift upon

* The following entry, under Dec. 19. 1825, throws some illustration upon Lord Moira's reasons for the course which he took on this occasion:-"The night before last I received a letter from Crampton, 'enclosing one from Shaw (the Lord Lieutenant's secretary), the pur'port of which was, that the Lord Lieutenant meant to continue my 'father's half-pay in the shape of a pension to my sister. Resolved, ' of course, to decline this favour, but wrote a letter full of thankfulness to Crampton. Find since that this was done at Crampton's 'suggestion: that Lord Wellesley spoke of the difficulty there was in the way, from the feelings the King most naturally entertained to'wards me, and from himself being the personal friend of the King, 'but that, on further consideration, he saw he could do it without any ' reference to the other side of the Channel, and out of the pension 'fund placed at his disposal as Lord Lieutenant.' (Vol. v. p. 24.)

In the preface to Moore's ninth vol. of 'Works,' &c., the author takes pains to disavow having been actuated by any malignant feeling against the Government of that day; and, indeed, seeks to excuse himself by saying he wrote these squibs as party missiles, without wishing any harm to their subjects; adding, that the late Lord Holland also regretted the acrimony with which the Whig party waged their warfare in 1812 and following years against the Prince, his government, and friends. We are inclined to credit Moore's assertion, that he himself was visited with something like self-reproach, twenty years later; whilst, that Lord Holland, whose generous soul was incapable of harbouring resentful emotions after the occasion was past, should have looked back upon former enmities and political conflicts with unaffected regret, is not surprising. But, this admission made, we are bound to say that the poet, as well as the peer, were engaged in cordial combination for party ends, with the most violent of their political allies.

the waters, shipwrecked and disheartened. Nevertheless he so far compressed his feelings of disappointment, as to speak of his patron's past kindnesses and good offices as 'sealing his lips' against complaint. (Vol. i. p. 323.) On quitting England for the East, Lord Moira sent Moore fifteen dozen of his choicest wine as a parting token of regard.

Nothing could be more natural under the circumstances than that the poor poet should find in Holland House a harbour of refuge in his distress. Admitted to familiar intimacy with the distinguished society which habitually met within those time-honoured walls, he became more and more attached to the Whig party, and exerted his talents in its service with renewed vigour, producing at intervals (in the columns of The Morning 'Chronicle') some of the most pungent and humorous satires which political warfare has ever engendered. They were extensively circulated and relished at the time, and are perhaps destined to be remembered as chefs-d'œuvre of their kind, after his other works shall be forgotten.

On this passage in Moore's career much censure has been pronounced, -even more than the case called for, we think. He who combines party warfare with pecuniary profit may expose himself to a certain measure of moral reprobation. Party warfare, however, must be carried on by the pen as well as by the tongue; and writers for the public cannot always exercise their craft gratuitously. Moore himself felt at times pricks of conscience at writing lampoons which were to be paid for, but salved over the sore by reflecting (and with some justice too) that his squibs' served to promote a good cause.

6

We find Mr. and Mrs. Moore in 1813 at another and more attractive little dwelling, called Mayfield, near Ashbourne, at which Mr. Rogers pays them a friendly visit. And now children begin to cluster about the poor Poet's hearth, whilst his wife's health, being delicate and weak to a deplorable degree, gives him much uneasiness, as, in fact, it continued to do throughout the whole of his life. No topic, always excepting that of Lord Lansdowne (who is the 'Protagonist' of the Diary') is half so often recurred to as the unhappiness which 'Bessy's' bad health occasions him.

Lalla

Although intent upon his long-meditated task, Rookh,' Moore contrived to support himself and his growing family by means of newspaper facetiæ, humorous satires, • Melodies,' and songs (an opera was even composed), from 1811 to 1817. His connexion with Richard Power, the musical publisher in the Strand, was for years his main stay, and a bill upon Power,' to be taken up or not (as the case might be)*

when due, by the efforts of his pen and his fancy, was the regular issue out of every embarrassment (and they were not few) which occurred.

A letter written in 1812 furnishes a tolerably clear notion of the position in which Moore's affairs stood after the downfall of his prospects of advancement:

'MY DEAREST MOTHER, I have not had an answer from Dalby yet, but am in the same mind about retiring somewhere, and I should prefer Donington, both from the society and the library.

say.

I don't know whether I told you before (and if I did not, it was my uncertainty about it for some time which prevented me), that the Powers give me between them five hundred a year for my music; the agreement is for seven years, and as much longer as I chose to So you see, darling mother! my prospect is by no means an unpromising one, and the only sacrifice I must make, is the giving up London society, which involves me in great expenses, and leaves me no time for the industry that alone would enable me to support them; this I shall do without the least regret.' (Memoirs, vol. i. p. 274.)

The long-promised work, after prodigious brain-spinning and careful polishing, made its appearance in 1817, fully realising the expectations entertained of it by the public, for a more complete success has rarely attended an author. Lalla Rookh' was universally read, admired, and praised. It was dramatised at Berlin, and acted there by the Court itself, translated into more than one European language, as well as into Persian, and, in short, enjoyed a reign of more than average duration in the realms of literature. The Letters' teem with testimonies to its extraordinary attraction, and these, too, from superior judges of literary merit. This may appear surprising to some of the readers of fiction of the present day, for whom the adventures, sorrows, and even loves, of such fanciful and poetical beings might probably yield but slight interest: possibly less than those of the green-grocer or factory-spinner. But thirty-five years necessarily bring altered tastes upon their wing.

6

In one short year after this imaginative tale came out, Moore writes (under date of March 1818) to his mother, "They will 6 soon go to press with a seventh edition of "Lalla Rookh." Messrs. Longman paid the author no less than three thousand guineas for the copyright. It was dedicated to Mr. Rogers, to whom, indeed, it was in great measure indebted for its origin. The subject,' writes Moore to his friend Dalton in 1814, is one of Rogers's suggesting, and so far I am lucky, for it quite enchants me; and, if what old Dionysius the critic says be true, that it is impossible to write disagreeably upon agree

able subjects, I am not without hopes that I shall do something which will not disgrace me.'

The sum Moore received for Lalla Rookh,' though large, did not conduce so much as might have been supposed to his independence. Writing to Mrs. Moore (his mother) in 1817, he, says, I am to draw a thousand pounds for the discharge of my debts, and to leave the other two thousand in their hands (receiving a bond for it). The annual interest upon this (which is a hundred pounds) my father is to draw upon them for quarterly, and this, I hope, with his half-pay, will 'make you tolerably comfortable. By this arrangement, you see, I do not touch a sixpence of the money for my own pre

C sent use.

Ashbourne was now abandoned, and Moore took a cottage at Hornsey. Living in London is what I do not now like at all,' he says to his mother (May 1817). About this same date he writes to her of a dinner' he had been at; and adds, 'It will amuse you to find that Croker was the person that gave my 'health. I could not have a better proof of the station which I hold in the public eye than that Croker should claim friend'ship with me before such men as Peel, the Duke of Cumberland, &c. &c. I was received with very flattering enthusiasm 'by the meeting...

6

Having, as he conceived, earned a claim to enjoy a holiday, by the achievement of his task, Moore set off, in company with his friend Mr. Rogers, on a trip to Paris. During the first few years which followed upon the peace of 1815, there was a positive dislocation of English society, caused by the eager rush of our countrymen across the Channel. A long privation of the delights of continental travel had whetted the appetite for such enjoyments, and the English moved off in masses, resembling, it might be said, nothing so much as the break of the Polar Pack.' Moore, like the rest, becomes up enchanted with Paris, and writes home, If I can persuade Bessy to the measure, it is my intention to come and live here for two or three years.' However, on his return, which took place a few weeks later, the loss of a child (being the second blow of the kind), checked all projects of foreign residence. A cottage within a walk of Bowood shortly after offering an eligible 'perch,' the mourners removed to that humble, yet pleasant home in which the poet was fated to end his days; the happiest of which, probably, after all, may be said to have been passed whilst master of Sloperton Cottage.

6

An unlooked-for calamity, which occurred in the following year, clouded over his prospects just as Moore was beginning to

see his way to independence and honourable ease. The Bermuda deputy absconded with the proceeds of a ship and cargo deposited in his hands, for which Moore was held answerable. There was, indeed, one consoling circumstance which lessened the general gloom of his position, namely, the cordial and numerous offers of assistance tendered by generous friends.

But although he was, as might be supposed, wholly unequal to deal with the embarrassments he saw thickening around him, he resolutely declined pecuniary aid, and determined to work out his own redemption by the industrious application of his individual talents. (Vol. ii. p. 85.) The history of this long, but, fortunately, effectual struggle, it were superfluous to recapitulate here; but the issue may be stated as having been highly creditable to Moore's sense of self-respect and integrity of character. The only friend who, as we believe, eventually enjoyed the privilege of contributing to his enfranchisement, was the noble editor of these volumes; the poet permitting him to apply towards the extinction of his Bermuda obligations a sum of 2007., the produce of his Lordship's own literary labours.

The Diary' commences with the month of August, 1818, a few months after the Bermuda misfortune had happened; and gives indications of Moore's being already engaged upon his Life of Sheridan.' Notwithstanding the uneasy state of mind in which he lived at this time, from apprehensions of a prison hanging over him, such was the indomitable cheerfulness of the man, that he writes to Lady Donegal from his new home (in May, 1818):-For nothing but to gratify my poor mother, would 'I leave just now my sweet, quiet cottage, where, in spite of 'proctors, deputies, and all other grievances, I am as happy as, 'I believe, this world will allow any one to be; and if I could 'but give the blessing of health to the dear cottager by my side, I would defy the devil and all his works, and Sir William 'Scott to boot.' (Vol. ii. p. 137.)

An inexhaustible flow of spirits, coupled with a boundless elasticity of character and a sanguine temper, proved through life Moore's master key to happiness. And we shall see as his diary proceeds that few mortals have ever been so largely blest with this sunshine of the breast.' When it is considered how indissolubly men usually connect the possession of wealth with the enjoyment of existence-how we Britons toil and moil' to acquire it, and what sacrifices we make to escape from comparative poverty-the spectacle of a man without a shilling to call 'his own,' flourishing in all the pride of aristocratical friendships and culling the choicest pleasures which life affords, really becomes an irritating subject of contemplation. It may be doubted