He was undoubtedly the greatest vocal lyrist of his age; "of all song-writers," said Professor Wilson, "that ever warbled, or chanted, or sung, the best, in our estimation, is verily none other than Thomas Moore." Lord John Russell's estimate of Moore was: “ Of English lyrical poets he is surely the first." Stopford A. Brooke writes:-"He had a slight, pretty, rarely true, lyrical power, but all the songs have this one excellence, they are truly things to be sung;" and Professor Henry Morley, in the same strain, adds: "As a lyric poet Moore was above all things a musician-one of the best writers we have ever had of words for music." He has been called—

"The poet of all circles, and the darlint of his own.”

On the best of the Irish Melodies, and of the National Songs, Moore's lasting fame will doubtless rest. He himself has recorded this, as his own belief, in these memorable words:" 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."

CHAPTER XI.

MOORE'S BEARING IN SOCIETY-PERSONAL APPEARANCE-THE BURNING OF BYRON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY-THE EPICUREAN.

Of Moore's bearing, when moving in the highest circles, Lord Byron, who was a competent judge of such matters, says: "In society he is gentlemanly, gentle, and altogether more pleasing than any individual with whom I am acquainted."

Mr. S. C. Hall describes him as graceful, small, and (109)

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slim in figure, "his upturned eyes and eloquent features giving force to the music that accompanied the songs, or rather, to the songs that accompanied the music.

I recall him at this moment--his small form and intellectual face, rich in expression, and that expression the sweetest, the most gentle, and the kindliest. He had still, in age, the same bright and clear eye, the same gracious smile, the same suave and winning manner, I had noticed as the attributes of his comparative youth; a forehead not remarkably broad or high, but singularly impressive, firm, and full, with the organs of music and gaiety large, and those of benevolence and veneration greatly preponderating."

Leigh Hunt, writing of him in the prime of life, says:

"His forehead is bony and full of character, with 'bumps' of wit large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist. His eyes are as dark and as fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine leaves; his mouth generous and good-humoured, with dimples."

Jeffrey writes of "the buoyancy of his spirits and the inward light of his mind," and declares him to be "the sweetest-blooded, warmest-hearted, happiest, hopefullest creature that ever set fortune at defiance.”

Scott, in his own diary, also gives the following account of the differences and resemblances between himself and Moore:-"Nov. 22, 1825.-Moore. I saw Moore (for the first time I may say, this season). We had, indeed, met in public twenty years ago. There is a manly frankness, with perfect ease and good breeding about him which is delightful. Not the least touch of the poet or the pedant. His countenance is plain, but the expression is very animated, especially in speaking or singing, so that it is far more interesting than the finest features could have rendered it. I was aware that

Byron had often spoken, both in private society and in his journal, of Moore and myself in the same breath, and with the same sort of regard; so I was curious to see what there could be in common betwixt us, Moore having lived so much in the gay world, I in the country, and with people of business, and sometimes with politicians; Moore a scholar, I none; he a musician and artist, I without knowledge of a note; he a democrat, I an aristocrat; with many other points of difference; besides his being an Irishman, I a Scotchman, and both tolerably national. Yet there is a point of resemblance, and a strong one. We are both good-humoured fellows, who rather seek to enjoy what is going forward than to maintain our dignity as Lions."

A few years later on, Willis thus sketches his appearance:- "I called on Moore with a letter of introduction, and met him at the door of his lodgings; I knew him instantly from the pictures I had seen of him, but was surprised at the diminutiveness of his person. He is much below the middle size, and with his white hat and long chocolate frock-coat, was far from prepossessing in his appearance. With this material disadvantage, however, his address is gentlemanlike to a very marked degree; and I should think no one could see Moore without conceiving a strong liking for him. As I was to meet him at dinner, I did not detain him."

Willis had

This dinner was at Lady Blessington's. arrived but a few minutes when "" 'Mr. Moore,' cried the footman at the bottom of the staircase; 'Mr. Moore,' cried the footman at the top; and with his glass at his eye, stumbling over an ottoman, between his nearsightedness and the darkness of the room, enter the poet. Half a glance tells you that he is at home on a carpet. Sliding his feet up to Lady Blessington (of whom he was

a lover when she was sixteen,1 and to whom some of the sweetest of his songs were written), he made his compliments with a gaiety and an ease, combined with a kind of worshipping deference, that was worthy of a prime minister at the court of love. With the gentlemen, all of whom he knew, he had the frank, merry manner of a confident favourite, and he was greeted like one. He went from one to the other, straining back his head to look up at them (for singularly enough, every gentleman in the room was six feet and upward), and to every one he said something which from any one else would have seemed peculiarly felicitous, but which fell from his lips as if his breath were not more spontaneous."

Although much of his time was devoted to society, Moore displayed an incredible amount of industry. He might seem a butterfly, when dining out, but he was a bee at home, and got through a great amount of work.

His Memoirs of Captain Rock appeared in 1824, written after a tour in Ireland with the Marquis of Lansdowne.

It is a one-sided, rhapsodical melange, severely commenting upon the Government of Ireland by England, from Pope Adrian's time downward. The memoirs purport to be written by Captain Rock himself, who is thus made the mouth-piece through which Moore, in a fanciful style, pours the parti-coloured rose-water, rather than revolutionary, viols of his wrath on the oppressors of his country, and on sundry enactments, which have, since that time, been altogether removed from the statute-book.

This year Lord Byron died, and thus the existence, and the intended publication of his memoirs, which he had intrusted to Moore for that purpose, came to be known.

We do not happen to know Mr. Willis' authority for this statement, nor have we seen any allusion to it elsewhere.-A. J. S

In 1821, Moore had sold the copyright to Murray for two thousand guineas. Byron's relatives, taking alarm, implored Moore to allow the MS. to be destroyed; to which course he consented, and, after arrangements were made accordingly, it was burned in the presence of witnesses. That Moore acquiesced in this course from a sense of honour, there could be no question; as he, on receiving advances from Longmans, actually repaid the sum which he had received from Murray, both principal and interest. The MS. memoirs had been openly handed about, and lent to ladies; and Lord John Russell stated that the whole of the objectionable passages did not amount to more than three or four pages; and also that Moore had Byron's permission to alter or leave out anything at discretion, or could, easily, have neutralized what he might deem wrong or unfair, in a foot-note. This, the mysterious destruction of Byron's MS. memoirs, is perhaps the most notable event in the latter part of Moore's life.

"As to the manuscript itself," says Lord John Russell, "having read the greater part of it, if not the whole, I should say that three or four pages of it were too gross and indelicate for publication; that the rest, with few exceptions, contained little traces of Lord Byron's genius, and no interesting details of his life. His early youth in Greece, and his sensibility to the scenes around him, when resting on a rock in the swimming excursions he took from the Piraeus, were strikingly described. But, on the whole, the world is no loser, by the sacrifice made of the memoirs of this great poet."

The following entries are taken from Moore's DIARY:Bowood, 24th Oct., 1824. At breakfast 66 Bowles mentioned that at some celebration at Reading school, when the patrons or governors of it (beer and brandy