persuaded in Italian, and Adam begged pardon in French."

In July, 1845, he notes a good hit, made in the House of Commons:-"One night, a blustering orator having triumphantly, as he thought, exclaimed, 'I am the guardian of my own honour,' Sir Boyle Roche quietly settled the orator, by saying, 'I wish the honourable gentleman joy on his sinecure appointment.""

Here is another House of Commons scene, as given by Moore:

"Government side.-'Mr. Speaker, have we laws, or have we not laws? If we have laws, to what purpose were those laws made, unless they are obeyed?'

"Opposition side.-'Mr. Speaker, did that gentleman speak to the purpose or not to the purpose, and if he did not speak to the purpose, to what purpose did he speak?""

July, 1845.-"One night when John Kemble was performing, at some country theatre, one of his most favourite parts, he was much interrupted, from time to time, by the squalling of a young child in one of the galleries. At length, angered by this rival performance, Kemble walked with solemn step to the front of the stage, and, addressing the audience in his most tragic tones, said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, unless the play is stopped, the child cannot possibly go on.' The effect on the audience of this earnest interference in favour of the child may be easily conceived."

"July, 1845 (Moore writes):-"I don't know where I found the following, but there is a homely sort of philosophy in it that rather takes my fancy:

"This world's a good world to live in,

To lend, and to spend, and to give in;

But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for one's own,
'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.'

Thus, Moore, we have seen, began his literary career when a youth of twenty-one, and was received into the first London society. His fame increased till 1823, and was then at its height, when he published The Loves of the Angels. For the next thirty years, "he wrote occasionally; but, adding nothing to his fame, he lived upon the glory of his youth."

CHAPTER XIII.

LATTER YEARS AND DEATH.

His

Moore's latter years were clouded by domestic grief, his children having all died before him. In 1846 the poet made this sad entry in his diary, "The last of our five children is gone, and we are left desolate and alone; not a single relative have I now left in the world." father had died in 1825, his mother in 1832, and his sister Nell in 1846; and his children had dropped off one after another, three of them in youth, and two grown up to manhood. Here, we may, shortly, enumerate

them:

A

Moore's eldest daughter, Ann Jane Barbara, died in 1817, at the age of five. His second daughter, Anastatia Mary, died in 1829, at the age of nearly seventeen. third daughter, Ovilia Byron, lived only a few months. John Russell Moore, the second son, died in 1842 at the age of nineteen. He was a cadet in the East India Company's service.

The last surviving of Moore's children was his eldest son, Thomas Lansdowne Parr Moore. He died, as we have seen, in 1846, in his eight-and-twentieth year. He

held a commission in India, and breaking down there, through the climate and excesses, he entered the French service in Algiers got worse, and died of consumption in the hospital of Mostorganem. The wildness of this son, and his melancholy end, told fearfully on the mind and strength of the poet.

On one occasion, long before and already alluded to, when Moore was visiting his mother in Dublin, accompanied by his wife and children, Samuel Lover, who was always a great favourite with the delightful, cheery, old grandmother, was invited to her house on the very day that the interesting party arrived. He was struck by the beauty of the boy Russell, and painted a charming miniature portrait of him as a gift to the child's mother. In it, he caught, with great felicity, the bright expression and great resemblance that the boy bore to his father. In a letter to Mrs. Hall, Lover says:

"You ask me to give you some description of Russell Moore. You know how hard, or, rather, how impossible it is for words to give any notion of lineaments.

"All children's faces are, to a certain extent, round; but Russell's might have been remarked for roundness, even among children-nose, though retroussé, nicely defined about the nostril, a pretty mouth, well marked eyebrows, and dark brown eyes of remarkable beauty, with a certain expression of archness that reminded one of his father you remember what brilliant and vivacious eyes his were,-in short, Russell Moore's face would have been a good model for a painter who wanted a suggestion for a little Cupid."

This picture relates to spring days. Now, with Moore, it was the sere and yellow leaf. Of this period Lord John Russell says:-"The death of his only remaining child, and his last and most beloved sister,

deeply affected the health, crushed the spirits, and impaired the mind of Moore. An illness of an alarming nature shook his frame, and for a long time made him incapable of any exertion. When he recovered he was a different man. His memory was perpetually at fault, and nothing seemed to rest on his mind. He made engagements to dinners and parties, but usually forgot half of them. When he did appear, his gay flow of spirits, happy application of humorous stories, and constant and congenial ease were all wanting. The brilliant hues of his varied conversation had failed, and the strong powers of his intellect had manifestly sunk. There was something peculiarly sad in the change. It is not unusual to observe the faculties grow weaker with age; and, in the retirement of a man's own home, there may be 'no unpleasing melancholy' in the task of watching such a decline. But when, in the midst of the gay and the convivial, the wit appeared without his gaiety, and the guest without his conviviality,-when the fine fancy appeared not so much sobered as saddened,—it was a cheerless sight.

"Happily for Moore and his partner they had a certain income, derived from the bounty of the sovereign, which flowed on in a stream, not exuberant indeed, but perpetual. On this income, Mrs. Moore regulated her expenses, and regulated them so as to incur no debts."

Worn down by mental overwork, by the claims of society, and by grief over "faded flowers,"

"When friendships decay,

And, from Love's shining circle, the gems drop away,”

he was now fast breaking up. His memory failed rapidly; he stooped and looked old; and, in 1848-as in the cases

of Swift, Scott, and Southey-mental imbecility gradually set in, caused by softening of the brain.

In 1850, Mrs. Moore received a pension of £100 a year, in consideration of her husband's literary services; and no wife ever deserved recognition more than she for her own sweet sake. She was in every respect a true and model wife. Moore's loss of memory was in his case, perhaps, a blessing, "bestowing a calm," as William Howitt remarks, "on his closing period, which otherwise could not have existed." Of this period, S. C. Hall writes: "Two years and two months Moore may be said to have lain on his death-bed-dying all that weary time. His mind became obliterated; restorations to reason being only occasional and very partial. His disease was softening of the brain. Sometimes he knew and recognized his 'Bessy.' During the whole of that sad period, she was never for an hour out of his room. She told us that, when intelligence was at all active, he would ask her to read the Bible, but his great delight was to hear her sing; that his frequent desire was for a hymn, 'Come to Jesus,' in the refrain of which he always joined, and which he often asked her to sing for him a second time. Almost his last words-and they were frequently repeated—were, ‘Lean upon God, Bessy; lean upon God!""

Of Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Hall writes:- 'I never knew anyone with such active and genial affections as Moore, except his wife. Her nature was quite as sympathetic as that of her husband; and while her reverence for that husband amounted to devotion, she watched over him as a mother watches over a tender and beloved child. It was the most wonderful blending of admiration, duty, and lovingness I ever witnessed or could fancy. At times, even then, though, as her husband tenderly said, she had wept her eyes away, crying for her children, she

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