Above or below, in earth or air;

For it glimmer'd o'er with a doubtful light,
One couldn't say whether 'twas day or night;
And 'twas crost by many a mazy track,
One didn't know how to get on or back;
And I felt like a needle that's going astray
(With its one eye out) through a bundle of hay;
When the Spirit he grinn'd, and whisper'd me,
"Thou'rt now in the Court of Chancery!"

Around me flitted unnumber'd swarms Of shapeless, bodiless, tailless forms; (Like bottled-up babes, that grace the room Of that worthy knight, Sir Everard Home)— All of them, things half-kill'd in rearing; Some were lame--some wanted hearing; Some had through half a century run, Though they hadn't a leg to stand upon. Others, more merry, as just beginning, Around on a point of law were spinning; Or balanc'd aloft, 'twixt Bill and Answer, Lead at each end, like a tight-rope dancer. Some were so cross that nothing could please 'em ;— Some gulph'd down affidavits to ease 'em ;— All were in motion, yet never a one, Let it move as it might, could ever move on. "These," said the Spirit, "you plainly see, Are what they call suits in Chancery!" I heard a loud screaming of old and young, Like a chorus by fifty Vellutis sung; Or an Irish Dump ("the words by Moore") At an amateur concert scream'd in score; So harsh on my ears that wailing fell Of the wretches who in this Limbo dwell! It seem'd like the dismal symphony Of the shapes Æneas in hell did see; Or those frogs, whose legs a barbarous cook Cut off, and left the frogs in the brook,

To cry all night, till life's last dregs,
"Give us our legs!—give us our legs!"
Touch'd with the sad and sorrowful scene,
I ask'd what all this yell might mean,
When the Spirit replied, with a grin of glee,
“”Tis the cry of the Suitors in Chancery!"

I look'd, and I saw a wizard rise,
With a wig like a cloud before men's eyes.
In his aged hand he held a wand,
Wherewith he beckon❜d his embryo band,
And they mov'd and mov'd, as he wav'd it o'er
But they never got on one inch the more.
And still they kept limping to and fro,
Like Ariels round old Prospero-
Saying, "Dear master, let us go,”
But still old Prospero answer'd “No.”
And I heard, the while, that wizard elf
Muttering, muttering spells to himself,
While o'er as many old papers he turn'd,
As Hume e'er mov'd for, or Omar burn'd.
He talk'd of his virtue-"though some, less nice,
(He own'd with a sigh) preferr'd his Vice”-
And he said, "I think "_"I doubt "_"I hope,"
Call'd God to witness, and damn'd the Pope;
With many more sleights of tongue and hand
I couldn't, for the soul of me, understand.
Amaz'd and pos'd, I was just about

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To ask his name, when the screams without,
The merciless clack of the imps within,
And that conjuror's mutterings, made such a din,
That, startled, I woke—leap'd up in my bed--
Found the Spirit, the imps, and the conjuror fled,
And bless'd my stars, right pleas'd to see,

That I wasn't, as yet, in Chancery.

In 1814 Jeffrey wrote Rogers to ask Moore to contribute to the Edinburgh Review, stating that the usual

terms were twenty guineas a printed sheet of sixteen pages, but that he would not in this case think of offering less than thirty, and probably a good deal more. All this matter he left entirely to Roger's delicacy and discretion, and Moore felt flattered by the proposal, and reciprocated the friendly feeling by becoming a contributor. Shortly afterwards, Jeffrey wrote Moore

"Tell me, too, that you will come for a fortnight to Edinburgh early next winter and see our primitive society here. It is but thirty hours' travelling, and will at least be something to laugh at in London, and to describe at Mayfield. We shall treat you very honourably, and let you do whatever you please. Ever most truly yours, F. JEFFREY."

The following letter from Samuel Rogers, belonging to this period, is well worthy of preservation:

"Venice, October 17, 1814.

"My Dear Moore,-Last night in my gondola I made a vow I would write you a letter if it was only to beg you would write to me at Rome. Like the great Marco Polo, however, whose tomb I saw to-day, I have a sacred wish to

astonish you with my travels, and would take you with me,

as you would not go willingly, from London to Paris, and from Paris to the Lake of Geneva, and so on to this city of romantic adventure, the place from which he started. I set out in August last with my sister and Mackintosh. He parted with us in Switzerland, since which time we have travelled on together; and happy should we have been could you and Psyche have made a quartette of it. I hope all her predictions have long ago been fulfilled to your mind, and that she and you and the bambini are all as snug and as happy as you can wish to be. By the way, I forgot one of your family who, I hope, is still under your roof. I mean one of nine sisters-the one I have more than once made love to. With another of them, too, all the world knows your good fortune. But to proceed to business :

:

“Chamouni and the Mer de Glace, Voltaire's chamber at Ferney, Gibbon's terrace at Lausanne, Rousseau's Isle of St. Pierre, the Lake of Lucerne, and the little cantons, the passage over the Alps, the Lago Maggiore, Milan, Verona, Padua, Venice,—what shall I begin with? But I believe I must refer you to my three quartos on the subject whenever they choose to appear. The most wonderful thing we have seen is Bonaparte's road over the Alps-as smooth as that in Hyde Park, and not steeper than St. James's Street. We left Savoy at seven in the morning, and slept at Domo d'Ossola, in Italy, that night. For twenty miles we descended through a mountain-pass, as rocky, and often narrower, than the narrowest part of Dovedale; the road being sometimes cut out of the mountain, and three times carried through it, leaving the torrent (and such a torrent!) to work its way by itself. The passages, or galleries, as I believe the French engineers call them, were so long as to require large openings here and there for light; and the roof was hung with icicles, which the carriage shattered as it passed along, and which fell to the ground with a shrill sound. We were eight hours in climbing to the top, and only three in descending. Our wheel was never locked, and our horses were almost always in a gallop. But I must talk to you a little about Venice. I cannot tell you what I felt when the postillion turned gaily round, and, pointing with his whip, cried out 'Venezia!' For there it was, sure enough, with its long line of domes and turrets glittering in the sun. I walk about here all day long in a dream. Is that the Rialto? I say to myself. Is this St. Mark's Place? Do I see the Adriatic? I think if you and I were together here, my dear Moore, we might manufacture something from the ponte dei sospiri, the scala dei giganti, the piombi, the pozzi, and the thousand ingredients of mystery and terror that are here at every turn.

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'Nothing can be more luxurious than a gondola and its little black cabin, in which you can fly about unseen, the gondoliers so silent all the while. They dip their oars as if they were afraid of disturbing you; yet you fly. As you are rowed through one of the narrow streets, often do you catch

the notes of a guitar, accompanied by a female voice, through some open window; and at night, on the Grand Canal, how amusing it is to observe the moving lights (every gondola has its light), one now and then shooting across at a little distance, and vanishing into a smaller canal. This is indeed a fairy land, and Venice particularly so. If at Naples you see most with the eye, and at Rome with the memory, surely at Venice you see most with the imagination. But enough of Venice. To-morrow we bid adieu to it,—most probably I shall never see it again. We shall pass through Ferrara to Bologna, then cross the Apennines to Florence, and so on to Rome, where I shall look for a line from you.

"Tell Lady D. I passed the little Lake of Lowertz, and saw the melancholy effects of the downfall. It is now a scene of desolation, and the little town of Goldau is buried many fathoms deep. It is a sad story, and you shall have it when we meet. I received a very kind letter from her at Tunbridge, and mean to answer it. I hope to meet you in London-town, when you visit it next; at least I shall endeavour to do so. My sister unites with me in kindest remembrance to Mrs. Moore; and pray, pray believe me to be, Yours ever, S. R."

CHAPTER VI.

LALLA ROOKH.

Moore, in the preface to the twentieth edition of Lalla Rookh, gives the following interesting account of its origin and progress :— "It was about the year 1812 that, impelled far more by the encouraging suggestions of friends than impelled by any promptings of my own ambition, I was induced to attempt a poem upon some oriental subject, and of those quarto dimensions which Scott's late triumphs in that form had then rendered the