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Mr. Moore perhaps counted too largely upon. Never had a young literary fellow of humble birth a better launch upon London society. His Lords' letters, and his pretty conciliatory ways, get him a place of value (when scarce twenty-four) in Bermuda. But he is not the man to lose his hold on London; so he goes over seas only to put a deputy in place, and then, with a swift run through our Atlantic cities, is back again. It is rather interesting to read now what the young poet says of us in those green days :-In Philadelphia, it appears, the people quite ran after him:

and two or

"I was much caressed while there. three little poems, of a very flattering kind, some of their choicest men addressed to me." [And again.] "Philadelphia is the only place in America which can boast any literary society." [Boston people, I believe, never admired Moore overmuch.]

Here again is a bit from his diary at Ballston which was the Saratoga of that day :

-

"There were about four hundred people — all stowed in a miserable boarding-house. They were astonished at our asking for basons and towels in our rooms; and thought we might condescend to come down to the Public Wash, with the other gentlemen, in the morning."

Poor, dainty, Moore! But he is all right when he comes back to London, and gives himself to old occupations of drawing-room service, and to the coining of new, and certainly very sweet and tender, Irish melodies. He loved to be tapped on the shoulder by great Dowagers, sparkling in diamonds, and to be entreated-"Now, dear Mr. Moore, do sing us one more song."

And it was pretty sure to come: he delighted in giving his very feeling and musical voice range over the heads of fine-feathered women. The peacock's plumes, the shiver of the crystal, the glitter of Babylon, always charmed him.

Nor was it all only tinkling sound that he gave back. For proof I cite one or two bits :

"Then I sing the wild song, 'twas once such a pleasure to hear,

When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear; And, as Echo far off thro' the vale, my sad orison rolls,

I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear."

And again :

"Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers,

This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine.

LALLA ROOKH.

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Go sleep, with the Sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers,
Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine.

"If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover

Have throbbed at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone;
I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over,

And all the wild sweetness I wak'd was thy own."

This is better than dynamite to stir Ireland's best pulses, even now.

Lalla Rookh.

Mr. Moore had his little country vacations— among them, that notable stay up in the lovely county of Derbyshire, near to Ashbourne and Dovedale, and the old fishing grounds of Walton and of Cotton-where he wrote the larger part of his first considerable poem, Lalla Rookh which had amazing success, and brought to its author the sum of £3,000. But I do not think that what inspiration is in it came to him from the hollows or the heights of Derbyshire ; I should rather trace its pretty Oriental confusion of sound and scenes to the jingle of London chandeliers. Yet the web, the gossamer, the veils and

the flying feet do not seem to touch ground anywhere in England, but shift and change and grow out of his Eastern readings and dreams.

Moore married at thirty-two-after he was known for the Irish melodies, but before the publication of Lalla Rookh; and in his Letters and Diary (if you read them-though they make an enormous mass to read, and frighten most people away by their bulk), you will come upon very frequent, and very tender mention of "Dear Bessie "

the wife. It is true, there were rumors that he wofully neglected her, but hardly well founded. Doubtless there was many a day and many a week when she was guarding the cottage and the children at Sloperton; and he bowing and pirouetting his way amongst the trailing robes of their ladyships who loved music and literature in London; but how should he refuse the invitations of his Lordship this or that? Or how should she-who has no robes that will stand alone - bring her pretty home gowns into that blazon of the salons ? Always, too (if his letters may be trusted), he is eager to make his escape between whiles-wearied of this tintamarre-and to rush away to his cot

MOORE'S HOME.

159

tage at Sloperton* for a little slippered ease, and a romp with the children. Poor children—they all drop away, one by one-two only reaching maturity - then dying. The pathetic stories of the sickening, the danger and the hush, come poignantly into his Diary, and it does seem that the winning clatter of the world gets a hold upon his wrenched heart over-quickly again. But what right have you or I to judge in such matters?

There are chirrupy little men and women,

too,

on whom grief does not seem to take a hard grip; all the better for them! Moore, I think, was such a one, and was braced up always and everywhere by his own healthy pulses, and, perhaps, by a sense of his own sufficiency. His vanities are not only elastic, but-by his own bland and child-like admissions they seem sometimes almost monumental. He writes in his Diary,

* Sloperton was near the centre of Wiltshire, a little way northward from the old market-town of Devizes. Mr. Will1am Winter, in his Gray Days and Gold, has given a very charming account of this home of Moore's and of its neighborhood - so full of English atmosphere, and of the graces and benignities of the Irish poet, as to make me think regretfully of my tamer mention.