search of a guide to Sloperton, and found he was close to his own gate. "Ah! sir," said the peasant, "that comes of yer sky-scraping!"

He was fond of telling of himself such simple anecdotes as this; indeed, I remember his saying that no public applause had ever given him so much pleasure as a compliment from a half-wild countryman, who stood right in his path on a quay in Dublin, and exclaimed, slightly altering the words of Byron, "Three cheers for Tommy Moore, the poet of all circles, and the darlint of his own."

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. Bartolini, when making his bust, praised the form of his ears. The nose, as observed in all his portraits, was somewhat upturned. Standing or sitting, his head was invariably upraised, owing, perhaps, mainly to his shortness of stature. He had so much bodily activity as to give him the character of restlessness; and no doubt that usual accompaniment of genius was eminently his. His hair was, at the time I speak of, thin and very grey, and he wore his hat with the "jaunty" air that has been often remarked as a peculiarity of the Irish. In dress, although far from slovenly, he was by no means particular. 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 fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine leaves; his mouth generous and good-humoured, with dimples." Jeffrey, in one of his letters, says of him-" He is the sweetest-blooded, warmest-hearted, happiest, hopefulest creature that ever set fortune at defiance." He writes also of "the buoyancy of his spirits and the inward light of his mind ;' and adds, "There is nothing gloomy or bitter in his ordinary talk, but rather a wild, rough, boyish pleasantry, more like nature than his poetry." This is the tribute of Scott:-"There is a manly frankness, with perfect ease and goodbreeding, about him, which is delightful." In 1835 this portrait of the poet was drawn by the American author, N. P. Willis :-"His eyes sparkle like a champagne bubble; there is a kind of wintry red, of the tinge of an October leaf, that seems enamelled on his cheek; his lips are delicately cut, slight, and changeable as an aspen; the slightly-turned nose confirms the fun of the expression; and altogether it is a face that sparkles, beams, radiates

"The light that surrounds him is all from within."

No

He had but little voice: yet he sung with a depth of sweetness that charmed all hearers: it was true melody, and told upon the heart as well as the ear. doubt much of this charm was derived from association, for it was only his own

melodies he sung. It would be difficult to describe the effect of his singing. I remember Lætitia Landon saying to me, it conveyed an idea of what a mermaid's song might be. Thrice I heard him sing "As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow "—once in 1821, once at Lady Blessington's, and once in my own house. Those who can recall the touching words of that song, and unite them with the deep yet tender pathos of the music, will be at no loss to conceive the exceeding delight of his auditors.

V.

I occasionally met Moore in public, and twice or thrice at public dinners. One of the most agreeable evenings I ever passed was in 1830, at a dinner given to him by the members of "The Literary Union." That "club" was founded in 1829 by the poet Campbell. There were many men of mark about him,-leading wits, and men of letters. He was full of life, sparkling and brilliant in all he said, rising every now and then to say something that gave the hearers delight, and looking as if" dull care" had been ever powerless to check the overflowing of his soul. But although no bard of any age knew better how to

"Wreathe the bowl with flowers of soul,"

he had acquired the power of self-restraint, and could "stop" when the glass was circulating too freely. At a period when to drink to excess was considered not only excusable but a social duty, the perilous tempter had no power over him.

At the memorable dinner of " the Literary Fund," at which the "good Prince Albert" presided (on the 11th May, 1842), the two poets, Campbell and Moore, had to make speeches. The author of the "Pleasures of Hope," heedless of the duty that devolved upon him, had "confused his brain." Moore came, on the evening of that day, to our house; and I well remember the terms of deep sorrow and bitter reproach in which he spoke of the lamentable impression that one of the great authors of the age and country must have left on the mind of the royal and most estimable Chairman,—then new among us.

Yes it is gratifying to record that the temptations to which the great lyric poet was so often and so peculiarly exposed were ever powerless for wrong.

VI.

Moore sat for his portrait to Shee, Lawrence, Phillips, Newton, Maclise, Mulvany, and Richmond, and to the sculptors Bartolini, Chantrey, Kirk, and Moore.* On one occasion of his sitting he says, "Having nothing in my round potato face but what painters cannot catch-mobility of character-the consequence is, that a

* He sat also to an artist named "Mossop." In 1821, Moore says, "Philip Crampton forced me to let a mask be taken from my face: disagreeable operation." Does that mask exist? It would be important to ascertain.

portrait of me can be only one or other of two disagreeable things-a caput mortuum or a caricature." Richmond's portrait was taken in 1843. Moore says of it, "The artist has worked wonders with an unmanageable face such as mine." Of all his portraits that is the one which pleases me best, and most forcibly recalls him to my remembrance. I have engraved it at the head of this Memory. Perhaps, however, a more truthful likeness is that by his distinguished countryman, Sir Martin Archer Shee, P.R.A.

VII.

I learned dearly to love the man. It was impossible not to do so for nature had endowed him with that rare but happy gift-to have pleasure in giving plea

sure, and pain in giving pain; while his life was, or at all events seemed to be, a practical comment on his own lines:

"They may rail at this life: from the hour I began it,

I've found it a life full of kindness and bliss."

our visit; I listening, he talking; he now and then asking questions, but rarely speaking of himself or his books. Indeed, the only one of his poems to which he made any special reference was the "Lines on the Death of Sheridan," of which he said, "That is one of the few things I have written of which I am really proud."

The anecdotes he told me were all of the class of those I have related—simple, unostentatious. He has been frequently charged with the weakness of undue respect for the aristocracy; I never heard him, during the whole of our intercourse, speak of great people with whom he had been intimate; never a word of the honours accorded to him; and certainly he never uttered a sentence of satire, or censure, or harshness, concerning any one of his contemporaries. I remember his describing with proud warmth his visit to his friend Boyse, at Bannow, in the county of Wexford; the delight he enjoyed at receiving the homage of bands of the peasantry gathered to greet him; the arches of green leaves under which he passed; and the dances with the pretty peasant girls-one in particular, with whom he led off a country dance. Would that those who fancied him " hunter" could have heard him! they would have seen how really humble was his heart. Reference to his Journal will show that, of all his contemporaries-whenever he spoke of them-he had something kindly to say. There is no evidence of ill-nature-of envy or jealousy. A Scottish grazier could not have been better pleased than he was to see the elegant home-evidence of prosperity-Abbotsford.

a tuft

VIII.

The house at Sloperton is a small cottage, for which Moore paid originally the sum of £40 a year, "furnished." Subsequently, however, he became its tenant, under a repairing lease at £18 annual rent. He took possession of it in November, 1817. Bessy was "not only satisfied, but delighted with it, which shows the humility of her taste," writes Moore to his mother; "for it is a small thatched cottage, and we get it furnished for £40 a year." "It has a small garden and lawn in front, and a kitchen garden behind; along two of the sides of this kitchengarden is a raised bank," the poet's "terrace-walk;" so he loved to call it. Here a small deal table stood through all weathers; for it was his custom to compose as he walked, and, at this table, to pause and write down his thoughts.‡

One evening, I spoke of the rumours as to where he wrote "The Meeting of the Waters," telling him a tree was pointed out under which it is commonly thought they were written. "Ah! " said Moore, playfully, "that is

a secret I tell to nobody." Mrs. Moore whispered to me, "It was in an attic at Brompton."

+ I have seen the following passage from the Journal quoted as evidence of the mean subserviency of Moore :"Called at Lansdowne House, and was let in." The generous critic overlooked another passage in the Journal as follows:-"Lord Lansdowne called, and was let in."

He was always in motion when he composed. If the weather prevented his walking on the terrace, he would pace up and down his small study: the length of his walk was indicated by the state of the carpet; the places where his steps turned were, at both ends, worn into holes. The "small deal table" is now in my conservatory-honoured as it ought to be.

Hence he had always a view of the setting sun! and I believe few things on earth gave him more pleasure than practically to realise the line

"How glorious the sun looked in sinking!"

for, as Mrs. Moore informed us, he very rarely missed that sight. Here he lived from the year 1817 to the year 1852. I visited Sloperton in 1876, and was the guest of the respected rector of Bromham, the Rev. E. B. Edgell, who honours as much as I do the memory of both. The place is but little changed, not in all ways for the better. His "terrace-walk" is there still, and so is the "Tara ivy," some shoots of which I took to plant in our garden at Kensington, where it flourishes.

In 1811, the year of his marriage, he lived at York Terrace, Queen's Elm, Brompton. Mrs. Moore told us it was then a pretty house: the Terrace was isolated and opposite nursery gardens.* Long afterwards (in 1824), he went to Brompton to " indulge himself with a sight of that house." In 1812 he was settled at Kegworth, † and in 1813 at Mayfield Cottage, near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. Of Mayfield, one of his friends, who, twenty years afterwards, accompanied him there to see it, remarks on the small, solitary, and now wretched-looking cottage, where all the fine "Orientalism" and "sentimentalism" had been engendered. Of this cottage he himself writes-"It was a poor place, little better than a barn; but we at once took it and set about making it habitable." The rent Moore paid for it was £20 a year. It was then "within twenty-four hours' drive of town," i.e., London. It is no other than a poor place now. We visited the house in the autumn of 1869, in company with our friend Llewellynn Jewitt, who furnished me with the following description:

"Situate only a couple of miles from Ashbourne, within walking distance of Dove Dale, and in the midst of most charming scenery, Mayfield Cottage may have become a delicious, though it was a homely, retreat. The cottage is a plain square building, with a hipped roof. In front is a small flower-garden, slightly terraced, and a path leads up to the front door, which is in the centre of the building, and is covered with a simple, trellised porch. The sitting-rooms are small, and have brick floors, and have nothing 'cosy' or nice or inviting about them. The bedrooms are, like the lower apartments, small and uninviting. The poet's own room —that in which he slept-is the one on the left, and on a pane of the window the following lines are scratched on the glass, and are said—though without any evidence to have been so scratched by Moore himself ::

'I ask not always in your breast,

In solitude to be;

But whether mournful, whether blest,
Sometimes remember me.

-Old Moore's Almanack.

* It is now part and parcel of a populous suburb-a house in a row. I regret that I cannot indicate the number, but believe it to be No. 5.

+ His daughter, Anastasia Mary, was born here on the 4th February, 1813. Of Kegworth he writes:-"Bessy is quite pleased with our new house, and runs wild about the large garden, which is certainly a delightful emancipation for her, after our very limited domain at Brompton."