And in the zenith of his fame, when society drew largely on his time, and the highest and best in the land coveted a portion of his leisure, with her he corresponded so regularly that at her death she possessed (so Mrs. Moore told me) four thousand of his letters. Never, according to the statement of Earl Russell, did he pass a week without writing to her twice, except while absent in Bermuda, where franks were not to be obtained, and postages were costly. When a world had tendered to him its homage, still the homely woman was his "darling mother," to whom he transmitted a record of his cares and triumphs, anxieties and hopes, as if he considered-as I verily believe he did consider that to give her pleasure was the chief enjoyment of his life. His sister "excellent Nell"-occupied only a second place in his heart; while his father received as much of his respect as if he had been the hereditary representative of a line of kings. All his life long "he continued," according to one of the most valued of his correspondents, "amidst the pleasures of the world, to preserve his home fireside affections true and genuine, as they were when a boy." To his mother he writes of all his facts and fancies; to her he opens his heart in its natural and innocent fulness; tells her of each thing, great or small, that, interesting him, must interest her-from his introduction to the Prince of Wales, and his visit to Niagara, to the acquisition of a pencil-case, and the purchase of a pocket-handkerchief. "You, dear mother," he writes, can see neither frivolity nor egotism in these details."

Evidences of his deep love and veneration for his mother are sufficiently abundant. I add to them one more. The nephew of Mrs. Moore, Charles Murray, gave to me a small MS. volume of early poems, "written out" for his mother (it has no date): it is thus prefaced

:

"For her who was the critic of my first infant productions, I have transcribed the few little essays that follow. The smile of her approbation and the tear of her affection were the earliest rewards of my lisping numbers; and however the efforts of my maturer powers may aspire to the applause of a less partial judge, still will the praises which she bestows be dearer-far dearer to my mind than any. The critic praises from the head-the mother praises from the heart. With one it is a tribute of the judgment; with the other it is a gift from the Soul.”*

In 1806, Moore's father received, through the interest of Lord Moira, the post of Barrack-master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In 1815 “retrenchment" deprived him of that office, and he was placed on half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a situation to keep them in comfort without it." "Thank Heaven," he writes afterwards of his father, "I have been able to make his latter days tranquil and comfortable." When sitting beside that father's death-bed (in 1825) he was relieved by a burst of tears and and by prayers, a sort of confidence

The book is written in a somewhat boyish hand-that of Moore in his youth. On a fly-leaf, in the later hand of the poet, is this passage: "Very juvenile poems indeed."

that the Great and Pure Spirit above us could not be otherwise than pleased at what He saw passing in my mind."*

When Lord Wellesley (Lord Lieutenant), after the death of the father, proposed to continue the half-pay to the sister, Moore declined the offer, although he adds, "God knows how useful such aid would be to me, as God alone knows how I am to support all the burthens now heaped upon me," and his wife was planning how "they might be able to do with one servant," that they might be the better able to assist his mother.

III.

The poet was born in the house No. 12, Aungier Street, Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779, and died at Sloperton, on the 25th February,† 1852, at the age of seventy-two. What a full life it was! Industry a fellow worker with Genius for nearly sixty years!

He was a sort of "show-child" almost from his birth, and could barely walk when it was jestingly said of him, he passed all his nights with fairies on the hills. "He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” Almost his earliest memory was his having been crowned king of a castle by some of his play-fellows. At his first school he was the show-boy of the schoolmaster; at thirteen years old he had written poetry that attracted and justified admiration. In 1797 he was a man of mark" at the University. In 1798, at the age of nineteen, he had made “ considerable progress " in translating the Odes of Anacreon; and in 1800 he was "patronised" and flattered by the Prince of Wales, who was "happy to know a man of his abilities," and "hoped they might have many opportunities of enjoying each other's society."

His earliest printed work, "Poems by Thomas Little," has been the subject of much, and, perhaps, merited, condemnation. Of Moore's own feeling in reference to these compositions of his thoughtless boyhood, it may be right to quote three of the dearest of his friends.

Thus writes Lisle Bowles of Thomas Moore, in allusion to these early poems—

"Who, if, in the unthinking gaiety of premature genius, he joined the syrens, has

* At a grand dinner given to him in Dublin (his father and mother being both present), on the health of Mr. Moore, sen., being proposed, Moore said "If I deserve (which I cannot persuade myself I do) one-half of the honours you have this day heaped upon me, to him, and to the education which he struggled hard to give me, I owe it all. Yes, gentlemen, to him and to an admirable mother-one of the warmest hearts even this land of warm hearts ever produced-whose highest ambition for her son has ever been that independent and unbought approbation of her countrymen, which, thank God, she lives this day to witness.”

+ I find in Earl Russell's Memoir the date given as the 26th February; but Mrs. Moore altered it (in a letter to me) to February 25.

made ample amends by a life of the strictest virtuous propriety, equally exemplary as the husband, the father, and the man; and as far as the muse is concerned, more ample amends, by melodies as sweet as scriptural and sacred, and by weaving a tale of the richest Oriental colours which faithful affection and pity's tear have consecrated to all ages." This is the statement of his friend Rogers:-"So heartily has Moore repented of having published 'Little's Poems,' that I have seen him shed tears-tears of deep contrition-when we were talking of them." And thus writes Jeffrey :-" He has long ago redeemed his error; in all his latter works he appears as the eloquent champion of purity, fidelity, and delicacy, not less than of justice, liberty, and honour."

His

I allude to his early triumphs only to show that while they would have spoiled" "nine men out of ten, they failed to taint the character of Moore. modest estimate of himself was from first to last a leading feature in his character. Success never engendered egotism; honours never seemed to him only the recompense of desert: he largely magnified the favours he received, and seemed to consider as mere "nothings" the services he rendered, and the benefits he conferred. That was his great characteristic—all his life. I have myself evidence to adduce on this head. I print a letter I received from Moore, dated "Sloperton, November 29, 1843 :".

"MY DEAR MR. HALL,

.

I am really and truly ashamed of myself for having let so many acts of kindness on your part remain unnoticed and unacknowledged on mine. But the world seems determined to make me a man of letters in more senses than one, and almost every day brings me such an influx of epistles from mere strangers, that friends hardly ever get a line from me. My friend Washington Irving used to say, 'It is much easier to get a book from Moore than a letter.' But this has not been the case, I am sorry to say, of late: for the penny-post has become the sole channel of my inspirations. How am I to thank you sufficiently for all your and Mrs. Hall's kindness to me? She must come down here when the summer arrives, and be thanked a quattr' occhi—a far better way of thanking than at such a cold distance."

The house in Aungier Street I have pictured. I visited it in 1864, again in 1869, and again in 1875. It continued to be, as it was in 1779, the dwelling of a grocer-altered only in so far as that a bust of the poet is placed over the door, and the fact that he was born there is recorded on a marble tablet.* May no modern "improvement ever touch it!

* It was my happy privilege to place that tablet there: in 1864, if I recollect rightly. It simply says-“IN THIS HOUSE, ON THE 28TH OF MAY, 1769, THE POET THOMAS MOORE WAS BORN." Nothing more: but it is enough. It is the corner house, and has been inhabited by a grocer during the whole of a century. Its present occupant is Mr. Thomas Keogh. I rejoice to know he loves and honours the memory of the poet, and is proud to be the successor of the great man's father. He will, no doubt, ere long receive many "callers ;" and he will so arrange, I hope, that the room in which Moore was born may be seen, as well as the small parlour "behind the shop." They will recall the descriptive passages I have copied from the "Diary." Mr. Keogh, if "a wine and spirit merchant," is also, it appears from his card, an "importer of tea and coffee." I trust he will so manage that a ་་ cup that cheers but not inebriates" may be taken at his counter.

"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare

The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."

This humble dwelling of the humble tradesman is the house of which the poet speaks in so many of his early letters and memoranda. Here, when a child in

years, he arranged a debating society, consisting of himself and his father's two "clerks;" here he picked up a little Italian from a kindly old priest who had passed some time in Italy, and obtained a "smattering of French;" here his tender mother watched over his boyhood, proud of his opening promise, and hopeful, yet apprehensive, of his future; here he and his sister, "excellent Nell,"

acquired music, first upon an old harpsichord, obtained by his father in discharge of a debt, and afterwards on a piano, to buy which his mother had saved up all superfluous pence. Hither he came not less proudly, yet as fondly as everwhen college magnates gave him honours, and the Viceroy had received him-as a guest.

In 1835 he records a visit to No. 12, Aungier Street, "where I was born;" "visited every part of the house; the small old yard and its appurtenances; the small dark kitchen, where I used to have my bread and milk; the front and drawing-rooms; the bed-rooms and garrets-murmuring, Only think, a grocer's still!'" "The many thoughts that came rushing upon me while thus visiting the house where the first twenty years of my life were passed may be more easily conceived than told." He records, with greater unction than he did his visit to the Prince, his sitting with the grocer and his wife at their table, and drinking, in a glass of their wine, her and her husband's "good health.” Thence he went, with all his "recollections of the old shop," to a dinner at the Viceregal Lodge!

IV.

I spring with a single line from the year 1821, when I knew him first, to the year 1845, when circumstances enabled us to enjoy the long-looked-for happiness of visiting Moore and his beloved wife in their home-Sloperton.*

The poet was then in his sixty-fifth year, and had, in a great measure, retired from actual labour: indeed, it soon became evident to us that the faculty for continuous toil no longer existed. Happily, it was not absolutely needed: for, with very limited wants, there was a sufficiency-a bare sufficiency, however, for there were no means to procure either the elegancies or the luxuries which so frequently become necessaries, and a longing for which might have been excused in one who had been the friend of peers and the associate of princes.

The forests and fields that surround Bowood, the mansion of the Marquis of Lansdowne, are not far from the humble dwelling of the poet. The spire of the village church—the Church of BROMHAM-beside the portals of which he now “rests.”—-is seen from the Cottage above adjacent trees. Labourers' cottages are scattered all about. They are a heavy and unimaginative race those peasants of Wiltshire : and, knowing their neighbour had written books, they could by no means get rid of the idea that he was the writer of Moore's Almanack! and perpetually greeted him with a salutation, in hopes to receive in return some prognostic of the weather that might guide them in arrangements for seed-time and harvest. Once, when he had lost his way-wandering till midnight-he roused up the inmates of a cottage in

Our intercourse was a result of his having quoted, in his "History of Ireland," some stanzas from a poem I had written, entitled "Jerpoint Abbey"-privately and anonymously printed in 1822. These stanzas may be found in the first volume of the "History" by any person who thinks it worth while to look for them.