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PREFATORY MEMOIR.

"THE world," says Lord Russell, in his "Memoirs of Moore," "so long as it can be moved by sympathy and exalted by fancy, will not willingly let die the tender strains and pathetic fires of a true poet." We accept this as just. Neither the noises of factories nor the speculations of science, in this our utilitarian age, have as yet drowned the gentler sound of the lyre or quenched the passionate fires of poesy; and body-workers and brain-workers, now and for ever, will turn in their hours of relaxation, with all the keener relish, to the charms of the tale and the song. And so it is that MOORE, "a true poet," still lives as fresh in the heart and memory of England, as when his Odes of Anacreon first told the world that a new poet had arisen.

The birth of the poet was portentous of his future. He entered the world amid sounds of song and revelry and wit, ringing, on the 28th of May, 1780, from the apartments which John Moore, the grocer, had let in his house, No. 12, Aungier Street, Dublin, to a young barrister. An easy-going social man was John, not without a pleasant humour; one of nature's gentlemen, having all the repose of good breeding by which the true gentleman in all classes is distinguished: but Anastatia, his wife, was a woman of superior cast, of strong sense, deep maternal love, and a high ambition for her eldest born. An education the best to be obtained -which probably taxed severely the good grocer's means-was given the boy at the instance of his mother. The theatrical tastes of the master, Samuel Whyte, stimulated those of the pupil, who first recited Whyte's epilogues, and then took to write epilogues himself, even in his tenth year. Indeed, before that he had given manifestations; for he tells us, "So far back in childhood lies the epoch, that I am really unable to say at what age I first began to act, sing, and rhyme." A home education in music-first on an antiquated harpsichord, soon replaced, not without some grumbling from John, by a pianoforte-touched, as with the prophet's wand, that spring from which, in after life, streams so sweet, so sparkling, so abundant, were to flow. Music, said Moore, more than thirty years afterwards, was "the only art for which, in my own opinion, I was born with a real natural love; my poetry, such as it is, having sprung out of my deep feeling for music." How true this is, every one familiar with his lyrics will feel. The lines come trembling with the melody that has evoked them, telling how with him, as with all perfect writers of song, the music of sound had preceded the music of speech; and teaching us that not without a deep significance did the Greek mythologists assign to Euterpe an elder birth than to her sisters Melpomene and Calliope. A Dublin periodical, the Anthologia Hibernica, as well as the journals, afforded the young poet opportunities of seeing his verses in print; and his fond, proud mother determined that

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he should enter Trinity College, then recently thrown open to Roman Catholics, of which persuasion the Moores were members; so in 1793 he was one of the first of the "young Helots" who availed himself of the privilege. The political condition of his co-religionists, from which they were then struggling to free themselves, was as keenly felt by the ardent young poet as might be expected. "Born,' as he says, "a rebel "a rebel, let us add, only against those unjust disabilities which have happily been removed-the impressions which his mind then received, however they may have been modified in after life, were never obliterated. Moore's college course was not unmarked with honours and reputation; he signalized himself by verses which obtained the commendation of the Board, and stood for a scholarship, to find himself qualified by his answering, but, of course, disqualified by his religion a fact that perhaps naturally intensified his feeling of dissatisfaction with the political status of Roman Catholics. As might be expected, however, Moore's rea...g was somewhat more discursive than the curriculum, and he was already occupied with the translations of Anacreon, to the preparation of which he devoted much time and study in Marsh's library, singularly rich in theological works, and to which, as he says, "I was indebted for much of the odd, out-of-the-way sort of reading that may be found scattered through some of my earlier works." It was now, too, that Moore exhibited all those peculiar gifts, which were yet to ripen into such rich maturity, first in the College Debating Society, when Thomas Addis Emmet and he contracted their fast friendship, and afterwards in the more ambitious arena of the famous College Historical Society, of which they were both admitted members. The discontent and the ambition of the young man found another vent in the columns of the Press, the journal of the "United Irishmen," first in what he called an "imitation of Ossian," a composition that has in it little to commend either in a literary or political sense; and next in a bolder attempt, "A Letter to the Students of Trinity College," written," the matured critic himself says afterwards, "in a turgid, Johnsonian sort of style, but seasoned with plenty of the then favourite condiment-treason." The turgescence is considerable; the Johnsonianism is without the vigour of the doctor; but the treason is undeniable. While we allude to these as his early political writings, we may well be lenient to the defects and errors of a youth of seventeen. Whether he should have been gradually drawn deeper into the treason is a matter of speculation, and not worth speculating upon. Happily the voice of one who never spoke to him in vain-that of his mother-entreated him never again to venture on so dangerous a step," and he readily pledged the solemn promise she required of him. These political manifestations were, however, not without their consequences, as he was shortly after subjected to the ordeal of ar examination before the visitors of the college, who sat to investigate the well-founded suspicion of the treasonable sentiments that had infected the minds of the students It is to the honour of Moore that he has since admitted how well justified these proceedings were which at the time seemed so inquisitorial, while it is equally creditable to the independent spirit of the youth, that while taking, even under protest, the oath administered to him as a witness, he did so with the manly quali'fication of refusing to answer any questions that might endanger others. "I have no fear, my lord," said he to Chancellor Clare," that anything I might say would criminate myself, but it might tend to affect others; and I must say that I despise that person's