ary points with which we might expect any educated men of his day to have been familiar. This must we suppose be attributed to the desultory habits of his life. He seems to have been by no means a bookish man, and to have given but little of his time to general or even current literature, though by fits very studious of "all such reading as was never read" when he wanted to work it into some particular design. slang with Tom Cribb, we find him interlard-ever and anon betrays utter ignorance of litering it with the most laborious pedantry, till at last, when he finishes this stupid fatras (which his publishers seem ashamed to reprint in their last edition of his works), he cannot help exclaiming, "What a rag-fair of learning I have made it! In the labors of the Scriblerus club the affectation of learning heightens the ridicule; but that is not Moore's case. There is no fun at all in his pedantry; nor is it intended for fun, but simply to exhibit what in the sincerity of the Diary he calls "a rag-fair of learning not seeing that his greater poems are, in the original conception as well as in the illustrations, obnoxious to much the same kind of criticism. Colonel Henley mentioned a play of Racine's (of which I forget the name), the commencement of which is very applicable to the history of Napoleon. - iii. 240. It is odd that he should forget the name of one of the few tragedies of this great dramatist. Colonel Henley, no doubt, alluded to the first lines of Alexandre. And in some remarks that Moore makes (iii. 225, 238) on the structure of the French heroic or tragie verse, he shows that he knows nothing about 1822. July 30th - Came home by the gondole. An amazing reciter of verses among the passen- We are not so absurd as to reproach Moore for studying to invest his fictions with all attainable reality and truth our surprise is, that a poet so cried up as " possessing in his own fancy and feeling an inexhaustible fountain of ingenious creation" (Lord John, Preface, xxiii.) should have selected for all his it. great efforts non-natural subjects, so little sympathetic even with his own heart or mind that he himself is driven to hunt through utavailable terly unfamiliar authors for any scrap of information about them; and, after all, so little is there of distinctive and appropriate either in the substance or details of those works, that it would, we believe, have cost Moore no great trouble to have incorAstonished the poor man might well be at porated his Angels with Lalla Rookh, or Alciphron with the Angels. A curious illus- the interference of a "learned Theban" from tration of this occurs in the Diary. After the Western Boeotia, who confounded the the Loves of the Angels, founded on a passage of Scripture, helped out by the apocryphal book of Enoch, had been published, and four editions sold, Moore found the imputation of impiety so strong, that he took the bold resolution of shifting his whole machinery to Mahomet's Paradise; and did so in a few weeks by the assistance of " D'Herbelot," "Prideaux's Life of Mahomet," " Beausobre's Manicheism," Hyde's Religio Persarum,' "Philo-Judæui," &c. &c. (iv. 41-2). Yet, when after so substantial a change the metamorphosed work came forth, we do not remember that the public ever seemed to observe the difference any more than if it had been an ordinary second edition. Such a disponability, as the French call it such a dissolv- would not have been possible if ing view there had been anything of truth or nature, or even fictitious interest, in the original composition. Johnson ridiculed epitaphs to let; but here was a whole poem to let like furnished lodgings, and nobody took the least notice of the new-comers, nor discovered that they were not the old occupants. -- In the midst of so much show of odd erudition -he even, we think, had the temerity to -review some of the Greek Fathers! - Moore names of M. Lamoignon de Malesherbes, the that he has all his life had a love for domestic comforts, though passing his time in such different manner, like that king of Bohemia who had so unluckily a taste for navigation, though condemned to live in an inland town." - iii. 262. Is it possible that Moore should not have known whence Mr. Luttrell's pleasantry was derived? It seems so; and there is a similar instance in vol. iv. p. 72. Again, he quotes, from Lord Holland, Cowper's burlesque lines, "Doctor Jortin," &c. (iii. 272), evidently having either not read or forgotten one of the most delightful and popular publications of his own time- Cowper's Letters. 19th Sept., 1818. - Dined at Bowood. Some amusing things mentioned at dinner. Talked of Penn's book about the end of the world, and Swift's ridicule of Bickerstaff's prophecy, which I must see.-ii. 167. [The hearer] perplexed 'Twixt the two to determine Watch and pray says the text, - Go to sleep says the sermon.— iv. 214. Moore might have found it in the very first page of epigrams in the "Elegant Extracts." "Swift's ridicule of Bickerstaff's prophecy - Presently, however, we find him sneering which I must see!" He would have to search at Lord Lansdowne, as showing off" some long enough before he saw any such thing. criticism on Dryden's translation of the It is wonderful that he should not have known opening of the Eneid, and especially on the that Swift was himself Bickerstaff, under imperfect rendering of fato profugus, which which pseudonyme he ridiculed the prophecies Moore had heard from him before (ii. 246). of the notorious almanac-maker Partridge, If Lord Lansdowne - who is as little of a mere where, however, there is nothing at all about "the end of the world." But neither Bickerstaff nor Partridge had anything to do with the passage referred to at Bowood, which is from an altogether different drollery, in ridicule of Whiston's theory of comets. We should have hardly thought that there was any reading man in England who was not familiar with all these pleasantries. Moore talks of a Mr. Theophilus Swift who had in his time some squabble with the heads of the University in which his son Mr. Deane Swift had a share" Mr. Swift," says Moore, "having had his son so christened in honor of the name" (i, 38). Moore must have looked but little into the Dean's history not to know that one of his uncles had married the daughter of Admiral Deane, whose surname had thence become a Christian name of the Swift family. It is strange that he should not have read Swift's Correspondence, the second letter of which, dated 1694, is addressed to his cousin, Deane Swift, Esq." and stranger still that he should never have seen or heard : of so well-known a work as the Essay on the show-off man as we ever met-did repeat himself, it certainly was not Moore, who enjoying his hospitality, should have been on the watch to detect and record it. Moore goes on to attribute to Lord Lansdowne some further remarks on the word profugus: Bowood, 1818, Dec. 30th. Lord L. mentioned a passage in Florus, where the word profigus describes one of the Roman generals as profugus was very strangely used. I forget it; but it for the sake of seeking out an enemy to Rome. Dr. Paley at Cambridge (Q.E.E.) called the word profŭgus (the consequence of his northern education), and the following line was written on the occasion -"Errat Virgilius, forte profāgas erat."— ii. 246. - All we can understand from this strange - marked and accented as we have passage given it is, that Moore seems not to have had the slightest idea of what his friends were that he confounded the talking about that he fancied Florus to be a poet, whose meaning with the prosody of the wordauthority would determine the penultimate syllable to be long-and that Dr. Paley having, in consequence of his northern education, pronounced it as short, he was ridiculed by his fellow Cantabs for so monstrons a blunder! We cannot imagine how Moore, even with his western education, could have accumulated such absurdities, and suppose rather some error in the transcription of his MS.; but we may safely acquit Lord Lansdowne of having any share in them. On another question of prosody he also gets out of his depth in very shallow water. In confessing that the Dublin University men were in his day deficient in prosody, he admits that they make mistakes as to the long and shorts (i. 50) — believing that the longs and shorts of our great schools refer to longs and short syllables, and not, as they do, to long and short lines, i. e., hexameters and pentam has been out of the question for a long time; but you may proceed."-ii. 312. Moore, confessing that he was not a scientific musician It makes a significant conclusion to the foregoing negligences and ignorances to find that it was only one week before his final departure from Paris, after a residence of near mentioned the tendency I had to run into consetwo years, that he found his way to the roy-cutive fifths, adding that [Sir Henry] Bishop al library : He left Paris on the third day after this compunctious entry. On the whole, there is hardly anything in the Diary that has surprised us more than the frequent, and, as it seems, conclusive, evidence of Moore's deficiency, not only in more serious, but even in ordinary, reading. There are hardly any of his acquaintance, and we should note more especially his noble friends Lord Lansdowne and Lord Holland, who do not appear to have been- quod minime reris better versed than this voluminous poet and historian both in English and classical literature. A very prominent feature of the Diary is and, indeed, one of its least irrational objects would be the record of the jokes and stories that Moore's taste should think worth remembering. Knowing that he lived with all the wits of the day, Whig and Tory, and having now revised my music; [George] Lord Auckland said, "Other Bishops take care of the tithes but he looks after the fifths.”— iv. 263. 66 Curran, upon a case where the Theatre Royal in Dublin brought an action against Astley's for acting Lock and Key, said, My Lords, the whole question turns upon this, whether the said Lock and Key is to be considered as a patent one, or of the spring and tumbler kind.” — iv. 7. At a stag-hunt at Killarney, the animal came close to where Lord Avonmore, then Attorney-General, and Dr. O'Leary were standingO'Leary said - How naturally instinct leads him to you for a nolle prosequi!—iv. 112. A dialogue between a visitor and a servant at a hall door in Dublin: These are at least among the best that have and, what is surprising, sometimes very ill any novelty; they are generally hackneyed, ourselves often admired his tact and humor in told. "It is not every one," says Johnson, reproducing such things to enliven his own conversation, we expected a choice harvest; thought was one of those who could, and in"who can carry a joke." Moore we always but there, as everywhere else, we have been deed he had considerable success in that way ; disappointed. Few are good, and the ma- but the following failure is almost as bad as jority are downright failures. Amongst the the Joe-Miller story of him who called the few tolerable with which we are not familiar fall of a shoulder of mutton a lapsus linguæ:the following are the best. Foremost we place two of Kenny's, the dramatist, whosaid of Luttrell's "Julia" that it was too long, and not broad enough. 1821. Feb. 2.-Talking of letters being charged by weight, Canning said that the Post Office once refused to carry a letter of Sir J. Cox Hippesley, "it was so dull."- iii. 166. o no, Mr. Moore, Canning said "it was so heavy." He attempts to repeat after Tierey two pleasantries of Mr. Pitt-of one he makes nonsense, and the other he maims and loses its point. It is truly told in Q. R., vol. 79, p. 513. Here is an imbroglio, to us quite incomprehensible. Creevey, he says, who had passed some time with Sheridan at Mr. Ord's in Northumberland, described Sheridan's gayety: acted over the battle of the Pyramids on Marston Moor, ordering Captain Creevey to cut out that cow- -pointing to a cow in a ditch. — iv. 295. Was it Creevey or Moore who imagined that either the battle of the Pyramids or that of "Is it the pleasure of the Court that I should Marston Moor was a maritime exploit-like proceed with my statement?" Pleasure, Mr. | the celebrated cutting out the Hermione ? 66 I quoted the following on Cæsar Colclough's taking boat at Luggelaw to follow the hounds: Cæsarem vehis et fortunas. (sic) When meaner souls the tempest struck with awe, This pleasantry, not itself a very choice one, them. 66 Having thus endeavored to collect from the scattered evidence of the Diary a kind synopsis of some of the chief points of Moore's personal and literary character, we now turn to the consideration of some circumstances of a more public nature; and here it is that we can cordially say that, whatever neglect or error of detail may be imputed to Lord John Russell's editorship, his work is a publicwe had almost said historical benefit. Moore's political satires had a considerable effect in their day, not so much from their gayety and wit-which was often feeble, and Moore professed to feel great pleasure from more often forced as from the deep bitternatural scenery, but this and several other ness and personal rancor by which they repassages in the Diary lead us to doubt whether commended themselves to that combination the feeling was very strong. Dovedale, for of factions self-styled the Whig party. Of instance, gives him no more distinct idea than this active and unscrupulous opposition Moore that it is the very abode of ― geni! (i. 301). became the poet-laureate; and though his To be sure, both he and Lord John tell us that vituperatory verses are as essentially effete as he wept at the sight of Mont Blanc, but he the panegyrics of any court laureate of them also tells us that he wept at seeing a French- all, they have left behind them, both in comman go up in a balloon. We know also that mon talk and in the olla-podrida literature of he never saw Killarney till his English friends our day, a kind of vague impression, which the Lansdownes took him there in his forty- these volumes will tend to correct and efface second year; and when he was asked which to a degree of which Moore's egotism was, of two different confluences he meant to and Lord John Russell's prejudice is, we susdescribe in his celebrated song of the "Meet-pect, alike unconscious. ing of the Waters," he was unable to say. The specimens he gives of his own bonmots or repartees are very poor- take one, which, from the rank of the lady and the care with which he records it, was, we presume, a favorite recollection : Had music in the evening [at Woburn]. The Duchess [of Bedford] said she wished I could transfer my genius to her for six weeks; and I answered, 66 Most willingly, if Woburn was placed at my disposal for the same time.". - iii. 283. The good taste of agreeing so readily in the duchess' humble estimate of herself, and in her grace's high opinion of him, and of To exhibit this in its true light we must revert a little to Moore's autobiography. We here find more than we had ever before heard or suspected of his early initiation into the United Irish Conspiracy. Moore tells us that he was not actually a United Irishman - and his youth would, no doubt, prevent his being in their councils-but he frequently boasted that he was heart and soul devoted to their principles, and, to the extent of his little power, active in propagating them. All of what are called his patriotic songs were calculated to revive and feed the spirit of the Irish Rebellion; and, to the very last, he seems to be proud of being considered a Jacobin, and even a traitor—which latter title is evidently viewed by him as equivalent to that of patriot. set up by Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmett, and the other chiefs of the United Irish Conspiracy [Were they the tools of Pitt and Camden ?] with the view of preparing and ripening the public mind for the great crisis that was fast approaching. —i. 55. This leads us to observe on two passages of Lord John Russell's Preface, penned no doubt with the object of justifying Moore's extreme politics, but which we think deserve, on higher grounds, serious animadversion. In Moore would have been willing enough to his critical summary of Moore's works, Lord palliate the rebellion- but he had been too John says of his Life of Lord Edward Fitzger- near an observer to attempt any such imald, that the character and fate of Lord Ed-position; and every line and every word of his ward are made to touch the heart of every Irish record of those times is a contradiction of patriot ;" and in speaking of the Irish Rebel- Lord John Russell's most indecent and most lion of 1798, the noble editor affirms that it unfounded - we might almost borrow his own was wickedly provoked" by the government. term "wicked"-charge on the government This canonization of treason and murder as of the time. patriotism, and this calumny on the government of the country, are among the legacies that Lord John has had from Holland House. Our readers know that Lord Holland avowed both these scandalous opinions in his last volume of Memoirs; and we hope they have not forgotten our refutation of them (Q.R. June, 1852). We need hardly say that we have very little reliance on Lord John Russell's judgment on any question where party prejudices can intervene; but that an author who has published largely on modern history- a statesman who has been successively Secretary of State for the Colonial, the Foreign, and the Home Departments, Prime Minister, and who is now Leader of the House of Commons- - should go out of his way to gild over rebellion as patriotism, and to assert so gratuitous and so absurd a slander as that the English and Irish ministers of those days had "wickedly provoked" the rebellion, passes our understanding; it is like nothing we ever read of, except the assertion of certain French historians that Mr. Pitt provoked the massacres of September. From those perilous political connexions — though never from these rebellious principles - Moore seems to have soon escaped into a very different and -in spite of his Jacobin opinions- more congenial society. His musical taste introduced him to one or two musical families, which he surprised and delighted by a combination of poetry and music in a style altogether peculiar to himself. He sang his own verses to his own tunes, in a style still more his own; the songs were indeed rather little amatory breathings than poetry the voice rather a warbling than singing but both were set off by an expression of countenance and charm of manner the most graceful, the most natural, and the most touching that we have ever witnessed; in truth, we believe that those who have ever heard Moore's own performance will agree that from no other lips- not even those of female beauty - did his songs ever come with such fascinating effect. With this singular and seductive talent, accompanied by perfect good manners and lively conversation, he soon made his way in the "singing, dancing, suppering" society of Dublin; and it is evident from all the names that occur in the letters of this period that it was of an altogether different political complexion from his former We are astonished at Lord John Russell's venturing to reproduce such a misrepresentation if it were merely historical:- it is worse, as we have just intimated, when a man in such a station endeavors to palliate not mere-associations. ly rebellion but a rebellion of which we At this time his parents, though little in a can scarcely say that the ashes are yet cold; condition to meet such an expense, decided on - but worst of all it is, when the very book his being educated for the Bar- and accordhe is editing-notwithstanding the avowedly ingly, in April, 1799, he proceeded to London, rebellious bias of the author-contradicts to be entered at the Middle Temple. The Lord Holland's and Lord John Russell's fable preparations for this journey are told with of the rebellion having been " wickedly" or in singular naïveté, and include a peculiarity any way "provoked" by the government. which we should not have expected from what Moore's first political recollections dating he says of the general good sense of his many years before 1798-he tells us, were mother: that A serious drain was now, however, to be made upon our scanty resources; and my poor mother had long been hoarding up every penny she could scrape together, towards the expenses of my journey to London for the purpose of being which I took with me was in guineas, and I entered at the Temple. A part of the small sum recollect was carefully sewed up by my mother in the waistband of my pantaloons. There was |