"Kirkby Mallory, March 10, 1820. "I received your letter of January 1, offering to my perusal a memoir of part of your life. I decline to inspect it. I consider the publication or circulation of such a composition at any time as prejudicial to Ada's future happiness. For my own sake, I have no reason to shrink from publication; but, notwithstanding the injuries which I have suffered, I should lament some of the consequences.

"To Lord Byron.

"A. BYRON." His reply to this, which he has also inclosed, and requested me (after reading it and taking a copy) to forward to Lady B., is as follows:

"Ravenna, April 3, 1820.

"I received yesterday your answer dated March 10. My offer was an honest one, and surely could only be construed as such even by the most malignant casuistry. I could answer you, but it is too late, and it is not worth while. To the mysterious menace of the last sentence, whatever its import may be and I cannot pretend to unriddle it—I could hardly be very sensible, even if I understood it, as, before it could take place, I shall be where 'nothing can touch him further' I advise you, however, to anticipate the period of your attention for be assured no power of figures can avail beyond the present; and if it could, I would answer with Florentine,

"To Lady Byron.

Et io, che posto son con loro in croce

*

* e certo

La fiera moglie, più ch' altro, mi nuoce.

"BYRON."

In July of the same year, Moore being in a cottage of Mr. Villamil's, at La Butte Coaslin, overlooking Sèvres, commenced his " Epicurean.' His reading for this Egyptian romance was curious. Sethos," a classic work in France, by the Abbé Tennasson, to which the author of "Antenor" was also under great obligations, was evidently of the greatest use to our poet. Chateaubriand had anticipated the idea of a Pagan girl becoming a martyr in "Les Martyrs." In the very thick of these Egyptian labours, Moore discovered that omelette aux confitures, with a glass of noyeau thrown over it, was a very excellent thing. The discovery was made at Véry's. The entries in the diary are certainly sometimes amusingly naïve. They involuntarily suggest the thought, is it possible a man made such entries with a view to publication? The prurient among the public may take much pleasure in these little details of daily life, which brings down even genius to the level of the humblest of mankind; but a healthy taste can never wish to see its hero disillusionised of his more robust and more intellectual attributes. True that the diary is full of well-bred facetiousness, and sparkle of the very first water; but Tom Moore, as Rogers said of him, was born with a rose in his lips, and a nightingale singing on the top of his bed; and the true admirer of his genius would also have wished him to expire so.

When the wood would not burn in the Jura, Moore said to Lord John Russell that it 66 was assuré contre l'Incendie." In Paris he found that the assurance inscription in the houses, M. A. C. L. (Maison assurée contre l'Incendie), were read by the French Mes amis, chassez Louis. Visiting Denon, when engaged on his "Epicurean," he saw drawings of Philoe and Elephantine, which made him wish he could take "his poetical people" there. A very natural wish. Moore appears to have entertained a horror of the genus dandy. There is an entry of the 4th

One

of September to the following effect: "Met Douglas, who told me Lord Miltown expected me to dinner at six o'clock. Went there; but his lordship did not come in till near seven, when he brought the awful news that four or five dandies were at his heels. This was too much. dandy or so I can bear, but a whole dinner of dandies is insupportable; so I begged him to keep my secret, ran out of the house, and went and dined at Véry's." The next is touching.

11th. Went in to Paris at twelve, in order to take Bessy to the Père la Chaise before the flowers are all gone from the tombs. The dear girl was, as I knew she would be, very much affected; but our dull guide insisted upon taking us to the worst part of it, which a good deal spoiled the effect. Saw the tombs of Labedoyère and Ney, which I had missed last year. Gave them a dinner at the Cadran Bleu (Bessy, Dumoulin, Miss Wilson, Anastasia, and Dr. Yonge's little girl), and took them afterwards to the Porte St. Martin. Iced punch on our way home. The whole cost me about three Napoleons, just what I ought to have reserved for the " Voyages de Pythagore." Bessy, however, told me, when we came home, that she had saved, by little pilferings from me, at different times, four Napoleons, and that I should have them now to buy those books.

The next day he bought the "Voyages de Pythagore" with his "dear girl's stolen money." Fourrier furnished Moore with a good idea, viz., that accurate descriptions, in lively language, of some of the Egyptian tableaux sculptés would be as sublime and striking as copies in drawing are dry and uninteresting. Our countryman, Mr. Hamilton, had already shown this to be the case in his "Egyptiaca." He also consulted Humboldt upon the Egyptian theme. The Prussian spoke contemptuously of the great government work as a confused heap of commonplaces-Fourrier's, a pompous preface, with nothing in it. Yet what he got out of Humboldt himself, as to dark Cleopatras with aquiline noses, and negro sphynxes, he says he found in Volney a day or two after.

66

In October, they left La Butte for the Allée des Veuves, and once more dined with their little ones. Bessy said, in going to bed, This is the first rational day we have had for a long time."" Whereupon Lord John remarks, "Mrs. Moore was quite right: in reading over the diary of dinners, balls, and visits to the theatre, I feel some regret in reflecting that I had some hand in persuading Moore to prefer France to Holyrood. His universal popularity was his chief enemy."

The Duchesse de Berri is related to have written to her father on the occasion of her accouchement, and as a slap on the knuckles for his late sanction of the revolution, " Je suis accouchée d'un fils et pas d'une constitution." And Lord Byron sent an epigram for the approaching anniversary of his marriage," most marvellously comical."

TO PENELOPE.

This day, of all our days, has done

The worst for me and you ;

'Tis now six years since we were one,

And five since we were two.

It is not a little amusing to find Moore, who, as a Whig, professes the utmost horror and indignation at the decision of the House of Lords against the queen, quoting Martial's epigram as applicable to the case:

So like their manners, so like their life,

An infamous husband and infamous wife;

It is something most strange and surprising to me,
That a couple so like should never agree!

"I see," he says,

Moore describes Wordsworth as dull in company. "he is a man to hold forth; one who does not understand the give and take of conversation." Wordsworth had as good an opinion of himself as Moore. One day, in a large party, he called out suddenly, from the top of the table to the bottom, in his most epic tone, "Davy!" and on Davy's putting forth his head, in awful expectation of what was coming, said, "Do you know the reason why I published the White Doe' in quarto?" "No, what was it?" "To show the world my own opinion of it." Wordsworth used to complain that the whole third canto of "Childe Harold" was founded on his style and sentiments. "Tintern

Abbey" was the source of it all. Upon which Lord John remarks, "There is some resemblance between Tintern Abbey' and 'Childe Harold;' but, as Voltaire said of Homer and Virgil, When they tell me Homer made Virgil,' I answer, Then it is his best work;' so of Wordsworth it may be said, if he wrote the third canto of Childe Harold,' it his best work."

A

6

characteristic story of Sheridan is fathered by Moore on Lord

very John Russell.

66

Sheridan had been driving out three or four hours in a hackney-coach when, seeing Richardson pass, he hailed him and made him get in. He instantly contrived to introduce a topic upon which Richardson (who was the very soul of disputatiousness) always differed with him; and at last, affecting to be mortified at R.'s arguments, said, You really are too bad; I cannot bear to listen to such things; I will not stay in the same coach with you;" and accordingly got down and left him, Richardson, hallooing out triumphantly after him, “ Äh, you're beat, you're beat;" nor was it till the heat of his victory had a little cooled that he found out he was left in the lurch to pay for Sheridan's three hours' coaching.

Lady said that Louis XVIII. called Talleyrand "une vielle lampe qui pue en s'eteignant." There is a capital story of the Princesse Talleyrand:

It is said of Madame Talleyrand, that one day, her husband having told her that Denon was coming to dinner, bid her read a little of his book upon Egypt, just published, in order that she might be enabled to say something civil to him upon it, adding that he would leave the volume for her on his study table. He forgot this, however, and madame upon going into the study, found a volume of "Robinson Crusoe" on the table instead, which having read very attentively, she was not long on opening upon Denon at dinner, about the desert island, his manner of living, &c., &c., to the great astonishment of poor Denon, who could not make head or tail of what she meant: at last, upon her saying, "Eh puis, ce cher Vendredi!" he perceived she took him for no less a person than Robinson Crusoe.

And one of Talleyrand's, told by Lord John. Bobus Smith, one day, in conversation with the great diplomatist, having brought up somehow the beauty of his mother, Talleyrand said, "C'etoit donc votre père qui n'etoit pas bien."

In talking to Rogers about his living in Paris, Moore said, "One would not enjoy even Paradise, if one was obliged to live in it.". "No," replied Rogers, "I dare say when Adam and Eve were turned out they

were very happy." Rogers, walking with two French ladies, complimented one as being une femme galante et genereuse ; her anger may be easily imagined, whilst her companion laughed heartily, as if to say "It's all out; even strangers know it." Talking of the Hollands, he said, "There are two parties before whom everybody must appear-them and the police."

In September, 1821, Moore, having assumed the name of Dyke, and put on a pair of mustachios, started with Lord John Russell for England, to arrange some business matters with Longmans, Murray, and Power:

Longman called upon me. Told him my intention of settling the Bermuda business with the money arising from the sale of the Memoirs :" seemed rather disappointed; said that I had better let matters go on as they were, and appeared labouring with some mystery. Remarked that though I had with much delicacy declined the contribution of friends, yet that I could not surely feel the same objection to letting one friend settle the business for me. At length, after much hesitation, acknowledged that a thousand pounds had been for some time placed at his disposal, for the purpose of arranging matters when the debt could be reduced to that sum ; and that he had been under the strictest injunctions of secrecy with regard to this deposit, which nothing but the intention I had expressed, of setiling the business in another way, could have induced him to infringe; and that, finally, the person who had given this proof of warm and true friendship was (as I guessed in an instant) Lord Lansdowne. How one such action brightens the whole human race in our eyes.

Visited the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. "Had music in the evening; the duchess said she wished I could transfer my genius to her for six weeks; and I answered, Most willingly, if Woburn was placed at my disposal for the same time.'" From thence Moore repaired to Ireland, where he picked up a number of jokes, which contrast well by their nationality with the more chaste and delicate wit of the Continent. Story of a man asking a servant: "Is your master at home?" "No, sir; he's out." "Your mistress ?" "No, sir; she's out." "Well, I'll just go in and take an air of the fire till they come." "Faith, sir, that's out too." A fellow in the Marshalsea having heard his companion brushing his teeth the last thing at night, and then, upon waking, at the same thing in the morning, "Ögh, a weary night you must have had of it, Mr. Fitzgerald." Moore sat on this occasion to Mossop and Kirk. "Space between the eyes," he relates (although he before expressed great annoyance at Spurzheim detecting his love of children), "indicates memory of forms, and Kirk has always observed that conformation in persons who were ready in knowing likenesses. The protuberance I have in the forehead remarked in heroes-Napoleon, Duke of Wellington, and the rest of us. Large ears, a sign of eloquence. (This can scarcely said to be the case in the animal kingdom, whatever it may be with regard to man.) Praised mine; so did Bartolini, by-the-by." Sir Philip Crampton also got a mask taken of the national poet's face, "a disagreeable operation," he records it to have been. When the regiment of Enniskilleners lately entered that town, an old woman said, "Well, boys, you look mighty well, considering it is now a hundred and nine years you were here before."

since

Received on his return to London joyful news:

Was preparing, as usual, to sneak out in a hackney-coach, when Rees arrived with the important and joyful intelligence that the agent had accepted the

1000l., and that I am now a free man again. Walked boldly out into the sunshine and showed myself up St. James's-street and Bond-street. Shee all wrong about the late servile pageant in Ireland; thinks that Paddy behaved exactly as he ought to do. Letters from Bess, in which, alluding to what I had communicated to her of Lord Lansdowne's friendship, and the probability of my being soon liberated from exile, she says, "God bless you, my own free, fortunate happy bird (what she generally calls me); but remember that your cage is in Paris, and that your mate longs for you.'

It may be necessary to add here that Lord John Russell offered, in his usually delicate manner, to contribute 2007. towards the debt, and a Mr. Sheddon advanced 3007., and that all moneys advanced, even to the 7401. accepted from Lord Lansdowne, were, we believe, duly repaid. It is in details like these that we find the peculiar dilemma in which the poet's biographer was placed with regard to this "Diary." If he had left out one sentence he might have left out another, and exposed himself to all kinds of censures. Now in what personally concerned himself, he had criticisms to omit as well as deeds of kindness and acts of generosity to record; witness, for example, the reflection on his vacillation and inconstancy of purpose on quitting Paris. The only wise course to pursue was evidently to leave matters as they stood. The "Diary" was manifestly meant for publication; some few entries might create a doubt upon the subject; but others, again, leave none. For what possible reason would a poet chronicle such a mass of gossip-anecdotes and criticism, and such a heap of bon-mots and witticisms? They could be of no possible use to his studies or his compositions, nor were they of any avail as matters of reference. But they serve well to help what might have proved to be a rather tedious journal of occurrences wonderfully, and impart to it a rare raciness and pungency. All the great men and women of the day, titled and untitled, are put to contribution, and Moore's "Diary" will no doubt be quoted in after times as a perfect mine of epigrams, repartee, and anecdote.

On his return to Paris, it was the old routine of things over again, a little work and many dinners, theatres, soirées, and balls, and gaiety less interwoven with study even than before. Moore got tired of it himself. "Never," he records on the 7th of January, 1822, " did I lead such an unquiet life: Bessy ill, my home uncomfortable; anxious to employ myself in the midst of distractions, and full of remorse in the utmost of my gaiety." When does such revelry induce other results, in minds not solely given up to dissipation, or that have power left to return a moment to themselves and look inwardly? At length, in April, Moore quitted the capital which had too many seductions for him, and returned to England, living at first in lodgings. It was a change of place, however, with little or no change of habits-the same round of dinners, calls, parties, and entertainments. Talking to Jeffrey of the trouble of the Edinburgh Review, he said, "Come down to Edinburgh, and I'll give you half of it." Moore replied, "that he thought the public would find in that case one-half of the disc obscured." Luttrel, alluding to his restlessness, said he was "like a little, bright, ever-moving ball of quicksilver; it still eludes you, and it glitters still." It was not, however, till Sloperton became vacant that Paris was abandoned for good, and then Moore sent over his wife and family first. When he did arrive home, the "dear girl" had made herself look wretched by working to get the cottage in order.