Literary Advertisement. Wanted-Authors of all work to job for the season, For a dramatist, too, the most useful of schools He can study high life in the King's Bench community; And of place he, at least, must adhere to the unity. Any lady or gentleman come to an age To have good' Reminiscences' (threescore or higher), And the spelling and grammar both found by the buyer. Price twenty-four shillings, is all that's required. The material within of small consequence is; Nota Bene-an Essay, now printing, to shew That Horace, as clearly as words could express it, When he wrote thus- Quodcunque in Fund is, assess it.** As early as 1806, Mr. Moore entered upon his noble poetical and patriotic task-writing lyrics for the ancient music of his native country. His 'Irish Songs' displayed a fervour and pathos not found in his earlier works, with the most exquisite melody and purity of diction. An accomplished musician himself, it was the effort, he relates, to translate into language the emotions and passions which music appeared to him to express, that first led to his writing any poetry worthy of the name. 'Dryden,' he adds, has happily described music as being "inarticulate poetry:" and I have always felt, in adapting words to an expressive air, that I was bestowing upon it According to the common reading, Quodcunque infundis, acescit.' (A punning travesty of a maxim, Ep. ii., b.i., which Francis renders- For tainted vessels sour what hey contain.'] the gift of articulation, and thus enabling it to speak to others all that was conveyed, in its wordless eloquence, to myself.' Part of the inspiration must also be attributed to national feelings. The old airs were consecrated to recollections of the ancient glories, the valour, beauty, or sufferings of Ireland, and became inseparably connected with such associations. Of the Irish Melodies,' in connection with Mr. Moore's songs, ten parts were published. Without detracting from the merits of the rest, it appears to us very forcibly, that the particular ditties in which he hints at the woes of his native country, and transmutes into verse the breathings of its unfortunate patriots, are the most real in feeling, and therefore the best. This particularly applies to 'When he who adores thee;' 'Oh, blame not the bard;' and 'Oh, breathe not his name;' the first of which, referring evidently to the fate of Mr. Emmet, is as follows: When he who adores thee has left but the name Of his fault and his sorrows behind, Oh, say, wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame Yes, weep! and however my foes may condemn, For Heaven can witness, though guilty to them, With thee were the dreams of my earliest love; In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above, Oh, blest are the lovers and friends who shall live The days of thy glory to see; But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give, Is the pride of thus dying for thee! Next to the patriotic songs stand those in which a moral reflection is conveyed in that metaphorical form which only Moore has been able to realise in lyrics for music-as in the following example: Irish Melody-' I saw from the Beach.' I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining- And such is the fate of our life's early promise, So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known; Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning The close of our day, the calm eve of our night; Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning, Lalla In 1817 Mr. Moore produced his most elaborate poem, Rookh,' an oriental romance, the accuracy of which, as regards topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, has been vouched by numerous competent authorities. The poetry is brilliant and gorgeous-rich to excess with imagery and ornament—and oppressive from its very sweetness and splendour. Of the four tales which, connected by a slight narrative, like the ballad stories in Hogg's 'Queen's Wake,' constitute the entire poem, the most simple is 'Paradise and the Peri,' and it is the one most frequently read and remembered. Still, the first-The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan'-though improbable and extravagant as a fiction, is a poem of great energy and power. The genius of the poet moves with grace and freedom under his load of Eastern magnificence, and the reader is fascinated by his prolific fancy, and the scenes of loveliness and splendour which are depicted with such vividness and truth. Hazlitt says that Moore should not have written 'Lalla Rookh,' even for three thousand guineas—the price understood to be paid by the booksellers for the copyright. But if not a great poem, it is a marvellous work of art, and contains paintings of local scenery and manners, unsurpassed for fidelity and picturesque effect. The patient research and extensive reading required to gather the materials, would have damped the spirit and extinguished the fancy of almost any other poet. It was amidst the snows of two or three Derbyshire winters, he says, while living in a lone cottage among the fields, that he was enabled, by that concentration of thought which retirement alone gives, to call up around him some of the sunniest of those Eastern scenes which have since been welcomed in India itself as almost native to its clime. The poet was a diligent student, and his oriental reading was as good as riding on the back of a camel.' The romance of 'Vathek alone equals 'Lalla Rookh,' among English fictions, in local fidelity and completeness as an Eastern tale. Some touches of sentiment and description have the grace and polish of ancient cameos. Thus, of retired beauty: Oh, what a pure and sacred thing Beauty. One only mansion with her light! A soul, too, more than half divine, Or this picture of nature after a summer storm, closing with a rich voluptuous simile: Nature after a Storm. How calm, how beautiful, comes on And clouds, beneath the glancing ray, Fresh as if Day again were born, There blow a thousand gentle airs, To watch and wait on them alone, Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest, As true and picturesque, and more profound in feeling, is the poet's allusion to the fickleness of love: Alas-how light a cause may move And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, A something light as air-a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken- A breath, a touch like this has shaken- They wore in courtship's smiling day; After the publication of his work, the poet set off with Rogers on a visit to Paris. The groups of ridiculous English who were at that time swarming in all directions throughout France,' supplied the materials for his satire, entitled 'The Fudge Family in Paris' (1818), which in popularity, and the run of successive editions, kept pace with Lalla Rookh.' In 1819 Mr. Moore made another journey to the continent in company with Lord John Russell, and this furnished his Rhymes on the Road,' a series of trifles often graceful and pleasing, but so conversational and unstudied, as to be little better— to use his own words—than 'prose fringed with rhyme.' From Paris the poet and his companion proceeded by the Simplon to Italy. Lord John took the route to Genoa, and Mr. Moore went on a visit to Lord Byron at Venice. On his return from this memorable tour, the poet took up his abode in Paris, where he resided till about the close of the year 1822. He had become involved in pecuniary difficulties by the conduct of the person who acted as his deputy at Bermuda. His friends pressed forward with eager kindness to help to release him-one offering to place £500 at his disposal; but he came to the resolution of 'gratefully declining their offers, and endeavouring to work out his deliverance by his own efforts.' In September 1822 he was informed that an arrangement had been made, and that he might with safety return to England. The amount of the claims of the American merchants had been reduced to the sum of one thousand guineas, and towards the payment of this the uncle of his deputy-a rich London merchant— had been brought to contribute £300. The Marquis of Lansdowne immediately deposited in the hands of a banker the remaining portion (£750), which was soon repaid by the grateful bard, who, in the June following, on receiving his publisher's account, found £1000 placed to his credit from the sale of the Loves of the Angels,' and £500 from the 'Fables of the Holy Alliance.' The latter were partly written while Mr Moore was at Venice with Lord Byron, and were published under the nom de guerre of Thomas Brown. The Loves of the Angels' (1823) was written in Paris. The poem is. founded on the Eastern story of the angels Harut and Marut, and the Rabbinical fictions of the loves of Uzziel and Shamchazai, with which Mr Moore shadowed out the fall of the soul from its original purity-the loss of light and happiness which it suffers in the pursuit of this world's perishable pleasures-and the punishments both_from conscience and divine justice with which impurity, pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of heaven are sure to be visited.' The stories of the three angels are related with graceful tenderness and passion, but with too little of the angelic air' about them. 6 He afterwards contributed a great number of political squibs to the 'Times' newspaper-witty sarcastical effusions, for which he was paid at the rate of about £400 per annum! His latest imaginative work was 'The Epicurean,' an Eastern tale, in prose, but full of the spirit and material of poetry; and forming, perhaps, his highest and best sustained flight in the regions of pure romance. Thus, remarkable for industry, genius, and acquirements, Mr. Moore's career was one of high honour and success. No poet was more universally read, or more courted in society by individuals distinguished for rank, literature, or public service. His political friends, when in office, rewarded him with a pension of £300 per annum, and as his writings were profitable as well as popular, his latter days might have been spent in comfort, without the anxieties of protracted authorship. He resided in a cottage in Wiltshire, but was too often in London, in those gay and brilliant circles which he enriched with his wit and genius. In 1841-42 he gave to the world a complete collection of his poetical works in ten volumes, to which are prefixed some interesting literary and personal details. Latterly, the poet's mind gave way, and he sank into a state of imbecility, from which he was released by death, February 26, 1852. Moore left behind him copious memoirs, journal, and correspondence, which, by the poet's request, were after his death placed for |