The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-04 00:00:00

THE DEATH OF THO.IIAS _MOORE.
(From the Chronicle.)
An event which has loue been anticipated has just
cccuered. O Thursday leat the poet Moore died at his
residence of Sloperton Cottage, near Devizes. For Be-
ve:al years hack the iiittsnioue deceased has. been alive
only in the body. Like Sir Walter Scott and Southey,
the tenacity of physical existence had, in him, outlived
the term of the mind. A year ago the poet was brought
to Bath without any consciousness of where) he was, or
who ware around him, and he passecl peacefully away in
the same condition of semi-slumbering unconsciousness.
With Moore there is snapped the last tie, save perhaps
one, repre:,ented by the veteran Rogers, which connects
the present generation with the outburst of " all the
talents" which signalissd the opening of the cen-
tury. That great kindling of genius—embracing al-
meet all sides of imaginative literature, of criticism
and philosophy—is fast becoming more a thing of his-
tory than a thing of fact. Day by day, and year by
year, the lights are going out. Wordsworth
was the last extinguished before the present
event; and now, to all intents and purposes, the great
mental galaxy wbich poured out such a flood of blazing,
vivifying light upon the literature of fifty years ago—
which extinguished the school of Rosa Matilda fiction
and Della Crusean poetry—which substituted true criti-
cism fur technical carping upon philological points, and
established new styles in every branch of the belles
lettres —this great intellectual constellation may now be
said to have disappeared. One of the brightest, if nut
of the largest stars, has long been obscured. I. is now
extinguisb ed.
Whoa amount and what duration of fame Moore will
leave behind him is fairly a matter of discussion. II
cannot, we believe, be denied that much of his serious
and more ambitious verse, founded upon the promptings
of a more luscious and florid fancy than the present taste
inclines to admit—and no inconsiderable portion even
of his sweet lyric snatches, as being too wire-drawn,
and refined to attenuation—are by no means so much
read or admired as they were a score or thirty years
ago. A severer and a sterner school of poetry has suc-
ceeded to it—one of deeper feeling and more sober
thought; and the representatives of those who revelled
in " Leila Rookh," and delighted in the strains of Mr.
Little, now generally address themselves to more staid
and philosophic poetic musings. The " Irish Melodies,"
too—exquisite as is their word-music—fanciful as is
their conception—delightful as is their playfulness—
and profoundly touching as is their pathos—even the
" Irish Melodies" we believe to be declining in popular
estimation. The reasons are not tar to seek. In the first
place, the "Irish Melodies" are not psricularly Irish;
they have perfect grace, high and sparkling fancy, deli-
cious feeling—but they are too fine,span to do the work-
a-day duty of popular songs. Ac literary performances,
nine-tenths of Burns's songs are interior to Moore'e;
and all Dibdia'a ditties are immeasurably and incal-
culably beneath them. Yet the strong probability
is that " Ween Willie brewed," and "Poor Tom
Bowling," will be in the fail tide of their popularity
and everyday use, where " Rich and rare," and " Oh,
breathe not his name," will be uesung and forgetten. In a
certain circle, and amongst people of a certain rcadirg
and appreciation, Mecro will live as long as tho lan-
guage; but his genius was delicate and acute rather than
catholic and vast. Ho had a rich and vivid ploy of
fancy, but none of the soaring imagination of a Shelley
or a Byron. His mind, in fact, w. s a first-ciess second-
rate. It had no pretensions to stand in the ferernest
line of the giants of ear day. Brigntles fanciful, rather
than continuously imaginative—teeming with poetic
imagery-e-loving to sparkle along the &eeriest paths,
and beneath tho balmiest skies—revelling always in
fays and flowers—in love and mingled intellectual and
sensual pleasures—playful in the extreme,' and always
reedy to stop to make mirth as joyous and as delightful as
the passion—Moore's muse, in his great romantic poems,
is the incarnation of a charming Epicureanism. And the
mirth and playful jollity could go a long step further,
Moore had wit, which sparkled as brightly as it could
cut deeply; and the humour, and sense of the ludic-
rous, which could be as well if not more effec-
tually applied to living persons and actual things
than to the creations of his own fancy; and, accord-
ingly, we find him loving to turn from the
etherealized voluptuousness of the "Loves of the An-
gels," or the mystic imaginings of the " Epicurean," to
the sharp and brilliant hitting of political and social
squibs—to the restless and biting satire with which, in
the " Fudge Family" and hundreds of ephemeral but not
the less clever lays, he quizzed his political and literary
opponents, abolished the Earl of Mountcashell, or shut
stinging shafts of fez through the very hearts of the
Benthemites. It is, indeed, far from probable that
Moore' political and satiric poetry, little, perhaps,
as he thought of it at the time, will live after his
more ambitious works have been—not forgotten—
but sunk into that chronic state of classicism, in which
books are labelled with an excellent character—and
shelved—turned,' in fact, into the category of works
without which no gentleman's library is complete, and
accordingly doomed, not to actual obscurity, but to an
honourable retirement.
The very last of the political squibs and short poems
published bytnin Moore were given to the world in the
columns of the Morning Chronicle, and referred princi-
pally to the earlier struggles of the Anti-Corn-law
League, the verses having in most cases been evidently
suggested by the passing political events of the day.
Thomas Moore died at the ripe old age of 72. He
was born on the 28th of May, 1780, in Angier-street
Dublin, where his father, a strict Roman Catholic, car-
ried on a grocery and spirit business. As a child, young
Moore is said to have been remarkable for personal
beauty, but his appearance in after life hardly carried
out the promise of infancy. He was short, with a heavy,
expressive, but not handsome face, which, how-
ever, lightened up wonderfully when engaged
in animated conversation or singing his own
ballad poetry. Young Moore was educated at
Dublin, and one of his first noted peculiarities
was a fondness and a talent for pri-
vate theatricals. Taking advantage of the boor, as it
was then considered, the young Roman Catholic was en-
tered at Trinity College. He could not, of course, ob-
tain a degree, but some English \Torus tendered at an
examination, in lieu of the usual Latin composition, pro-
cured a cony of the " Travels of Anachartis" as a re-
ward. The wild times of the Irish rebelli in were now
approaching, and the future poet was naturally to be
found in the ranke led by the Eaantetts and Arthur
O'Connor; but his treaeonable lacribratiens in prose
and verse, though, as his own siealr remarked, "rather
strong," were passed over ii-ithout any measures being
taken ageinn the enthuit•-tr,t,c ycaing champion of Irish
t.t pr.,: by ne means the only
subject of Ine e at the age of 14 ho published
poetry in a Dublin magazine, and afterwards comvsed
many s me-poetic semi-burletque pieces for private re-
prese at ion.
In his twentieth year, giving no Republicanism
oriel and for ever, More came to Landon to study.
at the Mieole Temple. and to putArsd has tfa"la-
tions, or rather peraphrasea of Anacreon. As may
be imagines, he noteLded much mitre strenuously to the
G.reek than to " Coke upon Inttieton," and a pertnn-
€tr. obtained through the trientiahip of Lord Moria, to
dedicate the work to the Prince Regent, was the means
of lltiore's introduction to those elevated circles of so-
ciety in which
shine. The . he was ever afterwards to move and
Anacreontic paraphrases, brilliantly and
warmly eepres _d .
se , were highly successful. They were
speedily
Thomas Succeeded,Little' in 1801, by 'Poems and Sengs, by
by the present. Whatever objecions may be raised
can be no cicub
'ecinferation to either of these .works, there
even
vivid play of fancy, their great
grace of idea,their when that idea was not strictly
proper, and
Moore's' translations ilci,lisite melody of versification.
the " Old Greek Lover," of
" Women and 'Wine,.
aprobably the finest and
richest, versions of these often transleted songs in the
English language—always
the rough but
thoroughly racy version of thele
feet gthe lyrics in ques-
tion by quaint cid Dr. Donne.
ire
In the days of the Regency, p„ts
in for patron-
age, and Mr. Moore, made registrar the Court of
Admiralty at Bermuda—as simeularlY appropriate an
• 4alent as some we have seen in oarapple own day_
went out to the islands, appointed a do
States, and came home PutY, took a
glance at the
f Travel and again, He then
published " Sketches e Society beyond the
Atiantic"—a s,tirio work inheroic verse, vigorous'
Written, but, poll icelly, mishrablY sEi""ight°d* Y
in the chnburgh "
afterwards, a savage review „ , led of a re-
publication of '° Juvenile Sangs,ti the cele-
brated rencontre between Moore aid Jeffrey, at guar,.
stead, when the great critic, as Byron asserted, stood
valiantly up;_.
"When Littls's leadless pistol met his eye,
And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing y."
The affair was ultimately made up, mainly through
the intervention of Mr. Rogers, and at his house Moore
shortly afterwards made his first acquaintance with
Byron and Campbell. The long and affectionate inti-
macy between the subject of this sketch and the author
of " Childe Harold," which resulted from the meeting,
we need not here stop to do more than allude to.
Moore had about this time married. Hi; wife was
Miss Dyke, a lady of strung sense and character, as
well as great beauty and amiability, The last survivor
of their offspring is unhappily no more.
A couple of political satires of no great note—one of
them, by the way, setting forth a sober and earnest
panegyric upon ignorance—were followed by the famous
Two-penny Post Bag," a bundle of rollicking satire
and fun. It made a great bit, and attained a wide p)-
uularity. Not so its anther's next venture, a farce
called the " Blue Stocking," damned at the Lyceum.
?doore'e intimacy with Byron and Hunt was broken off
by the perfect out-spoken tone of the "Liberal,. and
thslecially a Vision of Judgment." Moore thought
his frh d
rends a gone too far. What would Carlton
?
t
dearly as said: "Little Tommy
dearly For t; Byron s
he worship a lord," with how much morn' affection did
a t 'he
blood rt
The, reei,"' '
his wise" were Moore's next, and perhaps
mast popular, • ;
iselTies. effort. %dee mina 6,3 these word-
iltastrationa, ane,ixquisitt-ly happy in their ideas nod
usanship,
we
a,mi,pertfct:on as is their lyrical work
they have see in'
tef;eeat our doubts as to wh Aber
rooted earnestness, not..otdai s:araina and the h, ao-
songs immortal. of which urn requisi,e to mrike
as in fl h, and only the beauty fades in words as well
Beat brain produce offspeisen t.r()ngsst heart and the man-
all time. to suit all tastes and to List
It was in 1812 that Moore the
Indian poem. Mr. Perry, of the Morning
to write an
accompanied the poet to the meseMorning Chronicle,
through his intervention the ars. Longman, and
guineas was settled as the price
fret sum of 3,000
word of which was as yet written, tee poem, not one
10 Mayfield Cottage, a desolate puceo then retired
and, after a long and hard struggle
within Derbyshire,
"(Luse, forth—after a three ____re a coquettish
• "Lana Rookh." The
successn waretirementCallie
immense ; the
rem ran rapidly through several ern •
ame stood 'tams, and
upon a higher and surer Moore's
ever. The bright fancy and
=miense
pedestal than
cemmand of