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

imagery of the poet were now at their climax. The
tales were the triumph of poetic lusciousness, but
not a few old judges st4.,rmatiz-d their taste by
preferring Fsdladeea and his criticisms even to the Fire-
worshippers or the tribulations of the Peri. We n. end
hardly say that the judgment of these tough old critics
has now a far greater number of adherents than it once
commanded.
After a continental tour, Moore wrote the clever and
popular " Fudge Family." In the following year he met
Byron in Italy, when the latter entrusted to him his me-
moirs for publication. These memoirs Moore sold to
Murray for two thousand guineas, but, as is well known
and a good deal regretted, the purchase-money was re-
funded, the papers re-obtained, and destroyed. Pecuniary
difficulties connected with the misconduct of his Ber-
muda deputy about this time compelled Moore to
seek a temporary refuge in Paris, and there the poet led
a pleasant social life, such as he loved, and composed
the "Loves of the Angels," which is not much more
than an elaborate and carefully wrought out repetition
of all Mr. Moore's previous love and flowery poetry.
The whole thing is dreamy, lulling, beautiful, but
vague and misty. The words tinkle like falling foun-
tains and the essence of the closing poetry floats about
one like perfume; but this enervating species of com-
position is far from being high or true poetry, and ac
cordingly the poem is now far oftener alluded to than it
is read.
In 1825 Moore paid a visit to Scott, at Abbotsford.
The author of " Waverley" pronounced the Irish
melodist to be the " prettiest warbler" he had ever
heard. One evening Scott and his guest visited the
theatre at Edinburgh. Soon after their at first un-
marked entrance, the attention of the audience, which
had till then been engrossed by the Duchess of St.
Albans, who was present, was directed towards the new
comers; and according to a newspaper report, copied
and published by Mr. Moore in one of his last prefaces,
considerable excitement immediately prevailed. "Eh I"
exclaimed a man in the pit, " eh, t'on's Sir Walter wi'
Lockhart and his wife; and wha's the wee body wi' the
pawkie ee? Wow, but it's Tam Moore just." " Scott,
Scott l--Moore, Moore 1" immediately resounded through
the house. Scott would not rise; Moore did, and bowed
several times with his hand on his heart. Scott after-
wards acknowledged the plaudits of his countrymen, and
the orchestra during the rest of the evening played alter-
nately Scotch and Irish airs.
Soon after this period Moore was established, by the
kind offices of his old and staunch friend the Marquis of
Lansdowne, in Sloperton Cottage, where he passed the
remainder of his days, and where he ended them. It
was here that the poet commenced his career as a bio-
grapher, and produced successfully the memors of Lord
Edward Eitzgerald, of Lord Byron, and of Sheridan.
The two latter are too well known and too highly ap-
preciated to demand more than to be alluded to here.
le was in the previous year that the poet had first
come out as a prose writer in the " Memoirs of
Captain Rock," a bitter and unfair account of—or
rather elementary on—English misgovernment of
Ireland, and a curious instance of how warped
end twisted become the views of even a man of the
world like Moore, if he be an Irishman, in writing on
an Irish subject. The next serious work of the poet—
be continued his squibs and light sparkles of occasional
verse, as before—was " The Travels of an Irish Gentle-
man in search of a Religion"—in which he sought to
scow that the doctrines and practicea of the Roman Ca-
tholic Church date from the epostolic period. The las
of Moore's prose works, and that which has attained a
rester sale. we believe, than any of them was the ro-
mence of " The Epicurean." Here Moore's style, al-
ways too rich, effi 'reseed into clouds of tawdry
rhetoric, which see only here and there redeemed
by passages of great eloquence and natural feeling.
There was much out-of-the-way learning in the book,
but the pompous march of cumbrous ornamentation
sveilaid everything. Tne book had a great success.
tout one not likely to be lasting. It parimok of what
Mr. Carlyle calls the " wind-bag " nature. The wind
inside was very highly perfumed, and sighed with very
pleasing murmurs, but, after all, it was only wind, and,
as such, will ooze out and away, to the collapsing of the
bag and the disappearance of the " Epicurean."
Of late years the political and social squibs to which
we have alluded were the only literary occupations to
which Mr. Moore devoted himself, until, gradually and
fitfully, mental darkness came down upon him, and the
quick and fanciful brain throbbed with thick-coming

fancies no more.
Peace be with the poet! Ile led a long, a pleasant,
and a prosperous life. His poetic genius was not of the
deep, enthusiastic cast. He could write wailing stanzas
over the fate of Curran's daughter on Treasury paper,
and became sentimental over the wrongs of Ireland
while an English placeman. Universally courted and
flattered in society, Moore fluttered from one brilliant
coterie to the other, and was always in his most perfect
element at the two great Whig resorts—in Berkeley-
,tquare and Kensington-park. In every one of his cha-
racteristics the poet was formed for society. A lover of
pleasure, with a keen appreciation of its every refine-
ment, intellectual, social, and sensuous, Moore must
have enjoyed to the very top of his bent every gra-
tification which the greatest popularity in the most
brilliant circles could heap on him. His nature was

to enjoy, to amuse, to excite, and to be amused and to
be excited. Successful in almost every literary effort,
accounted as brilliant a conversationalist as he was a
poet, as charming a singer as he was a song writer—a
privileged person in a sphere to which his mind, by its
very nature, looked up with longing for notice and for
praise—few men have had a career so correspond-
ing with their wishes and their ambition as Thomas
Moore.

The death of the poet coming so shortly after the
setting of the public life of his good and constant
friend the Marquis of Lansdowne, is a curious and touch-
ing coincidence. The ex-Minister will lament the de-
pirture of him who was so long the lyrist and the
minstrel of his party; but to Moore the world was for
years uncared for and unknown, and it is better that the
spirit is released than that it should linger on in the
midst of melancholy and hopeless darkness.

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