The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MOORE'S POETICAL WORKS: VoL. IV.

Longman, London, 1841.
The far-famed " Irish Melodies" are concludes
in this yolume, which contains also " Sacred
Songs," " National Airs," and a graceful little
rhymed trifle, entitled the " Summer Fete," which
was suggested by a fashionable entertainment given
some years since at Boyle Farm. In his preface to
the " Melodies," Mr. Moore relates several curious
particulars regardinn the great Irish outbreak of
1797, the leaders of which, strange to say, were
almost all Protestants. Among them was Robert
Emmet, with whom, observes our author, "I
formed an acquaintance, which soon grew into in-
timacy ; he was my senior by one class in the
University, and I found him in full reputation, not
only for his learning and eloquence, but also for
the blamelessness of his life, at 4)
,the grave sua-
vity of his manners." Of this generous young
patriot, who was passionately fond—and no wonder
—of the national music, Mr. Moore tells the fol
lowing characteristic anecdote :—" Though never
regularly instructed in music, I could play over the
old Irish ai,s with tolerable facility on the piano-
forte. Robert Emmet used sometimes to sit by
me, when I was thus engaged : and I remember
one day his starting up as from a reverie, when I
had just finished that spirited tune called the Red
Fox, and exclaiming Oh, that I were at the head
of twenty thousand men, marching to that air !'
Here is another amusing anecdote, which regards
our author himself:—

" Towards the latter end of the year 1797, the cele-
brated newspaper called " The Press" was set up by
Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmett, and other
chiefs of the United Irish conspiracy, with the view of
preparing and ripening the public mind for the great
crisis then fast approaching. This memorable journal,
according to the impression I at present retain of it,
was far more distinguished for earnestness of Furpose
arid intrepidity, than for any great display of literary
talent ;—the bold letters written by Emmet (the
elder), under the signature of " Montanus," being the
only compositions I can now call to mind, as entitled
to praise for their literary merit. It required, however,
but a small sprinkling of talent to make bold writing
at that time palatable ; and, from the experience of
my own home, 1 can answer for the avidity with which
every line of this daring journal was devoured. It used
to come out, I think, twice a week, and on the evening
of publication I always read it aloud to our small circle
after supper. _

" It inay easily be conceived that, what with my ar-
dour for the national cause, and a grossing conscious-
ness of some little turn for authorship, I was naturally
eager to become a contributor to those patriotic and
popular columns. But the constant anxiety about me
which 1 know my own family felt—a feeling more
wakeful far than even their zeal in the public cause—
withheld me from hazarding any step that might cause
them alarm. I had ventured, indeed, one evening to
pop privately into the letter-box of the Press a short
fragment in imitation of Ossian. But this, though in-
serted, passed off quietly ; and nobody was, in
any seise of the phrase, the wiser for it. I was
soon tempted, however, to try a more daring flight.
Without communicating my secret to any one but Ed-
ward Hudson, I addressed a long letter, in prose, to
the *X * * of * *, in which a profusion of bad
flowers of rhetoric was enwreathed plentifully with that
weed e hich Shakspeare calls " the cockle of rebellion,"
and, in the same manner as before, committed it trem-
blingly to the chances of the letter-box. I hardly ex-
pected my prose would be honoured with insertion,
when, 10, on the next evening of publication, when
seated as usual in my little corner by the fire, I un-
folded the paper for the purpose of reading it to my
select auditory, there was my own Letter staring me
full in the face, being honoured with so conspicuous a
place as to be one of the first articles my audience would
expect to hear. Assuming an outward appearance of
case, while every nerve within me was trembling, I con-
trived to accomplish the reading of the Letter without
raising in either of my auditors a suspicion that it was
my own. I enjoyed the pleasure, too, of hearing it a
good deal praised by them; and might have been tempted
by this to acknowledge myself the author, had I not
found that the language and sentiments of the article
were considered by both to be " very bold."
" I was not destined, however, to remain long unde-
tected. On the following day, Mr. Edward Hudson,
—the only one, as I have said, entrusted with my secret,
called to pay us a morning visit, and had not been long in
the room, conversing with my mother, when look;ng
significantly at me, he said, " Well, you saw --"
Here he stopped ; but the mother's eye had followed
his, with the rapidity of lightning, to mine, and at once
she perceived the whole truth. " That Letter was
yours, then ?" she asked of me c4erly ; and, without
hesitation, of course, I acknowledged the fact ; when in
the most earnest manner she entreated of me nes er
again to have any connexion with that paper ; and, as
every wish of hers was to me law, I readily pledged the
solemn promise she required."
We wish Mr. Moore had been a little more com-
municative of the personal recollections of Isis
youth, especially of that portion of it which was
spent in Ireland, for even from the brief glimpses he
affords us of iris early life, we can see that he must
have come into contact with many singular charac-
ters ; and sketches of these, drawn by one so obser-
vant, sagacious, and quick-witted as himself, would
have been read with groat interest and curiosity by
the majority of the public. In particular, his one
or two hasty and passing references to Emmet
make us anxious to know more of this generous
young enthusiast, and we have no doubt that we
share this anxiety in common with hundreds of
others. Mr. Moore need not be apprehensive of
becoming too much of a gossip or an egotist ; we
shall always be eager to read what he has to record
of his personal experiences, for few men of his time
have seen more, and can relate what they have seen
in so lively and attractive a manner. To resume
our extracts. Speaking of that popular Irish Me-
lody, " Dear Harp of my country," our author
says--quoting the authority of a late number of
the Quarterly Review :
" A young and promising poetess, Lucretia Davidson,
who died very early from nervous excitement, was particu-
larly sensitive to music. There was one song—it was
Moore's Farewell to his Harp—to which she took a spe-
cial fancy. She wished to hear it only at twilight, thus—
with that same perilous love of excitement which made
her place the iEulian harp in the window when she was
composing—seeking to increase the Effect which the song
produced upon a nervous system already diseasedly suscep-
tible; for it is said that whenever she heard this song, she
became cold, pale, and ahrost fainting ; et it was her
favourite of all songs, and gave occasion to some verses
addressed in her fifteenth year to her sister."
We well know the song in question, arid are not
at all surprised at the Effect it produced on the sus-
ceptible feelings of a young poetess. Though
somewhat monotonous, it breathes the very soul of
tender melancholy—indeed we know of but one air
that can compare with it in plaintiveness, and that
one, strange to say, is a French air, " Waters of
Elle." We quote the closing portion of Mr.
Aloore's preface :
Of the translations that have appeared of the Melodies
in different languages, I shall here mention such as have
come to my knowledge.
Cantus Hibernici," Nicholas Lce Torre,
London, 1835.

Italian —G. Fiecliia, Torino, 1836.—Adele Cuiti,
Milano, 1836.

French —Madame 13elloc, Paris, 1823.—Loeve \Tel-
mars, Paris, 1829.

Russian.—Several detached Melodies, by the popular
Russian poet Koziol'.
Polish.—Selections, in the same manner, by Niernee-
wich, Kosmian, and others.
I have now exhausted not so much my own recollections,
as the patience, I fear, of my readers on this subject. We
are told of painters calling those last touches of the pencil
which they give to some favourite picture the " ultima
basia ;" and with the same sort of affectionate feeling do I
now take leave of the Irish Melodies,—the only woi k of my
pen, as I very sincerely believe, whose fame (thanks to the
sweet music in which it is embalmed) may boast a chance
of prolonging its existence to a day much beyond our own.