The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-03 00:00:00

but we fear it is somewhat improbable. "An
Essay on Robert Bell's Edition of Chaucer" levee s
foil homage to the faller of English poetry. T.lO
s ory of'' Going to the Shows" presents an iinl r
s ve warning against the clangers of over suspicion.
Whether or not it is founded on truth, as it im-
plies, the circumstances though painful are ric t
impro4iable, and servo to show the delusions some-
times encouraged by circumstantial evidence. The
tale is ingeniously told,' as the reader is left in
doubt until near the conclusion as to the innocence
or guilt of the suspected party. " The Second
Paper on BeAumarchais" concludes the history of
his life and times. " Monkshood's New Book
Notes" take a review of Dean Milman's " History
of Latin Christianity," and drAws from that work
a series of historical portraits, beginning with
Hildebrand and -ending with Rienzi.

our door till I was much more hot and tired than
my little playfellow." A pictUre net without its
charm, we take it, for those who care to note the
man of genius not merely in his hours of relaxa-
tion, but at moments when those hours era gilded
with the sunshine of natural affection. Times like
those in regard to which Luttrell once uttered so
comically, in his ludicrous way, that deliciously..
absurd lamentation—" How often in life we should
Lice to arrest our beaux momens ; should be so
obliged to the five minutes if they would only stop
ten 1" Nearly 30 years had to roll on, hoWever,
from the time when Turn Moore sat under tho Du-
blin tea-table with the barrel-organ in his lap, be-
fore he tumbled in the hay with little Barbara in
front of •that charming poet's-home of Mayfield
Cottage.' Many parts, too, had he to play in the
interim; during his gay, toilsome progress up from
obscurity to renowi , many motley .parts—not for-
gettiug even that of harlequin In striving to
prepare himself for which impersonation he tells
us he succeeded, at last, "by constant practice
over the rail of a' tent bed," in performin e. moat
successfully "the head foremost leap" of the hero
of pantomime. A little later (1802) and the
spangled skin of harlequin cast long ago likeot
glittering slough in the dear old. schooldays, no
longer seems to pozosess any paramount attractioh
as a holiday disguise for the light-hearted and
light-heeled little Patlander. For we find him
escorting a fair companion as Wowski, in the low-
comedy part of Trudge to a merry dance in Lou-
don at . the Union Masquerade. A season after
(1803) and we hear of his going as Lingo to a fete
given by one of the West-End Clubs, and better
still, as George Cruikshank would have it, " figur-
ing away" at a Mrs. Orby Hunter's [we had almost
said at a Mrs. Leo Hunter's] in the very apt cha-
racter of "A Little Irish boy just come to Lon-
don." In recording which last impersonation,
says Moore in a letter to his mother written im-
mediately afterwards (vol. i., p. 126), "I had' a
vast deal of fon I", As no, doubt he had. A little
Irish boy just come to London—he was in malty
no longer: for in 1803 he was getting well into his
fifth season. of Belgrayian frolic. The spring of
1799 having witnessed
.his literal appearance "in,
that character when he had-cone up to town, seek-
ing his fortune, with a few odd guineas sewed lip,
by his provident mother, (i. 72) in the-waistband
of his pantaloons ! Already he had then passed
through a sort of irregular literary pupilage 'at
home, scrawling poetical inscriptions of his own
composition over the .door, and in all sorts of
strange nooks and corners in his-private,little snug-
gery at his father's, doing all this he tells us naively
(i. 27) "in the manner, as he flattered himself
of Shonstone at the Leasowes." Besideiewhiohdie
had boldly tried his 'prentice hand as another
Thomas the Rhymer, in such aVartburlesque-effu-
sions as an "Ode upon Nothing,_ with Notes by
Trismegistus Rustifustius Winning when he
was only sixteen (1795), in return fora copy 'of
original verses "all out of his own`lo ad"— wbat
he mentions briefly (i. 33) as "the fist gala I
ever made by that pen which, such as it is, has
been my sole support ever since"—a prize awar iPd
by a Board consisting of the Provost and Set.ior
Fellows of Trinity, in the shape of a very hand-
somely bound copy of the "Travels cf Anachart-is."
At the outset, notwithstanding his home-triumphs
and college-successes, he appears, nevertheless, to
have had no notion whatever how portent his grey
goose-quill would prove in transaiut'ns reams of
paper and gallons of ink into geld after a securer
fashion than that of the old alchemist ; : for we
read in a letter of his, addressed to his father at the
close of the century, that ho meditateN publishing
a few of his " trifling poems," adding "it is more
through a wish to get rid of them than with any
hopes of emolument." -Perhaps his views in this
respect may have:. become somewhat modified a
little while afterwards when. he had oc-asim to re-
joice his mother's heart by the gool tidings that
he expected to clear one hundred guineas by
Anacreon ! However this may be, " clear" ihen
he did—and more : the open sesame was won to
the treasures rewarding the fortunate adventurer,
and not only to the base metals to Le got out of
popular books as well as out of popular auythings,
but into the exclusive circles of fashien, the
via lactea of the gay world down which float only
the creme de la creme I.n:omucla that the young
Irelander who, at eleven years of age, was screech-
jug from a window over his father's Flop as Grat-
tan and Fitzgerald were carried by in triumph on
their joint election fur the city of Dublin—[Moore,
rendering himself, he tells us (i. 13, nate), "so
conspicuous by the enthusiasm with which I waved
a large branch of laurel, that I either caught: or
fancied I caught the particular notice of Grattan,
and was, of course, prodigiously proud in cense-
quencel—insolutich, we say, was the young
Iribh-
man of letters successful in gaining admission to
the higher circles of the metropolis, that ho who at
thirteen was proud of being taken fora few ni6iutes
on the knee of Nipper Tandy, at twenty-one Was
basking in the smile—was actually living and
breathing in the sublime pressure of his Royal
itiness,Gao -ge, Prince e.f Wales. Yes—positively
enjoying the civilities, almost the familiarities of—
Fum the Fourth ! Wonderful privilege ! Listen
to the audible gusto with which Moore tells the
blissful tale of their introduction. He is writing
to his mother. The letter is dated August 4, 1800:
—" Yesterday," he says, " I was introduced to
his Royal Highness, George, Prince of Wales. He
is beyond doubt a man of very fascinating manners.
When I was presented to him, he said he vas very
happy to know a man of my abilities [the italics are
Moore's own] ; and when I thanked him for the
honour he did me in permitting the dedication of
Auacreon, he stopped me and said, the honour was
entirely his iu being allowed to put his name to a
work of such merit." [What is it the Scotch say ?
" Ciaw me, claw thee !"] '" Ho then said that he
hoped, when he returned to town in the winter, are
should have many opportunities of enjoying.each
other's society," aro., Moore adding, as it, wore with
a smack of the lips, while he laments that the am-
brosial interview cost him a new coat—" Is not all
this very fine ?" Eleven years after lie is still in
the blissful illusion—still hugging himself in the
luxury of being countenanced by 11.R.H., writing
to his mother in a letter dated Friday, June 21,
1811, " The Prince spoke to me, as lienlways
does, with the cordial familiarity of an old ac-
quaintance." Ah ! poor human poet—you were
under the glamour then of a Princely eye, and had
not an inkling of anything at all like vaticination.
No lyrical cry came from your heart then like that
articulated only the other clay, in burning words,
by our own manly-hearted, and yet no less
womanly-hearted, 'Charles Mackay—,

LITE RATURE.

THOMAS MOORE.

Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas
Moore. Edited by the Right 11m. Lord John
Russell, M.P. Vols. I. to VI. Longman and
Company.

(SECOND NOTICE.)
It has already been remarked by us, that these
singularly readable volumes are distinguished more
especially by the twofold charm resulting from the
union in their pages of sprightly anecdotes, and of
frequent allusions to the remarkable individuals
encountered by Moore; during his pleasant journey
through life, and here commemorated b 3 him with
a keen sense of their peculiar and personal (fre-
quently, too, as it happens, of their more odd and
whimsical) characteristics. An easy but epigram-
matic sentence, sometimes a mere passing phrase,
or casual expression, , conjures up before us the
living and breathing ens of one or ether of the
Diarist's immediate contemporaries. Sketches,
they all of them are, " touched in" with the finest
and faintest strokes of the pencil possible for the
indication of the merest outline, but touched in
always with a master hand—as iu those all but
miraculous etchings of Moritz Retsch, in which
the veriest point of the artistic needle indicates by
the thinnest line imaginable the form designed by
the magical and creative fancy of the draughtsman,
and yet does this so deftly, so wondrously, so all-
sufficiently, that by a hint, as it were, every nerve,
every vein, every muscle, seems to be minutely
and individually defined. As with the wizsrd-
graver of Retsch, so with the more-than-Minasi-
like quill of Moore. Scattering down the scrawled
notes up his journal, day by day, hotly, as the
incidents occurred, •as the persons were seen,
as the words were spoken or listened to,
while everything was yet warm in his me-
mory—the poet-wit has perpetuated for us
what must otherwise have died rapidly out of the
general remembrance. An ample banquet of such
memories, moreover, the book affords from first to
last—almost from the date of Thomas Moore's
birth, on the 28th of May, 1779, in No. 12, Ann-
gier-street, at the corner of Little Longford-street,
in the city of,Dublin almost to the date of his
death, on the 26th of February, 1852, at Sleperton
Cottage, near Devizes, in Wiltshire. A. span of
nearly seventy-three years, within which Moore
tasted so many sweets and some bitterness—his
pathway studded here and there with a thorn or
two, but carpeted for the most part with flowers,
blooming and abundant. As a social favourite
Moore was for many seasons the spoilt darling of
London—of what Fanny Barney, according to
the vocabulary of her time, was so fond of calling
the ton—what Jeames, of Berkley-square, would
term the elite—the halcyon region' of fashion down
which saunters for ever and ever in dwindling per-
spective, epoch after epoch the type of each—
the blood, the buck, the dandy, and the swell !
Fascinated by his wit, his grace, his melodious and
exquisite sensibility, every bewitching attribute of
his genius, people forgot, somehow, that old John
Moore kept a little wine store once upon a time,
somewhere in the Irish capital—they lost all recol-
lection, apparently, that Tom Moore himself was
one of those unfortunate persons who happen to
have no great-grandfather ! They only remembered
Anacreon first of all, and then the Melodies, and
then "Laths Rookli," and heard all the while the
" voice of the charmer" singing as he alone could
sing his own songs of the heart, iu his own music,
to his own accompaniment. The glamour of his
singing these songs of his, was a thing once heard
never in a long life-time to he forgotten—any more
than the weird passion of Kean as Othello—or the
ravishing- anguish of Malibran as Arnina—or
the gay laugh of Mrs. Jordan—or the violin,
half divine, half diabolical, of the wondrous
Paganini. Those who can call but one melody
of his to their recollection, as they have heard
it sung by him, " avec les larmes clans la voix,"
can believe in the sincerity of the regret expressed
by Monk Lewis (vol. i, p. 113), who " was in the
greatest agonies' the other night .at Lady Done-
gal's," at having arrived too late—" 'Pon his
honour, he had come for the express purpose of
hearing me !" livery one, too, with the like pre-
cious memory of "sweet sounds, that gave delight
and Ivirt not," will have n.o marvel when they
read (vol. iii., p. 100), under date, 7th to 10th
Niarch, 1820—" Flahault sung, and so did I ;
very nervous about it. If I hal given way, should
have burst out a-crying; .'as I reinetner doing
many years ago at a large party at Lady nothei's.
No ono believes how much I ain affected in singing,
partly from being touched myself, and partly
from an anxiety to touch others." The duplex
clue, this, to all his successes ! His earnestness in
what he did, and his almost morbid yearning for
admiration. How much lie did well ! And in the
doing of it what overflowing admiration he gained
—enough—and to spare ! For all which ho had
precisely the very qualities that were requisite. As
his noble editor has said so justly—" His was
a delightful fancy, not a sublime imagination ; a
tender and touching foelin4, not a rending and
overwhelming passion." Hence his celebrity sur-
vives, hardly so much in his gorgeous eastern
romance of " Lana Rookb," a: in his more brief
and homely songs of love and sorrow, his national
Irish Melodies. A fortunate circumstance, the very
brevity of them, in an age when, as Lord Jeffrey has
oddly observed, "men would aslittle think ofsitting
down to a whole epic as to a whole ox." Moore
himself had an accurate sense of the secret of his
powers, the extent of his capacities, of the validity
of his claims upon the notice of posterity. "My
poetry, such as it is," he speaks of (vol. i., p. 17)
as "having sprung out of my deep feeling for
music." And later on (vol. i,, p. 60) he talks of
"the bursting out of my latent talent for music,"
as " in reality the source of my poetic talent, since
it was merely," he adds, " the effort to translate
into words the different feelings and passions which
melody seemed to me, to express." A revelation
one might almost fecognise as quaintly prefigured
in that curious little incident of his childhood,
when at a certain large tea-party, with his hostess
alone in the secret, he "remained for hours con-
cealed under the table, having a small barrel organ
in his lap, and watching anxiously the moment
when he was to burst upon their ears with music
from—they knew not where Tiiis was in the
days when the little fellow excited the wonder of
his acquaintance by his smallness and precocity—
when one Captain Mahoney [the wag !] used to say
laughingly to Moore's mother, that lie was sure
Tom had passed all his nights with the "little
people," meaning the
,fairies, and to banter Tom
himself to his great amusement at stray breakfast
times with such posers as—" Well; Tom, what
news from your friends on the hills ? It was a fine
moonlight night, and I know you were among
them." Those were the merry play-days when
little Tom (after the fashion of big old Sam of Lich-
field in his childhood) was borne on the shoulders
of his boy-companions to the ruins of Dun-Drum
Castle, and there crowned on its summit by the
hands of some little girl of the party I No wonder
the good Irish folk about him marvelled at the 'wis-
dom stored up in that small frame, looking
it did, particularly inflintine for its age—till some
cross-grained old Hibernian Cornelia would cry
out with a comioal sort of indignant asperity,l
" Oh, he's an old little crab, lie eanb't. be less
than eleven or twelve years
eemaeninLin
some seven or eight. W.lieeeotfoa. ageg"entil.
next her responded, " T , 1101) madam, if that be thge
case, he must have been four yeare_old before be
forthwith to
was • bore—which reply, reported
Tom's mother, "won her warm heart towards that
gentleman for ever after," says that son later
on in the days of his fame—still Tom Moore even
then to the wide world, as he was from the first to
the last iu his own loving household. Pant even,
he tells us, vide " Letter" No. 261, Tom even to
his little daughter Barbara—where he writes comi-
cally to his " dearest mother"—" Barbara calls me
Torn, and I try in vain to break her off it, because
she hears her mother call me so." The man was
laving and beloved throughout ; there was some-
thing kindly, human, gentle, genial, be sure of
that, in that large heart, yearning and yearning,
aver and over, with a hunger so insatiable for
everybody's admiration. Watch him into the
meadows with the same little child—the little Bar-
bara he was before long to bury with some bitter
tears in the suburban churchyard that gave shelter
only the other day to the poor old wearied bones of
the nouogenarian Rogers—it is like a peep into
Burke's study, with the memorable
glimpse of the
philosophic statesman lying on the carpet with the I .
Tan EASTERN COUNTIES RAlLWAY.—Captain. Wynn
-
toys and the "one child" he too was to rear so
has just made his report to the Government as, to the
tenderly, only to lose, in his turn, so prematurely state of this railway between Norwich, Irsraiouth,..end
and with such oignant anguish ! Te-clah says,, I Lowestoft., From the report it appears that many, of
Moore in " Letter' No. 248, dated fromAaPlala the bridges on the line wyeinan:a4yensed state of deopyi
Cottaga
e, " to-day "(a Monday, in 1813) "little and the repairs which areleing mad; istetiliieeleitll4l4
. Barbar and I rolled about in the hay-field before to make the_ etiuctures temporarily We..

" Stand up, mall ! stand !
God's over all.
Why do you cringe to me,
Stiny do you bend the knee,
And creep, and fawn, and crawl'
Stand up, man ! stand 1"

Not a notion had you then how soon 11.R.11. was
to dwindle down into Finn the Fourth of your
own burlesque christening ; or of how the very
year afterwards (March 6, 1812) you yourself were
to be sneering at George, Prince of Wales, in a letter
to Miss Godfrey, speaking of him as the " precious
gentleman," who " once blubbered when he was
told that Brummel did not like the cut of his coat!"
Alt, well—the days of enlightenment were to come
soon enough. Let us leave the poor bright-eyed
young Irish poet for a while contentedly in tho
first flush of big entrance into the loftier regions
of fashion—when he could find consolation oven for
an inopportune addition to his tailor's bill in the
courtly palavering of a " royal snob"— before he
was fairly running a muck at the behest of my
Lord Moira, after what he himself ultimately eon_
fessed to be the ,‘ will o' the wisp" of his life, a sham
patronage, leading not by a hair's breadth to the
smallest modicum of advancement.
(To be continued.)

TIM .PEACE CONFERENCES.

Le Nord of Brussels publishes the following :

'' On the 25th of Feb. an armistice of five weeks was
i'ecided upon in the first Conference, after a general ex-
amina.to sof the principal questions to be solved. They
were all briefly touched upon to ascertain whether they
contaioLd any serious difficulties of a nature to impede
the couroe of the negotiations. It was thus that they
found themselves agreed on the first four propositions.
When the question of the rectification of the frontiers on
th side of,Bessarabia was mooted by Count Buol, Count
Orlyff observed that it was impossible to carry out the
near frontier they wished to establish between the sea
a-id the mountains, because there are no mountains Oa
that side, but only plain&
= "A -ttvr words were n'f4o said re4pecting the fifth pre-
position, without any dissent arising of a nature to cause
anxii ty.
"A committee, consisting of the French, English, aid
Austrian Plenipotentiaries, is appointed to make a
draught of the protocol, and to communicate the first
bases of its task.
"There is every reason to believe that the negotia-
tions will proceed even mere rapidly than was expected;
the peace preliminaries might be signed by the end of
the week.
"During the three hours and a half which this first
meeting of the Conference lasted, everything paesee ever
calmly and courteously. When the meeting broke up
the Plenipotentiaries strolled for a few minutes in the,
gardens of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, where they
formed into groups of friendly converse. At
~ o'eloek
they returned to their embassies, whence they sent de-
spatches in cipher to their respective Governments."