The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-07 00:00:00

THE IRISH CAMILLE DESMOULII4S.

" lie was altogether a noble fellow, and. as full of ima-
ginstion and tenderness of heart as of manly daring. H.
used frequently to sit by me at the pianoforte while I
played over the. airs from Bunting's collection ; and I
'remember one day when we were thus employe his
starting up asif from a reverie while I was playing the
spirited air Let Erin remember the Day,' and exclaim-
'irig passionately, Oh, that I were at the head of
twenty thousand men marchibg tO that air.' "

Several years later we come upon Moore's sketch
of an English demagogue--Sir Francis Burdett—
w,hom he defines .as " a most amiable man," with
"something particularly attaching in his manner"—
Old Glory ! can we believe it of him ? when Moore
adds,—" his gentleness and almost bashfulness
forming such a contrast to the violence of his pub-
lic career." A glimpse of calm home-life in the
mir,lst of the turbulence of demagogy*, reminding
one of Robespierre's sucking- oranges placidly over
.the workshop of the Paris carpenter.
Already we have noted Moore's mention of his
having caught a glimpse, at New York, of young
Jerome Bonaparte—in 1819 we find him at Viter-
bo, gazing with interest at the "handsome face" of
Lucien Bonaparte, the recusant brother of (the then
still living but exiled) Naroleou. Arrived at Rome
soon afterwards he is amused with an interview
with the lovely -sister of the Gallic" Caesar, the
Venus of Canova, otherwise Pauline, Princess of
Borghese, née Bonaparte—a " fine creature in her
way," says the fastidious Celtic Anacreon, to whom
the Borghese "showed her beautiful little hands"
—which (saith Moore, with a relish), " I had the
honour of =kissing twice," adding, and she "let
me feel her foot, which is matchless." 0 those
Bonapartes creatures formed, one might say,
out of the red earth of Mesopotamia 1 What
was it Captain Basil Hall remarked about the
Bonaparte when he saw him at St. Helena ?
—that the skirl of his face was of that infi-
nitely beautiful delicacy and fineness that it
seemed in its texture less like flesh than like some
rare Parian marble ! At 52 years of age, too—after
such a life—not the faintest tracery of one single
wrinkle on the face • not one silvered hair
among the dark silken Chesnut ! What tales Moore
tells, moreover, here and there in his Diary, of the
wonder-working Napoleon ! At one moment a
companion anecdote to the old classic legend of the
Ccesarent, vehis ! To wit—" When Napoleon was
embarking from Elba, his four hundred veterans
wished to be aboard the same ship with him ;
but the captain of the vessel remonstrated with
him and said, that if there came the slightest breath
of wind, they would upset with so many on board ;
and that he must at most take but half of the
guard ; upon which Bonaparte answered, II fera,
beau ; and ordered that all should accompany him.'
With what miraculous, consequences afterwards,
the world knows—in the record of that bloodless
and meteoric re-eonquest of an empire, of which
Tom Moore upon the very morrow of it (March
27, 1815) writes thus amazedly to Lady Donegal
What do you think now of my supernatural
friend the Emperor ? If ever tyrant deserved to be
worshipped it is he : Milton's Satan is nothing to
him for portentous magnificence—for sublimity of
mischief ! If that account in the papers be true,
of his driving down in his carriage like lightning
towards the royal army embattled against him,
bareheaded, unguarded, in all the confidence of ir-
resistibility—it is a fact far more sublime than any
that fiction has ever invented, aed I am not at all
surprised .at the dumb-founded fascination that
seizes people at such daring. For my part I could
have fancied that Fate herself was in that carriage."