The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore | Page 4

publication hung over till
1817. The poem has been translated into all sorts of languages,
including Persian, and is said to have found many admirers among its
oriental readers. Whatever may be thought of its poetic merits--and I
for one disclaim any scintilla of enthusiasm--or of its power in
vitalizing the disjecta membra of orientalism, the stock-in-trade of the
Asiatic curiosity-shop, there is no doubt that Moore worked very
conscientiously upon this undertaking: he read up to any extent,--wrote,

talked, and perhaps thought, Islamically--and he trips up his reader with
some allusion verse after verse, tumbling him to the bottom of the page,
with its quagmire of explanatory footnotes. In 1815 appeared the
_National Airs_; in 1816, Sacred Songs, Duets, and Trios, the music
composed and selected by Stevenson and Moore; in 1818, The Fudge
Family in Paris, again a great hit. This work was composed in Paris,
which capital Moore had been visiting in company with his friend
Samuel Rogers the poet.
The easily earned money and easily discharged duties of the
appointment in Bermuda began now to weigh heavy on Moore.
Defalcations of his deputy, to the extent of £6000, were discovered, for
which the nominal holder of the post was liable. Moore declined offers
of assistance; and, pending a legal decision on the matter, he had found
it apposite to revisit the Continent. In France, Lord John (the late Earl)
Russell was his travelling companion: they went on together through
Switzerland, and parted at Milan. Moore then, on the 8th of October
1819, joined in Venice his friend Byron, who had been absent from
England since 1816. The poets met in the best of humor, and on terms
of hearty good-fellowship--Moore staying with Byron for five or six
days. On taking leave of him, Byron presented the Irish lyrist with the
MS. of his autobiographical memoirs stipulating that they should not be
published till after the donor's death: at a later date he became anxious
that they should remain wholly unpublished. Moore sold the MS. in
1831 to Murray for £2100, after some negotiations with Longman, and
consigned it to the publisher's hands. In 1824 the news arrived of
Byron's death. Mr. (afterwards Sir Wilmot) Horton on the part of Lady
Byron, Mr. Luttrell on that of Moore, Colonel Doyle on that of Mrs.
Leigh, Lord Byron's half-sister, and Mr. Hobhouse (afterwards Lord
Broughton) as a friend and executor of the deceased poet, consulted on
the subject. Hobhouse was strong in urging the suppression of the
Memoirs. The result was that Murray, setting aside considerations of
profit, burned the MS. (some principal portions of which nevertheless
exist in print, in other forms of publication); and Moore immediately
afterwards, also in a disinterested spirit, repaid him the purchase-money
of £2100. It was quite fair that Moore should be reimbursed this large
sum by some of the persons in whose behoof he had made the sacrifice,

this was not neglected.
To resume. Bidding adieu to Byron at Venice, Moore went on to Rome
with the sculptor Chantrey and the portrait-painter Jackson. His tour
supplied the materials for the Rhymes on the Road, published, as being
extracted from the journal of a travelling member of the Pococurante
Society, in 1820, along with the Fables for the Holy Alliance.
Lawrence, Turner, and Eastlake, were also much with Moore in Rome:
and here he made acquaintance with Canova. Hence he returned to
Paris, and made that city his home up to 1822, expecting the outcome
of the Bermuda affair. He also resided partly at Butte Goaslin, near
Sèvres, with a rich and hospitable Spanish family named Villamil. The
debt of £6000 was eventually reduced to £750: both the Marquis of
Lansdowne and Lord John Russell pressed Moore with their friendly
offers, and the advance which he at last accepted was soon repaid out
of the profits of the Loves of the Angels--which poem, chiefly written in
Paris, was published in 1823. The prose tale of The Epicurean was
composed about the same time, but did not issue from the press till
1827: the Memoirs of Captain Rock in 1824. He had been under an
engagement to a bookseller to write a Life of Sheridan. During his stay
in France the want of documents withheld him from proceeding with
this work: but he ultimately took it up, and brought it out in 1825. It
was not availed to give Moore any reputation as a biographer, though
the reader in search of amusement will pick out of it something to suit
him. George the Fourth is credited with having made a neat bon mot
upon this book. Some one having remarked to him that "Moore had
been murdering Sheridan,"-- "No," replied his sacred majesty, "but he
has certainly attempted his life." A later biographical performance,
published