BOOKS.

lifOORE'S MEMOIRS, LETTERS, AND JOURNAL.* LORD Join- RUSSELL has undertaken to lay before the public the letters and journal of his friend Thomas Moore, in compliance with a wish expressed by the deceased poet in a will written many years since, and with the view of providing increased means of support to his surviving family, now unhappily represented solely by his widow. This object has been attained through the medium of Mr. Longman; and it will be a genuine satisfaction to the pub- lic to know that she, who for forty years made Moore's cottage- fireside more attractive to him than all the brilliant salons of which he was the ornament and darling, will for the remainder of her life enjoy, the competence to which she, has been accustomed. Lord John might have used the materials at his disposal in com- posing a narrative of his friend's life; but most readers will be grateful to him for having chosen the less ambitious path of pre- senting these materials in their elemental state, and letting the letters and journal tell their own story. Of the two plans, there is no question but the latter is, in such a case, the more interest- ing ; though a better plan than either would have been, to connect the letters by brief narratives throwing light upon incidents and persons alluded to or addressed, and not likely to be familiar to the general public. The biographies of Byron and Scott are ad- mirable instances of this mixed kind of composition ; and, in spite of their great length, posterity is not likely to complain of hearing too much of our most remarkable writers, or of those with whom they lived in friendly and familiar intercourse. The materials intrusted to Lord John Russell are an autobiogra- phy of Moore extending to his nineteenth year, a series of letters commencing from that date, and a journal begun in 1818 and con- tinued to 1846. In the two volumes now published, the reader is carried up to the middle of the year 1819 by the journal, and to the close of 1818 by the letters. There is besides a statementdrawn up by Moore himself of the famous interrupted duel with Jeffrey, which led to a cordial friendship between the two belligerents, and to Moore's afterwards becoming an Edinburgh Reviewer. With the exception of a short estimate of Moore's character as a man and a writer, Lord John Russell's editorial labours are limited to selection and arrangement. How far he has exercised his authority to sup- press and castigate, we have no means of knowing; but certainly, nothing that ought to offend the most touchy person is to be found in either letter or journal, so far as these volumes go : a fact, how- ever, that may be due not more to the judgment of the editor than to the kindness and good-nature which were as characteristic of Moore as his sparkling wit and tender sentiment.

Moore has himself skimmed the cream of these materials, in writing those charming biographical and literary prefaces to the ten-volume edition of his poetical works, by which we feel ourselves relieved from the necessity of giving an outline of his life. But we can say for him, what he could not say for himself, that his familiar letters and his private journals exhibit him in a far more estimable and manly character than many, will have been disposed to give him credit for, who knew him only as the writer of poems, tender indeed and exquisitely graceful, but for the most part of too voluptuous and sentimental a cast to convey an elevated idea of the actual life of the writer. Such persons will perhaps be astonished to find that one, who was rather a worshiper of Aprho- dite and Dionysos than of the sacred Muses and the austere Dorian Apollo, combined with this bias of the imagination the sterling moral qualities of a devoted son, an affectionate brother, a fond and faithful husband. Nor did koore—though he lived from the age of twenty to three-and-thirty, with the exception of the year he spent in Bermuda and America, in the most fashion- able circles of London society, and was a welcome and constant guest in the brilliant parties of the aristocracy from Carlton House downwards—allow himself to become either extravagant or idle. What is perhaps more noteworthy even than this, he never tar- nished a noble spirit of self-reliance and independence, though he had the misfortune early in life to be allured by prospects of po- litical advancement held out to him by his friend and patron Lord Moira ; which, however, turned out, through the weakness and vacillation of that amiable but not strong-minded nobleman, a blank disappointment, and led as the sum-total of result to the ap- pointment of Moore's father to the office of barrackmaster at Dub- lin. With this paltry exception, Moore owed to his political and aristocratic friends not one pennyworth of pecuniary emolument ; for his office at Bermuda brought him no profit, and was eventually, through the misconduct of his deputy, the cause of heavy loss and more heavy embarrassment to him, forcing him to reside abroad from 1819 to 1822, when the claims of his creditors

• Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore. Edited by the Bight Honourable Lord John Russell, M.P. Volumes I. and II. Published by ongman and Co.

were compromised. The pension granted to him in 1835 no doubt increased the independence and comfort of his later years ; but he had long before fought and won his own battle, and was indebted to no one but himself for the means by which he maintained himself and his household, and contributed liberally to increase the scanty income of his parents. Altogether, the picture of this poet's life is one to be recommended as an excellent lesson in genial morality, to all precisions and puritans and men of " earnest minds "—to all people blessed or cursed "with a mission." They will find gayety of heart, a keen enjoyment and a free participation of all the pleasures of life, a decided taste for fashionable society, in union with the domestic virtues, with diligent habits of study, with artistlike carefulness of work, and with an independent self-reliant spirit. And for those who need no such elementary lesson, a source of philosophi- cal instruction is opened in a comparison and contrast of this life with those of his contemporaries Lord Byron and Theodore Hook. Like the former, Moore was a popular poet and a man of the world, and lived in very nearly the same society; like the latter, he was a poor man and a wit, who for his brilliant social qualities and accomplishments was courted, caressed, and tempted by "the world, the flesh, and the Devil," in this triad's most alluring shape. How different Moore's career from either of the others ! How free from the blots that make them warnings and beacons to men of genius for all generations to come ! We have no hesitation in ascribing much of the good sense and moderation that marked Moore's intercourse with the great and gay world to the early influence of his mother, and to the training of his home circle. There was certainly, laid the foundation of his literary and social accomplishments ; and the atmosphere of gayety and enjoyment in which his boyhood and youth were passed must have powerfUlly aided a fine temperament in developing those in- ner resources of happiness which are the best safeguards against vice and dissipation. From home, too, Moore brought with him into the world his political opinions and sympathies, and his spirit of hatred against oppression and tyranny, which his fine taste and literary culture prevented from ever degenerating into Irish savagery and exaggeration. Add to this, that Moore throughout his life continued to correspond with his mother twice a week ex- cept when out of England: a consequence of which is, that a large proportion of the letters in these two volumes are addressed to her; and we have the picture of a life of remarkable unity, whose tastes, affections, opinions, and pursuits, rim on in an unbroken chain, in which the latter years are not spent in regretting the former, or the former in vain do-nothing anticipations of the latter,—a clear life, understanding itself and its capabilities from the first, and gradually realizing all its wishes, hopes, and aspirations ; a life that never suddenly breaks with itself to begin anew, but goes on its way brightening, culminating, and rejoicing. A bower of bliss, a nightingale's nest certainly, rather than fortress or palace or cathe- dral, is this fabric of a life; but it seems eminently to have been what it was meant to be,—and that is a singular happiness and a singular merit, in these days. The letters are bright with affectionateness and playful wit, and abound in interesting minute details of daily life. Less than those of most literary men do they touch upon literary matters; perhaps because Mrs. Moore, to whom so many of them are addressed, was more interested in her son than in the books he read or the opin- ions he formed. But also in those addressed to others, and even to men and women of literary cultivation, the Mend, the man of the world, is more conspicuous than the poet and the scholar. The exceptions are those principally addressed to his publisher Mr. Power, who brought out the Trish Melodies : and these bear no comparison with the letters of Burns on similar topics. Moore seems to have kept his " shop " very much out of his letters; and though this does not render them less interesting or pleasant, it makes it difficult to select for quotation. The journal, on the other hand, is full of recorded conversations, teeming with witticism, anecdote, and curious learning—a perfect storehouse for reviewers and diners-out. Our difficulty in quoting from the letters is much the same as it would be to fix upon any particular set speech of a general favourite, as the justification of the esteem and affection with which such a one is regarded.

FROM THE LETTERS.

To his Mother.

August 4, 1800. " I was yesterday 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 was very happy to know a man of my abilities; and when I thanked him for the honour be did me in permit- ting the dedication of Anacreon, he stopped me and said, the honour was en- tirely his, in being allowed to put his name to a work of such merit. He then said, that he hoped when he returned to town in the winter we should have many opportunities of enjoying each other's society ; that he was passionately fond of music, and had long heard of my talents in that way. Is not all this very fine ? But, my dearest mother, it has cost me a new coat ; for the intro- duction was unfortunately deferred till my former one was grown confoundedly shabby, And I got a coat made up in six hours : however, it cannot be helped ; I got it on an economical plan, 1.1, giving two guineas and an old coat, whereas the usual price of a coat here is near four pounds. By the bye, I am still in.my other tailor's debt. To change the to pc, I have heard Lord. Moira's opinion of my Anacreon (not from himself, for when I saw him he very elegantly thanked me for a vast deal of gratification which it had given him) ; but he bad spoken a vast deal of it to a gentleman who told me; said there were scarce any of the best poets who had been so strictly grammatical in language as I had been, that the notes discovered a great extent of read- ing, and that, in short, it was a very superior work.

Do not let any one read this letter but yourselves; node but a father and a mother can bear such egotizing vanity : but I know who I am writing to—that they are interested in what is said of me, and that they are too par- tial not to tolerate my speaking of myself."

April 1, 1801. "How d'ye do, my dearest mother ? Did you see my name in the paper among the lists of company at most of the late routs ? This is a foolish custom adopted here, of printing the names of the most distinguished personages that are at the great parties, and Mr. Moore, I assure you, is not forgotten. I have an idea of going down to Donnington Park, to seclude myself for about a month in the library there : they are all in town ; but Lord Moira tells me I may have an apartment there whenever I wish. 'Tie a long time since I heard from you. Ate you all well and happy ? Grierson has not left this yet. I dined yesterday with George Ogle, and he was there. I met the Prince at supper at Lady Harrington's, on Monday night : he is always very polite to me. You cannot think how much my songs are liked here. Monk Lewis was in the greatest agonies' the other night at Lady Donegal's, at having come in after my songs : "Pon his honour, he had come for the express purpose of hearing me.' Write to me soon, dearest little mama, and tell me you are well."

On his Father's loss of his employment from reduction at the close

of the War. Jan. 26, 1815. "My dearest Mother—My father's last letter would have made us very unhappy indeed, if we had not the pleasing thought that by that time you had received the intelligence of Lord Mulgrave's letter, and were lightened at least of half your sorrow. Indeed, my darling mother, I am quite ashamed of the little resolution you seem to have shown upon this occurrence ; it was an event I have been expecting for years, and which I know you yourselves were hourly apprehensive of; therefore, instead of looking upon it as such an overwhelming thunderclap, you ought to thank Providence for having let you enjoy it so long, and for having deferred the loss till I was in a situation (which, thank God! I am now) to keep you comfortably without it. I venture to say comfortably,' because I do think (when the expenses of that house, and the etceteras which always attend an establishment are deducted) you will manage to live as well upon your 2001. a year as you did then upon your 3501., which I suppose was the ut- most the place altogether was worth. Surely, my dear mother, the stroke was just as heavy to us as to you, for I trust we have no separate interests, but share clouds and sunshine equally. together ; yet you would have seen no gloom in us—nothing like it ; we instantly made up our minds to the reduction and economy that would be necessary, and felt nothing but grati- tude to Heaven for being able to do so well ; and this, my sweet mother, is the temper of mind in which you should take it. If you knew the hundreds of poor clerks that have been laid low in the progress of this retrenchment that is going on, and who have no means in the world of supporting their families, you would bless our lot, instead of yielding to such sinful despond- ency about it. For my father's sake (who is by no means as stout himself as he ought to be) you ought to summon up your spirits, and make the best and the brightest of it.

"Let him draw upon Power at two months for whatever he may want for the barrack-money ; and when the rent comes due in March, we shall take care of it. Ever, my dearest mother, your own affectionate Tom."

To Miss Godfrey. March 1815. "Oh for some of those ways of coming together that they have in the fairy tales ; wishing-caps, mirrors, flying dragons, anything but this vile intercommunication of pen and ink. I sin afraid we shall never get properly into it ; and whenever I get a letter from either of you, it makes me regret my own laziness in this way most bitterly, as I feel you only want 'stirring up now and then, like those other noble females the lionesses at the Tower, (no disparagement,) to make you (as Bottom says) roar an 'twere a nightingale.' Whether you like this simile or not, you really are worth twenty nightingales to me in my solitude, and a letter from you makes me eat, drink, and sleep as comfortably again ; not that I do any one of these things over it, but, without any flattery, it sweetens them all to me. I am as busy as a bee, and I hope too, like him, among flowers. I feel that I improve as I go on, and I hope to come out in full blow with the Michaelmas daisy,—not to publish, you know, but to be finished. I was a good deal surprised at you, who are so very hard to please, speaking so leniently of Scott's Lord of the Isles' : it is wretched stuff, the bellman all over. I'll tell you what happened to me about it, to give you an idea of what it is to correspond confidentially with a „firm. In writing to Longman the other day, I said, Between you and me, I don't much like Scott's poem' ; and I had an answer back, Prb are very sorry you do not like Mr. Scott's book. Longman, Hurst, Orme, Rees, Brown,' &c. What do you think of this for a between you and me' ? "I think there are strong symptoms of the world's being about to get just as mad as ever,—the riots, Lord Castlereagh, Sir Frederick Flood, and Buonaparte. What the latter has done will be thought madness if it fails ; but it is just the same sort of thing that has made heroes from the be- ginning of the world ; success makes all the difference between a madman and a hero.

" Bessy is, I hope, getting a little stouter. The little things ekt like cor- morants, and I am afraid so do I. There are two things I envy you in Lon- don—Miss O'Neil and your newspaper at breakfast; all the rest I can do without manfully. Rogers has written me a long letter from Venice, all about gondolas."

To Lady _Donegal. Mayfield, Monday, March 27, 1815. "Yon have seen by the newspapers that we have lost our poor little Olivia. There could not be a healthier or livelier child than she was - but the attack was sudden, and after a whole day of convulsions the poor thing died. My chief feeling has, of course, been for Bessy, who always suffers much more than she shows, and whose health, I fear, is paying for the effort she made to bear the loss tranquilly. I mean, however, as soon as the fine weather comes, to take her over to my mother, who is also in a bad state of health, and pining to see us all: a few months together will do them both good ; and I will say for them, they are as dear a mother and wife as any man

could wish to see together. •

"What do you think now of my supernatural friend the Emperor ? If ever tyrant deserved to be worshiped, it is he : Milton's Satan ie 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, bare-headed, unguarded, in all the confidence of irresistibility—it is a fact far sublimer than any that fiction has ever invented, and I am not at all surprised at the dumbfounded fasci- nation that seizes people at such daring. For my part, I could have fancied that Fate herself was in that carriage. Good by ; write soon. By your not mentioning my 6 Fathers' in the

Edinburgh, I take for granted you cannot read it—and no blame to you,'

SA we say in Ireland. Ever yours, T. M. " What desperate weather ! all owing to Buonaparte." lb Lady Donegal. April 4, 1816. "Be it known to you, that on Satur- day last I took the chair at the anniversary dinner of the Lancastrian So- ciety at Derby, and astonished not only the company but myself by sundry hes, of which the Derby paper of today gives such a flourishing account that I blush to the eyes : seriously I never saw anything like the enthu- siastic effect I produced ; and of all exertions of talent, public speaking is certainly the most delightful—the effect is so immediately under one's own eyes, and the harvest of its fame so instantaneous. This was the first time I ever really prepared or exerted myself in speaking, and oh! what would I not give to have many and higher opportunities for it. Would you bring me in if you could?"

FROM THE JOURNAL.

Madame de Staid and William Stitith.—"Madame de Stan very an- gry with William Smith for his act in faiour of the Unitarians : thought it was an act for the abolition of the Trinity—' C'est vous done (said she on being introduced to Smith) qui ne voulez point de mysteres !'" Conversation at Bowood.—"Dined at Bowood Had some conversation with Lord Lansdowne before dinner. Talked of the impeachment of Hastings ; asked him his impression on the Subject. He said he looked upon Hastings as an irregular man,msing violent means for purposes which, perhaps, nothittg but irregular and violent means would answer, as his command and situation in India were of such a particularly difficult and embarrassing nature. Agreed with me that the impeachment was a sort of dramatic trial of skill, got up from the various motives I mentioned ; to which he added, what had not struck me before, Dundee's fear of Hastings's ascendancy in Indian affairs, both from his knowledge and talent and his favour with the King, to whom the arbitrariness of Hastings's government was rather a recommendation of him. Dundee used India as a sort of colony for Scotland. Talked of the great question about the abatement of an impeachment by dissolution of Parliament, upon which the lawyers and statesmen divided, and the latter had the best of it in every respect : Erskine too much of a lawyer not to join his craft on this occasion. When Burke was told of Erskine's opinion, What I' said he, a nisi-prius lawyer give an opinion on an impeachment ! as well might a rabbit, that breeds fifty times in the year, pretend to under- stand the gestation of an elephant.' How admirable this is! Tried Lord Lansdowne on the subject of coalitions, and said that nothing could be more absurd than to condemn that sort of coalition of which all parties must con- sist, made up as they are of individuals differing in shades of opinion, but compromising these differences for the sake of one general object; but that it was quite another thing when the opposition in sentiments was not only total and radical but recently and violently expressed. Here we were inter- rupted. At dinner sat next to Lord Auckland. Talked of Bowles and ex- tempore preachers ; the broken metaphors to which they are subject. Men- tioned that I remembered, when a boy, hearing Kirwan talk of the 'Glorious lamp of day on its march' ; and Conolly, a great Roman Catholic preacher, say, On the wings of Charity the torch of Faith was borne, and the Gospel preached from pole to pole.' Lord A. mentioned a figure of speech of Sir R. Wilson at Southwark, 'As well might you hurl back the thunderbolt to its electric cradle.' This led to —'s oratory. Mentioned I had heard him on the trial, of Guthrie, and the ludicrous effect which his mixture of flowers with the matter-of-fact statement produced: something this way— `It was then, gentlemen of the jury, when this serpent of seduction, stealing into the bowers of that earthly paradise, the lodgings, of Mr. Guthrie in Gloucester Street, when, embittering with his venom that heaven of happi- ness, where all above was sunshine, all below was flowers, he received a card to dine with the Connaught bar at the Porto-Bello Hotel,' &c. When I told Curran of the superabundant floridness of this speech, he said, My dear Tom, it will never do for a man to turn painter merely upon the strength of having a pot of colours by him, unless he knows how to lay them on.' Lord L. told a good story of his French servant, when Mansell, the Master of Trinity, cattle to call upon him, announcing him as 'Maitre des Ceremonies de la Trinite.' Talked of the Pursuits of Literature, and the sensation it produced when published. Matthias's Italian poetry : Mr. Oakden said he had heard Florentines own he came nearer their poetry than any other foreigner had done, but that still he was but a foreigner at it. I mentioned a translation by W. Spencer of a song of mine The wreath you wove') into Italian, which passed with me and others for legitimate, fill one day I repeated it to Buonaluti, and when I came to 'lin foglio inaridito,' (‘ one faded leaf,') he said, Wrong; foglio is the leaf of a book ; the leaf of a tree is foglia.' This annihilated it at once, for 'line. foglia' would not suit the metre. Talked. of the unlucky number thirteen at dinner, Mentioned that, at Catalani's one day, perceiving there was that number at dinner, she sent a French countess who lived with her up-stairs, to remedy the grievance ; but soon after, La Cainea coming in, the poor moveable countess was brought down again. Lord L. said he had dined once abroad with Count Orloff, and perceived be did not sit down at dinner, but kept walking round from chair to chair; and he found afterwards from Orloff it was because the Harishkin (I think) were at table, who he knew would rise instantly if they perceived the number thirteen, which Orloff would have made by sitting down himself. Lord L. said that 'blackguard' was a word of which he could not make out the origin. It had been said it was from a guard of soldiers in black who at- tended at the execution of Charles the First ; but the word was, he believed, older than that period; and besides, it did not appear that any such circum- stance took place. Music in the evening : Mrs. Oakden played the Rene des Vaches' and the beautiful 'Chaconne' of Jomelli? "

Perry, Doherty, and the Duke of Sussex.—" I mentioned a good scene I was witness to at Perry's table, when the Duke of Sussex dined with him, when, to his horror, he found he had unconsciously asked a brother editor to meet his Royal Highness. This was Dohe the well-known, unfortunate, ways-and-means Irishman, whom Perry haasked without knowing much about him, and without intending he should meet the Duke of Sussex, who had only fixed to dine with Perry the day before. The conversation turning upon newspapers, the Duke said, in his high, squeak tone of voice, There is a Mr. Dockerty, I find, going to publish a paper.' I looked towards Doherty, and saw his face redden. Yes, sir,' said he, am the person ; I had the honour of sending. your Royal Highness my prospectus. I then looked towards Perry, and saw his face blacken • the intelligence was as new to him as to me. I knew what was passing in his mind, but so did not my honest friend Tegart, the apothecary ; who, thinking that the cloud on Perry's brow arose from the fear of a rive/journalist, exclaimed, with good-natured prompti- tude, to put him out of pain, Oh, Mr. Doherty's is a weekly newspaper.' " [The profuse use of the Italic type, which arrests the eye in some of these extracts, is not an invention of ours, but a veritable copy from the printed Memoirs. It was probably the fashion of Mr. Moore and his female correspondents to underscore their words of emphasis in this manner; but as that mode of forcible expression is now rather obsolete among cultivated writers, perhaps the noble editor will direct its discon- tinuance, or more dierriminating employment, in the succeeding volumes.]