SKETCH OF THE POET, TOM MOORE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 108, 22 May 1875, Page 9

SKETCH OF THE POET, TOM MOORE.

"When I" entered Trinity College, sometime about the year 1830, an apartment waa taken for me in a quiet street on the north side of i~ Dublin, in order that I might purs no my studies uninterrupted by any contact with those fine joyous bacchanalian spirits who had rooms ' within the sacred precincts of the University. lam afraid this system of seclusion did not answer the purpose ; but I used to meet frequently on the stairs, as I passed my chamber au qiixtrieme, an elderly lady of most benign aspect, but in stature one of the very smallest personages I ever saw. Frequent meeting in this way led at last to an acquaintance. I learned she -was Miss Ellen Moore, a sister of the famous Thomas ; and great I remember ttos my gratification when I received one evening an invitation to drink toa with her. It was the drawing-room entertaining the attic, and I was much pleased by the compliment. It was a a the pur eb simple, not a the dmant ;" but many handsome young ladies — and Dublin in those days abounded in beauty — used to congregate round the table in that little drawingroom. I became a frequent guest ; for although I then abhorred their politeness, the company was mightily to my taste. Upon a certain evening I observed preparations being carried on for an entertainment of a more pretentious character ; and I learned that Mr. Thomas Moore, having arrived that morning in Dublin, was expected to join our company. A large party was assembled to meek him. I must own to feeling great astonishment at his appearance, as, his sister was small, he was smaller still — that is, for a man. Ho was what Charles Dickens would call a " mite." He came into the room on tiptoe, at a sort of run, with his head thrown back ; and first he kissed his sister Ellen affectionately, then he kissed nearly every other pretty girl he could get at. He was soon surrounded, and he sat there chirping and chatting, and turning his head about like a pet bird. His manner was delightfully frank, genial, and winning. He was full of the gossip of the day, and looked like a well-to-do little gentleman who had no other occupation except amusing himself. His head was nearly bald, and there was justj ust a fringe of slightly-grizzled hair round the back and the tomples. His nose was retrousse (cocked). His complexion resembled the colour of a certain apple, with which a schoolboy I was over-familiar, called a russet brown, with a good tinge of healthy red in it. A soupcon of the same colour was visible on the end of the little mail's nose ; but his head, which he carried in a slanting direction, was very good, and his eye was large, liquid, lustrous, and full of intelligence. He had a large double gold ej e-glass, which he carried suspended round his neck by a black ribbon, and made frequent use of. I cannot remember how he was dressed ; bub when I met him, as I did, on many subsequent occasions, his attire was peculiar. He wore a loii" 1 olive-green surtout coat, a blue neckcloth, and a white hat set very anuch back upon his head. In society it was almost impossible to getat him : for he was generally the centre of a perfect galaxy of petticoats. All the prettiest women seemed to fondle and caress him, and treat him much as they would a large wax doll ; but when he sang, as he did on that particular evening, two of bis famous melodies, the " Last Hoso of Summer," and " Oft in the Stilly Night," there was a vibration, a flutter, and a tendency to hysterical emotion instantly perceptible, such as I have never observed in any other audience except that of Mr. Robertson in his chapel, at Brighton. I cannot attempt to describe either the singing or its electrical effect; but I could perfectly well undersland the meaning of a story which I remember reading in " Memoirs of Sir Jonah Barrington," of how a certain lady of quality, hearing tlie little man warbling one of his love dities, laid her hand upon his arm, and said : " For heaven's sake, Moore, stop, stop ! this is not for the good of my soul ! " Earl Russell, in his " Memoirs," says Moore was the most brilliant man he ever met. I suppose he was right ; but his brillancy was concealed by a manner which, if you did not know who he was, would have led to an entirely different conclusion. He was flippant, restless, and seemed never at ease except •when he was the centre of observation. Looking at him, I could not for the life of me bring myself to believe that this was the individual ■who had inspired Byron with the favourite lines :—: — " My boat is on the shore, And mytoarlc is «n the sea ; But before I go Tom Moore, Here's a double health to thee." Yet there lie was hopping about, whispering pretty nothings into the «ars of Hibernian beauties, and comporting himself much like a little "boy by let loose from school. I could no longer wonder at the Prince Uegent's proposal, at one of the Carlton House banquets, to put Mm into a bunch-bowl, which secured the poet's lasting resentment ; but I did wonder how he contrived to inspire so many great men with such an affectionate interest and regard. He was in prodigious request at that time, I remember, in Dublin. The Marchioness of Iformanby used to send her carriage to fetch him out for airings in the Thconix Park, and he was continually receiving invitations to dine with the Lord Lieutenant, or Lord Morpeth, then the Secretary. A covered car, which is a species of conveyance peculiar to Dublin, used to fetch him to these enterlaunents, about which he was constantly making mistakes ; for instance, going to dine with the Chief Secretary whon he had been invited to dine with the Lord Lieutenant, forgetfcin the date of the invitation, dropping in on a day whon he was not ex* pected, and making all sorts of strange blunders. In all the relations of private life Mr. Moore's conduct was unexceptionable ; a better husband, a kinder father never existed ; and he allowed his only sister, at whose house I made his acquaintance, out of his own slender income, sufficient for her comfortable support. But in his children he was peculiarly unfortunate. His eldest son — for whom, by dint of great sacrifices, he purchased a company in the English army lost hie commission through extravagance, and died at Algeria in the French service. The second lost his health in India, and came home to Sloperton to die. His only daughter, while in £he act of kissing her hand to him as he was going out to dine at Lord Lansdowre's, fell over the balusters and was killed. Thus perished all his hopes)

and he died at last in his own house in the .arms in the arms of his faithful wife, having outlived even his own brilliant intellect. The visitors to Dublin may see the little grocer's shop where Moore was born ; it is ou the right hand side of Augier street, and is, I believe, a grocer's shop to this clay. He will see also a statue of the poet, which I cannot think does him justice, within the closure in front of Trinity College. He may read his voluminous prose writings, and his many poems ; but no one who has not heard the poet sing them can got the remotest conception of the charm of those -wonderful melodies, which, as long as music married to immortal verse has power over the mind, must continue to enchant and delight the world. They have been translated into every different language. Scrope Davis, Byron's friend, wrote thus about them :—: — v " They say, dear Moore, your songs are sung— Can this be true, yoa lucky man ! At midnight, in the Persian tongue, Along the streets of Ispahan " The writer of this paper in his early life thought those songs perfectly matchless. ,Age and a tolerably wide experience have not altered that opinion. He asked the poet to write Him one in his own hand. Mr. Moore asked whicli of them he would prefer, and, on boing told the " Minstrel Boy," wrote it immediately on a sheet of letter-paper, saying at the time, " Well, I think it is about the best of them." Moore's hands were singularly beautiful, and he was so extremely careful about their preservation from any kind of stain, that he always wore a pair of kid gloves when he was writing. In the throes of composition it was his habit to nibble at tho end of these until the tip of each linger was Mtten quite through. These trophies were preserved by his sister Ellen with affectionate solicitude, and became the object of immense competition among the numerous circle of, her lady friends. The last time I ever sa"w the poet he was going into a hatter's shop— Locke's, I think — at the foot of St. James' street. I followed him to see if he would remember me, and I found him in the act of having his white hat brushed by tho shopman. He turned round as he went out at the door ; pointing westwards, " They are all gone," he said, " every friend I had in the world ; I am lilie a stranger now in a strange land." Those wore the last words I ever heard him speak, and as he uttered them the tears came into his eyes. He had a dazed appearance at the time, as if his intellectual faculties had begun to give way — which indeed, I learned afterwards, was really the case. Percy Boxd, in Belgravia.