Cupid's "Loves of the Angels." What beautiful air-grown bubbles! Was ever such a string of pearly words so delightfully and so absurdly congregated before? -GALT, JOHN, 1823, To the Countess of Blessington, Jan. 6; The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington, ed. Madden, vol. II, p. 327. While in the parlour I delayed, Till they their persons had array'd, A dapper volume caught my eye, That on the window chanc'd to lie; A book's a friend-I always choose To turn its pages and peruse:— It proved those poems known to fame For praising every cyprian dame; The bantlings of a dapper youth, Renown'd for gratitude and truth; A little pest, hight Tommy Moore, Who hopp'd and skipp'd our country o'er; Who sipp'd our tea and lived on sops, Revell'd on syllabubs and slops, And when his brain, of cobweb fine, Was fuddled with five drops of wine, Would all his puny loves rehearse, And many a maid debauch-in verse. -IRVING, WASHINGTON, 1824, Salamagundi. Yes, I have read Moore's "Sheridan," and was deeply interested. But, my dear friend, it is more the excuse of an admirer than the impartial memoir of a biographer. -HAYDON, BENJAMIN ROBERT, 1825, Letter to Miss Mitford, Dec. 10; Life, Letters and Table Talk of Haydon, ed. Stoddard, p. 225. In Moore's style the ornament continually outstrips the sense.-NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY, 1829-71, Poetry with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics; Essays Critical and Historical, vol. I, p. 26. "The Loves of the Angels" is an invaluable gem, which will rank, not with the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," but with the "Rape of the Lock." Sometimes, indeed, we cannot help thinking that the author might have periwigged his angles with advantage. But I beg pardon-it is no longer fashionable for young coxcombs to wear wigs.-ELLIOTT, ÉBENEZER, 1833, Spirits and Men, Preface, p. 214. His radiance, not always as bright as some flashes from other pens, is yet a radiance of equable glow, whose total amount of light exceeds by very much, we think, that total amount in the case of any contemporary writer whatsoever. A vivid fancy, an epigrammatic spirit, a fine taste, vivacity, dexterity, and a musical ear have made him very easily what he is, the most popular poet now living, if not the most popular that ever lived; and, perhaps, a slight modification at birth of that which phrenologists have agreed to term temperament, might have made him the truest and noblest votary of the Muse of any age or clime. As it is, we have only casual glimpses of that mens divinior which is assuredly enshrined within him.-POE, EDGAR ALLAN, 1840, Moore's "Alciphron,' Works, ed. Stedman and Woodberry, vol. VI, p. 260. His notion of Paradise comes from the Koran, not the New Testament. His works are pictorial representations of Epicurianism. Pathos, passion, sentiment, fancy, wit, are poured melodiously forth in seemingly inexhaustible abundance, and glitter along his page as though written down with sunbeams; but they are still more or less referable to sensation, and the "trail of the serpent is over them all." He is the most superficial and empirical of all the prominent poets of his day. With all his acknowledged fertility of mind, with all his artistical skill and brilliancy, with all his popularity, he never makes a profound impression on the soul, and few ever think of calling him a great poet, even in the sense in which Byron is great. He is the most magnificent trifler that ever versified. Nothing can be finer than his sarcasm, nothing more brilliant than his fancy, nothing more softly voluptuous than of imagination, no grandeur of thought, no his sentiment. But he possesses no depth clear vision of purity and holiness. He has neither loftiness nor comprehension. Those who claim for him a place among the immortals, are most generally girls who thrum pianos, and who are conquered by the "dazzling fence" of his rhetoric, and the lightning-like rapidity with which he scatters fancies one upon another. He blinds the eye with diamond dust, and lulls the ear with the singing sweetness of his versification. Much of his sentiment, which fair throats warble so melodiously, is merely idealized lust. The pitch of his thought and feeling is not high. The im pression gained from his works is most assuredly that of a man variously gifted by nature, adroit, ingenious, subtle, versatile, "forgetive". tile, "forgetive" a most remarkable man, but not a great poet. Nothing about his works "wears the aspect of eternity." Idol of youths and virgins, Moore! There spouse and husband strove alike, As a poet Moore must always hold a high place. Of English lyrical poets he is surely the first.-RUSSELL, LORD JOHN, 1853, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, Preface, vol. I, p. xxii. Moore had in his time many imitators, but all his gaiety, his brilliant fancy, his somewhat feminine graces, and the elaborate music of his numbers, have not saved him from the fate of being imitated no more.-BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, 1870, A New Library of Poetry and Song, Introduction, vol. I, p. 43. In this multitude of travellers and historians, disguised as poets, how shall we select? They abound like swarms of insects hatched on a summer's day amidst the rank of vegetation; they buzz and glitter, and the mind is lost in their sparkle and hum. Which shall I quote? Thomas Moore, the gayest and most French of all, a witty railer, too graceful and recherché, writing descriptive odes on the Bermudas, sentimental Irish melodies, a poetic Egyptian romance, a romantic poem on Persia and India.-TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. II, bk. iv, ch. i, p. 250. Moore is nothing in my opinion, and never would have been anything but for the lovely music he is identified with.— OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1872, To Mr. Blackwood, Autobiography and Letters. As to the songs and oher poems one can seldom imagine that they were written in the open air, in the woods or fields, or in the face of nature. There is (so to speak) always a boudoir or indoor air about them: the very flowers seem to be artificial. Mr. Moore's verses are also too saccharine: they want substance and relief. One may be smothered even with roses; and if the roses want their natural dew and freshness, the suffocation becomes unpleasant.PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER, 1874? Recollections of Men of Letters, p. 153. In Satire, it must be admitted that Moore is entitled to a distinguished place. Not, indeed, that he wielded the massive. and ruthless weapon of the great Roman, the cutting lash of Ariosto and Dryden, the delicate scalpel of Boileau and Pope, or the poisoned dagger of Junius. The edge of his sarcasm seems turned by its wit, and the smile of the archer to blunt his arrow's point.-BATES, WILLIAM, 1874– 98, The Maclise Portrait Gallery, p. 25. In the cosmical diapason and august Pan's-pipe can at odd moments be heard, orchestra of poetry, Tom Moore's little and interjects an appreciable and rightlycombined twiddle or two. To be gratified with these at the instant is no more than the instrument justifies, and the executant claims: to think much about them when the organ is pealing or the violin playing (with a Shelley performing on the first, or a Mrs. Browning on the second) or to be on the watch for their recurrences, would be equally superfluous and weak-minded. -ROSSETTI, WILLIAM MICHAEL 1878, Lives of Famous Poets, p. 284. He not only produced the most exquisite songs in the language, but he concurrently composed some of the best satires that were ever written. Birth had made Moore an advocate for rebellion. Society had stripped his advocacy of it of every shadow of bitterness.-WALPOLE, SPENCER, 1878, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815, vol. I, p. 361. The land where the staff of Saint Patrick was planted, Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore, The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted, Shall wreath her bright harp with the garlands of Moore! -HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, 1879, For the Moore Centennial Celebration. Perhaps he was not hero born, Like those he sung-Heaven only knows; He had the rose without the thorn, But he deserved the rose! For underneath its odorous light His heart was warm, his soul was strong; -STODDARD, Ah, "Lalla Rookh!" O charméd boo In which our youth delighted. The centuries roll; but he has left, Beside the ceaseless river, Some flowers of rhyme untouched by Time, And songs that sing forever. -TROWBRIDGE, JOHN TOWNSEND, 1879-81, Recollections of Lalla Rookh, A Home Idyl and other Poems, p. 92. No one would go to Moore expecting to find the robust vigour, condensed wisdom, and epigrammatic point of a Shakspere or a Burns; but sentiment, though less deep and more diffuse, may still be true and touch our hearts.-SYMINGTON, ANDREW JAMES, 1880, Thomas Moore, p. 134. He shone as a morning star in the awakening eye o he nineteenth (centhe nineteenth (century); and though he was apt to disfigure his songs by what he meant for a crowning ornamenta metaphor artificially set forth, and too much 1. e "the posy of a ring," yet in his more genuine poetic moods, whether plaintive or festive, or, as he could sometimes contrive it, a graceful combination of the two, he could not but charm an audience who had forgotten the songsters of Elizabeth and James, and, so far as the poetry of song was concerned, had had nothing better to listen to in their own times than what was called "the Della Cruscan school," or "the school of Laura Matilda."-TAYLOR, SIR HENRY, 1885, Autobiography, vol. I, p. 155. Nearly every line he wrote is pregnant with platitude and literary affectations; nearly every song he sang is either playfully, or forlornly, or affectedly, genteel; and though he had a musical ear, he was deficient in every lofty grace, every wordcompelling power, of the divine poetic gift. Above all, he lacked simplicity-that one unmistakable gift of all great national poets, from Homer downwards. And the cardinal defect of the verse was the true clue to the thoroughly artificial character of the man. . . . I have granted the merit of Moore's verses and the amusing nature of his personality; but I must protest in the name of justice against his acceptance as the national poet of Ireland. If Irishmen accept him and honour him as such, so much the worse for Irishmen, since his falsehood of poetic touch must respond to something false and unpoetic in their own. natures. BUCHANAN, ROBERT, 1886, The Irish "National' Poet, A Look Round Literature, pp. 205, 206. His prose, less known than his poetry, is facile, elegant, and, on the whole, correct. -SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1886, Specimens of English Prose Style, p. 318. "Surely you must have been born with a rose in your lips, and a nightingale singing on the top of your bed," said Samuel Rogers to Moore; and there is much significance in the conceit. Moore's poems are full of colour, while their melody is almost faultless. His verse is sensuous and sweet. It seldom reached passion or heroic aspiration. There is no profound depth of thought, no far insight of human nature. or character. But it is full of airy fancies which are wrought into musical numbers characterised by exquisite finish which at its best shows no signs of elaboration. The flow and modulation of his lines give them an immediate affinity to music, and it seems but in the natural order of things that they should have been sung in a self. Moore's songs still live in popular tender, sympathetic voice by the poet himappreciation now that "Lalla Rookh" is seldom read, and its splendors-astonishing as they are - have to a great extent ceased to hold the fancy of a younger generation. Even his Irish patriotic songs are remembered with something of the thrill which they have caused when they were sung in fashionable drawing-rooms more than half a century ago. century ago. ARCHER, THOMAS, 1892, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century, Southey to Shelley, ed. Miles, p. 187. It was a society which loved bric-à-brac, and Moore gave it bric-à-brac poetry of the best kind. the best kind. Never was it better done; and the verse had a melodious movement, as of high-bred and ignorant ladies dancing on enamelled meadows, which pleased the ear and almost seemed to please the |