speare's Harry Prince of Wales transformed to Henry the Fifth is no more untrue to nature than Crabbe's Edward Shore, veering in slow gradation from a man of genius to an idiot. Wellington, playing in Committee with his "quiz," and in whose "vacant face" Luttrell read that he at least would never succeed,—who can trace by what changes he became the writer of the Peninsular despatches? Moore, however, never seems to have altered. We see him on his first introduction to the stage, a little, round-faced, buoyant, clever, and pleasantly self-conceited child, with a wonderful faculty of making himself welcome, a healthy zest for enjoyment, and true and tender affections; through life, till the seclusion of his last retreat shuts him from the world, he remains exactly the same, except that he grows larger and dresses differently.

From his mother he seems to have derived his gay, pleasureloving disposition, his passion for music, and his taste for social enjoyments. But she was also his sedulous instructress, and carefully studied every opportunity of forwarding his progress in knowledge and his advancement in the world. When she came home late, she would sometimes rouse him at one or two in the morning to hear him repeat his school-lessons; an untimely solicitude to which her son declares he cheerfully submitted. She made friends with his masters, and got them to teach him in the evenings; scraped together money for a pianoforte, and had him instructed in music; and seems to have pushed him forward in every way with a mixture of indulgence and stimulants exactly suited to his disposition.

It was at a grocer's shop in Dublin (on the 28th May 1779, according to his own account) that Tom Moore was born, and passed the first nineteen years of his life. His parents, though low in the social scale, were not vulgar. Of his father we hear little; but his letters are well-written sensible productions, and his son describes him as "one of Nature's gentlemen." He had, he tells us, a quiet searching humour, which he did not scruple to exercise on the priests of his own faith, to the mingled amusement and annoyance of his wife, who was a sincere and even superstitious Catholic. "I vow to God, Jack Moore," she would say, "I am ashamed of you." It was she who made the two little drawing-rooms and the adjoining closet the scene of those crowded and delightful little supper-parties, in the midst of whose genial social festivities her son was brought up; here he learnt to associate jollity and "the bowl," not with mere hard drinking and roaring of choruses in male society, but with those more refined and intellectual enjoyments from which he never disconnected them. The presence of women, of wit, and of kindly fellowship, went always to his idea of a feast; and the

association was no doubt founded in these experiences of his youth. Music was never wanting: Wesley Doyle and Joe Kelly sang their duets; his mother subscribed her share, singing in a 'soft, clear voice,' "How sweet in the woodlands;" and Master Tom was wont to give with no small éclat Dibdin's songs and the duet with Norah in the "Poor Soldier." He was a precocious boy," an old little crab," as a rival Irish Cornelia once somewhat splenetically observed,-but precocious only in the liveliness and quickness of his parts; he did not anticipate manhood, it may almost be questioned whether he ever reached it. He wanted always something of the grave sense of responsibility which manhood generally brings. But though many men are children all their lives, Tom Moore was something much rarer-all his life a well-bred little boy. When quite a child, he could sing a song or recite a poem so as to give real pleasure to his hearers; and no embarrassing modesty on the part of himself or his friends prevented his talents being displayed to the best advantage. At the age of eleven he was employed in some of the private theatricals, then much the rage, to recite an epilogue, and then first saw his name in print :"Epilogue: A Squeeze to St. Paul's: Master Moore." At the same age he wrote his first regular poem, quizzing the use of the quiz, a favourite toy of the day. Soon after we find him penning his epilogue for himself, and yet by no means affecting the gravity of precocious youth; but so enamoured of the part of Harlequin, that he would dream of good spirits presenting him with a genuine parti-coloured suit, and devoted himself to mastering the headforemost leap by sedulous practice over the rail of a tentbed. At the age of fourteen he wrote verses which were printed in the Anthologia Hibernica as "by Master Thomas Moore," and some of which unequivocally anticipate his style of songwriting, and are not very inferior to some of his mature productions. Nor was his rhetorical skill without similar juvenile antecedents:

"As our house was far from spacious, the bed-room which I occupied was but a corner of that in which these two clerks slept, boarded off, and fitted up with a bed, a table, and a chest of drawers, with a bookcase over it; and here, as long as my mother's brother continued to be an inmate of our family, he and I slept together. After he left us, however, to board and lodge elsewhere, I had this little nook to myself, and proud enough was I of my own apartment. Upon the door, and upon every other vacant space which my boundaries supplied, I placed inscriptions of my own composition, in the manner, as I flattered myself, of Shenstone's at the Leasowes. Thinking it the grandest thing in the world to be at the head of some literary institution, I organised my two shop-friends, Tom Ennis and Johnny Delany,

into a debating and literary society, of which I constituted myself the president; and our meetings, as long as they lasted, were held once or twice a week, in a small closet belonging to the bed-room off which mine was partitioned. When there was no company of an evening, the two clerks always supped at the same time with the family; taking their bread and cheese and beer, while my father and mother had their regular meat supper, with the usual adjunct, never omitted by my dear father through the whole of his long and hale life, of a tumbler of whisky-punch. It was after this meal that my two literary associates and myself, used (unknown, of course, to my father and mother) to retire, on the evenings of our meetings, to the little closet beyond the bed-room, and there hold our sittings. In addition to the other important proceedings that occupied us, each member was required to produce an original enigma, or rebus, in verse, which the others were bound, if possible, to explain; and I remember one night, Tom Ennis, who was in general very quick at these things, being exceedingly mortified at not being able to make out a riddle which the president (my august self) had proposed to the assembly. After various fruitless efforts on his part, we were obliged to break up for the night, leaving my riddle still unsolved. After I had been some hours asleep, however, I was awakened by a voice from my neighbour's apartment, crying out lustily, 'a drum! a drum! a drum!' while at the same time the action was suited to the word by a most vigorous thumping of a pair of fists against my wooden partition. It was Tom Ennis, who had been lying awake all those hours endeavouring to find out the riddle, and now thus vociferously announced to me his solution of it."

Even the triumphs and flatteries showered upon the national poct in the highest meridian of his fame read much like the account of his ovations as a schoolboy, when, on his Saturday returns from school, there "generally came with my sister a number of young girls to meet me, and, full of smiles and welcome, walked by the side of my pony into the town!"

The history of his college life contains little remarkable, though it passed at a remarkable time, and is only worth noting because it shows already formed the same character and disposition which attended him through life. He was at college in the year 1797. Surrounded by all the excitements of the United Irish conspiracy, at that time approaching its crisis, and the feverish temper which then prevailed throughout Irish society, of an ardent temperament, endowed with no slight intellectual powers, and at the age when danger and self-sacrifice are in themselves part of the temptations to engage in a great cause,-it is most characteristic of Lim that he stood entirely aloof from the United Irish societies then forming within the college; and warmly as he sympathised with the general principles, if not the direct objects of the conspirators, never took any practical share in the movement. He wrote, indeed, an article, which was looked upon as

"very bold," in their organ, the Press; but this only indicates still more clearly his true position; for it was evidently written not with the idea of promoting a particular view or object, but from a desire to exercise his talents and see himself in print. Strong as were his home affections and his habits of filial obedience, the anxious dissuasions of his mother could never have sufficed to keep him in safety, had not his own marked taste for self-preservation been early developed, and had not his whole character led him to take an external interest rather than a personal share in action. When, however, the inquiry into the spread of the United Irish societies within the college was conducted under the formidable auspices of Chancellor Fitzgibbon, young Moore showed another side of his character. It was a tribunal whose temper and demeanour were well calculated to shake the nerves of any young man, and which held over him the penalty of expulsion from the University and exclusion from the learned professions. On this occasion the boy of eighteen showed a moral courage and a ready command of his faculties which never failed him in his dealings with men. His account of the scene was long ago published in one of his prefaces to the collected edition of his poems; but we cite it, as a just testimony to the high spirit and collected bearing which always distinguished him. He was not a man to volunteer into danger for others; but he was the last to save himself from a common danger by any base compromise:

"At last my awful turn came, and I stood in presence of the terrific tribunal. There sat the formidable Fitzgibbon, whose name I had never heard connected but with domineering insolence and cruelty; and by his side the memorable 'Paddy' Duigenan,-memorable, at least, to all who lived in those dark times for his eternal pamphlets sounding the tocsin of persecution against the Catholics.

The oath was proffered to me. 'I have an objection, my lord,' said I, in a clear firm voice,-I have an objection to taking this oath.' -'What's your objection, sir?' he asked sternly. I have no fear, my lord, that any thing I might say would criminate myself, but it might tend to affect others; and I must say that I despise that person's character who could be led under any circumstances to criminate his associates.' This was aimed at some of the revelations of the preceding day, and, as I learned afterwards, was so felt. How old are you, sir?' I told him my age,-between seventeen and eighteen, though looking, I dare say, not more than fourteen or fifteen. He then turned to his assessor, Duigenan, and exchanged a few words with him in an under voice. We cannot,' he resumed, again looking towards me,' we cannot allow any person to remain in our University who would refuse to take this oath.'-'I shall, then, my lord,' I replied, 'take the oath, still reserving to myself the power of refusing to answer any such questions as I have described. We do not sit here to argue with

you, sir,' he rejoined, sharply; upon which I took the oath, and seated myself in the witness's chair.

The following were the questions and answers that then ensued; and I can pretty well pledge myself for their almost verbal accuracy, as well as for that of the conversation which preceded them. After having adverted to the proved existence of United Irish societies in the University, he asked, 'Have you ever belonged to any of these societies?' 'No, my lord.'-'Have you ever known of any of the proceedings which took place in them? No, my lord.'-' Did you ever hear of a proposal at any of their meetings for the purchase of arms and ammunition? No, my lord''Did you ever hear of a proposition made in one of these societies with respect to the expediency of assassination?' 'O, no, my lord.'-He then turned again to Duigenan, and after a few words with him resumed: When such are the answers you are able to give, pray what was the cause of your great repugnance to taking the oath? I have already told you, my lord, my chief reasons; in addition to which, it was the first oath I ever took, and it was, I think, a very natural hesitation.'-I was told afterwards that a fellow of the college, named Stokes (a man of liberal politics, who had alleged, as one of the grounds of his dislike to this inquisition, the impropriety of putting oaths to such young men), turned round, on hearing this last reply, to some one who sat next him, and said, 'That's the best answer that has been given yet.'

Fortunately, he escaped without questions leading to the crimination of others. The deliberate conclusion to which he, and also his father and mother, had arrived in their previous consultations was, that if such questions should be put, he must refuse to answer, and incur the heavy penalties overhanging such recusancy. The actual outbreak of the conspiracy took place when Moore was confined by illness.

In 1798 he left the University; and carly in the next year took his way to London, in order to enter himself a member of the Middle Temple. The funds were supplied by his mother, who had long been saving every penny she could get together for that object. She sewed the guineas into the waistband of Tom's pantaloons with a scapular, or small piece of cloth blessed by the priest, and sent him out into the world at the age of nineteen to seek his fortune.

His first visit to London was a short one; he ingratiated himself with his Irish friends there, lived in lodgings at six shillings a week, and dined cheaply at the French eating-houses. Like all other boys leaving home, he is somewhat out of spirits, and proud of his economy in tea. He had brought with him his translation of Anacreon, the fruit of his college studies in love and Greek; and having been discouraged from his original idea of submitting it for the patronage of the college authorities, he arranged for its publication in London. In the mean time, how