CHAPTER II
EARLY MANHOOD AND MARRIAGE
The _Phaeton_ frigate, on which Moore had procured a passage, left Spithead on September 25th, and on November 5th we find him writing to his mother from Norfolk in Virginia. The voyage, though rather rough, had been a pleasant experience, and, after his fashion, Moore had made friends with everybody on board. Thirty years later he was delighted with a passage in the _Naval Recollections_ of Captain Scott, who had sailed as midshipman on the _Phaeton_. Scott's observation was, that he knew at that time nothing about Moore's poetry, but that the poet "appeared the life and soul of the company, and the loss of his fascinating society was frequently and loudly lamented by the officers long after he had quitted us in America." Moore was justifiably proud of having "left such an impression upon honest hearty unaffected fellows like those of the gun-room of the _Phaeton_," who would naturally--as he freely admits--have been prejudiced in the other sense. "I remember," he notes, "the first lieutenant saying to me after we had become intimate, 'I thought you the first day you came aboard, the damnedest conceited little fellow I ever saw, with your glass cocked up to your eye'; and then he mimicked the manner in which I made my first appearance." The first lieutenant's phrase is worth remembering as a frank piece of description.
Till the end of 1803 Moore was delayed in Virginia, waiting for a ship, and in the meanwhile writing long letters home full of the warmest affection, and of "longing for news of all his dears." In January he was lucky enough to get passage on another ship of war, the _Driver_, and reached Bermuda after seven days' sail in very heavy weather. His parting from Norfolk had been attended with the usual regrets; Mrs. Hamilton, wife of the British Consul, in whose home Moore had been most hospitably entertained, "cried, and said she never parted from any one so reluctantly," and her husband wrote him all possible letters of introduction.
Bermuda itself seemed, at the first view, a kind of fairyland, as he has recorded in the Epistle to Lady Donegal:--
"The morn was lovely, every wave was still, When the first perfume of a cedar-hill Sweetly awaked us, and, with smiling charms, The fairy harbour woo'd us to its arms. Gently we stole, before the languid wind, Through plantain shades, that like an awning twined And kiss'd on either side the wanton sails, Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales; While, far reflected o'er the wave serene, Each wooded island shed so soft a green, That the enamour'd keel, with whispering play, Through liquid herbage seem'd to steal its way! Never did weary bark more sweetly glide, Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide! Along the margin, many a shining dome, White as the palace of a Lapland gnome, Brighten'd the wave;--in every myrtle grove Secluded, bashful, like a shrine of love, Some elfin mansion sparkled through the shade; And, while the foliage interposing play'd, Wreathing the structure into various grace, Fancy would love, in glimpses vague, to trace The flowery capital, the shaft, the porch, And dream of temples, till her kindling torch Lighted me back to all the glorious days Of Attic genius; and I seem'd to gaze On marble, from the rich Pentelic mount, Gracing the umbrage of some Naiad's fount."
The letter which sketches his first impressions adds a touch of disenchantment, which Moore, remote always from realism, was careful to exclude from his verse:--
"These little islands are thickly covered with cedar groves, through the vistas of which you catch a few pretty white houses, which my poetical short-sightedness always transforms into temples; and I often expect to see Nymphs and Graces come tripping from them, when I find, to my great disappointment, that a few miserable negroes is all 'the bloomy flush of life' it has to boast of."
What was more serious, the prospects of income also disenchanted him of his dream which was to make in Bermuda a home for himself and his family. So many prize-courts had been established, and so few causes were referred to his in Bermuda, that nothing but a Spanish war could hold out a prospect of large fees. Even that did not promise an income worth staying for, and Moore's decision was immediate--to finish the work he was engaged on for Carpenter, and then set out for home.
The precise nature of this engagement is not clear. He had from his first year in London been writing songs which were set to music by John Stevenson and others. In 1803 the poem from _Anacreon_, "Give me the Harp of Epic Song," had been arranged by Stevenson as a glee, and its performance by the Irish Harmonic Club so pleased Lord Hardwicke, then Viceroy, that he conferred a knighthood on the composer. Moore's last letter on leaving England contained directions for collecting his songs to be published together, and the letters from Bermuda made constant reference to this project, which, however, was never executed. In the meantime, as his work testifies, he was busy writing verses; even aboard ship, he had not been idle. And, as usual, his verse writing was largely amatory. Later in life, he records with some amusement that a lady in Bermuda was pointed out as the original "Nea" to whom several poems are addressed, and he wonders if they had hit on the right person, adding that there were at least _two_ who had a claim.
Festivities, as a matter of course, surrounded him, and he was happy as a king, but for one lack. Up till March 19th, no letter had reached him from Ireland.
"Oh darling mother," he cries, "six months now and I know as little of _home_ as of things most remote from my heart and recollection.... The signal post which announces when any vessels are in sight of the island is directly before my window, and often do I look to it with a heart sick 'from hope deferred.'"
In the end of April he left his post, having, in an evil hour, appointed a deputy to discharge its duties and share the profits. The _Boston_ frigate took him to New York, and its captain, John Douglas, afterwards admiral, formed a friendship with the poet of which proofs were given again and again. In 1811, he met Moore in London, after five years had passed without a word or a letter exchanged. Douglas had just come into a legacy of ten thousand pounds, and was going to sea with seven hundred pounds standing to his name in Coutts's.
"Now, my dear little fellow," he said, "here is a blank check, which you may fill up while I am away, for as much of that as you may want."
Moore, who declined the offer, as he declined many others of like nature, might well comment on a man's "bringing back the warmth of friendship so unchilled after an absence of five years." Nor was that the end of it. In 1814 Douglas, then Admiral on the Jamaica Station, offered Moore the Secretaryship, "in case of war a sure fortune," with a house and land to be at the poet's disposal; and, as Moore notes, the offer was not only friendly but courageous, for Douglas owed his appointment to Court interest, and at that moment the Whig satirist was in the worst odour with the Regent and all his surroundings.
The immediate boon, gladly accepted, of the passage from Bermuda to America, and thence to England, was the more important, as it enabled Moore to devote the money, which had been set aside for his passage, to seeing the New World. He sailed from New York to Norfolk, and thence set out for Baltimore; and the journey in American stage coaches appears to have shaken out of him whatever remained of his early illusions about the "land of the free." America at that time was beyond dispute inchoate, amorphous, and ugly in all senses, and Moore's instincts were anything but democratic. At Philadelphia, "the only place in America which can boast of any literary society," he found his writings well known, and met with a flattering reception, which pleased him; a Mrs. Hopkinson in particular showed him attentions which elicited the poem, "Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved." Returning to New York, he found that the _Boston_ must go to Halifax, and could not sail before August. This offered an opportunity of journeying to Canada overland, and accordingly he sailed up the Hudson River, through "the most bewildering succession of romantic objects that I could ever have conceived." The Oneida Indians charmed him by their courtesy, the rivers and virgin forests wrought upon his sensibilities, and when he came within hearing of the roar of Niagara, it seemed to him dreadful that "any heart born for sublimities should be doomed to breathe away its hours amidst the miniature productions of this world without seeing what shapes Nature can assume, what wonders God _can_ give birth to."
The sight, not so much of the falls as of "the mighty flow descending with calm magnificence" towards them, moved him passionately; and the journey, "seventeen hundred miles of rattling and tossing, through woods, lakes, rivers, etc.," did him good. He reached Quebec much gratified by many kindnesses. The captain of the vessel which carried him across Lake Ontario refused to take money from the poet, and a poor watchmaker at Niagara insisted that a job done should be accepted "as the only mark of respect he could pay to one he had heard so much of but never expected to meet with." At Halifax more proofs of what, later in life, he called, with great justice, his "friendly fame," greeted him, in the shape of courtesies from the Governors of Lower Canada and of Nova Scotia. It is Moore's great distinction that he gave real pleasure to all sorts and conditions of men; and they showed it by treating him as if he had conferred obligations on them. The feeling which is to-day so widespread among his countrymen animated in his lifetime all the English-speaking world. Yet it is surprising to read such instances of widespread celebrity when we remember that at this time he was the author only of translations from a pseudo-classic, and of a small volume of verses, not explicitly acknowledged, and by no means wholly decorous.
His American experiences ended about a year after he left Europe, and on November 12, 1804, he dated his letter rapturously "Plymouth, Old England once more." "Oh dear," he goes on, "to think that in ten days I may see a letter from home, written but a day or two before, warm from your hands, and with your very breath almost upon it, instead of lingering out month after month without a gleam of intelligence, without anything but dreams."
Nevertheless, a good many months elapsed before the returned exile could make his way home. London held out open arms to him; the Prince was very friendly; "every one I ever knew in this big city seems delighted to see me back in it." And so, although in January 1805 he was hoping that six weeks would see the end of his labours on the forthcoming volume that was to clear off all obligations, August found him still urging the necessity of finishing his work without any avoidable delay. It seems that he went home to Dublin in the autumn, and Lord Moira, then Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, wrote a letter accepting the dedication of the forthcoming _Epistles and Odes_, in the most honorific language.
The next year, 1806, saw the formation of the Ministry of "All the Talents," and for a moment it seemed as if Moira would be included. His protégé's hopes ran high, but they were dashed. A small appointment was offered to Moore, but refused by him on the ground that it would be "better to wait till something worthier both of his generosity and my ambition should occur"; and at the same time the young man suggested that it would be a simpler matter to find an appointment for his father, and that such a favour would earn even more gratitude. Lord Moira at once acted on the suggestion, and John Moore was appointed to a barrack-mastership in Dublin. But Moore by no means relinquished hopes of the Irish commissionership which still dangled before his eyes, and the letters to his most intimate friends of this period, Lady Donegal and her sister, Miss Godfrey, abound with references to his expectations. Nevertheless, he had fully made up his mind, once the new poems were fairly launched, to return to Ireland and leave his interests in Lord Moira's care, when an unforeseen event led to one of the best-known passages in his life.
It arose from the publication in 1806 of the new volume, _Epistles, Odes, and other Poems_. Carpenter evidently laid out money on the production of this quarto, with its frontispiece representing the _Phaeton_ under sail off the peak of the Azores; and his expectations were not disappointed. The Epistles contained in the volume, nine in number, were impressions of travel on shipboard and on land; the best is certainly that to Lady Donegal (already quoted), which describes the arrival at Bermuda; and perhaps the best known is that to Atkinson, from which a few lines may be given:--
"'Twas thus, by the shade of the Calabash Tree, With a few, who could feel and remember like me, The charm, that to sweeten my goblet I threw, Was a tear to the past and a blessing on you!
"Oh! say, do you thus, in the luminous hour Of wine and of wit, when the heart is in flower, And shoots from the lip, under Bacchus's dew, In blossoms of thought ever springing and new-- Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair, And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there?"
More immediate notice than was bestowed on these passages of mingled description and sentiment fell to the three epistles in which Moore for the first time tried his hand at satire,--moved to it by the corruptions of the young Republic, where he found
"All youth's transgression with all age's chill The apathy of wrong, the bosom's ice, A slow and cold stagnation into vice."
These experiments in satire of the accepted type, written in Pope's metre, have, however, no more permanent value than the two odes, equally academic--one upon the "Fall of Hebe" and one described as a "Fragment of a Mythological Hymn to Love." It is safe to say that the book owed its very wide popularity to the songs and shorter lyrics. Two of the songs had an immense vogue--"The Woodpecker" and the still popular "Canadian Boat-song" ("Faintly as tolls the evening chime"), written to an air suggested to Moore by the chant of his oarsmen as he travelled down the St. Lawrence.
In addition to these were a number of amatory verses, some of them at least as well calculated to scandalise as anything in the posthumous works of Mr. Little. It is true that, read to-day, these do not seem to call for any extreme censure. They are glorifications expressly of fugitive loves, dwelling rather on pleasure than on passion, and one might argue whether they were the more or the less dangerous on that account. But there is no doubt that Moore maintained the reputation which he had earned for licentious poetry. Those who wished to rebuke Byron's first indiscretions called him "a young Moore." It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the _Edinburgh Review_, in its character of _censor morum_, having passed over the _Anacreon_ and Little's Poems, should come heavily down upon this renewed offence--describing Moore as "the most licentious of modern versifiers, and the most poetical of those who in our time have devoted their talents to the propagation of immorality." But the second paragraph of the article went beyond fair bounds when it attributed to Moore "a cold-blooded attempt to corrupt the purity of unknown and unsuspecting readers." Jeffrey had a right to say that the poet blended mere sensuality with the language "of exalted feeling and tender emotion"; but no critic can endorse the offensive passage in which he describes Moore as "stimulating his jaded fancy for new images of impurity." The best apology for whatever in the book needs excuse, is that Moore gave in his verse too ready an outlet to the ordinary exuberances of a pleasure-loving young man's temperament, and that he seldom pretended to conceal the transitory nature of his feelings.
And, in the sequel, Jeffrey admitted in writing that he had been too severe. A good deal, however, had happened first. Moore's first impulse does not seem to have been belligerent, and as the purpose of calling Jeffrey out dawned on him, there dawned also a difficulty. Jeffrey was probably in Scotland (a letter from Moore to George Thomson, editor of _Select Scottish Airs_, etc., contains an inquiry as to his whereabouts), and this seemed to involve a journey to Edinburgh for which "the actual but too customary state of my finances" (Moore writes in the memoir of this transaction) "seriously disabled me." But, on coming to London, he learnt from Rogers that Jeffrey was also in town, and on ascertaining the fact, immediately went to look for a second. The friend to whom he first addressed himself having counselled delay, the affair was entrusted to Dr. Hume, and a cartel was written in such terms that there could be only one answer. Jeffrey referred Hume to Horner, and a meeting was fixed for the next morning at Chalk Farm. But neither combatant possessed pistols, and it was left for Moore to borrow them from a friend. Moreover, on reaching the ground, Hume found that Jeffrey's second knew nothing of firearms, and the task of loading both pistols was entrusted to him; while in the meantime the two principals, left together, walked up and down, conversing very agreeably. Presently the seconds returned and placed their men; but, as the pistols were raised, police officers jumped from an ambush. The lender of the pistols had been indiscreet and revealed the secret over-night at Lord Fincastle's dinner-table; Lord Fincastle had immediately communicated with Bow Street, with the result that early next morning the poet and his critic found themselves in durance till bail was given.
So far, nothing very remarkable had happened. But Moore, after going away, remembered that he had left the pistols behind, and returned to get them. The officer, however, refused to give them up, and made the disagreeable explanation that foul play was suspected; a bullet having been found in Moore's pistol, but none in that taken from Jeffrey. To make matters worse, a report in the newspapers substituted the word "pellet" for "bullet," and pleasantries were rife about author and critic fighting with pellets of paper. Moore was furious, and persuaded Horner to draw up an account of the matter, to be signed by the two seconds, but Hume "took fright at the ridicule brought upon us by the transaction" and refused to have any more to do with it. More than thirty years elapsed before Moore was reconciled to the friend who thus failed him, and his wrath was not unreasonable, since the explanation published by himself in the _Times_ naturally carried little weight. Yet it afterwards gave him ground for challenging Byron. Thus closely connected are Moore's two attempts at duelling; and there is nothing more characteristic of his life than the fact that in each case his challenge was only the introduction to a friendship of the sincerest and most honourable kind.
* * * * *
After the close of this episode Moore returned to Dublin,--some hackwork for Carpenter on Sallust defraying his expenses--and remained there till the spring of 1807, reading daily in Marsh's library for about three hours and a half. "I have written nothing since I came here," he tells Miss Godfrey--dating his letter Dublin, February 23rd--"except one song which everybody says is the best I have ever composed." The exception is notable, for this song may have been one of the first of the _Irish Melodies_.
The inception of Moore's most famous work was due to a publisher's suggestion. In 1797 (or perhaps a year earlier), Bunting's collection of Irish Airs had been issued, and Moore tells us that his interest in them was encouraged by his friend Edward Hudson. Even before his departure for Bermuda the young Irish poet had shown his skill in fitting words for singing; and songs by him had been issued by Carpenter, by Rhames of Dublin, and by other firms. When he returned home after an absence which extended from the summer of 1803 to the autumn of 1806, he returned with fame greatly augmented by his latest volume, and presumably the vogue of his singing was not less in Dublin than elsewhere. What the song was that he refers to in his letter to Miss Godfrey, we do not know; but it is exceedingly likely to have been the lines on Emmet, which occupied a prominent place in the first number of the _Melodies_. One can very well believe that the fame of some song by Moore on an Irish theme may have suggested to William Power, owner of a music warehouse in Dublin, the proposal which he made--namely, that Moore should collaborate with Sir John Stevenson in producing a series of Irish Melodies.
The following prefatory letter, addressed by Moore to Stevenson, was issued by the publisher in his preliminary announcement to the first and second numbers:--
"I feel very anxious that a work of this kind should be undertaken. We have too long neglected the only talent for which our English neighbours ever deigned to allow us any credit. Our National Music has never been properly collected; and while the composers of the Continent have enriched their Operas and Sonatas with Melodies borrowed from Ireland--very often without even the honesty of acknowledgment--we have left these treasures, in a great degree, unclaimed and fugitive. Thus our Airs, like too many of our countrymen, have, for want of protection at home, passed into the service of foreigners. But we are come, I hope, to a better period of both Politics and Music; and how much they are connected, in Ireland at least, appears too plainly in the tone of sorrow and depression which characterizes most of our early Songs.
"The task which you propose to me, of adapting words to these airs, is by no means easy. The Poet, who would follow the various sentiments which they express, must feel and understand that rapid fluctuation of spirits, that unaccountable mixture of gloom and levity, which composes the character of my countrymen, and has deeply tinged their Music. Even in their liveliest strains we find some melancholy note intrude--some minor Third or flat Seventh--which throws its shade as it passes, and makes even mirth interesting. If Burns had been an Irishman (and I would willingly give up all our claims upon Ossian for him), his heart would have been proud of such music, and his genius would have made it immortal.
"Another difficulty (which is, however, purely mechanical) arises from the irregular structure of many of those airs, and the lawless kind of metre which it will in consequence be necessary to adapt to them. In these instances, the Poet must write, not to the eye, but to the ear; and must be content to have his verses of that description which Cicero mentions, _'Quos si cantu spoliaveris nuda remanebit oratio.'_ That beautiful Air, 'The Twisting of the Rope,' which has all the romantic character of the Swiss _Ranz des Vaches_, is one of those wild and sentimental rakes which it will not be very easy to tie down in sober wedlock with Poetry. However, notwithstanding all these difficulties, and the very moderate portion of talent which I can bring to surmount them, the design appears to me so truly National, that I shall feel much pleasure in giving it all the assistance in my power."
Leicestershire, _Feb._ 1807.
The date is curious. Moore, writing to Miss Godfrey on February 23rd from Dublin, made no mention of this project. He certainly crossed in the end of February, and took up his abode (as was now his recognised privilege) in solitary state at Donington. From there he wrote to his mother for a copy of Bunting's _Airs_, and also of Miss Owenson's--to be got from Power. In April he sends her "an inclosure for Power" to be forwarded immediately--and this was probably the prefatory letter. For Mr. Andrew Gibson's researches have discovered in the _Belfast Commercial Chronicle_ of May 28, 1807, a paragraph relating to Power's projected "Collection of the best Original Irish Melodies," which concludes by citing a portion of Moore's prefatory letter, and the date affixed is "Leicestershire, _April_ 1807."
For what reason the month should be given as February in all published editions of the _Melodies_, it is hard to conceive. But the result has been a widespread bibliographical error, since the publication is always assigned to 1807. Mr. Gibson, however, has unearthed various announcements in the _Freeman's Journal_, of which two speak in October of the work as "shortly to be published," and another, on April 8th, 1808, as "just published." The latter advertisement invited subscribers for "the succeeding numbers"; names were to be given to the publisher, William Power, in Dublin, or in London to his brother James Power, who had recently established a similar place of business in the Strand.
Under the original scheme, Moore was only to have been one of "several distinguished Literary Characters" from whom "Power has had promises of assistance." But his success precluded all competition. The twenty-four songs comprised in the first two numbers include some of his very best and much of his most popular work, and it is interesting to note that almost the whole of them must have been written in Ireland. His stay at Donington lasted till June, and during the earlier part of it he was certainly engaged on poetry. But except for an excursion to Tunbridge, to visit Lady Donegal and her sister, he went nowhere else in England, and he was back in Dublin by the end of August. In the remaining months of that summer he paid the visit to the Vale of Ovoca which gave occasion to his lyric, "The Meeting of the Waters." A footnote to the first edition of the first number explains that--
"'The Meeting of the Waters' forms a part of that beautiful scenery which lies between Rathdrum and Arklow in the County of Wicklow, and these lines were suggested to me by a visit to this romantic spot in the summer of the present year (1807)."
It appears also, from a letter to Miss Godfrey, that in May 1807 his solitude at Donington was interrupted by the advent of a large house-party, and one may fairly say that, except for what he may have done in the space of about three months, the whole of the lyrics of the first two numbers were composed in the country where the airs themselves had their origin.
Moreover, during his stay at Donington, other work than the _Melodies_ engaged him. He tells Lady Donegal, "to God's pleasure and both our comforts," that he is not writing love verses.
"I begin at last to find out that _politics_ is the only thing minded in this country, and that it is better even to rebel against government than to have nothing to do with it; so I am writing politics."
The result of this determination was seen in the publication which appeared towards the end of 1808--_Corruption and Intolerance_, two more satirical essays in the Popian manner. These productions were issued by Carpenter in a thin octavo, eked out with a vast deal of notes. Moore had not yet arrived at his characteristic manner of expression in satire, and neither poem deserves much notice. Yet there was talent and to spare in lines like these:--
"Hence the rich oil, that from the Treasury steals, Drips smooth o'er all the Constitution's wheels, Giving the old machine such pliant play, That Court and Commons jog one joltless way, While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car, So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far."
And at the close of the poem there is a note of unaccustomed fierceness in the reference to Castlereagh:
"See yon smooth lord, whom nature's plastic pains Would seem to've fashion'd for those Eastern reigns When eunuchs flourish'd, and such nerveless things As men rejected were the chosen of Kings."
The lines on Intolerance were described as fragmentary--"the imperfect beginning of a long series of Essays upon the same important subject"; and the political attitude of the whole was sufficiently described on the title-page, where the lines were described as "Addressed to an Englishman by an Irishman."
Moore disclaimed in the preface any attachment to either English party, and the publication was, at least formally, anonymous. Yet we find him admitting that he had projected a journey to London to arrange for the republication of these poems, reinforced by others in the same kind, "in the hope that I _might_ catch the eye of some of our patriotic politicians, and thus be enabled to serve both _myself_ and the _principles_ which I cherish." Carpenter, however, threw cold water on the scheme, and the rebuff touched the poet's susceptibilities so sharply, that he determined not to trust himself again in London "without the means of commanding a supply." For this, his past successes were no resource, since it was always Moore's imprudent habit to sell work outright. Little's Poems were being constantly reprinted, with no benefit to their author; and as for the songs, he writes in August 1808, "I quite threw away the Melodies. They will make that little, smooth fellow's fortune."
In 1809 another thin octavo, called _The Sceptic_, and signed by "The Author of Corruption and Intolerance," was issued by Carpenter: Rogers (who from this period onward ranks high among Moore's advisers) protesting against his continuance with this publisher. But the book attracted little notice; and the lack of success which attended these attempts in serious satire very naturally turned Moore back into the work where his triumph had been most gratifying. In January 1810 he published, with a dedication to Lady Donegal, the third instalment of his _Irish Melodies_, and it bears the stamp of its birthplace. The political passion is by far more openly declared than before, and in two or three of the lyrics--notably "After the Battle" and "The Irish Peasant to his Mistress"--it attains as high a pitch of poetry as is reached anywhere in its author's work. Part of the former may be quoted, if only to show the similarity between its motive and the central idea of "The Fire Worshippers."
"Night closed around the conqueror's way, And lightnings showed the distant hill, Where those who lost that dreadful day Stood few and faint, but fearless still! The soldier's hope, the patriot's zeal, For ever dimmed, for ever crossed-- Oh! who shall say what heroes feel, When all but life and honour's lost?
"The last sad hour of freedom's dream, And valour's task, moved slowly by, While mute they watched till morning's beam Should rise and give them light to die."
The twelve lyrics of this number, together with the thin brochure of _The Sceptic_, are all that Moore had to show for the months from July or August 1808 to December 1810, which make up the only long continuous period of his adult life spent in Ireland. We have little record of his doings during that time, and the most significant part of it is to be found in a little quarto, privately printed, which details the performances of the Kilkenny Theatre. Published in 1825, this little book was made the subject by Moore of an article in the _Edinburgh Review_ for October 1827. Its preface sketches briefly the history of a craze for private theatricals which pervaded Ireland in the years from 1760 onwards. But nowhere else does the passion appear to have established itself so strongly as on the banks of the Nore, where a company was got together in 1802 under the auspices of a local gentleman, Mr. Richard Power. Originally the performances lasted for a week, but soon the programme was arranged for a fortnight, and in one case for three weeks. The event was annual till 1819, when the Kilkenny Theatre was closed for ever--marking, as Moore says in his review, the end of the social period in Ireland.
Moore, as we have seen, returned to Ireland in August 1808, and on the 10th of October following he made his _début_ at Kilkenny; not alone, for Mr. Power in that year obtained two notable recruits. Isaac Corry, one of Moore's most lasting and agreeable friends, joined the troupe, and remained faithful for years; moreover, the genial Joe Atkinson, who, we may guess, introduced these new actors, wrote the prologue. Moore was only at this time a tentative member of the company, and played three days out of the twelve. We find the _Leinster Journal_ (whose exceedingly well-written notices of the performances are regularly quoted in the volume) noting, to begin with, that "the Theatrical Company have been favoured with the presence of Anacreon Moore." But on the 22nd October the new recruit made his first appearance in the small part of David in _The Rivals_, and "kept the audience in a roar by his Yorkshire dialect and rustic simplicity." The success was renewed by him as Mungo in _The Padlock_, and as Spado (a singing part) in _A Castle of Andalusia_. Next year a list of plays that ran from the 2nd to the 21st of October was produced, and we read that "the delight and darling of the Kilkenny audience appears to be Anacreon Moore," who wrote the prologue for the occasion, and "spoke it in his own bewitching manner." "The vivacity and _naïveté_ of his manner, the ease and archness of his humour, and the natural sweetness of his voice have quite enamoured us." In the solid Shaksperian part of the programme--for Mr. Power and his men did not shrink before _Macbeth_ and _Othello_--this actor took no part. What he did play in was the farce _Peeping Tom of Coventry_--and, let it be carefully observed, the Lady Godiva was Miss E. Dyke. Miss E. Dyke was a beautiful girl, then aged fourteen; her sister, Miss H. Dyke, had appeared the year before, and both, it seems, were professional actresses. Of their talents the recorder in the _Leinster Journal_ makes no mention, but he is eloquent again and again on the successes of Mr. Moore, and the performances of 1809 appear to have marked an epoch. In 1810 Moore was again (and for the last time) a performer. The critic inclines to cavil at the slightness of the part given to this favourite, and emphasises Moore's cleverness with enthusiasm. But, indeed, on two of the evenings Moore had the stage entirely to himself, when, between the plays, he sat down to a piano and spoke his _Melologue upon National Music_, verses which he had written to be declaimed by Miss Smith at the Dublin Theatre for a benefit night, and which were afterwards published in pamphlet form.
All this pleasant gaiety had two consequences, of which the less important may be first noted. In January 1809, three months after Moore's first appearance at Kilkenny, Rogers writes: "I am delighted with your intention to make your debut on the stage--as an author I mean. Of your fame as an actor, I have had many reverberations." Nothing more came of the intention at the moment, but in December 1810 Moore returned to London after a two years' absence, and writes of many visits "from booksellers, musicsellers, managers, etc., with offers for books, songs, and plays. I rather think," he adds, "I may give something to Covent Garden." The result was that sometime in the following summer he was trembling upon a manager's verdict, and on September 4th, 1811, saw with no pleasurable feelings, the production of his opera, _M.P. or The Blue Stocking_, at the English Opera House. The piece was a failure, despite a friendly press; and the songs from it, all that Moore cared to preserve, are by no means good examples of his work. For many years afterwards the stage tempted him, as a means of earning money, but he never returned to the charge.
The other sequel of the Kilkenny theatricals was of very different character. In the end of 1808 Rogers, answering a letter, remarks, "Your sketch of Ireland is most gloomy." Twelve months later, and after Miss E. Dyke's first appearance in Mr. Power's company, Rogers writes, "I am rejoiced to think you are happy, which indeed you cannot fail to be while you are making others so; but don't let the Graces supplant the Muses." It is hardly rash to infer that Moore had written a cheerful account of the 1809 festival at Kilkenny. October 1810 saw the last appearance in the Kilkenny bills of Mr. Moore and Miss E. Dyke. Early in December Moore ran back to London to interview "booksellers, musicsellers, managers, etc." In January he returned to Dublin for a few weeks. February saw him in town again; and in March it appears that he has "at last got a little bedroom about two miles from town where I shall try now and then for a morning's work." On March 25th he was married to Miss Dyke at St. Martin's Church; but the marriage was kept a secret from his parents till the month of May following.
On the face of it, nothing could have seemed less promising than this alliance. Moore had to live by his wits; he was now in his thirty-second year, he had lived with people of expensive habits and, in a sense, lived fast. Allowing for some rhetoric, one may take as a fair account the description of his feelings which he wrote to Lady Donegal in the summer preceding the last bout of theatricals at Kilkenny--when, presumably, his fate was settled.
"I wish," he says, "I could give you even a tolerable account of what I have done; but I don't know how it is, both my mind and heart appear to have lain for some time completely fallow, and even the usual crop of _wild oats_ has not been forthcoming. What is the reason of this? I believe there is in every man's life (at least in every man who has lived as if he knew how to live) one blank interval, which takes place at that period when the gay desires of youth are just gone off, and he has not yet made up his mind as to the feelings or pursuits that succeed them--when the last blossom has fallen away, and yet the fruit continues to look harsh and unpromising--a kind of _interregnum_ which takes place upon the demise of love, before ambition and worldliness have seated themselves upon the vacant throne."
One can easily imagine a gentleman who writes in this strain making, some few months later, a match with a penniless and beautiful girl of sixteen, whose situation had so little to recommend it that he kept the whole affair dark even from his parents. It would not have been so likely a guess that he would make her the most affectionate of husbands, or that she would turn out to be the most helpful of wives. There are few things more significant in a man's history than his choice of a consort, and stress must be laid on this marriage. In the first place, it should be remarked that Moore, with an equipment for the business which might have made any fortune-hunter envious, never showed the least inclination to marry for money. Secondly, although himself among the most brilliant of talkers, finding his chief enjoyment in such talk as was heard, for instance, at Holland House, he married a girl who probably had little education and certainly possessed only the intelligence of the heart. He married, doubtless, for beauty; but probably not without discerning that this girl of sixteen had qualities of prudence, order, and courage which amply justified his choice. She must have possessed also a great charm, for the most difficult to please among Moore's friends were immediately subjugated. Rogers, who had a sincere and lifelong affection for the young poet, took her from the first into his good graces, and his letters all contain some pleasant word of remembrance to Psyche, as he christened her. In a later day, Psyche and her babies were the guests of that rigidly celibate old bachelor, and did not lack invitation to return. Miss Godfrey, another shrewd and loyal well-wisher, wrote six months after the marriage:--
"Be very sure, my dear Moore, that if you have got an amiable, sensible wife, extremely attached to you, as I am certain you have, it is only in the long run of life that you can know the full value of the treasure you possess. If you did but see, as I see with bitter regret in a very near connection of my own, the miserable effects of marrying a vain fool devoted to fashion, you would bless your stars night and day for your good fortune, and, to say the truth, you were as likely a gentleman to get into a scrape that way as any that I know. You were always the slave of beauty, say what you please; it covered a multitude of sins in your eyes, and I never can cease wondering at your good luck after all is said and done."
Certainly, Bessy Moore was as little of the "vain fool devoted to fashion" as could be found. The two lived together, in Bury Street, for a year, till after the birth of their first child,--Barbara--born in February 1812. Soon after this, a parliamentary crisis raised Moore's hopes of Lord Moira's advancement, and his own depending on it, to fever height. They were soon dashed. Lord Moira was a staunch supporter of the Catholic claims, and the ministry had decided to do nothing for the Catholics. For the moment at least Moore took the defeat as final and wrote with some bitterness to Lady Donegal:--
"In Lord Moira's exclusion from all chances of power, I see an end to the long hope of my life; and my intention is to go far away into the country, there to devote the remainder of my life to the dear circle I am forming around me, to the quiet pursuit of literature, and, I hope, of goodness."
Whatever spleen is to be traced in this letter soon vanished. On March 6, a letter to Miss Godfrey marks Moore's definitive breaking with his old habit of precarious reliance upon the prospect of patronage. Literary earnings, which he had hitherto regarded as a mere temporary means of meeting embarrassments, were now to become the sole support of himself and his family; and he bids good-bye with a cheerful courage to "all the hope and suspense in which the prospect of Lord Moira's advancement" had kept him for so many years.
"It has been a sort of _Will o' the Wisp_ to me all my life, and the only thing I regret is, that it was not extinguished sooner, for it has led me a sad dance."
Retirement from town was necessary, for the general curiosity "to see Moore's wife" threatened to become ruinous; and one may be very sure that if Bessy refused invitations "to the three most splendid assemblies in town," it was her doing and not her husband's. In the choice of a neighbourhood, access to a library had to be considered, and Moore naturally enough looked for a home near Donington Park. It was accordingly at Kegworth, a few miles from Lord Moira's seat, that he installed himself; but the proximity was unfortunate, for the cabinet crisis continued, and the Prince Regent's personal reliance on Lord Moira sustained Moore's hopes. In the autumn came news that Moira was to be Governor-General of India, and Moore's friends immediately settled it that the poet would accompany him as secretary. The remaining months of 1812 were embittered by hope deferred, which some expressions let fall by Lord Moira helped to quicken. But the great man and his household came and went, making it clear to Moore that he could count on nothing but continued good-will. The suggestion of an exchange of patronage made by Lord Moira was fortunately put aside; Moore replying that he would "rather struggle on as he was than take anything that would have the effect of tying up his tongue under such a system as the present."
Thus, in January 1813, with Moira's departure for India, the long relation between the patron and client ended, not without mutual embarrassment. Yet Moore was grateful for the kindly attentions heaped upon himself and his Bessy, who was then in a state to need them. Her second confinement, again of a daughter, Olivia, took place in March; and, as soon as she could be moved, Moore and she accepted willingly the invitation of a cordial friend, one Mrs. Ready, and settled into her house, Oakhanger Hall, for the summer. It had been decided to give up the Kegworth cottage, and look out for some pleasanter home; and a plan had also been arranged which made Moore glad to leave his wife in friendly company during the months of the London season.
In 1811, a fourth number of the _Irish Melodies_ had been published, and Moore's cumulative success as a song-writer had tempted the brothers Power to make an offer which ensured to him and his at least a livelihood for the term of the agreement. They were to pay £500 a year for the monopoly of Moore's musical compositions.[1] The arrangement thus entered into lasted for over twenty years, and was financially Moore's backbone. But both Moore himself and the Powers recognised that the vogue of these songs was largely due to Moore's own singing of them, and it was consequently settled at Kegworth, that the singer should go up to town alone for the month of May. Bessy was naturally reluctant at first; "indeed," Moore wrote to Power, "it was only on my representing to her that my songs would all remain a dead letter with you, if I did not go up in the gay time of the year, and give them life by singing them about, that she agreed to my leaving her." The practice, once fixed, became habitual. For the next thirty years Moore was never long enough absent from town to lose touch with the society which never ceased to welcome him; while Bessy remained at home, minding the babies and keeping down the bills. Few women, even without her beauty, would have consented to the situation; but she accepted it cheerfully, and regretted only the absences of her husband. She had her reward. Lord John Russell writes in his introduction, concerning Moore's regard for his wife:--
"From 1811, the year of his marriage, to 1852, that of his death, this excellent and beautiful person received from him the homage of a lover enhanced by all the gratitude, all the confidence, which the daily and hourly happiness he enjoyed were sure to inspire. Thus, whatever amusement he might find in society, whatever literary resources he might seek elsewhere, he always returned to his home with a fresh feeling of delight. The time he had been absent had been a time of exertion and exile; his return restored him to tranquillity and to peace. Keen as was his natural sense of enjoyment, he never balanced between pleasure and happiness. His letters and his journal bear abundant trace of these natural and deep-seated affections."
It is, indeed, true that few men of whom one reads appear to have got more pleasure out of their home than Moore, and the first home where he really settled down to quiet domesticity was at Mayfield Cottage, "near the pretty town of Ashbourne," "a little nutshell of a thing, yet with a room to spare for a friend." The early letters abound in descriptive touches, one of which shows Bessy busy superintending workmen, while the head of the family and his little Barbara rolled in the hay outside. The neighbourhood, too, was full of welcome and small gaieties. Bessy appeared at a local ball and excited a great sensation by her beauty.
"She wore a turban that night to please me, and she looks better in it than anything else; for it strikes almost everybody that sees her, how like the form and expression of her face are to Catalani's, and a turban is the thing for that sort of character."
It is as well to remember that this prudent little dame was then aged eighteen--in spite of her two babies; and Moore, though getting up in years by comparison, was youthful enough in spirits.
"You would have laughed to see Bessy and me going to dinner," he writes to his mother. "We found in the middle of our walk, that we were near half an hour too early, so we set to practising country dances in the middle of a retired green lane, till the time was expired."
[1] From this, however, deduction was made for part of the payments to Sir John Stevenson, and afterwards to Henry Bishop. Moore's method (if it could be called a method) was to draw on Power for what he wanted; and these deductions amounted to much more than he supposed. The natural result was a quarrel when in the long run accounts were made up.