of "the still-vext Bermoothes" was not to the taste of the gay little dancer in the sun; and tarrying there only long enough to appoint a deputy, he proceeded on the American tour that resulted in his 'Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems.' In America Moore naturally found little to admire. He was shocked at "the rude familiarity of the lower orders"; and on his arrival in Washington, took sides with the British minister and his wife in that historic quarrel with the President on the subject of social precedence, that mystified the magnates. of the republican court.

He shared, indeed, the national aptitude for quarreling; on one occasion challenging Jeffrey to a duel, because of a critique in the Edinburgh, a duel which the police interrupted at the crucial moment, and which resulted in the lifelong friendship of the combatants. It happened, however, that when the pistols were seized, one of them was discovered to be without a bullet; whereupon Byron in his 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' so ridiculed the affair that Moore challenged him in turn. Friends however interfered, and a friendship was founded between the combatants that has for its memorial the 'Life and Journals of Lord Byron' by Thomas Moore.

In 1811 the poet married Miss Bessie Dyke, an Irish actress of some note, whose beauty had gained her from the fastidious Rogers the names of "Madonna della Sedia" and "Psyche." She had all the womanly qualities of self-control, patience, and economy, that were needed by the wife of the spoiled little bard, who gave her until his death all the devotion of a lover.

His life after his marriage was to be one series of social and literary triumphs, shadowed only by the money difficulties by which his own carelessness and his Bermudan deputy's dishonesty threatened at one time to overwhelm him. He paid his debts, however, by means of the success of his satires, the generous terms of the Longmans in ordering Lalla Rookh,' and the pension of £300 given him by the government through the grace of Lord John Russell, who was one day to be his biographer. Fond as he was of dancing and dining, however, he was both industrious and persevering at his work-bench, where he turned out not less than thirty volumes, among the best known of which are -'The Odes of Anacreon,' 'The Fudge Family in Paris, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems,' The Two-penny Post Bag,' 'Lalla Rookh,' 'Rhymes on the Road,' 'The Epicurean, a Prose Story,' 'The Loves of the Angels,' 'The Life of Sheridan,' 'The Life of Lord Byron,' and 'The Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.'

During his sojourns in France, while his friends compromised the Bermudan suits, Continental society united to do him honor. Royalty listened to his charming drolleries, and languished over the songs which he sang and accompanied on the piano with an elegance that XVIII-643

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great musicians envied for its effect. 'Lalla Rookh' was presented by the Imperial personages on the court stage of St. Petersburg. The Duchess of Kent and the little Princess Victoria sang his own songs to him. For "Moore," says Lady Morgan,- a very capable judge,-"now belongs to gilded saloons and grand pianofortes."

When he goes to Ireland, he must kiss every woman on board the Dublin packet; and the galleries of the theatres ring with "Come, show your Irish face, Tom!" That he had the tastes of a dandy, we learn from a letter of the time describing his "smart white hat, kid gloves, brown frock coat, yellow cassimere waistcoat, gray duck trousers, and blue silk handkerchief carelessly secured in front by a silver pin." At another time he orders a coat of "blue with yellow buttons"; but meanwhile he complains that he has been obliged to wear his white hat in the winter rains for want of a better. In spite of his toilets, however, the good-natured crowd that followed the "Great Poet" in his Irish wanderings were so disappointed that there were frequent outcries of "Well, 'tis a darling little pet, at any rate;" "Be dad, isn't he a dawny creature, and doesn't he just look like one of the good people!" (fairies). But there was never any lack of enthusiasm and cheering.

At length the shadows began to darken on the spirit of Moore, as one by one his five children died, and he was left at last alone with his devoted Bessy. His wit and brilliancy began to fade; and though, as Willis relates, he continued to stumble in his short-sighted way into the salons of the great houses where he was worshiped, and though he still sat among the wits and peers at table,—the light fancy, the store of anecdote and droll allusion, diminished until all that made his greatness became mere tradition. It was too late to hope that he would change his life,-retire to the privacy of his home, hiding the eclipse of mind that has so often darkened the last years of men of genius. It was in the midst of the gay and worldly throng in which he had passed his golden days that he lapsed into silence, and became the spectre of the feasts to which, above all, he was once welcome.

The end came in February 1852, when he had reached his seventythird year. Of all his family, he was survived only by the noble woman who saw him laid beside their five children in the churchyard of Bromham in Wiltshire.

Ο

PARADISE AND THE PERI

From Lalla Rookh

NE morn a Peri at the gate

Of Eden stood disconsolate;

And as she listened to the springs
Of life within, like music flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings

Through the half-open portal glowing,
She wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place!
"How happy," exclaimed this child of air,
"Are the holy spirits who wander there

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall: Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, And the stars themselves have flowers for me, One blossom of heaven outblooms them all! "Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall; Though bright are the waters of Sing-su-hay And the golden floods that thitherward stray, Yet-oh, 'tis only the blest can say

How the waters of heaven outshine them all!

"Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world, as far

As the universe spreads its flaming wall;
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years—
One minute of heaven is worth them all!»

The glorious angel who was keeping
The gates of light beheld her weeping;
And as he nearer drew, and listened
To her sad song, a tear-drop glistened
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain when it lies
On the blue flower which— Bramins say —
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.

"Nymph of a fair but erring line!"
Gently he said -"one hope is thine.

'Tis written in the Book of Fate,
The Peri yet may be forgiven
Who brings to this eternal gate

The gift that is most dear to heaven!
Go seek it, and redeem thy sin,—
'Tis sweet to let the pardoned in."

Rapidly as comets run

To the embraces of the sun;
Fleeter than the starry brands

Flung at night from angel hands

At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb the empyreal heights,-
Down the blue vault the Peri flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance.
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the spirit go

"I know

To find this gift for heaven?
The wealth," she cries, "of every urn
In which unnumbered rubies burn

Beneath the pillars of Chilminar;

I know where the Isles of Perfume are,

Many a fathom down in the sea,
To the south of sun-bright Araby;

I know too where the Genii hid

The jeweled cup of their King Jamshid,
With life's elixir sparkling high,-

But gifts like these are not for the sky.

Where was there ever a gem that shone
Like the steps of Alla's wonderful throne?

And the drops of life-oh! what would they be
In the boundless deep of eternity?"

While thus she mused, her pinions fanned

The air of that sweet Indian land
Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks and amber beds;
Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides;
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice
Might be a Peri's Paradise!

But crimson now her rivers ran

With human blood; the smell of death Came reeking from those spicy bowers, And man the sacrifice of man

Mingled his taint with every breath

Upwafted from the innocent flowers.
Land of the sun! what foot invades
Thy Pagods and thy pillared shades,
Thy cavern shrines and idol stones,

Thy monarchs and their thousand thrones?

'Tis he of Gazna: fierce in wrath

He comes, and India's diadems Lie scattered in his ruinous path.

His bloodhounds he adorns with gems Torn from the violated necks

Of many a young and loved sultana; Maidens within their pure zenana, Priests in the very fane he slaughters, And chokes up with the glittering wrecks Of golden shrines the sacred waters!

Downward the Peri turns her gaze,
And through the war-field's bloody haze
Beholds a youthful warrior stand

Alone beside his native river,
The red blade broken in his hand

And the last arrow in his quiver.

"Live," said the conqueror, "live to share
The trophies and the crowns I bear!"
Silent that youthful warrior stood;
Silent he pointed to the flood

All crimson with his country's blood:
Then sent his last remaining dart,

For answer, to the invader's heart.

False flew the shaft, though pointed well;

The tyrant lived, the hero fell!

Yet marked the Peri where he lay,

And when the rush of war was past, Swiftly descending on a ray

Of morning light, she caught the last, Last glorious drop his heart had shed. Before its free-born spirit fled!