publication in the hands of his illustrious friend, Lord John Russell. By this posthumous work (which extended to eight vols. 1852-6) a sum of £3000 was realised for Moore's widow. The journal disappointed the public. Slight personal details, brief anecdotes and witticisms, with records of dinner-parties, visits, and fashionable routs, fill the bulk of eight printed volumes. His friends were affectionate and faithful, always ready to help him in his difficulties, and his publishers appear to have treated him with great liberality. He was constantly drawing upon them to meet emergencies, and his drafts were always honoured. Money was offered to him on all hands, but his independent spirit and joyous temperament, combined with fits of close application, and the brilliant success of all his works, poetical and prosaic, enabled him to work his way out of every difficulty. Goldsmith was not more potent in raising money, and melting the hearts of booksellers. Lord John Russell admits that the defect of Moore's journal is, that while he is at great pains to put in writing the stories and the jokes he hears, he seldom records a serious discussion, or notices the instructive portions of the conversations in which he Lore a part. To do this would have required great time and constant attention. Instead of an admired and applauded talker, the poet must have become a silent and patient listener, and have possessed Boswell's servility of spirit and complete devotion to his hero and subject. Moore said that it was in high-life one met the best society. His friend Rogers disputed the position: and we suspect it will be found that, however agreeable such company may be occasionally, literary men only find real society among their equals. Moore loved high-life, sought after it, and from his genius, fame, and musical talents, was courted by the titled and the great. Too much of his time was frittered away in fashionable parties. Such a glittering career is dangerous. The noble and masculine mind of Burns was injured by similar patronage; and in recent times a man of great powers, Theodore Hook, was ruined by it.

Another feature in Moore's journal is his undisguised vanity, which overflows on all occasions. He is never tired of recording the compliments paid to his talents. But Lord John Russell has justly characterised this weakness in Moore as being wholly free from envy. It never took the shape of depreciating others that his own superiority might become conspicuous. Ilis love of praise was joined with the most generous and liberal dispensation of praise to others-he relished the works of Byron and Scott as if he had been himself no competitor for fame with them.' Ill success might have tinctured the poet's egotism with bitterness, but this he never knew; and such a feeling could not have remained long with a man so constitutionally genial and light-hearted.

When time shall have destroyed the remembrance of Moore's personal qualities, and removed his works to a distance, to be judged of by their fruit alone, the want most deeply felt will be that of

simplicity and genuine passion. He has worked little in the durable and permanent materials of poetry, but has spent his prime in enriching the stately structure with exquisite ornaments, foliage, flowers, and gems. Yet he often throws into his gay and festive verses, and his fanciful descriptions, touches of pensive and mournful reflection, which strike by their truth and beauty, and by the force of contrast. Indeed, one effect of the genius of Moore has been, to elevate the feelings and occurrences of ordinary life into poetry, rather than dealing with the lofty abstract elements of the art. The combinations of his wit are wonderful. Quick, subtle, and varied, ever suggesting new thoughts or images, or unexpected turns of expression-now drawing resources from classical literature or the ancient fathers-now diving into the human heart, and now skimming the fields of fancy--the wit or imagination of Moore (for they are compounded together) is a true Ariel, a creature of the clements,' that is ever buoyant and full of life and spirit. His very satires give delight and hurt not.' They are never coarse, and always witty. When stung by an act of oppression or intolerance, he could be bitter or sarcastic enough; but some lively thought or sportive image soon crossed his path, and he instantly followed it into the open and genial region where he loved most to indulge. He never dipped his pen in malignity.

For an author who has written so much as Moore on the subject of love and the gay delights of good fellowship, it was scarcely possible to be always natural and original. Some of his lyrics and occasional poems, accordingly, present far-fetched metaphors and conceits, with which they often conclude, like the final flourish or pirouette of a stage-dancer. He exhausted the vocabulary of rosy lips and sparkling eyes, forgetting that true passion is ever direct and simple-ever concentrated and intense, whether bright or melancholy. This defect, however, pervades only part of his songs, and those mostly written in his youth. The Irish Melodies' are full of true feeling and delicacy. By universal consent, and by the sure test of memory, these national strains are the most popular and the most likely to be immortal of all Moore's works. They are musical almost beyond parallel in words-graceful in thought and sentiment-often tender, pathetic, and heroic-and they blend poetical and romantic feelings with the objects and sympathies of common life in language chastened and refined, yet apparently so simple that every trace of art has disappeared. The songs are read and remembered by all. They are equally the delight of the cottage and the saloon, and, in the poet's own country, are sung with an enthusiasm that will long be felt in the hour of festivity, as well as in periods of suffering and solemnity; by that imaginative and warm-hearted people.

'Tis the Last Rose of Summer.

"Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed,

Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

The Turf shall be my Fragrant Shrine.

Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.

I'll read thy anger in the rack
That clouds awhile the day-beam's track;
Thy mercy in the azure hue

Of sunny brightness breaking through!

There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that
glow,

But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy Deity.

There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy love,
And meekly wait that moment, when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE.

In 1817, Mr. Murray published a small poetical volume under the eccentric title of Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers. Intended to comprise the most Interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table.' The world was surprised to find, under this odd disguise, a happy imitation of the Pulci and Casti school of the Italian poets. The brothers Whistlecraft formed, it was quickly seen, but the mask of some elegant and scholarly wit belonging to the higher circles of society, who had chosen to amuse himself in comic verse, without incurring the responsibilities of declared authorship. To two cantos published in the above year, a third and fourth were soon after added. The poem opens with a feast held by King Arthur at Carlisle amidst his knights, who are thus introduced:

They looked a manly generous generation;

Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick,
Their accents firm and loud in conversation,

Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,

Shewed them prepared, on proper provocation,

To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick;

And for that very reason, it is said,

They were so very courteous and well-bred.

In a valley near Carlisle lived a race of giants, and this place is finely described:

Huge mountains of immeasurable height
Encompassed all the level valley round

With mighty slabs of rock thai sloped upright,
An insurmountable and enormous mound.
The very river vanished out of sight.
Absorbed in secret channels under ground;
That vale was so sequested and secluded,
All search for ages past it had eluded.

A rock was in the centre, like a cone,
Abruptly rising from a miry pool,
Where they beheld a pile of massy stone,
Which masons of the rude primeval school
Had reared by help of giant bands alone,
With rocky fragments unreduced by rule:
Irregular, like nature more than art.
Huge, rugged, and compact in every part.

A wild tumultuous torrent raged around,

Of fragments tumbling from the mountain's height;
The whistling clouds of dust, the deafening sound,
The hurried motion that amazed the sight,
The constant quaking of the solid ground,
Environed thein with phantoms of affright;
Yet with heroic hearts they held right on,

Till the last point of their ascent was won.

The giants having attacked and carried off some ladies on their journey to court, the knights deem it their duty to set out in pursuit; and in due time they overcome those grim personages, and relieve the captives from the castle in which they had been immured:

This closes the second canto. The third opens in the following playful strain.

I've a proposal here for Mr. Murray,

He offers handsomely-the money down:

My dear, you might recover from your flurry,

In a nice airy lodging out of town,

At Croydon. Epsom, anywhere in Surrey;

If every stanza brings us in a crown,

I think that I might venture to bespeak

A bedroom and front-parlour for next week.

Tell me, my dear Thalia, what you think:
Your nerves have undergone a sudden shock;
Your poor dear spirits have begun to sink;
On Banstead Downs you'd muster a new stock,
And I'd be sure to keep away from drink,
And always go to bed by twelve o'clock.
We'll travel down there in the morning stages;
Our verses shall go down to distant ages.

And here in town we'll breakfast on hot rolls,
And you shall have a better shawl to wear:
These pantaloons of mine are chafed in holes:
By Monday next I'll compass a new pair:
Come now, fling up the cinders; fetch the coals,
And take away the things you hung to air;
Set out the tea-things, and bid Phoebe bring
The kettle up. Arms and the Monks I sing.

Near the valley of the giants was an abbey, containing fifty friars, 'fat and good,' who keep for a long time on good terms with their neighbours. Being fond of music, the giants would sometimes approach the sacred pile, attracted by the sweet sounds that issued from It; and here occurs a beautiful piece of description:

Oft that wild untutored race would draw,
Led by the solemn sound and sacred light,
Beyond the bank. beneath a lonely shaw,
To listen all the livelong summer night,
Till deep, serene, and reverential awe
Environed them with silent calm delight,
Contemplating the minster's midnight gleam,
Reflected from the clear and glassy stream.

But chiefly, when the shadowy moon hath shed
O'er woods and waters her mysterious hue,
Their passive hearts and vacant fancies fed
With thoughts and aspirations strange and new,
Till their brute souls with inward working bred
Dark hints that in the depths of instinct grew
Subjective-not from Locke's associations,
Nor David Hartley's doctrine of vibrations.
Each was ashamed to mention to the others
One half of all the feelings that he felt,

Yet thus for each would venture: Listen, brothers,
It seems as if one heard Heaven's thunders melt
In music!

Unfortunately, this happy state of things broken up by the introdution of a ring of bells into the abbey, a kind of music to which the giants had an insurmountable aversion.

The solemn mountains that surrounded
The silent valley where the convent lay,
With tintinnabular uproar were astounded
When the first peal burst forth at break of day:
Feeling their granite ears severely wounded,
They scarce knew what to think or what to say;
And-though large mountains commonly conceal
Their sentiments, dissembling what they feel,

Yet-Cader-Gibbrish from his cloudy throne
To huge Loblommon gave an intimation
Of this strange rumour, with an awful tone,
Thundering his deep surprise and indignation;
The lesser hills, in language of their own,
Discussed the topic by reverberation;
Discoursing with their echoes all day long,
Their only conversation was, ' ding-dong.