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Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.”—PLATO.

"Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses a part of it." -THOREAU.

THOMAS MOORE; or, LYRICAL

POETRY.

"Poetry is the morning dream of great minds."LAMARTINE.

"Poetry is the music of the soul, and above all of great and feeling souls."-VOLTAIRE.

"Lyrical poetry is much the same in every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every springtime."

HEINE.

I see poets darting in splendour,

Bright birds from the tropic of mind,
Why mock at each self-deemed immortal?
To-day he is lord of his kind."

-Miss JEWSBURY.

On Thursday evening, February 20, 1896, Mr. Thomas Costley delivered the tenth of a series of lectures in the Pendleton Town Hall, on Thomas Moore; or, Lyrical Poetry." Mr. Riley Stansfield, of Southport, Occupied the chair, in the unavoidable absence of Dr. G. H. Pollard, M.A., barrister,

The CHAIRMAN said: I think every credit is due to the lecturer Mr. Costley, who has now lived amongst you for some thirty-five years-that he should have allied himself to literature in this manner; it is most praiseworthy. The object of these lectures is a very noble one. Springing up in all industrial centres are hospitals, infirmaries, and other charitable institutions, which call for the support of everyone who has any patriotic feeling, or any feeling of humanity,

Mr. COSTLEY said: We have got now to the fag end of this course of lectures. The one I shall give tonight is the tenth. It has been very pleasant to me to give the lectures. The subject of to-night's lecture is an Irish one, and the remaining two lectures will be of an Irish character. Ireland is a very small country, but to deal with some of her people and her surroundings is a big task. In point of lyrical poetry she is behind no other country in the world, A song is universally appreciated and admired in Ireland, and, as far as I can learn, this has always been the case from the earliest ages. The Irish people have been grand singers, and grand manipulators of the lyre. Among Irish poets I know not one has struck the lyre with greater force and power than Thomas Moore. The best description that has ever been given of Erin's greatest bard, so far as I know, is in the "Journal of Caroline Fox." She tells of her meeting him at Bristol in 1836

in all his glory, looking "like a little Cupid with a
quizzing-glass, in constant motion. He seemed
as gay and happy," she adds, "as a lark, and it
was pleasant to spend a whole evening in his im-
mediate presence.' This joyous air was a leading
characteristic during all his life. Eleven years
before Caroline Fox saw him Moore had paid a
visit of several days to Abbotsford, and had made an
equally favourable impression on Sir Walter Scott.
"There is," writes Scott in his diary, "a manly frank-
ness, with perfect ease and good breeding about him,
which is delightful. Not the least touch of the poet or
the pedant. A little-very little man.
His
countenance is plain, but the expression so very ani-
mated, especially in speaking or singing, that it is far
more interesting than the finest features could have
rendered it." After remarking that, like himself,
Moore was a good-humoured fellow, and not one of
those literary people who give themselves imaginary
consequence, and "walk with their noses in the air,"
Scott puts a finishing touch to his praise by saying,
"It would be a delightful addition to life if Thomas
Moore had a cottage within two miles of one."
"Let fate do her worst there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy,
Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features that joy used to wear.
Long, long be my soul with such memories filled,
Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled,
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."
The above beautiful lines of Thomas Moore remind
me of the wonderfully sweet thoughts contained in the
following quotation from Thomas Haynes Bayley-
""Tis the hour when pleasant faces
Smile about the taper light,
Who will fill our vacant places,
Who will sing our songs to-night?

What would I not give to wander
Where my old companions dwell,
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Isle of beauty, fare thee well.

In all ages of the world's history there have been lyrical poets, and the ancients did magnificent work in this form of poetry. In modern times we have Burns, the child of human passion and genius who is one of the sweetest singers that the world has ever seen or heard.

When speaking of Moore as "Master of the sweetest and only minstrelsy," we have not overlooked the claims of Campbell and Burns. But the former has

only touched the lyre occasionally. The "Exile of Erin" spoke the hand of a master, second to none. It was a strain of rich, pathetic, and powerful melody, such as has seldom been equalled: displaying all that is precious in poetry,-a delightul fancy, and a feeling heart. We have only to lament that this fine genius wandered away from the lyre he touched so sweetly.

Professor Wilson observes that of all the songwriters who ever warbled, or chanted, or sung, the best in his estimation is none other than Thomas Moore.

The Edinburgh Review has the following line on Moore:-"The sweetest lyrical poet of this, or, perhaps, any other age."

Another writer has observed that the Bard of Erin was, above all things, a musician-one of the best writers we ever had of words for music.

The genius of Burns was uncultivated: it was like the "Mountain Daisy," as simple, as natural, and as sweet. That of Moore is like the wild and luxurious roses of his own "Vale of Ovoca."

Scott has wandered in many a land of enchantment; and the gay and glorious chaplets he has gathered do not forbid us to place the crown of the "Minstrel" on the head of Moore.

Then we have Milton; indeed, nearly all the great poets have written lyrical pieces, though the majority of them have not written much. But only a few of them-I say without fear of contradiction-have greatly surpassed the subject of our lecture to-night. Many of Moore's poems breathe the spirit of true poetry, such as the poems entitled "The Light of Other Days,' and the exquisite lines entitled The mid hour of night." It has been said there are but few thoroughly beautiful and touching lines in the whole of Moore's poetry, but that I deny. Here are quite a number:-But there is nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.

All that's bright must fade

The brightest still the greatest;

All that's sweet was made,

But to be lost when sweetest,

"Far dearer the grave or the prison,
Illumined by a patriot's name;
Then the trophies of all who have risen
On liberty's ruins to fame."

Come rest in this bosom, mine own stricken deer." Indeed ever since Ireland first became isolated and its coasts washed by that mighty ocean of which Byron sung

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow

Such as creation's dawn beheld thou rollest now," has there been born in that country which has poetically been called "the Gem of the Sea," so justly admired and celebrated a lyrical poet as Thomas Moore, Allow me to here state that lyric is the name given to a certain species of poetry, because originally accompanied by the music of the lyre. It is rapid in movement, as befitting the expression of the mind in its emotional and impassioned moments, and naturally its principle themes are love, devotion, patriotism, friendship, and the bacchanalian spirit. Among ancient lyric poets are:-Sappho, Pindar, Tyrtaeus, Simonidés, Catullus and Horace.

The

most important form of the modern lyric is the song, with its religious sister, the hymn, neither of which, as we might expect, extends usually to any great number of lines.

Moore is as dear to Irishmen as the heavenborn patriot of Clontarf, Brien Borohue, who shed his last drop of blood for the glory and salvation of his country, and of whom it is recorded that he defeated the Danes in no less than twenty-five engagements. And thus, at the beginning of my task, the spirit of freedom bids me to exalt the achievements of the heroes who fought for the liberty of the enslaved and oppressed of their own beloved country. And how can I better express the feelings which animate my whole being than in the words of the author of the "Irish Melodies," whose patriotic war-song on "Brien Boru the Brave" has been so much admired. "Remember the glories of Brien the Brave, Though the days of the hero are o'er, Tho' lost to Mononia and cold in the grave, He returns to Kinkora no more.

The star of the field, that so often has pour'd
Its beam on the battle, is set;

But enough of its glory remains on each sword
To light us to victory yet.

Mononia! when Nature embellish'd the tint

Of thy fields and thy mountains so fair,

Did she ever intend that a tyrant should print
The footsteps of slavery there?

No. Freedom! whose smile we shall never resign,
Go, tell our inaders, the Danes,

'Tis sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine
Than to sleep but a moment in chains!