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THOMAS MOORE was born in Dublin, Ireland, on the 28th of May, 1780. His history is but a little more than a history of his writings. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. At the age of fourteen he wrote poetry, which was published in a magazine of his native city. The wild times of the Irish rebellion coming on, young Moore became interested in politics, and for awhile its subjects were the themes of his muse.

In his twentieth year he abandoned politics, and went to London to study law, at the Middle Temple, and also to publish his translations of Anacreon. In 1803 he accepted a clerkship in the Bermuda Islands, and took advantage of the occasion to make a hasty visit to the United States. On his return to England he published "Sketches of Travel and Society beyond the Atlantic." This was a

melange of prose and verse, and may be regarded as the origin of those strains of satire upon Americans, their society and habits, which found imitators in the Hamiltons and Trollopes of more recent times.

About 1807 Moore was married to Miss Dyke, a lady of strong sense and character, as well as great beauty and amiability. None of their children are now living. It was about the time of his marriage that he made his first acquaintance with the two poets, Byron and Campbell.

In 1812 Moore determined to write an Oriental poem. Accordingly, he obtained an introduction to the Messrs. Longman, who were then publishers in London; and by contract with them he was to receive three thousand guineas (more than fifteen thousand dollars) for the poem, not one word of which was yet written. He now retired to Mayfield Cottage, a quiet place in Derbyshire, and, after a long and hard struggle with his coquettish muse for nearly four years, he came forth with "Lalla Rookh."

During the period in which Moore was engaged in writing this poem, he published both the "Irish" and the "Sacred Melodies." These are probably the productions by which his fame will longest claim remembrance. Lalla Rookh was published in 1817, and such was the approbation it received, that it rapidly ran through several editions. The last of Moore's principal poetical works appeared in 1823, and is entitled the "Loves of the Angels." But this poem is now far oftener alluded to than read. Its words tickle like falling fountains, and its fancy floats about one like perfume; yet the whole is dreamy, lulling, and enervating.

Moore's later productions were chiefly prose, including biographies of Fitzgerald, Byron, and Sheridan, and the "Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of Religion." The "Epicurean" is the last of his prose works, and has probably obtained a greater sale than any of the others. But during the period in which these were written the author produced many short pieces of prose and

verse.

Of Moore's talents as a writer, it has been said, "He exhausts attention by being inexhaustible. His variety cloys. The graceful ease and genial spirit which he indulges in every sentiment, pre

vents him from giving their full force to the masses of things. He wants intensity, strength and grandeur. His mind glances over the surface of things. His serious descriptions are apt to run into flowery tenderness. If we follow him through the history of his various writings, we shall find him more superficial than profound, more tender than pathetic, and more graceful than energetic." Another writer says of him, "As a song writer, he was doubtless unrivaled. His versification is exquisitely finished, harmonious, and musically toned. In grace of thought and diction, in easy, fluent wit, in melody, in brilliancy of fancy, in warmth of sentiment, and even in simplicity, no one has been superior to Moore; but in grandeur of conception, power of thought, and, above all, in unity of purpose and a high aim, he was singularly deficient."

The easy, flowing verses of Thomas Moore were not produced without mental labor. It was his custom on returning from a dinner party, or an evening soiree, to sit down in his library and put on paper half a score or more of the scintillations that collision with other minds had enkindled in his. Such undeveloped ideas formed the basis of many of his poetic productions. To expand these naked fancies with winged words, was a work of persevering toil. Few people have any idea of what the industry required for such efforts is. They know not how deeply language has to be ransacked, how often turned over, how untiringly rejected, and recalled with some new combination. Often Moore would finish only two lines in a day.

Thomas Moore led a long life, and, in many respects, a pleasant one. He was much courted and flattered in society. He was a lover of pleasure, and of intellectual and social refinement. His nature was to enjoy, and to amuse and be amused, rather than to struggle in a high and holy aim, with a lofty and ennobling purpose in life.

During the last twenty years the poet chiefly confined himself to his lovely country seat, Slopertown Cottage, near Devizes, England. But for several years he had been almost unknown to the world, lingering in half-slumbering unconsciousness, his intelligence gone, and his fanciful mind shrouded in mental darkness. He died on the 26th of February, 1852, at nearly the age of seventy-two, and

his remains were committed to the earth the very day my feet first One of his own familiar stanzas may

touched the soil of Britain.

be applied, with a slight alteration, to his departure:

"The harp that once through Tara's halls

The soul of music shed,

Now hangeth mute on Tara's walls,

For ah! that soul is filed."

But he has left us a rich legacy of

song. "Hark! 'tis the breeze

of twilight calling," "The last rose of summer," and "Oft in the stilly night," will long awaken sweet emotions, while in remembrance they "bring the light of other days."

A POLITICAL JOKER.

THERE was a gentleman who lived in London in the beginning of the reign of George the First, who was so shrewdly suspected of Jacobitism, that he was taken up two or three times before the council, but who defended himself so dexterously, that they could fasten nothing on him. On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1715, this man, who mixed some humor with his politics, wrote to the secretary of state, that as he took it for granted that, at a time like the present, he should be taken up, as usual, for a Jacobite, he had only one favor to beg: that if the administration meant any such thing, they would do it in the course of next week, for the week after he was going down to Devonshire, upon his own business, which, without this explanation, no doubt, would be construed as transacting the business of the Pretender. Lord Townsend, who was secretary of state at that time, showed the king this letter, and asked him what his majesty would direct to be done with such a fellow? "Poh! poh!" said the king, "there can be little harm in a man who writes so pleasantly. I'll tell you what to do: let him know I am willing to make a drawn battle of it-so that if he lets me alone, he may depend upon it I shall do the same by him."

THE EYE, AND HOW TO ABUSE IT.

BY WILLIAM ALCOTT, M.D.

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Y strong conviction is, that the eye might last as long as its owner. It ought to last thus, and sometimes it does. I have seen people a hundred years old, who had pretty good eyes. In general, however, it is otherwise. Few people live to be a hundred years of age; and of the few who do, not one in ten can see well. Most persons begin to have their eye-sight impaired by the time they reach the age of forty or fifty, and not a few even earlier than that period of life.

You would be glad, I suppose, to have your eye-sight perfect as long as you live, and to live a hundred years. I will not promise either, but I will tell you of some things you may do which will improve your eyes at every period of your lives, especially while you are young.

You must rise early. When you first rise, however, do not expose your eyes too suddenly to the full blaze of the lamp or candle, nor, above all, to the fire light.

Some persons who have very strong eyes, strike a light and expose their eyes to it immediately, never thinking that although they feel no pain at the moment, they must suffer for it hereafter. But they must suffer for it. Eyes thus treated are more liable to be inflamed by the ten thousand other causes which are in daily operation, than if they were properly guarded. And then, again, they will fail sooner, and you will sooner have to put on spectacles. The sun, when it rises, does not shine at once, with full blaze, into your eyes, even if you are looking directly at it. On the contrary, you see only a small speck, as it were, at first. It is several minutes before

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