us who have known the spell of that witching Irish minstrelsy, to believe that the fairies did their portion at the cradle of Tom Moore. One brought the gift of music, another whispered the strange secret of poesy, and a third fairy that, with the loss of many things, has never left the Green Islegave him the infallible recipe of Irish wit. And the fairy that came last was not least, as our poet himself well knew when he wrote

Wit a diamond brought,

Which cut his bright way through.

Literary fashions have doubtless changed since the early years of the last century when young ladies at boarding school, like Miss Rebecca Sharp and Miss Amelia Sedley, dreamed only of a lover with the "dear Corsair expression, half savage, half soft," and when Moore's Irish Melodies were the reigning favourites in Belgravia and Bloomsbury. Even in this country the strains of the newly awakened harp of Erin were heard, and in

deed the poet had here preceded his song. We read that the great Mr. Jefferson forgave our poet some sharp iambics,-which Moore's visit to this country in 1803 had elicited, and that the first of American statesmen often refreshed his leisure with the riper and better work of his critic. We have long since detected the error of taste in the pseudo-Oriental school of English poetry, so greatly the vogue in the first quarter of the last century, but it must fairly be said, that the best critical opinion has varied little, if at all, as to the high and enduring merits of the Irish Melodies. Byron's praise, that they are worth all the epics which have ever been written, may easily be granted a hyperbole; but surely they have added more to the delight of mankind. It was happily said of our poet, that he would go down to posterity with the Rose in his button-hole-the rose of his perfect song, let me say, which receives new beauty and lustre with every gifted voice that is born into the world.

There are poets who have sung to the people, and there are poets who have sung only for poets. These may well be deemed the rarest singers whose every auditor bears himself the laurel and the lyre. It is of one who in his highest moments of rapture sang to both,-poets and people, the vocal and the voiceless, that I propose to speak in the following pages.

Also it seems needful to say that no poetic fame holds so ardent and secure as that which is entwined with the spirit of an oppressed nationality. The man whom old Fletcher of Saltoun knew was wiser, in our reckoning, than some sages whose names are remembered. For the songs are ever more than the laws of a people.

To him who reads history aright, Rouget de Lisle was a greater general than the victor of Hohenlinden, a mightier conqueror than the Man of Austerlitz. The assemblies that followed the convocation of the States-General of France in the memorable year 1789,

debated the rights of man. History-making did not fairly begin until, coming up from the South, the gaunt soldiers of Barbaroux fiercely chanted those rights in the streets of Paris. The greater the measure of tyranny, the more heroic and unconquerable the spirit of an oppressed people, the nobler is the fame and the loftier the inspiration of the poet who feeds the hatred of that tyranny till "time at last sets all things even," and sanctifies the zeal of that spirit unto liberty and regeneration.

And though the greatest poet may be he whose song is poured out for all mankind, yet dearer is the strain breathed to one votive altar of patriotism. The fame of Thomas Moore, like the "light in Kildare's holy fane, which burned thro' long ages of darkness and storm," glows unquenchably in the eternal aspiration of the Irish heart. Not vainly has he sung:

Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,

The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,

When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,

And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song! The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness Have waken'd thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill; But so oft hast thou echo'd the deep sigh of sadness, That ev'n in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.

Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers,

This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine! Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, Till touch'd by some hand less unworthy than mine. If the pulse of the patriot, soldier or lover,

Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone;
I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over,
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own.

Viewed simply in their relation to literature, we shall easily tolerate even the more violent aspects of Irish patriotism. Because John Mitchel felt strongly he wrote words which hold us yet with a compelling power. Because Clarence Mangan's heart yearned for the Eire of his visions,

"the clime and land

Of Cáhál-Mór of the wine-red hand,"