feathered with grace and àpropos, that these slight shafts will retain to remote posterity very high value as perfect masterpieces of their kind. Moore did for the political "squib" what H. B. has done for the political caricature "he deprived it of half its evil by depriving it of all its grossness." The Chinese are said to exhibit fireworks of exquisite brilliancy and ingenuity so contrived that they can be let off in a room, not only without danger of fire, but with the peculiarity that in exploding they emit a fragrant odour. These light productions of Moore are like the Chinese fireworks: they are wonderfully varied, petulant, and sparkling; and instead of the heavy vapours of personal malignity, they spread around, after crackling and flashing through their momentary existence, a fragrance of good taste, good humour, and classic grace. Though they must have given, as we know they did, the most exquisite pain to their unfortunate victims, they are absolutely the most unanswerable and galling attacks that were ever made; and the only way to conceal the wound must have been by joining in the laugh. They are full of the most happy turns of ingenuity, of the gay exhaustless fancy which seems the peculiar heritage of the Irish intellect, and they show a vast extent of curious and out-of-the-way reading, which no man ever knew better to employ than Moore.

Among the best of Moore's comic compositions are the admirable letters entitled 'The Fudge Family in Paris,' supposed to be written by a party of English travellers at the French capital. It is composed of a hack-writer and spy, devoted to legitimacy, the Bourbons, and Lord Castlereagh; his son, a young dandy of the first water; and his daughter, a sentimental damsel, rapturously fond of "romance and high bonnets and Madame Le Roy," in love with a Parisian linendraper, whom she has mistaken for one of the Bourbons in disguise. In this, as in his other comic productions, Moore shows great skill in introducing his own witty fancies without destroying the probability of the character who is made the unconscious mouthpiece for the author's good things. We ought not to forget O'Connor, the tutor and poor relation" of this egregious family, who is an ardent Bonapartist and Irish patriot. His letters are all serious, and contain violent declamations against the Holy Alliance, the British government, &c.; but they are not in harmony with the gay and ludicrous tone of the work to which they were probably intended to act as a foil or relief.

Another delightful collection of (pretended intercepted) letters, supposed to be from eminent persons, is entitled 'The Twopenny Post-Bag.' These, like the preceding, had a most unparalleled success. Before quitting this category of Moore's multifarious. writings, we will mention his Rhymes on Cash, Corn, and Catholics,' the subject of which is sufficiently indicated by the title; his 'Fables for the Holy Alliance,' a most spirited and ludicrous

mockery of the legitimist doctrines; and a number of political squibs written in the slang or argot of the prizefighters. These ofter a new proof of the elegance and versatility of Moore's talents ; for though in them he has adopted a dialect associated with the lowest and most brutalizing of our national sports, he has handled it so that it is not only not offensive, but in the highest degree comic. Moore has used the jargon of the prize-ring so as to lose all its coarseness, and retain only its oddity and picturesque force. The narrative of the great fight between "Long Sandy and Georgy the Porpus" is in true sporting style, and Tom Cribb's Memorial to Congress' contains passages of true poetic spirit.

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We now approach those works upon which will be founded this poet's widest and most enduring reputation these are the Irish Melodies.' They are short lyrics, written to suit that vast treasury of beautiful national airs which form the peculiar pride, joy, and consolation of the Irish people. "The task which you propose to me," says the poet, in his letter to Sir John Stevenson, the arranger of the music, "of adapting words to these airs, is by no means easy. The poet who would follow the various sentiments which they express must feel and understand that rapid fluctuation of spirits, that unaccountable mixture of gloom and levity, which composes the character of my countrymen, and has deeply tinged their music. Even in their liveliest strains we find some melancholy note intrude

some minor third, or flat seventh- which throws its shade as it passes, and makes even mirth interesting." We have in another place spoken of the Scottish national airs in terms of admiration which will appear exaggerated to those only who are unacquainted with them: the popular airs of Ireland are inferior to those of Scotland neither in pathos, in gaiety, nor in inexhaustible variety. In Ireland the national music had been associated with coarse, rude, and mean words, often indecent and trivial in the highest degree; and thus by degrees many most beautiful airs, naturally expressive of the tenderest emotion, were deprived, by changes in their time, their key, and their accentuation, of their natural sense and meaning. When we see, among the titles by which the airs are known, such gross and vulgar appellations (generally worthy specimens of the pot-house compositions of which they are the beginning) as 'Paddy Snap,''The Black Joke,' 'The Captivating Youth,' 'Bob and Joan,' 'Paddy Whack,' 'The Dandy O,' and the like, we shall partly appreciate the service rendered by Moore to the music and poetry of his country.

The 'Irish Melodies,' as songs, have never been surpassed in their particular kind. The versification is so exquisite, and executed with such delicacy of rhythm, that, on hearing them well read, we involuntarily and certainly conceive the tune, even though we may never have heard it.

Viewed as poetry, these songs are among the most beautifu. productions of literature. The diction is invariably perfect for elegance, neatness, and grace: it is truly Catullian, "simplex munditiis:" the words are never too big for the thought. They exhibit marks, not so much of labour and effort as of polish and care; and where the author can prevail upon himself to resist his natural and Irish tendency to say something ingenious and conceited, their sentiment is as true and beautiful as their execution is felicitous. The great art in song-writing is to invent something that is original without being far-fetched; and when we reflect upon the difficulty of finding untouched and unhackneyed ideas on the few topics offered by patriotism, love, and pleasure (which compose nearly the whole curta supellex of the song-writer), we shall the more easily excuse Moore for having sometimes fallen into the fantastic and epigrammatic.

If we compare Moore, as a lyric poet, with Burns, we shall acquire a much more elevated idea of the Irishman than by looking at him in a distinct point of view. The peasant poet of Scotland had the advantage of using a dialect which was simple and rustic without vulgarity, and all his finest compositions (with perhaps one or two remarkable exceptions) are written in that dialect; and it is difficult for a critic not practically acquainted with that dialect, to judge how far its use may have contributed to give Burns's poetry its charm of naïveté, slyness, and pathos. Moore has not this advantage: his lyrics are models of the most refined and classical English. Both poets abound in beautiful love-passages; but the passion of the Scottish ploughman is rather too ardent and unscrupulous, while that of the Irish poet is often frittered away in cold and sparkling concetti, and thus loses in depth and tenderness more than it gains in ingenuity and elegance.

In 1817 Moore published the celebrated Oriental romance 'Lalla Rookh' (Tulip-Cheek, so entitled from the name of the heroine). The structure of this work is truly original: it consists of a little romantic love-story, in which the beautiful daughter of Aurengzebe, during her journey into Bucharia, where she is to meet her betrothed husband, the prince of that country, falls in love with a young min strel, who afterwards turns out to be her affianced bridegroom in disguise, and who thus, "having won her love as an humble minstrel, now amply deserved to enjoy it as a king." This slender plot is related in that ingenious and sparkling prose of which Moore is a consummate master; and nothing can exceed the gorgeousness, splendour, and pleasanty with which he describes all the details of Oriental life and scenery during the journey, and the inimitable character of Fadladeen the high chamberlain, a pedantic critic and accomplished courtier. This prose narrative, which, though very short, is one unceasing sparkle of brilliant antithesis and Eastern imagery, forms a kind of framing (like the prologues of Chaucer)

for the poems. These are four in number, 'The Veiled Prophet,' 'The Fireworshippers,' 'Paradise and the Peri,' and 'The Light of the Harem;' and are supposed to be sung for the Princess's amusement by the disguised Feramorz. Of the prose portion of this enchanting work it is impossible to speak too highly; it is the very quintessence, the "fine fleur," the bloom and anthos of the gorgeous and voluptuous genius of the East: indeed its only fault is that it is too incessantly, too fatiguingly dazzling and splendid; it is 66 more Eastern than the East itself,” and is a concentration or condensation of a thousand traits and strokes derived from a vast extent of Oriental reading. Jekyll said that "it was as good as riding on the back of a camel." The tales themselves are of various merit : 'The Veiled Prophet,' the most ambitious and the longest, does not appear to us the most successful. The narrative wants clearness, consistency, and event: the march of the story languishes, and the characters are too conventional and undefined to possess much power of interest. It is written in rhymed couplets, and there is far too incessant a profusion of ornament, which, though rich and appropriate, is so thickly sown that the effect of the whole is like that of some Oriental robe, in which the whole texture is concealed with an unbroken surface of pearl, and ruby, and diamond.

"The Fireworshippers,' which is written in irregular octosyllabic verses, is less oppressive in its splendour, but it reminds the reader, and unfortunately for its success, of the minor Oriental narratives of Byron, as, for example, The Bride of Abydos.' On the whole, our favourite of the four poems is 'The Light of the Harem' the subject is a love-quarrel and reconciliation between the Emperor Jehanghir and his beautiful favorite Nourmahal. In all these poems the songs introduced, and the lyric passages in general, are inexpressibly beautiful; those sung by the fair houris in the artificial Paradise, where Azim is tempted to join the standard of Mokanna; many of the lyric movements in 'The Peri;' and, above all, the delicious incantations in 'The Light of the Harem,' are in Moore's very finest manner, and perhaps have never been equalled, except by himself in the Irish Melodies.'

Of The Loves of the Angels,' Moore's other Oriental poem, we have but very few words to say: it is generally found to be inferior to his other works; and though many passages of it breathe a rich and graceful perfume of passion, it is in characters and scenery too modern, so to say, too little imbued with a primeval spirit appropriate to the legend, and the personages have lost the pure and celestial lineaments of the angelic nature, without acquiring our sympathy in their punishment as men. How would Milton have maintained the solemn, ethereal, primeval character of those primeval days of Earth's first infancy, "when men began to multiply on the face thereof, and daughters were born unto them, and the sons of God saw the

daughters of men that they were fair, and took them wives of all which they chose” ! Moore's angels do not so much resemble the angels of the Bible, or those of Raphael, nor even those of Albert Dürer, as the Scripture personages of a ballet at the Porte St. Martin and indeed it is curious enough that this poem was composed at Paris.

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The remarks we have made on the 'Irish Melodies' will equally apply, though of course not always in the same degree, to various other collections of songs which this poet has given to the world: there are many beautiful productions among his 'National Songs,' written for a selection of airs of all countries; and the Evenings in Greece,' and other similar works, may be examined by the reader with a certainty of finding many gems of grace, tenderness, and harmony. We have now to say a few words of Moore as a prosewriter. He has distinguished himself both in fiction and in biography —in the former as the author of the beautiful tale of 'The Epicurean,' and in the latter in a variety of works, of which the most important are the 'Lives' of Lord Byron, his intimate friend and brother-poet, and of his illustrious countryman Sheridan, the British Beaumarchais.

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The Epicurean' is a tale of antique manners, the scene being laid among the primitive Christians, chiefly in Egypt, and terminating with the martyrdom of a converted priestess, whose character, as well as that of the hero, a young Athenian, is beautifully sketched. The book contains many striking and poetical episodes, particularly a descent into the subterraneous temples of the Egyptian deities, and a revelation of the arts by which the pagan hierarchy deceived the candidates for initiation in their unholy mysteries. The night voyage on the Nile is also powerful and picturesque, and the style of the work, though still sufficiently gorgeous and fanciful, is not so overloaded with ornament and conceits as the prose parts of Lalla Rookh.' It also exhibits a profusion of curious erudition.

The two Lives' which we have mentioned are written on that plan which is immeasurably the best for this kind of work. They are not 'Lives,' but 'Memoirs:' the author allows the subject of the biography to tell his own story; and the mass of the book consists of extracts from the journals and correspondence of the person whose life we are reading. Moore has performed his task with the penetration of the critic, and with the gentleness and enthusiasm of the friend and nothing in it is more admirable than the warm and generous justice rendered to Byron by a contemporary and most popular poet, and the total absence of anything like jealousy or envy.

It is impossible not to confess that Byron was the most extraordinary man of his age, and perhaps the most extraordinary person in the modern history of Europe. Striking and not uninstructive parallels have been drawn between him and Napoleon, and even