-sent him the famous song, beginning My boat is on the shore, And my barque is on the sea; Here's a double health to thee! Tho' the ocean roar around me, Were it the last drop in the well, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'Tis to thee that I would drink. With that water, as this wine, The libation I would pour The friendship, thus formed, continued unbroken until the untimely death of Byron and remains one of the most interesting in the his tory of literary intimacies. Jeffrey also became a firm friend of Moore's, and many years after their meeting at Chalk Farm, he paid the Irish poet this tribute, which is quite as striking for a Scotch incapacity of humour as for an equally Scotch article of magnanimity: "He has long ago redeemed his error; in all his later works he appears as the eloquent champion of purity, fidelity and delicacy, not less than of justice, liberty and honour." WE IX HIS PERSONALITY E have plenty of material from which to relimn the personal portrait of the Irish Anacreon. The difficulty is only in the selection. Jeffrey speaks of the inward light of his mind and happily describes him as the "sweetest-blooded, hopefullest creature that ever set fortune at defiance." "I never received a visit from him," says the keen and captious Leigh Hunt, "but I felt as if I had been talking with Prior or Sir Charles Sedley." From Hunt also we get this illuminating touch: "His eyes are as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine leaves; his mouth generous and good-humoured with dimples." "Moore is the only poet," says Byron, "whose conversation equals his writings." The author of "Beppo" and "Don Juan" was too fond of epigram to be uniformly just or kind, but he allows the Irish poet to share with Lord Clare the melancholy distinction of his nearest friendship -excluding Hobhouse, Shelley and the rest. Jane Welsh Carlyle, who was privileged beyond most women to speak, used to say, "My dear, never marry a man of genius." It is pleasant to turn from the conjugal infelicities suggested by some famous names to the simple happiness that inspired this entry in Moore's diary, under date of 1844, when the poet was sixty-five years old: "A strange life mine, but the best as well as pleasantest part of it lies at home. I told my dear Bessie this morning that while I stood at my study window, looking out at her as she crossed the field, I sent a blessing after her. "Thank you, bird,' she replied, 'that's better than money'; and so it is. Bird is a pet name she gave me in our younger days." "Moore's domestic life," says Lord John Russell, "gave scope to the best parts of his character. His beautiful wife (she was so beautiful that Rogers called her Psyche) was a treasure of inestimable value to his happiness." And the same hand testifies that to the day of the poet's death she received from her husband the homage of a lover. I'd mourn the hopes that leave me If thou wert, like them, untrue; With heart so warm and eyes so bright, No clouds can linger o'er me— That smile turns them all to light. "Three women have loved me," writes Renan; "my mother, my sister, my wife." Moore felt that he owed all to his mother, an Irish woman of the best though humble type, shrewd, provident, and passionately devoted to her gifted son. Out of very small means she managed to procure for him every advantage of education. His success was, in large measure, the fruit of her intelligent thought and sacrifice. To his honor be it set down that he never regarded this debt of gratitude |