Thomas Moore Part 7

"No, not for the wealth of the land, that supplies thee With millions to heap upon Foppery's shrine;-- No, not for the riches of all who despise thee, Though this would make Europe's whole opulence mine;--

"Would I suffer what--ev'n in the heart that thou hast-- All mean as it is--must have consciously burn'd, When the pittance, which shame had wrung from thee at last, And which found all his wants at an end, was return'd."

There is a real anger inspiring the phrase, worthy of Dryden at his best, which stigmatises the Prince's life--"a sick epicure's dream, incoherent and gross." But Moore was too easily moved by kindness, and a civil word or action from Eldon or from Canning exempted them for ever from his attacks. Except Castlereagh, in whom he saw with justice the inveterate enemy of Ireland--and that enemy a renegade from Grattan's principles--he pursued no man relentlessly, and no inst.i.tution moved him to continued hatred except the Church of Ireland. "Could you not contrive," said Sydney Smith to a portrait painter at work on a head of Moore, "to throw into the features a little more hostility to the Establishment?" Enough hostility certainly was thrown into the verses which he continued for years to contribute to the papers; and he pleased himself vastly with one address to a shovel hat:--

"G.o.ds! when I gaze upon that brim, So redolent of Church all over, What swarms of t.i.thes, in vision dim,-- Some pig-tail'd, some like cherubim, With ducklings' wings--around it hover!

Tenths of all dead and living things, That Nature into being brings, From calves and corn to chitterlings."

It is not a long way from verse of this kind on this subject to the prose of "Captain Rock." The distance, no doubt, covers a descent. But it may fairly be urged that if Moore after the year 1823 was only in a secondary sense a writer of verse, and primarily occupied with prose, the reason is, not that prose was easier or paid better, but because he was increasingly preoccupied with matter which he could not handle except in prose--matter of serious controversial argument--and matter which he was impelled to handle by a growing desire to serve his own country.

[1] _Alciphron_, issued in 1839, was, as has been said, a rehandling of a fragment composed during his residence in Paris, and has in any case no importance.

CHAPTER V

WORK AS BIOGRAPHER AND CONTROVERSIALIST

After his return from Paris to England, once the task was accomplished of seeing his two books of verse, serious and comic, through the press, Moore turned naturally to resume the _Life of Sheridan_ which he had been obliged to drop during his stay on the Continent, remote from all the living sources of information. But the business of collecting material was a long one; the claims of the Sheridan family for a share in profits were not yet settled; and in the summer of 1823 Moore accepted an invitation which led to a new literary undertaking, carried through before the _Sheridan_. This was a proposal from the Lansdownes that he should accompany them on a tour through Ireland.

The party met in Dublin, and a characteristic little episode is recorded in the Diary. Moore's mother wanted to see her son's distinguished friend, but was shy of a visit from him; so it was arranged that Lord Lansdowne should be walked past the windows where the old couple sat at watch, while he and the poet waved their salutations.

On the way south Moore revived memories of his courtship by a visit to Kilkenny. "Happy times!" he notes, "but not more happy than those which I owe to the same dear girl still." Further south, alarming rumours began to come in, telling of secret organisation among the peasantry, and of the ascendency of "Captain Rock," a mysterious individual in whose name orders and threatening letters were then issued. Killarney charmed Moore with its loveliness, but we find sympathetic observations also concerning Lord Lansdowne's trouble with his Kerry tenants, occasioned by their habits of sub-letting, rearing large families, and so forth. Altogether, the Journal is written by one who sees keenly the oppression of t.i.thes, but on all other matters wears a landlord's spectacles; and this criticism was made sharply, and with justice, in an answer to the book which resulted from this journey.

Moore came back with his head full of material, and set to work reading for a projected narrative of his tour; but after a couple of weeks, the brilliant idea occurred to him of converting it into a _History of Captain Rock and his Ancestors_. The project expanded a good deal as he wrote, and six months' work resulted in a considerable volume, of which the first part was a review of Irish history, which showed with ingenious irony how well English policy, from the first enactments of Henry II. against Irish dress, has been adapted to perpetuate the type and breed of Captain Rock. It was the first book which Moore had written in prose, and nowhere else in his prose writings was he so lavish of wit. I may cite a couple of examples.

"My unlucky countrymen," says Captain Rock (for the Captain was the nominal author of his own Memoirs) "have always had a taste for justice--a taste as inconvenient to them, situated as they have always been, as a taste for horse-racing would be to a Venetian."

"Our Irish rulers have always proceeded in proselytism on the principle of a wedge with its wrong side foremost.... The courteous address of Launcelot to the young Jewess, 'Be of good cheer, for truly I think thou art d.a.m.ned,' seems to have been the model on which the Protestant Church has founded all its conciliatory advances to Catholics."

The broad facts of English misrule in Ireland were not then staled by much repet.i.tion, and Moore's statement of them was read with eagerness.

In execution the book was faulty, the irony being ill sustained towards the latter part, where it touched contemporary topics. But the success was brilliant, and from Almack's to Holland House Moore heard nothing but its praises. Naturally enough, it made its way in Ireland; "the people through the country are subscribing their sixpences and shillings to buy a copy," a Dublin bookseller wrote; and the Catholics of Drogheda forwarded a formal expression of grat.i.tude, which pleased Moore the better as he "rather feared the Catholics would not take very cordially to the work, owing to some infidelities to their religion which break out now and then in it." And, in truth, the tone is throughout that of one who rather deplores the employment of tyranny to frighten Irish Catholics out of their religion than dislikes the idea of a change of faith. Politically speaking, however, the tone of the book was firm enough. Moore, like most Irishmen, had little knowledge of Irish history, and only began to read it when he had to instruct others in its lessons. Whether because of its effect on his mind, or because _Captain Rock_ gave him a reputation in Ireland, which he dearly valued, as the champion of Irish liberties, it is certain that from this time onward the direction of his mind was increasingly towards Irish subjects.

He had felt the attraction earlier. A letter to Corry, written when _Lalla Rookh_ was nearly completed, says: "I have some thoughts of undertaking a very voluminous work about Ireland (if properly encouraged by _patres nostri_--the Longmans), and this will require my residence for at least two or three years in or near Dublin." Nothing came of the project, which was perhaps not strongly formed; and in any case he was drawn away from it by the enforced move to France. And although one can trace, from the publication of _Captain Rock_ onward, a steady bent of purpose in him to use his pen in the service of his country, he was a second time driven out of his course by an unforeseen event. In the midst of the Captain's triumphs, while editions were rapidly succeeding each other, a great stroke of misfortune fell on Moore. Byron died; and the depositary of his Memoirs was immediately plunged into a most embarra.s.sing situation.

The case about this famous doc.u.ment may be briefly stated. In October 1819, Byron handed Moore the first portion of it, as a gift which would ultimately be of value; and in 1821 he sent the remainder to his friend in Paris, making the suggestion that money might be raised on it by antic.i.p.ation. This was accordingly done, and, in September 1821, Murray agreed to pay two thousand guineas, and took the ma.n.u.script into his keeping. Part of this money was applied in settlement of the Bermuda claims, and in November of that year Moore signed a deed making over the property. This deed was submitted to Byron, and Byron signed an a.s.signment of the ma.n.u.script to Murray. Scarcely was the transaction completed, when scruples were aroused in Moore by Lord Holland's saying that he wished the money could have been got in any other way. Lord Holland's objection, as Moore states it (though expressly in his own words) was, that it seemed like depositing in cold blood a quiver of poisoned arrows for use in future warfare upon private character. Moore protested against this view of the doc.u.ment, and Lord Holland, who had read the ma.n.u.script, could recall nothing admitting of such a description, except a pa.s.sage relating to Mme de Stael, and a charge against Sir Samuel Romilly--both of which, Moore pointed out, could be omitted or neutralised in editing for publication, as he had reserved the right to do. Nevertheless, the scruple wrought in him, and in the following April (1822) he approached Murray with a request that the deed of sale should be cancelled, and replaced by an agreement converting the transaction into a loan, with the ma.n.u.script held as security till Moore should be able to repay. An agreement on these lines was accordingly drawn up, and Moore's conscience was relieved. He expresses strongly in his Diary his feeling of satisfaction that the control of the matter was again in his own hands.

In the succeeding year he appears to have arranged that the Longmans should take over the debt (and presumably the security), advancing him the means to repay Murray; and on May 13th one of the firm mentioned that the money was ready. On the 14th it was too late; news of Byron's death reached London; and that evening Moore received a note from Douglas Kinnaird "anxiously inquiring in whose possession the Memoirs were, and saying that he was ready on the part of Lord Byron's family to advance the 2000 for the ma.n.u.script, in order to give Lady Byron and the rest of the family an opportunity of deciding whether they wished them to be published or no."

Moore soon learned that Murray, immediately on hearing the news, had gone to Wilmot Horton, offering to place the Memoirs at the disposal of the family, without recognising that Moore had any voice in the matter.

Moore went to Hobhouse and explained his view of the situation, which was that nothing could be done without his consent; and he substantiated his view by recalling a clause which he had inserted in the draft-agreement. This gave him a period of three months, in case of Byron's death, in which to raise the money. The agreement had never been formally completed, and the draft could not be found. But Murray admitted in principle Moore's claim, and expressed himself ready to comply with the arrangement, provided his money were repaid in full, with interest. The ma.n.u.script could then be disposed of, as Moore suggested, by placing it in the hands of "Lord Byron's dearest friend, his sister, Augusta Leigh."

From the proposal that the work should be placed at the disposal of Lady Byron, Moore dissented altogether; it would be treachery, he said (and Hobhouse agreed), to Byron's intentions and wishes. He also strongly opposed the view, put forward by Hobhouse and Kinnaird, that Mrs. Leigh ought "to burn the ma.n.u.script altogether without any previous perusal or deliberation." This, he said, was to treat it as if it were a pest-bag, whereas, "although the second part was full of very coa.r.s.e things, the first contained (with the exception of about three or four lines) nothing which on the score of decency might not be safely published."

Matters were at this point on May 15th, and on the 16th a meeting took place at Murray's between Moore, Hobhouse, and Mr. Wilmot Horton and Colonel Doyle, the last two representing Mrs. Leigh. The agreement between Moore and Murray had not yet been found, and discussion was conducted on the a.s.sumption that Moore had a controlling voice in the matter. Thus, although, as it was subsequently decided, Byron's formal sanction of the a.s.signment of the property to Murray would have rendered the later agreement inoperative, Moore has full right to praise or blame for the consent which he gave to the step taken at this memorable meeting; when, as the world knows, after a very quarrelsome scene, the ma.n.u.script was formally destroyed by Mrs. Leigh's representatives.

It does not appear that any one of the parties concerned in the act felt in the least that they were depriving Byron of a posthumous justification of his own career. Moore, in all the references to this Memoir, treats it solely as a piece of literature, and Lord John Russell, who had read most, if not all, of the composition, simply says that it "contained little trace of Byron's genius and no interesting details of his life." Those who were eager for suppression appear to have been influenced by the desire to avoid scandal; and the notion was widespread, for Moore, after the affair, was congratulated on having "saved the country from a pollution." His most serious objection to destroying the MS. rested on the support which such an action would give to this view of what Byron had written.

But the objection was not strong enough to induce him to jeopardise his own character. Moore's hands were tied in the transaction by the fact that he stood to lose two thousand guineas if the MS. were destroyed, and would avoid this loss if his own opinion, favouring publication, were adopted. Whoever opposed publication in the discussion at Murray's, had merely to hint that Moore's advocacy was interested, and pride would at once constrain the needy poet to consent to the holocaust.

The two persons who stood to lose in the matter were Moore and Murray, and both made a creditable sacrifice. Murray resigned his chances of a considerable profit. But Moore incurred deliberately a ruinous burden of debt. Even so, his sensitive conscience was not quite clear as to the justification of his act; but Hobhouse appears to have decided him by saying that Byron had more than once expressed a regret at having put the Memoirs out of his own power, and had only been prevented from reclaiming them by his dislike to taking back a gift.

Moore's need for consulting on points of honour did not end with the burning of the MS. Byron's family were anxious to repay him the money which he had paid to Murray before the cremation; and, not unnaturally, Lord Lansdowne and other friends urged him to accept. But he refused persistently to do so, though one adviser after another forced him to postpone for a week the irrevocable step of publishing his account of the transaction in the papers. His view was, that his duty had been to surrender the trust into the hands most proper to receive it, and that he could keep at least the credit of having made a sacrifice in order to do so. With this credit he refused to part; and he notes that he had little trouble in bringing his men of business, the Longmans, to take his view of the matter, but could not so easily persuade Lord Lansdowne, with Rogers and the rest, that a poor man ought to act on the same principles as if he were rich. It should be remembered to Moore's credit that he on many occasions followed his own sense of honour when he might have pleaded the advice of most honoured and honourable persons for adopting another course.

Friends of Moore's fame will rejoice that he acted in so scrupulous a spirit, but the necessity is to be deplored. The heavy load of debt thus thrown upon him forced him into producing too much. It also made it practically inevitable that he should recoup himself for this loss by undertaking the most lucrative task that offered--namely, a biography of Byron; yet he was uncertain for a considerable time whether the thing ought to be done, and, if done, whether he was the right person to do it. Even when his mind was clear of these perplexities--which Hobhouse strengthened by dissuading him from the task--there was a long period of suspense for which Murray was answerable. During three years Moore was distracted, anxious, and uneasy, unable to settle down to any important work.

For the present, however, once the Byron business was settled, his mind and his hands were full. It had been finally settled that the Longmans, and not Murray, should be the publishers of the _Life of Sheridan_; they undertaking, not only to pay Moore a thousand guineas, but to give the Sheridan family half profits, once 2500 copies had been disposed. Moore went resolutely to work, and in October of the next year the book made its appearance, and succeeded beyond expectation. The Longmans expressed their sense of its merits by adding 300 to the stipulated thousand.

The _Life of Sheridan_ did not interest contemporaries mainly as a piece of biography. Many references to traits and stories of the dramatist and statesman, which occur in the Diary, make it plain that Moore had conceived an opinion of Sheridan by no means wholly favourable, and biography of the unsparing order was not a task which he would have undertaken. His aim was to outline Sheridan's career, rather than to paint the man, and consequently the book's main value lay in the historical view which it gave of the past fifty years. On this Moore was congratulated by so good a judge as Jeffrey, and he had a right to feel that his claim was established to rank with serious political thinkers.

Yet even before this, he was by no means regarded merely as a person of quick fancy and lively talent. It was proposed that he should join Jeffrey in editing the _Edinburgh_; and, still more remarkable, in 1822 the proprietors of the _Times_ invited him to replace Barnes for six months in conducting their paper. Moore refused the offer (which was made at the suggestion of Rogers), but felt highly gratified; and from his return to England he was a constant contributor to the _Times_, sending there all his satiric verses. Their popularity was so great that the proprietors authorised Barnes to pay Moore a retainer of 400 a year; and up to 1828 this source of income, with the annuity from Power, was his main revenue. It was precarious, however; for the _Times_ sometimes took a tone in handling Irish topics which made it difficult for Moore to continue the connection, and in 1827 he formally closed it.

It was renewed, however, after Barnes made a tour in Ireland (carrying introductions from Moore), and returned ready "to support the Irish cause with all his might."

Indeed, the best work of the three years 1825-8 is to be found in the _Odes on Cash, Corn, and Catholics_, nearly all of which were contributed to the _Times_. The first "evening" of _Evenings in Greece_, and the fifth and sixth numbers of _National Airs_, which were the work done for Power at this period, have little in them but fluent verse; and even less can be said for the work which Moore took up as a _piece de resistance_, his discarded Egyptian story, which he now completed as a prose romance. In _The Epicurean_ we have the last and by no means sprightly runnings of the vein which produced _Lalla_ and the _Loves of the Angels_: an imagination feeding itself on marvels read of in books, and producing literature which appealed to curiosity more than to any other instinct. The description of the Egyptian mysteries seen by the young philosopher, who goes to the land of pyramids and catacombs in search of new truth, is frigid in the extreme; and the flashes of genuine poetry which redeem _Lalla_ and _The Angels_ find no place in this very bad example of deliberately poetic prose. Nevertheless its oversweetened eloquence found plenty of readers, and the book realised 700 to its author,--of which, however, 500 had already been antic.i.p.ated, independently of the main debt, the two thousand guineas.

One may note here a very curious scruple of literary conscience which Moore adhered to with surprising consistency. Although heavily in debt, and forced to make every penny by sheer production, he constantly set aside a means, which for at least ten years was constantly open to him, of earning money with little labour. His reputation then stood at its highest point; he was not only high in favour with the frequenters of Holland House, but also with the whole fashionable world and its far-off imitators. A single trait--which, with his usual nave pleasure in instances of his own popularity, he records--may ill.u.s.trate the matter.

At a country ball, a young lady who was fortunate enough to shake hands with the poet "wrapped the hand up in her shawl, saying no one else should touch it that night." Fame of this sort is very marketable, and to-day would bring its owner big offers from the popular magazines.

Their equivalent in those days was found in the annuals of the type of the _Forget-me-not_, _Souvenir_, etc.; and request after request was made to Moore for his name either as editor or contributor. The Longmans proposed to undertake such a publication, and tempted him with the prospects of 500 to 1000 a year if he would edit it. He replied, not with a direct refusal, but with a letter stating his views concerning literature of this cla.s.s, which not only convinced the firm that he personally would injure his reputation by accepting, but decided them to abandon the scheme. Again, about 1827, Heath the engraver offered, first 500 and subsequently 700 a year to Moore if he would edit a new alb.u.m or magazine, and at the same time tried to force on him a cheque for a hundred pounds as the price of a contribution of a hundred lines. But Moore was not to be tempted. Only once in his career did he depart from what his sense of the dignity of letters demanded, and that was at a time when he had brought himself low in purse by writing books to express his convictions, and refusing commissions that would have brought in large sums. His scruple, which nowadays seems strangely demoded, is the more respectable because he never hints a word of blame for those who did not share that "horror of Alb.u.mising, Annualising, and Periodicalising which my one inglorious surrender (and for base money too) has but confirmed me in." Characteristically enough, however, he did for courtesy what he so often refused to do for profit, and waived the scruple in favour of his old and beautiful friend Lady Blessington, to whom he thus expressed himself. He sent her some verses for her _Book of Beauty_, which are among the latest and by no means the worst that he wrote.

In 1827, however, at a time when nothing was yet settled as to the _Life of Byron_, his refusal of the inducements held out by Heath and the Longmans was not his only example of constancy to a point of honour.

Letters apprised him in December 1826 that his father's death could not be long deferred, and when he reached Dublin the old man was too far gone to see or recognise his son. It is characteristic of Moore that he counted this to be a great relief, "as I would not for worlds have the sweet impression he left upon my mind when I last saw him exchanged for one which would haunt me, I know, dreadfully through all the remainder of my life." This morbid shrinking from actual physical impressions of pain or horror was a marked trait of the man, and not a manly one; it was doubtless closely connected with his temperamental liability to uncontrollable bursts of emotion. Nevertheless it was a thing hardly more within his will-power than is the common tendency to turn faint at the sight of blood; and in other respects he made up for it by exhibiting a n.o.ble staunchness. The death of his father was a heavy blow, as making the first gap in a family so closely linked by affection; but a man at forty-seven must be prepared to lose his parents, and the actual trouble of so quiet a death in the fulness of age would soon have pa.s.sed naturally. But John Moore's pension died with him, and his son, already sufficiently embarra.s.sed, found his mother and sister added to his other charges. The burden could have been avoided; for Lord Wellesley, then Viceroy, at once signified a wish to continue the half-pay pension to Moore's sister, out of a fund which he, as Lord-Lieutenant, could dispose of without reference to England, where the King might reasonably be presumed unfriendly to such a favour. "All this," Moore notes, "very kind and liberal of Lord Wellesley; and G.o.d knows how useful such an aid would be to me, as G.o.d alone knows how I am to support all the burdens now heaped upon me; but _I could not_ accept such a favour. It would be like that _la.s.so_ with which they catch wild animals in South America; the noose would only be on the _tip_ of the horn, it is true, but it would do."

He found himself again approved in his action by men of business (Power the publisher and various Irish friends) but censured by Lord Lansdowne.

His answer was ready, however. _The Life of Sheridan_, with its outspoken strictures on certain pa.s.sages in Whig policy, had not been altogether relished at Bowood, and Moore was for once not sorry, since the lack of approbation proved the independence of his att.i.tude. And it was now easy for him to say that, since Lord Lansdowne had described his last published book as too conciliatory to the Tories, any favour coming to its author from a Tory government would certainly be construed by unfriendly judges as the price of this civility.

At last, however, the long negotiations about Byron's Life and Letters came to a conclusion. Moore, whose debt was to the Longmans, and who was moreover bound to them by grat.i.tude for much real friendliness, inclined to write the _Life_ for them, and an arrangement to that effect was made. But in February 1828, when Murray, who held the great bulk of the material, finally made up his mind to secure Moore's services, if possible, both as editor and biographer, the Longmans, with their accustomed liberality, waived their claim. It was settled that Moore should receive 4000 guineas, of which sum half was to be advanced, to pay off his debt to the Longmans. And thus, after many efforts, he got, for a time at least, level with the world.

The work once undertaken went on fast--Moore working, he writes, "as hard as it is in my nature to work at anything"--and by the end of 1829 the first of two quarto volumes was ready for publication. In his prefatory note to the second volume, which shortly followed, Moore--whom Byron called "the only modest author he had ever known"--attributed the success of the work to the interest of the subject and the materials.

There is no denying that his modesty was in this case justified. The _Life of Byron_ has probably been more read than any biography in the language, with the single exception of Boswell's; yet it has no claim to rank, for instance, with Lockhart's masterpiece as a literary achievement. Moore's task was simply to weave together a chain of narrative from the copious materials presented to him by the poet's journals, letters, and, not least, by his poems. His work was, however, hampered by the necessity of sparing sensibilities, and we have frequently to wish that he had been less discreet. Nevertheless, upon the whole, a very difficult undertaking was carried through with supreme tact, with well-practised dexterity, and, above all, with a most commendable absence of pretension. Beyond the skilled selection and grouping of materials, Moore's part is very considerable. It amounts to a very acute exposition of the Byron whom he had known--a man wholly unlike the popular conception of him. Naturally enough, the work has the character of a defence or justification, and as such it is loyal and sincere. Moore never goes back on his friend. But there were in that friend's character certain elements which he disliked, and in his intellect ranges which he did not fully comprehend; and we feel always that the Byron whom Moore best understands is the Byron of earlier days, the writer of vehement romance and impa.s.sioned soliloquy--a Byron who had not yet come to the full scope of his powers. This also was natural enough, for Moore's personal intercourse with Byron practically ended when Byron married.

Their friendship began, drolly enough, as has been already mentioned, out of a cartel resulting from another challenge. In 1809, Moore saw _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, and had no special cause to quarrel with the attack upon his own work. Little,

"The young Catullus of his day, As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay,"

might regard the attack as verging on a tribute; and indeed Little's poems were among Byron's earliest favourites and models in verse. But Moore was choleric; he did not like to hear himself ent.i.tled the "melodious advocate of l.u.s.t"; and further on he came upon a pa.s.sage which touched him on a sensitive point. His abortive duel with Jeffrey furnished too obvious material for the satirist to miss--above all, when Jeffrey was the special mark--and accordingly Moore found the following reference to it:--

"Can none remember that eventful day, That ever glorious, almost fatal fray, When Little's leadless pistol met the eye, And Bow Street's myrmidons stood laughing by?"

A note was appended, stating that, in the duel at Chalk Farm, "on examination, the b.a.l.l.s of the pistols were found to have evaporated."

The satire being anonymous, Moore, though sufficiently vexed, took no steps; but when a second edition was issued with Byron's name, he wrote from Ireland to the author, saying that in the note "the lie was given"

to his own public statement, published in the _Times_ concerning the duel, and demanding to know whether Byron would "avow the insult."

This letter, as Moore soon learnt, had not reached its address, for Byron had gone abroad; but he was told that Hodgson had undertaken to forward it. Nothing more was heard, and Moore let things rest till a year and a half later, when Byron returned from abroad. Moore had in the meantime married, and was about to become a father; he was therefore, as he admits, inclined to be conciliatory, but none the less determined to push the matter to an explanation. Referring to the previous letter, which he a.s.sumed to have miscarried, he re-stated his grievance in writing, but then continued:--

"It is now useless to speak of the steps with which it was my intention to follow up that letter. The time which has elapsed since then, though it has done away neither the injury nor the feeling of it, has in many respects materially altered my situation; and the only object which I have now in writing to your Lordship is to preserve some consistency with that former letter, and to prove to you that the injured feeling still exists, however circ.u.mstances may compel me to be deaf to its dictates at present.