"Madame de Stael treats me as the person whom she most delights to honour; I am generally ordered with her to dinner, as one orders beans and bacon: she is one of the few persons who surpass expectation; she has every sort of talent, and would be universally popular, if, in society, she were to confine herself to her inferior talents— pleasantry, anecdote, and literature. I have reviewed her Essay on Suicide in the last Edinburgh Review: it is not one of her best, and I have accordingly said more of the author and the subject than of the work."
Sir J. Mackintosh (
Life
, vol. ii. p. 269).
One result of the illuminations in honour of the battle of Vittoria (June 21, 1813), which took place July 7, was a great fire at Woolwich. Moore was at this time living at Mayfield Cottage near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire.