Some one remarked that Scott's life of Napoleon was a failure.
"I think little of it," said Moore; "but after all, it was an embarrassing task, and Scott did what a wise man would do—made as much of his subject as was politic and necessary, and no more."
"It will not live," said some one else; "as much because it is a bad book, as because it is the life of an individual."
"But what an individual!" Moore replied. "Voltaire's life of Charles the Twelfth was the life of an individual, yet that will live and be read as long as there is a book in the world, and what was he to Napoleon?"
O'Connell was mentioned.
"He is a powerful creature," said Moore, "but his eloquence has done great harm both to England and Ireland. There is nothing so powerful as oratory. The faculty of 'thinking on his legs,' is a tremendous engine in the hands of any man. There is an undue admiration for this faculty, and a sway permitted to it, which was always more dangerous to a country than anything else. Lord Althorp is a wonderful instance of what a man may do without talking. There is a general confidence in him—a universal belief in his honesty, which serves him instead. Peel is a fine speaker, but, admirable as he had been as an oppositionist, he failed, when he came to lead the house. O'Connell would be irresistible were it not for the two blots on his character—the contributions in Ireland for his support, and his refusal to give satisfaction to the man he is still coward enough to attack. They may say what they will of duelling, it is the great preserver of the decencies of society. The old school, which made a man responsible for his words, was the better. I must confess I think so. Then, in O'Connell's case, he had not made his vow against duelling when Peel challenged him. He accepted the challenge, and Peel went to Dover on his way to France, where they were to meet; and O'Connell pleaded his wife's illness, and delayed till the law interfered. Some other Irish patriot, about the same time, refused a challenge on account of the illness of his daughter, and one of the Dublin wits made a good epigram on the two:—
"'Some men, with a horror of slaughter,
Improve on the scripture command,
And 'honor their'——wife and daughter—
That their days may be long in the land.'