Perhaps I write warmly myself.[[27]] I write not however for distracted cottagers, but for proprietors and legislators; and I have endeavoured honestly to express my unalterable conviction that it is by encouraging, conciliating, reattaching, and recalling the higher, and not by confusing and inflaming the lower orders of society, that Ireland can be eventually tranquillised.
[27]. In my Memoirs of Ireland.
Most undoubtedly Mr. Thomas Moore and Lady Morgan are among the most distinguished modern writers of our country: indeed, I know of none (except Miss Edgeworth) who has at present a right to be named with either.
But I can never repeat too often that I am not a literary critic, although I choose to speak my mind strongly and freely. I hope neither my friend Moore nor her ladyship will be displeased at my stating thus candidly my opinion of their public merits: they would perhaps scout me as an adulator were I to tell them what I thought of their private ones. I dare say some of the periodical writers will announce, that my telling the world I am a very inefficient critic is mere work of supererogation: at any rate, it must be owned that making the confession in advance is to the full as creditable as leaving the thing to be stated for me.
In my rambling estimate of the merits of these two justly celebrated authors, let me bear in mind that they are of different sexes, and recollect the peculiar attributes of either.
Both of them are alike unsparing in their use of the bold language of liberty: but Lady Morgan has improved her ideas of freedom by contrasts on the European continent; while Thomas Moore has not improved his by the exemplification of freedom in America. Lady Morgan has succeeded in adulterating her refinement; Thomas Moore has unsuccessfully endeavoured to refine his grossness: she has abundant talent; he has abundant genius; and whatsoever distinction those terms admit of, indicates, in my mind, their relative merit. This allowance, however, must be made; that the lady has contented herself with invoking only substantial beings and things of this sublunary world, while the gentleman has ransacked both heaven and hell, and “the half-way house,” for figurative assistance.
I knew them both before they had acquired any celebrity and after they had attained to much. I esteemed them then, and have reason equally to esteem them now: it is on their own account that I wish some portion of their compositions had never appeared; and I really believe, upon due consideration, they will themselves be of my way of thinking. But let it be remembered, that my esteem and friendship were never yet increased or diminished by the success or non-success of any body. Besides, while a man is necessitated to read much law, he cannot read much literature; and hence I scarcely saw the writings of either until the general buzz called my attention to them.
I recollect Moore being one night at my house in Merrion Square, during the spring of his celebrity, touching the piano-forte, in his own unique way, to “Rosa,” his favourite amatory sonnet: his head leant back;—now throwing up his ecstatic eyes to heaven, as if to invoke refinement—then casting them softly sideways, and breathing out his chromatics to elevate, as the ladies said, their souls above the world, but at the same moment convincing them that they were completely mortal.