Nevertheless Byron's marriage ended their comradeship, and the friends did not meet in the months when Lady Byron's unexplained departure and obdurate silence loosed a storm of obloquy on her husband. Moore was quick in sympathy, and Byron wrote him a letter such as could only be written to a trusted intimate. And when finally his departure was fixed on, verse spoke his feelings much better than the rather pompous dedication in prose which he had prefixed to the Corsair in January 1814:—
"My boat is on the shore
And my bark is on the sea;
But before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee.
"Were't the last drop in the well
As I gasped upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell,
'Tis to thee that I would drink.
"With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be—peace with thine and mine
And a health to thee, Tom Moore."
Of their meeting in Italy, three years after this was written, something has been already said. To the end of the chapter Byron was the more constant correspondent of the two. There are not wanting in Moore's Diary remarks respecting Byron in which other things than liking can be perceived; sharp disapprobation (and merited) for his writing to Murray details of a Venetian intrigue which would enable the woman to be identified; and later, a distinct touch of spleen occasioned by the disparaging estimate of all recent poetry which Byron paraded in his controversy with Bowles. Yet these are only hints of a passing mood, and it is clear that Moore was always proud of the friendship; he is quick to write down Lord Clare's assurance (which is supported by a letter of Byron's own) that Clare and he were the people whom Byron cared most for. It is also most clear that Byron's death, incurred in the cause of a nation's freedom, set him on a pinnacle in Moore's estimation, and, in the eyes of that always generous critic, more than redeemed whatever was amiss in his career. The Life did effectively what it was meant to do: it presented a favourable view of Byron's character, all the more convincing because the means used were chiefly quotations of Byron's own words. It is a great praise in a task so difficult to say that Moore never offends us; and on many occasions his comment is not merely sane and generous, uniting the tolerance of a man of the world with the insight of a poet; it is also instinct with dignity. For an excellent example of such moments, and of Moore's prose style at its best, the conclusion of the memoir may be given:—
"The arduous task of being the biographer of Byron is one, at least, on which I have not obtruded myself: the wish of my friend that I should undertake that office having been more than once expressed, at a time when none but boding imagination could have foreseen much chance of the sad honour devolving to me. If in some instances I have consulted rather the spirit than the exact letter of his injunctions, it was with the view solely of doing him more justice than he would have done himself; there being no hands in which his character could have been less safe than his own, nor any greater wrong offered to his memory than the substitution of what he affected to be for what he was. Of any partiality, however, beyond what our mutual friendship accounts for and justifies, I am by no means conscious; nor would it be in the power, indeed, even of the most partial friend to allege anything more convincingly favourable of his character than is contained in the few simple facts with which I shall here conclude—that through life, with all his faults, he never lost a friend;—that those about him in his youth, whether as companions, teachers, or servants, remained attached to him to the last;—that the woman, to whom he gave the love of his maturer years, idolises his name; and that, with a single unhappy exception, scarce an instance is to be found of any one, once brought, however briefly, into relations of amity with him, that did not feel towards him a kind regard in life and retain a fondness for his memory.
"I have now done with the subject, nor shall be easily tempted into a recurrence. Any mistakes or misstatements I may be proved to have made shall be corrected;—any new facts which it is in the power of others to produce will speak for themselves. To mere opinions I am not called upon to pay attention—and still less to insinuations or mysteries. I have here told what I myself know and think concerning my friend, and now leave his character, moral as well as literary, to the judgment of the world."
No sooner was the work on Byron completed than the prospect of another, no less lucrative, offered itself. A proposal was made, with Lady Canning's approbation, that Moore should write the Life of Canning. "The importance of the period, the abundance of the materials I should have to illustrate it, and my general coincidence with the principles of Canning's latter line of politics," as well as the money, all tempted Moore greatly, but he decided against it for a characteristic reason.
"An obstacle presented itself in the person of Lord Grey, of whose conduct, during the period in question, it would be necessary to speak with such a degree of freedom as both my high opinion of him, and my gratitude to him for much kindness, would render impossible. If left to myself, I might perhaps manage to do justice to all parties without offending any; but under the dictation of Lady Canning the thing would be impracticable."
The scruple was honourable, but it illustrates the growing difficulty of Moore's position. Bound by ties of long alliance to the Whigs, he was, in reality, less and less at one with either English party; and he claimed and exercised a perfect freedom of expression in so far as principles at least were concerned. But his regard for persons constantly hampered him, and, conscious of this personal loyalty, he did not cease to consider himself as one having claims on party rewards. Lord Lansdowne came into office under the coalition in 1827, and the Whig party were fully in power from 1830 onwards; yet Moore went unrewarded, and a trace of bitterness is clearly perceptible in his tone. Were it not that from 1829 onwards the Diary has been a good deal expurgated by its editor, we should probably hear more of this note. We have no direct expression of Moore's feelings either on the Act emancipating the Catholics or on the Reform Bill. It is sufficiently evident, however, from other passages, that Moore deprecated the tumultuary agitation by which the Duke of Wellington was persuaded to reverse the traditional policy of his party; it is probable that he considered the surrender as none the Less ignominious because he rejoiced to see it made. As to Reform, we have his mind plainly enough given in several later jeremiads. "We are now hastening to the brink with a rapidity which, croaker as I have always been, I certainly did not anticipate." That is again and again the burden of his song, and again and again he deplores that concessions were made in block, and not doled out by minimum doses. As Lord John Russell neatly observes, had Reform never passed, Moore would have lived and died a staunch Reformer. But the passing of Reform showed him for what he really was—an Irish politician of Grattan's school, hostile to every kind of Radicalism, but strong in defence of two things—the principle of religious toleration and the principle of nationality.
The result of all this was to associate Moore increasingly, both as student and politician, with Irish controversy and Irish personages. He declined to write the Life of Canning because it would necessitate personal criticism on Lord Grey, and he felt no call to give utterance to this criticism. But when it came to a question of speaking or holding his peace on the subject of his own country, Moore declined to be influenced by personal considerations. Once free to choose a subject, his choice is notable. Having declined the Canning proposal, he set to work immediately on a very different theme, the Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and worked on it with enthusiasm, although the hope of a lucrative success was in this case slight indeed. More than that, as the Whig party settled down to the task of administration, they found, as usual, trouble in Ireland; and first Lord Holland, then Lord John Russell, urged Moore to let alone the biography of an Irish rebel till such time as Ireland should be quiet. Moore answered that this would be to rival the rustic in Horace, who waited till the stream should be done flowing by; and further, that it was a question of principle with him to publish. Lord Lansdowne's considerate silence weighed more with him than these intercessions, but the book came out in July 1831, with little of the éclat to which its author was now accustomed. It is nevertheless the best of his prose writings, and conveys with great moderation the essential truths about the series of measures and events which led up to the terrible crisis of 1798. What is still better, it gives an extremely vivid impression of the young rebel chief, who had much that specially endeared him to Moore in his warm and impulsive affections and his very generous nature. There was nothing in the subject outside Moore's sympathy or comprehension, and this was scarcely true either in the case of Sheridan or of Byron.
No sooner was this work out of hand than a new one was put on the stocks, arising again directly out of Moore's tastes and pre-occupations. This was the very curious Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion, which leads naturally to some discussion of Moore's own beliefs.
We have seen that he went to college as a Catholic (though not without some consideration of the other possibility), and was thus shut off from the rewards of proficiency; but also that, while in college, he abandoned the practice of confession and that his intimates were mainly Protestants. More than this, he married a Protestant, and allowed the children of the marriage to be brought up in their mother's religion, and for a considerable period attended church with his family—as is proved by various entries in the Diary down to 1824, or thirteen years after his marriage. And in 1825 there occurs this curious note. Lord Lansdowne, referring to a magazine article, in which Moore's songs were mentioned, said, "They take you for a Catholic." "I answered," Moore writes, "they had but too much right to do so."