In 1824, five years before the passing of the Catholic Relief Act, Moore published "The Memoirs of Captain Rock, written by Himself." It is a bitter, rhapsodical, and of course one-sided commentary upon the government of Ireland by England, not only since the Reformation, but from the time of Pope Adrian's famous bull, which is twisted into an exclusively English grievance and insult.
The next considerable work of Moore's—for his light Parthian warfare in the politics of the hour continued as usual, and with about the same success, as in his younger days—was "The Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion"—a perfectly serious and earnest book in defense of the Roman Catholic faith. There is a vast amount of erudition displayed in its pages; and remembering how slow and painstaking a workman Moore declared himself to be, it must, one would suppose, have been the work of years. The author's object is to prove, from the writings of the early fathers and other evidence, that the peculiar dogmas, and discipline, and practice of the Church of Rome, date from the apostolic age, or at least from the first centuries of the Christian era, and are consequently true. This the writer does entirely, at least, to his own satisfaction, which is the case, we believe, with controversial writers generally. The book concludes with the following words, addressed to the Catholic Church, which his after-life proves to have been earnest and sincere: "In the shadow of thy sacred mysteries let my soul henceforth repose, remote alike from the infidel who scoffs at their darkness, and the rash believer who would pry into its recesses."
These imaginary travels were published anonymously, but the book was always known to be Moore's. Apart from any other evidence, the poetic translations of portions of the writings of ancient bishops would have amply sufficed to determine the authorship.
The last, and, according to Moore's own authority, one of the most successful of his works, as far as a great sale constitutes success, was the prose romance of "The Epicurean." There is much learning displayed in this book, and it contains some striking descriptions. We also meet occasionally with passages of simple and natural beauty and eloquence, the more striking and effective from the contrast they afford to the cumbrous and ambitious rhetoric through which they are sparsely scattered. It was commenced in verse, and gradually reached to a considerable length in that form, but ultimately, like the "Peri's Daughter," broke down irretrievably. No one who respects Mr. Moore's poetical fame will regret this after reading the fragment which has been published. "The Epicurean" is a moral and religious story; and it has this great merit, that it has very little of the merely sensuous imagery in which Mr. Moore generally indulged. The plot is of the most commonplace kind, and the conduct of the story so entirely languid and lulling, that it may be freely indulged in without the slightest fear of ill-consequences by the most nervous and impressionable lady-reader in the three kingdoms.
On the 30th of June, 1827, the day after the publication of "The Epicurean," Moore was one of the gay and distinguished assemblage at a magnificent fête at Boyle Farm, in the environs of London, the cost of which had been clubbed by five or six rich young lords. It appears by Mr. Moore's description to have been a very brilliant affair. There were crowds of the élite of society present of both sexes; well-dressed men and groups of fair women, "all looking their best;" together with dancing, music, the Tyrolese minstrels, and Madame Vestris and Fanny Ayton, rowing up and down the river, singing Moore's "Oh, come to Me when Daylight sets!" and so on. The author of "The Epicurean" relates all this for the purpose of introducing an anecdote concerning his book, and we notice it for the same reason. During one of the pauses of the music, the Marquis of Palmella—Moore disguises the name of the Portuguese embassador in this impenetrable mode, the Marquis of P-lm—-a, approaching the poet, remarked upon the magnificence of the fête. Moore agreed. "The tents," he remarked, "had a fine effect." "Nay," said the marquis, "I was thinking of your fête at Athens. I read it this morning in the newspaper." "Confound the newspaper!" Moore had a great aversion to having his best morceaux served up without context in that manner; but worse remained behind. A Mr. D—— accosted him a few minutes afterward, and mentioning the book, added these flattering words, "I never read any thing so touching as the death of your heroine." "What!" exclaimed the delighted author, "have you got so far as that already?" "Oh, dear, no, I have not seen the book—I read what I mentioned in the Literary Gazette." "Shameful!" says Mr. Moore, "to anticipate my catastrophe in that manner!" Perhaps so; but that which we should like especially to know is whether Mr. B——m, who is mentioned as being present at the enunciation of these courtesies, was Mr. Brougham. If so, the flash of the keen gray eyes that followed the compliment on the touching death of Alethe, must, to an observant looker-on, have been one of the most entertaining incidents of the fête.
The smart political squibs, scattered like fire-flies through the dreary waste of journalism during the last active years of Moore's life, are not obnoxious to criticism. Squire Corn, Famished Cotton, Weeping Chancellors, Salmagundian Kings, and knavish Benthamites, as penciled by Moore, have passed from the domain of wit and verse into that of the historian and the antiquary, into the hands of the collector of forgotten trifles; and there we very willingly leave them, pleasant, piquant, and welcome, as we fully admit them in their day to have been. Moore has also written several pieces of religious verse, which, although not of very high merit as poetry, finely at times bring out and illustrate the Christian spirit in its most engaging aspect—unalloyed, unclouded by the mists of fanatic sectarianism.
That Moore was not an inspired creative poet like Shakspeare, Milton, Burns, and a few others, is true; but beneath those heaven-reaching heights there are many still lofty eminences upon which gifted spirits sit enthroned, their brows encircled with coronets bright with gems of purest ray, serene, though pale, indeed, and dim in presence of the radiant crowns of the kings of poetry and song, between whom also there are degrees of glory; for immeasurably above all, far beyond even the constellated splendor of
"The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle,"
soars Shakspeare, palm-wreathed and diademed with stars. One of these lesser heights and circlets must unquestionably be awarded to Thomas Moore. His wing, it must be admitted, is feeble, requiring artificial stimulants and help to lift him above the ground a sufficient time for warbling a brief melody. He did not sing as a flower exhales—from the law and necessity of its nature; still there is at times a grace, and tenderness, and music, about his carefully-polished snatches of song, which the world is not sufficiently rich in to willingly let die.
Turning from Moore the poet to Moore the politician, there is not much to remark upon; neither certainly is there place for two opinions. Moore wrote politics at times—pointed, bitter, rankling politics—but he was really at heart no politician. There was no earnestness in what he did in this way, and it was early and abundantly evident from his alternate eulogies and vituperation of democratic institutions, that he had no firmly-based convictions. His love for Ireland was a sentiment only: it never rose to the dignity of a passion. Not one of his patriotic songs breathes the fiery energy, the martyr zeal, the heroic hate and love, which pulsate in the veins of men who ardently sympathize with a people really oppressed, or presumed to be so. But let us hasten to say, that if there was little of the hero or martyr, there was nothing of the renegade or traitor about Thomas Moore. The pension of three hundred a year obtained for him of the crown by his influential friends was not the reward of baseness or of political tergiversation. It was the prize and reward of his eminence as a writer, and his varied social accomplishments. If he did not feel strongly, he at all events felt honestly; and although he had no mission to evoke the lightning of the national spirit, and hurl its consuming fire at the men who, had they possessed the power, would have riveted the bondage of his people, he could and did soothe their angry paroxysms with lulling words of praise and hope, and, transforming their terribly real, physical, and moral griefs and ills into picturesque and sentimental sorrows, awakened a languid admiration, and a passing sympathy for a nation which could boast such beautiful music, and whose woes were so agreeably, so charmingly sung. Liberal opinions Moore supported by tongue and pen, but then they were fashionable within a sufficiently extensive circle of notabilities, and had nothing of the coarseness and downrightness of vulgar Radicalism about them. The political idiosyncrasy of Moore is developed in the same essential aspect in his memoir of Lord Edward Fitzgerald as in his national songs. There is nothing impassioned, nothing which hurries the pulse or kindles the eye—but a graceful regret, a carefully guarded appreciation of the acts and motives of that unfortunate and misguided nobleman, run throughout. Moore was what men call a fair weather politician—which means, not that storms do not frequently surround them, but that by a prudent forethought, a happy avoidance of prematurely committing themselves, they contrive to make fair weather for themselves, however dark and tempestuous may be the time to other and less sagacious men, and who, when their sun does at last shine, come out with extreme effulgence and brilliancy. Moore, therefore, as a politician, was quite unexceptionable, though not eminent. He was at once a pensioned and unpurchased, and, we verily believe, unpurchasable partisan; an honest, sincere, and very mild patriot; a faithful, and at the same time prudent and circumspect lover of his country, its people, and its faith. There are very high-sounding names in the list of political celebrities, of whom it would be well if such real though not highly-flattering praise could be truly spoken.