The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852 Part 33

The REV. CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON, died at Edinburgh, on the 7th of February, aged seventy. He was best known as the author of _Annals of the English Bible and The History of Irish Literature_. He was educated at Bristol, at the college of which Dr. Ryland was president. He intended in early life to accompany Drs. Carey, Marshman, and Ward, to India, when the Baptist Societies' Mission was established in the east; but being prevented by the state of his health he settled in Edinburgh, where he has for nearly half a century been the respected pastor of a Baptist church. In missionary work, both at home and abroad, he always took deep and active interest. He travelled much through Ireland, and knew well the state of the people. His historical narration of the various attempts to educate the Irish in their own tongue is referred to by all who are engaged in Irish education and missions. He visited Copenhagen many years ago in order to obtain the protection of the Danish Government for the Serampore mission. The king granted him an interview, received him cordially, and granted a charter of incorporation. It is from the Serampore press that the Scriptures first began to be issued in the languages of the east, and the names of Carey and the other superintendents of the Serampore mission are memorable in the records of literature as well as of the church. He published in 1845 the _Annals of the English Bible_, an historical account of the different English translations and editions of the Bible, a work of learning and research, lately reprinted in New-York by the Carters.

The mother of M. Thiers has expired at Batignolles, where she has long resided on a pension allowed her by her son. M. Thiers was the only child of this woman, although his father had other children by a former marriage, one of whom keeps a restaurant in Paris.

The some time expected death of THOMAS MOORE occurred on the 26th of February, at Sloperton Cottage, near Devizes. Like Southey and Scott, the British Anacreon had for several years before his decease, quite lost his intelligence, and he lingered in seclusion, and in half slumbering unconsciousness, personally well nigh forgotten by the world.

His history is little more than a history of his writings. He was deservedly popular in society, for his amiable qualities, and fascinating manners; he shared the intimacy of the greatest men and greatest writers of his age, more prolific of eminent characters than any other since that of Shakspeare, Raleigh, and Sidney; and dividing his time between the quiet charms of domestic ease, and the smiles of the most elevated cla.s.ses, he may be said to have been a fortunate and happy man. As a song writer, he was doubtless unrivalled. His versification is exquisitely finished, harmonious, and musically toned.

The sense is never obviously sacrificed to the sound; on the contrary, he delighted in that species of ant.i.thetical and epigramatic turn, which is generally held to excuse some roughness, and to be scarcely compatible with perfect melody of rhythm. In grace, both of thought and diction, in easy, fluent wit, in melody, in brilliancy of fancy, in warmth (but scarcely depth) of sentiment, and even in purity and simplicity, when he chose to be pure and simple, no one has been superior to Moore; but in grandeur of conception, power of thought, and above all, unity of purpose, and a high aim, he was singularly deficient, and these are necessary to the character, not of a sweet minstrel, but of a great poet.

The London _Morning Chronicle_ furnishes a biography of Moore, which we slightly abridge. With him, says the _Chronicle_, is snapped the last tie, save perhaps one, represented by the veteran Rogers, which connects the present generation with the outburst of "all the talents" which signalized the opening of the century. That great kindling of genius--embracing almost all sides of imaginative literature, of criticism and philosophy--is becoming more a thing of history than of fact. Year by year, the lights are going out. Wordsworth was the last extinguished before Moore; and now, to all intents and purposes, the great galaxy which poured such a flood of light on the literature of fifty years ago--which extinguished Rosa Matilda fiction and Delia Cruscan poetry--subst.i.tuted true criticism for technical carping upon philological points, and established new styles in every branch of the _belles-lettres_--this great constellation may now be said to have disappeared. One of the brightest, if not of the largest stars, has long been obscured, and is now quite put out. The fame of Moore is fairly a matter of discussion. It cannot, we believe, be denied that much of his serious and more ambitious verse, founded on promptings of a more luscious and florid fancy than the present tastes incline to admit, and no inconsiderable portion even of his lyric pieces,--refined to attenuation--are less read and admired than they were a score or thirty years ago. A severer and sterner school of poetry has succeeded--one of deeper feeling and more sober thought; and the representatives of those who revelled in _Lalla Rookh_, and delighted in the strains of Mr.

Little, now generally address themselves to more staid and philosophic musings. The _Irish Melodies_, too--exquisite as is their word-music--fanciful as is their conception--delightful as is their playfulness, and touching as is their pathos--even the _Irish Melodies_, we believe are declining in popular estimation. The reasons are obvious.

In the first place, the _Irish Melodies_ are not particularly Irish; they have grace, sparkling fancy, delicious feeling; but they are too fine-spun to do the work-a-day duty of popular songs. As literary performances, nine-tenths of Burns's are inferior to Moore's; and all Dibdin's are immeasurably beneath them. Yet the probability is that _When Willie Brewed_, and _Poor Tom Bowling_, will be in the full tide of popularity, where _Rich and Rare_, and _Oh Breathe not His Name_, will be unsung and forgotten. In a certain circle, and among people of a certain reading and appreciation, Moore will live as long as the language; but his genius was delicate and acute rather than catholic and strong. He had a rich play of fancy, but none of the soaring imagination of Sh.e.l.ley or Byron. His mind, in fact, was a first-cla.s.s second-rate.

It had no pretensions to stand in the line of the giants of his time.

Brightly fanciful, rather than continuously imaginative--teeming with poetic imagery--loving to sparkle along the floweriest paths, and beneath the balmiest skies--revelling always in fays and flowers--in love, and mingled intellectual and sensual pleasures--playful in the extreme, and always ready to stop to make mirth as joyous and as delightful as the pa.s.sion--his muse, in his great romantic poems, is the incarnation of a charming Epicureanism; and the mirth and jolity could go a long step further. He had wit, which sparkled as brightly as it could cut deeply; and humor, and sense of the ludicrous, which could be as well, if not more effectually applied to living persons and actual things than to the creations of his own fancy; and accordingly we find him loving to turn from the etherealized voluptuousness of _Loves of the Angels_, or the mystic imaginings of the _Epicurean_, to the sharp and brilliant hittings of political and social squibs--the restless satire with which, in the _Fudge Family_ and hundreds of ephemeral but not the less clever lays, he quizzed his political and literary opponents, abolished the Earl of Mountcash.e.l.l, or shot stinging shafts through the heart of the Benthamites. It is, indeed, far from probable that Moore's political and satiric poetry, little perhaps as he thought of it at the time, will live after his more ambitious works have sunk into that chronic state of cla.s.sicism, in which books are labelled with an excellent character, and shelved--turned into the category of works without which no gentleman's library is complete, and doomed, not to actual obscurity, but to honorable retirement. The last of his political squibs and short poems were given to the world in the columns of the _Morning Chronicle_; and referred princ.i.p.ally to the earlier struggles of the Anti-Corn Law League--the verses having in most cases been suggested by pasting political events.

Thomas Moore died at the ripe age of seventy-two. He was born on the 28th of May, 1780, in Angier-street, Dublin, where his father, a strict Roman Catholic, carried on a grocery and spirit business. As a child, he is said to have been remarkable for personal beauty; but his appearance in after life hardly carried out the promise of infancy. He was short, with a heavy, expressive, but not handsome face, which, however, lightened up wonderfully when conversing or singing his own ballads. He was educated at Dublin, and one of big first noted peculiarities was a fondness and a talent for private theatricals. Taking advantage of the boon, as it was then considered, the young Roman Catholic was entered at Trinity College. He could not, of course, obtain a degree; but some English verses tendered at an examination, in lieu of the usual Latin composition, procured a copy of the _Travels of Anacharsis_, as a reward. The wild times of the Irish rebellion were approaching, and the poet was naturally to be found in the ranks led by the Emmetts and Arthur O'Connor; but his treasonable lucubrations, though, as his own sister remarked, "rather strong," were pa.s.sed over without any measures against the enthusiastic young champion of liberty. Politics, however, were by no means the only subject of his muse. At the age of fourteen he published poetry in a Dublin magazine, and afterwards composed many semi-burlesque pieces for private representation.

In his twentieth year, giving up republicanism for ever, Moore came to London to study at the Middle Temple, and publish his translations, or rather paraphrases, of _Anacreon_. As may be imagined, he attended much more to the Greek than to c.o.ke upon Lyttleton, and permission, obtained through the friends.h.i.+p of Lord Moira, to dedicate the work to the Prince Regent, was the means of his introduction to those elevated circles in which he was afterwards to move and s.h.i.+ne. His _Anacreon_ was highly successful, and was succeeded, in 1801, by _Poems and Songs, by Thomas Little_. Whatever objections may be raised by the present generation to either of these works, there can be no doubt of their vivid play of fancy, their singular grace, even when verging on improprieties, and their exquisite melody of versification. His translations of the _Old Greek Lover_, and of _Women and Wine_, are probably the finest and richest versions of these often rendered songs in the English language--always excepting the rough but thoroughly racy version of the last, by quaint old Mr. Donne.

In the days of the regency, poets came in for patronage, and Mr. Moore, made registrar to the Court of Admiralty at Bermuda--as singularly appropriate an appointment as some we have seen in our own day--went out to the islands, appointed a deputy, took a glance at the United States, and came home again. He then published _Sketches of Travel and Society beyond the Atlantic_--a satiric work in heroic verse, vigorously written, but politically evincing a miserable short-sightedness. Soon afterwards, a savage review in the _Edinburgh_, of a republication of _Juvenile Songs, &c._, led to the celebrated rencontre between Moore and Jeffrey, at Hampstead, when the great critic, as Byron a.s.serted, stood valiantly up:

"When Little's leadless pistol met his eye And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by."

The affair was ultimately arranged, mainly through the intervention of Mr. Rogers, and at his house Moore shortly afterwards made his first acquaintance with Byron and Campbell. The long and affectionate intimacy between Moore and the author of _Childe Harold_, we need here only allude to. Moore had about this time married. His wife was a Miss d.y.k.e, a woman, of strong sense and character, as well as great beauty and amiability. Their children are all dead.

A couple of political satires of no great merit--one setting forth a sober and earnest panegyric upon ignorance--were followed by the famous _Two-penny Post Bag_, a bundle of rollicking satire and humor. It made a great hit. Not so its author's next venture, a farce called the _Blue Stocking_, d.a.m.ned at the Lyceum. Moore's intimacy with Byron and Hunt was broken off by the outspoken tone of the _Liberal_, and especially by the _Vision of Judgment_. Moore thought his friends had gone too far.

What would Carlton House say! For if, as Byron said, "Little Tommy dearly loved a lord," with how much more affection did he wors.h.i.+p a prince of the blood royal?

The _Melodies_ were his next, and perhaps most popular compositions.

Charming as they are, and exquisitely finished as is their lyrical workmans.h.i.+p, we doubt whether they have the stamina and heart-rooted earnestness, which are requisite to make songs immortal. Only the strongest heart and the manliest brain produce offspring to suit all tastes and to last all time.

It was in 1812 that Moore determined to write an Indian poem. Mr. Perry, of the _Morning Chronicle_, accompanied the poet to the Messrs. Longman, and through his intervention the great sum of 3,000 guineas was settled on as the price of a piece of which not one word was yet written. Moore then retired to Mayfield Cottage, a desolate place in Derbys.h.i.+re, and after a long and hard struggle with a coquettish muse--after a three years' retirement--he sent forth _Lalla Rookh_. Its success was immense; the poem ran rapidly through several editions, and Moore's fame stood upon a higher and surer pedestal than ever. The tales were the triumph of poetic lusciousness; but not a few old judges stigmatized their taste by preferring Fadladeen and his criticisms, even to the Firewors.h.i.+ppers, or the tribulations of the Peri. We need hardly say that the judgment of these tough critics has now a far greater number of adherents than it once commanded.

After a continental tour, Moore wrote the clever and popular _Fudge Family_. In the following year he met Byron in Italy, and then the latter intrusted to him his memoirs for publication. These memoirs Moore sold to Murray for two thousand guineas; but, as is well known and a good deal regretted, the purchase money was refunded, and the papers regained, and destroyed. Pecuniary difficulties connected with the misconduct of his Bermuda deputy, about this time, compelled Moore to seek a temporary refuge in Paris, and there he led a pleasant social life, such as he loved, and composed the _Loves of the Angels_, which is not much more than an elaborate and carefully wrought repet.i.tion of all his previous love-and-flower poetry. The whole thing is dreamy, lulling, and beautiful, but vague and misty. The words tinkle like falling fountains, and the essence of the closing fancy floats about one like perfume; but this enervating species of composition is far from high or true poetry, and accordingly the work is now far oftener alluded to than it is read. In Paris he occupied the same hotel for a long time with his intimate friend Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.

In 1825 Moore paid a visit to Scott, who p.r.o.nounced the Irish melodist the "prettiest warbler" he had ever heard. One evening Scott and his guest visited the theatre at Edinburgh. Soon after their unmarked entrance, the attention of the audience, which had been engrossed by the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Albans, was directed towards the new comers; and, according to a newspaper report, copied and published by Mr. Moore in one of his last prefaces, considerable excitement ensued. "Eh!"

exclaimed a man in the pit, "eh, yon's Sir Walter, wi' Lockhart and his wife; and wha's the wee body wi' the pawkie een? Wow, but it's Tarn Moore, just." "Scott, Scott! Moore, Moore!" immediately resounded through the house. Scott would not rise; Moore did, and bowed several times, with his hand on his heart. Scott afterwards acknowledged the plaudits of his countrymen; and the orchestra, during the rest of the evening, played alternately Scotch and Irish airs.

Soon after this period, Moore was established, by the kind offices of his old and stanch friend the Marquis of Lansdowne, in Sloperton Cottage, where he pa.s.sed the remainder of his days, and where he ended them. It was here that he commenced his career as a biographer, and produced successively the memoirs of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Byron, and Sheridan. The two latter are well known and highly appreciated. It was in the previous year that the poet first came out as a prose writer in the _Memoirs of Captain Rock_, a bitter and unfair account of--or rather commentary on--the English government of Ireland, and a curious instance of warped and twisted views in a man of the world like Moore, almost unavoidable in an Irishman writing of his country. His next serious work--he continued his squibs and sparkles of occasional verse--was the _Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion_--in which he attempted to show that the doctrines and practises of the Roman Catholic Church date from the apostolic period.

The last of his prose works, and that which has attained a greater sale, we believe, than any of them, was the romance of _The Epicurean_. Here Moore's style, always too florid, is occasionally redeemed by pa.s.sages of eloquence and natural feeling. There is much out-of-the-way learning in the book, but a pompous and c.u.mbrous ornament overlays every thing.

The book had great success, but of what Mr. Carlyle calls the "wind-bag"

nature. The wind inside was very highly perfumed, and sighed with very pleasing murmurs, but it was only wind, and, as such, will ooze out presently, and the Epicurean bag will be little regarded.

From this time political and social squibs were the only literary occupations to which Mr. Moore devoted himself until, gradually and fitfully mental darkness came down on him. Of critical estimates of Moore, we have seen none to which we more perfectly agree, than one (sometimes attributed to Richard H. Dana, but) written by Professor Edward T. Channing, for the _North American Review_ soon after that Review was established.

The best edition of Moore's works ever published in this country, is the very beautiful one in octavo, from the press of the Appletons, embracing all the revisions, introductions, notes, &c., of the author's recent ten volume edition, printed in London.

The well-known artist, SAMUEL PROUT, died in London on the 10th of February. The _Athenaeum_ remarks that he was long and popularly known by a style of Art which he may be said to have originated,--and to the influence of his example may be ascribed the distinctive character and the successes of the English school of painters of architectural subjects. Born at Plymouth about the year 1784, like his townsmen distinguished in art, he owed little to the patronage of his native town, unless their share in the praises which he ultimately commanded may be counted to them as encouragement. In the metropolis his first patron, was Mr. Palser, the printseller, who used to take all his water color drawings at low prices, and had a ready sale for them. When Mr.

Prout had arrived at distinction, he never omitted grateful mention of the advantages he had derived from the acquaintance and transactions.

Mr. Prout early gained the notice of the late Mr. Ackermann; and the many drawing-books for learners, and other prints which he undertook for that gentleman, soon gave currency to his name. His transcripts of Gothic architecture at home it is superfluous to commend; and when the allied armies had made it safe to venture to the Continent, he was among the earliest of the English to travel there. His love of the picturesque was gratified amid the new and remarkable combinations of form which met his eye at Nurnberg and in many of the adjacent cities. He was among the first English artists to add to what had been already made known of Venice by Ca.n.a.letto. Nor must it be forgotten that he was among the first when Senefelder's newly discovered process was imported to try his hand at it. The powers of the art of Lithography, though its processes may have been improved and amplified since,--were never better exhibited than in Mr. Prout's broad and vigorous touch. The _Landscape Annual_ is another record of his powers. Other books of the cla.s.s testify to his unwearied industry and graphic skill. For many years suffering from ill-health, Mr. Prout, in convalescent intervals, labored cheerfully at the vocation which he had so ill.u.s.trated in better times.

The venerable Dr. MURRAY, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, died at his residence in that city on the 25th of February. The death of this excellent prelate, whose life has been a model of Christian forbearance in a country where such an example is invaluable, the journals say is deeply regretted by moderate men of all the religious denominations of the country.

Dr. M'NICHOLAS, t.i.tular Bishop of Achonry, died about the middle of February. He was regarded as one of the ripest scholars among the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, and belonged to the advanced school of "educationists."

The London papers announce the death of Mr. HOLCROFT, son of the more famous Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist,--who was for many years connected with the press, and, perhaps, in that capacity most prominently known as the musical and dramatic critic of one of the leading daily papers.

M. BENCHOT, the editor of Voltaire's works, lately died at Paris. He devoted thirty years to studies preparatory to the execution of his undertaking, which he finally completed in 1834. He also published in 1811 a laborious work on French bibliography, which is still a standard manual.

JOHANN KOLLAR, Professor of Slavonian ant.i.tiquities at the University of Vienna, died on January 24th, last, in his sixtieth year. He was born at Mursotz, in Hungary, and was educated as a Protestant clergyman; he was appointed Professor in 1849. He contributed greatly to the intellectual movement of recent years among the Austrian and Prussian Slavonians. His literary reputation was first established by _Slavy dcera_ (The Daughter of Fame) a lyrical epic poem, published in 1824. His ideal end was the creation of an independent Slavonic literature, which should preserve his race from the ever increasing influence of German culture, by which he foresaw that it must be absorbed, unless it could be aroused to a development strictly its own. During the Hungarian war he remained an adherent of the Austrian side. He leaves two nearly finished works; the one is _Slavonic Italy in Early Times_; the other is upon Slavonic Mythology, and is ent.i.tled _The G.o.ds of Retra_. They are written in the Bohemian or Tschechic language.

The widow of VON KOTZEBUE, the author of _The Stranger_ and _Pizarro_ (the former of which still keeps possession of the German provincial stage), who was a.s.sa.s.sinated at Mannheim by the student Sand, died at Heidelberg, on the 4th of February, at the age of 73. She was Kotzebue's third wife, and had lived for many years in strict retirement.

BARON KRUDENER, Russian Minister in Stockholm since 1844, died early in February.

M. LUCAS DE MONTIGNY, the adopted son of Mirabeau, died in Paris, early in February. On his death-bed Mirabeau took him in his arms, and called on his friends to protect him. He left him all his papers and correspondence, and some years ago M. Lucas compiled from them eight volumes of _Memoires Biographiques_ of _le grand homme_. He naturally entertained a profound veneration for the memory of his benefactor; and, it is said, spent not less than 100,000 francs ($20,000), of his private fortune, in buying up letters and doc.u.ments calculated to cast dishonor upon it. These papers he of course destroyed, and it does not appear that he left behind him any calculated to throw new light on the character or career of the tribune.

Belgian journals announce the death of a M. SMITS, a great compiler of statistics, and a poet: two vocations rather dissimilar. He wrote three tragedies, called _Marie de Bourgogne_, _Jeanne de Flandre_, _Elfrida, ou la Vengeance_, which were applauded by his countrymen; also several poems on different subjects, and especially on the rising of the Spaniards and Greeks for liberty.

DR. EYLERT, first Bishop of Prussia, died a short time since at Potsdam, aged eighty-two. He was the author of several works on theology, and on the sciences. For a long time he was a member of the Ministry of Public Wors.h.i.+p and Instruction.