Thomas Moore Part 8

When I say 'injured feeling,' let me a.s.sure your Lords.h.i.+p that there is not a single vindictive sentiment in my mind towards you.

I mean but to express that uneasiness under (what I must consider to be) a charge of falsehood, which must haunt a man of any feeling to his grave, unless the insult be retracted or atoned for."

Byron answered stiffly enough, that he had never seen Moore's denial, and therefore had never intended "giving the lie"; but that he could neither retract nor apologise for a charge of falsehood which he never advanced. He was ready, he said, "to accept any conciliatory proposition which did not compromise his own honour"--or, failing that, to give satisfaction. Moore, in his account of the affair, admits freely that he had shown a want of tact in talking of friendly advances, while demanding an explanation; and he expresses his admiration for Byron's conduct in the difficulty. It is certain that the younger man showed more sense and less inclination to take offence, and the final proposal that a friendly meeting should be arranged was Byron's. The place fixed on was Rogers's table, and Campbell was of the company; and the dinner (though complicated by Byron's unexpected wish to dine on biscuits and soda water--neither of which was forthcoming) had the happiest results.

Byron formed a lasting friends.h.i.+p with Rogers; but between him and Moore an intimacy of the closest kind ripened rapidly--the more so because Byron's state was then one of considerable isolation. A few months later, the blazing success of _Childe Harold_ only confirmed the friends.h.i.+p, as it made the new poet the lion of a society where Moore's position was already firmly fixed. Jealousy was none of Moore's vices, or he had ample ground for it in that sudden leap past him, into a region of fame which, as he always knew in his heart, he could never occupy. But even a jealous nature might have been conciliated by Byron's frank enthusiasm. "I am too proud of being your friend," he wrote, "to care with whom I am linked in your estimation"; and the fragmentary "Journal" which he kept in 1813 expresses the grounds of his admiration very fully.

"Moore has a peculiarity of talent, or rather talents--poetry, music, voice--all his own; and an expression in each, which never was, nor will be, possessed by another. But he is capable of still higher nights in poetry. By the bye, what humour, what--everything, in the 'Post Bag'! There is nothing Moore may not do, if he will but seriously set about it. In society he is gentlemanly, gentle, and, altogether, more pleasing than any individual with whom I am acquainted. For his honour, principle, and independence, his conduct to...[1] speaks 'trumpet-tongued.' He has but one fault--and that one I daily regret--he is not _here_."

Byron had also, what was no impediment in such a friends.h.i.+p, a great admiration for his friend's work, and his letters teem with inquiries after the progress of _Lalla_. Moore's abandonment of the story which resembled too closely the _Bride of Abydos_, he thought unnecessary, and was sincerely grieved to have stood in the light. Indeed, it is sufficiently evident that Byron's feeling for Moore was a good deal warmer than Moore's for Byron; not unnaturally, considering that Moore was newly married and deep in love with his wife. Byron is always the more frequent correspondent; it is he who has to reproach the other with slackness. But, it must be insisted again, the friends.h.i.+p had been begun when Moore was already rich in friends.h.i.+ps and happy in a home, while Byron was moody and lonely in a world against which he cherished grievances; and this new companions.h.i.+p filled a large s.p.a.ce in his life.

The sympathy between the two is easily understood, if one remembers not only that each in his way exercised an extraordinary attraction for men as well as women, but that their tastes coincided. The days when Moore knew Byron well were Byron's period of dandyism, and Moore was always something of a dandy. Both belonged to Watier's, the dandies' club _par excellence_, and, being the only persons in the set who were men of letters as well as men of fas.h.i.+on, they were naturally drawn together.

Moore's removal from town, too, detracted in no way from their intimacy, since whenever he returned to London, he came now as a bachelor. In 1814 they were almost daily together during his stay, and the letters give us pleasant hints of their joint festivities, from fine a.s.semblies to lobsters and brandy and water at Stevens's in Bond Street.

Their friends.h.i.+p was so close that it permitted of Moore's advising Byron not only to marry, but to make a particular choice--and one other than that which he disastrously made. Further, when the choice had been made, it was to Moore that Byron confided first his rejoicings and afterwards something of his perplexities.

Nevertheless Byron's marriage ended their comrades.h.i.+p, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sing mood, and it is clear that Moore was always proud of the friends.h.i.+p; he is quick to write down Lord Clare's a.s.surance (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 subst.i.tution of what he affected to be for what he was. Of any partiality, however, beyond what our mutual friends.h.i.+p 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 grat.i.tude 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 emanc.i.p.ating the Catholics or on the Reform Bill. It is sufficiently evident, however, from other pa.s.sages, 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 antic.i.p.ate." 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 pa.s.sed, Moore would have lived and died a staunch Reformer.

But the pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sociate 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 eclat 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."

It is evident that his Catholicism was, to say the least of it, un.o.btrusive in these days; and, although a note in the journals of travel mentions the effect always produced on him by the celebration of Ma.s.s, he seems rather inclined to endorse the distaste for so much gaudy ceremonial which his Bessy owned to when first he took her to a Catholic service. The most important pa.s.sage, however, bearing upon his views occurs in his account of the family interview after his father's death:--

"Our conversation naturally turned upon religion, and my sister Kate, who, the last time I saw her, was more than half inclined to declare herself a Protestant, told me she had since taken my advice, and remained quietly a Catholic.... For myself, my having married a Protestant wife gave me an opportunity of choosing a religion, at least for my children, and if my marriage had no other advantage, I should think this quite sufficient to be grateful for.

We then talked of the differences between the two faiths, and they who accuse all Catholics of being intolerantly attached to their own would be either ashamed or surprised (according as they were sincere or not in the accusation), if they had heard the sentiments expressed both by my mother and sisters on the subject."

Taking all these things into account, I think it is not unfair to put an autobiographical construction on the _Travels of an Irish Gentleman_--which, although dedicated to the People of Ireland as a "defence of their ancient national faith by their devoted servant the Editor of 'Captain Rock's Memoirs,'" is, like that earlier work, couched in a tone of irony, and opens with a "Soliloquy up Two Pair of Stairs:"--

"It was on the evening of the 16th day of April, 1829--the very day on which the memorable news reached Dublin of the Royal a.s.sent having been given to the Catholic Relief Bill--that, as I was sitting alone in my chambers, up two pair of stairs in Trinity College, being myself one of the everlasting 'Seven Millions' thus liberated, I started suddenly, after a few moments' reverie, from my chair, and taking a stride across the room, as if to make trial of a pair of emanc.i.p.ated legs, exclaimed, 'Thank G.o.d! I may now, if I like, turn Protestant.'"

It would be wrong to say that Moore, after emanc.i.p.ation had freed him "not only from the penalties attached to being a Catholic, but from the point of honour which had till then debarred me from being anything else," seriously contemplated a change of religion. I think, however, that on examining his consciousness, he found that up till this period he had defended his religious position to himself solely by the point of honour, and that, now the point of honour was removed, he felt it inc.u.mbent on him to be able to speak with his enemies in the gate. I believe also that the effect of his reading was to subst.i.tute for a somewhat vague Christianity a definite attachment to Catholicism. His earlier att.i.tude of mind is well expressed by the following pa.s.sage in his Diary--not the only one of its kind:--

"I sat up to read the account of Goethe's _Dr. Faustus_ in the _Edinburgh Magazine_, and before I went to bed experienced one of those bursts of devotion which perhaps are worth all the churchgoing forms in the world. Tears came fast from me as I knelt down to adore the one only G.o.d whom I acknowledge, and poured forth the aspirations of a soul deeply grateful for all His goodness."

That was written in Paris some five years before the conversation with his sister Kate. It seems to me improbable that, after the reading and writing which went to the _Travels of an Irish Gentleman_, he would have expressed himself quite in the same way as to the advantage of being able to make his children Protestants. And it is certain that in later life, though on the friendliest terms with the rector of his parish, he never attended service at the church.

The intention of the _Travels_ was, however, rather to furnish a weapon than to establish faith. In a pa.s.sage of the Diary (which, by the way, deprecates the complete identification of himself with his hero), he says:--

"My views concerning the superiority of the Roman Catholic Religion over the Protestant in point of antiquity, authority, and consistency agree with those of my hero, and I was induced to put them so strongly upon record from the disgust which I feel, and have ever felt, at the arrogance with which most Protestant parsons a.s.sume to themselves and their fellows the credit of being the only true Christians, and the insolence with which weekly from their pulpits they denounce all Catholics as idolaters and anti-Christ."

In short, this book, which he speaks of in a letter to Sir William Napier, his friend and neighbour, as "purely the indulgence of a hobby,"

was designed rather to annoy than to persuade. It was the attempt of an Irish Catholic, who felt increasingly his right and power to speak for his nation, to retort upon uncivil opponents not merely with argument but with derision. And for this purpose no plan could have been more effectual than the one which he chose of setting his young gentleman in the first instance, after his decision to be a Protestant, to search for the one true Protestantism.

Further than this it is unnecessary to go into the consideration of a forgotten piece of polemics, which only those will read who find, like Moore himself, "no subject so piquant as theology." His attainments in this branch of learning were considerable for a layman. We have seen that in 1814 he surprised Jeffrey by his article for the _Edinburgh_ on the Fathers of the Early Church; and in 1831, while the _Travels_ were in preparation, Murray astounded Milman by revealing to him that Moore was the author of an article on _German Rationalism_. Moreover, these appear to have been the only two of Moore's numerous contributions to the Whig quarterly in which he took pleasure. Reviewing, in the ordinary way, he describes as "work which I detest, and in consequence always do badly." But recondite learning always had a fascination for him, and the scholar in him grew with years.

The scholarly taste for historical research was unhappy in one of its consequences. As early as 1829, the Longmans projected a group of histories of the British Isles, in which England was to be treated by Sir James Mackintosh in three volumes, while Scott and Moore sketched, in a volume apiece, the story of their respective countries. Lord John Russell observes judiciously that had Moore kept to the restriction, the result might have been an easy, agreeable, and readable work. Unluckily, however, he obeyed rather his sense of what was needed in a history of Ireland than a perception of what he himself was fit to do, and the task, undertaken with alacrity, became a burden. Instead of one volume, it dragged out to four, of which the first appeared in 1835, and the last in 1846; and the work is wholly devoid of any original merit, bald and colourless. "His time," says Lord John, "was absorbed by it, his health worn, and his faculties dragged down to a wearisome and uncongenial task."

Yet this is to blame unreasonably Moore's choice of a subject. The truth is that, when he engaged on it, his mind had lost its elasticity and freshness of invention, from a variety of circ.u.mstances which must be considered in a review of the last period of his life.

At the same time, it was an honourable end to that long literary career.

The easy singer of light loves closed his ceaseless activities with a long period of drudgery, spent, says Lord John Russell, in "the critical examination of obscure authorities upon an obscure subject." But the obscure subject was the history of the singer's own country, and Moore was at least well justified in holding that urgent need existed for spreading among the English, and still more among the Irish, a knowledge of the history of Ireland.

[1] Probably Lord Moira. _See_ above, p. 55.

CHAPTER VI

THE DECLINE OF LIFE

I have now sketched to its close the later period of Moore's literary career; there remains to be set out the sad list of domestic troubles under which his health and intellect finally gave way. But first, it is pleasant to dwell upon some of the brighter circ.u.mstances which made middle age for him not the least enjoyable period of a life rich in enjoyment--and above all upon the indications, which he so highly valued, of Ireland's growing enthusiasm for her own poet.

Moore liked always "digito monstrari et dicier, 'Hic est'"; and his Journal abounds with records of his ingenuous satisfaction in such tributes. Here is an agreeable pa.s.sage, which brings not only the little poet, but his very adoring (and adorable) wife, before us:--

"Oct. 15, 1829. To Bath with Bessy, to make purchases, carpets, chimney pieces, etc., etc. In the carpet shop (in Milsom St.) where I gave a cheque for the money, and my signature betrayed who I was, a strong sensation evident through the whole establishment, to Bessy's great amus.e.m.e.nt; and at last the master of the shop (a very respectable-looking old person), after gazing earnestly at me for some time, approached me and said, 'Mr. Moore, I cannot say how much I feel honoured, etc., etc.,' and then requested that I would allow him to have the satisfaction of shaking hands with one 'to whom he was indebted for such etc., etc.' When we left the shop, Bessy said, 'What a nice old man! I was very near asking him whether he would like to shake hands with the poet's _wife_ too.'"

A far more conspicuous instance, however, of his "friendly fame" is afforded by the narrative of his expedition to Scotland, in the autumn of 1825, when the publication of his _Sheridan_ ent.i.tled him to a holiday, and Bessy insisted that he should take one. The purpose of the journey was to visit Sir Walter Scott, whom Moore had only once met, some twenty years earlier. There was no other guest in the house at Abbotsford, and Sir Walter, as Lockhart testified afterwards, enjoyed having Moore to himself, and gave up his mornings, usually sacred to work, in honour of the occasion. The liking between the two men was immediate, but none the less profound; and on the third day, the Diary notes that Scott said, "laying his hand cordially on my breast, 'Now, my dear Moore, we are friends for life.'" Neither friend had ever power to serve the other, but there is no pa.s.sage in Moore's memoirs more evidently sincere than that in which he expresses (only a few months later) his "deep and painful sympathy" in the news of Scott's financial misfortune:--"For poor devils like me (who have never known better) to f.a.g and to be pinched for means, becomes, as it were, a second nature; but for Scott, whom I saw living in such luxurious comfort, and dispensing such cordial hospitality, to be thus suddenly reduced to the necessity of working his way, is too bad, and I grieve for him from my heart."

But in 1825 all went gaily at Abbotsford, and Scott lionised his guest with enthusiasm--Jeffrey helping. In the Law Courts at Edinburgh Moore found himself "the greatest show of the place, and followed by crowds"; but the main demonstration took place when Scott conducted his guest to the theatre, and the whole pit immediately rose at them. Moore was compelled to bow his acknowledgments for two or three minutes, and the orchestra played Irish melodies after each act; all this to the vast delight of Scott, who, just fresh from cordialities in Ireland, was glad to see his countrymen return the compliment.

But it was in Ireland itself that Moore found himself feted and honoured with a kind of welcome such as seldom has been accorded to any man of letters. In 1830, the research for reminiscences of Lord Edward Fitzgerald gave him a reason to cross to Dublin for a long visit, and take his wife and boys to see his mother. Here, for the first and only time, Moore made a public appearance before a gathering of his countrymen a.s.sembled for a political purpose. A meeting had been called to celebrate the recent Revolution in France, and the poet was set down to second one of the resolutions. Eloquence was one of his accomplishments, and he appears to have enjoyed the excitement of feeling that "every word told on his auditory," who overwhelmed him with applause.

The meeting had special significance, as marking a definite political connection, which the character of his book on Lord Edward only emphasised when it came to be published. He had been brought into close touch with the leading Repealers, and expressed a general approbation of their objects--though he thought O'Connell's agitation for Repeal both premature and ill-judged. He was, in truth, hardly more in complete sympathy with the Irish leader than with his Whig friends, who seemed to display in office (which they now held) all the qualities which he had disliked in their predecessors. In Ireland, however, there was every disposition to minimise differences of opinion, and the public enthusiasm for his character and achievements expressed itself, in 1832, by an effort to induce him to enter Parliament.

Moore replied with a refusal, on the ground that his means were narrow and precarious, and that he could not spare the time; as indeed he might well say, for in this year he had been forced, not only to accept Marryat's offer of 500 for contributions to a magazine, but even to borrow (for the second time in his life) from a friend, Rogers.