It is now generally understood that the first poetic effusion of Thomas
Moore was entrusted to a publication entitled _Anthologia Hibernica_, which
held its monthly existence from Jan. 1793 to December 1794, and is now a
repertorium of the spirited efforts made in Ireland in that day to
establish periodical literature. The set is complete in four volumes: and
being anxious to see if I could trace the "fine Roman" hand of him whom his
noble poetic satirist, and after fast friend, Byron, styled the "young
Catullus of his day," I went to the volumes, and give you the result.
No trace of Moore appears in the volume containing the first six months of
the publication; but in the "List of Subscribers" in the second, we see
"_Master_ Thomas Moore;" and as we find this designation changed in the
fourth volume to "_Mr._ Thomas Moore, Trinity College, Dublin!" (a boy with
a black ribband in his collar, being as a collegian an "_ex officio_
man!"), we may take it for ascertained that we have arrived at the
well-spring of those effusions which have since flowed in such sparkling
volumes among the poetry of the day.
Moore's first contribution is easily identified; for it is prefaced by a
note, dated "Aungier Street, Sept. 11, 1793," which contains the usual
request of insertion for "_the attempts of a youthful muse_," &c., and is
signed in the semi-incognito style, "Th-m-s M--re;" the writer fearing,
doubtless, lest his fond mamma should fail to recognise in _his own copy_
of the periodical the performance of her little precocious Apollo.
This contribution consists of two pieces, of which we have room but for the
first: which is a striking exemplification (in subject at least) of
Wordsworth's aphorism, that "the child is father to the man." It is a
sonnet addressed to "Zelia," "_On her charging the author with writing too
much on Love!_" Who _Zelia_ was--whether a lineal ancestress of Dickens's
"Mrs. Harris," or some actual grown up young lady, who was teased by, and
tried to check the chirpings of the little {566} precocious singing
bird--does not appear: but we suspect the former, for this sonnet is
immediately followed by "A Pastoral Ballad!" calling upon some _Celia_
unknown to "pity his tears and complaint," &c., in the usual namby-pamby
style of these compositions. To any one who considers the smart,
_espiegle_, highly artificial style of "Tom Moore's" after compositions,
his "Pastoral Ballad" will be what Coleridge called his Vision, a
"psychological curiosity."
Passing on through the volumes, in the Number for February 1794 we find a
paraphrase of the Fifth Ode of Anacreon, by "Thomas Moore;" another short
poem in June 1794, "To the Memory of Francis Perry, Esq.," signed "T. M.,"
and dated "Aungier Street." These are all which can be identified by
outward and visible signs, without danger of mistake: but there are a
number of others scattered through the volumes which I conjecture may be
his; they are under different signatures, generally T. L., which may be
taken to stand for the _alias_ "Thomas Little," by which Moore afterwards
made himself so well known. There is an "Ode to Morning," in the Number for
March 1794, above the ordinary run of magazine poetry. And in the Number
for May following are "Imitations from the Greek" and Italian, all under
this same signature. And this last being derived from some words in
Petrarch's will, bequeathing his lute to a friend, is the more curious; and
may the more probably be supposed Moore's, as it contains a thought which
is not unlikely to have suggested in after years the idea of his celebrated
melody, entitled the "Bard's Legacy." The Number for Nov. 1794, last but
one in the fourth volume, contains a little piece on "Variety," which
independent of a T. M. signature, I would _almost swear_, from internal
evidence, to be Moore's; it is the last in the series, and indicates such
progress as two years might be supposed to give the youthful poet, from the
lack-a-daisical style of his first attempts, towards that light, brilliant,
sportive vein of humour in which he afterwards wrote "What the Bee is to
the Flowret," &c., and other similar compositions. I now give Moore's first
sonnet, including its footnote, reminding us of the child's usual
explanatory addition to his first drawing of some amorphous animal--"This
is a horse!" or "a bear!" as the case may be. Neither the _metre_ nor the
_matter_ would prepare us for the height to which the writer afterwards
scaled "the mountain's height of Parnassus:"
"TO ZELIA.
(_On her charging the Author with writing too much on Love._)
'Tis true my Muse to love inclines,
And wreaths of Cypria's myrtle twines;
Quits all aspiring, lofty views,
And chaunts what Nature's gifts infuse:
Timid to try the mountain's* height,
Beneath she strays, retir'd from sight,
Careless, culling amorous flowers;
Or quaffing mirth in Bacchus' bowers.
When first she raised her simplest lays
In Cupid's never-ceasing praise,
The God a faithful promise gave--
That never should she feel Love's stings,
Never to burning passion be a slave,
But feel the purer joy _thy_ friendship brings.
* Parnassus!"
If you think this fruit of a research into a now almost forgotten work,
which however contains many matters of interest (among the rest, "The
Baviad of Gifford"), worth insertion, please put it among "N. & Q.;" it may
incite others to look more closely, and perhaps trace other "disjecta
membra poetae."