At Mayfield, near Ashbourne, is a cottage where Moore, it is stated,
composed _Lalla Rookh_. "For some years this distinguished poet
lived at the neighbouring village of Mayfield; and there was no end to
the pleasantries and anecdotes that were floating about its coteries
respecting him; no limit to the recollections which existed of the
peculiarities of the poet, of the wit and drollery of the man. Go where
you would, his literary relics were pointed out to you. One family
possessed pens; and oh! Mr. Bramah! such pens! they would have borne a
comparison with Miss Mitford's; and those who are acquainted with that
lady's literary implements and accessaries will admit this is no
common-place praise--pens that wrote "Paradise and the Peri" in _Lalia
Rookh_! Another showed you a glove torn up into thin shreds in the
most even and regular manner possible; each shred being in breadth
about the eighth of an inch, and the work of the _teeth_! Pairs
were demolished in this way during the progress of the _Life of
Sheridan_. A third called your attention to a note written in a
strain of the most playful banter, and announcing the next "tragi-comedy
meeting." A fourth repeated a merry impromptu; and a fifth played a very
pathetic air, composed and adapted for some beautiful lines of Mrs.
Opie's. But to return to Mayfield. Our desire to go over the cottage
which he had inhabited was irresistible. It is neat, but very small, and
remarkable for nothing except combining a most sheltered situation with
the most extensive prospect. Still one had pleasure in going over it,
and peeping into the little book-room, ycleped the "Poet's Den," from
which so much true poetry had issued to delight and amuse mankind. But
our satisfaction was not without its portion of alloy. As we approached
the cottage, a figure scarcely human appeared at one of the windows.
Unaware that it was again inhabited, we hesitated about entering; when a
livid, half-starved visage presented itself through the lattice, and a
thin, shrill voice discordantly ejaculated,--"Come in, gentlemen, come
in. _Don't be afeard!_ I'm only a tailor at work on the premises."
This villanous salutation damped sadly the illusion of the scene;
and it was some time before we rallied sufficiently from this horrible
desecration to descend to the poet's walk in the shrubbery, where,
pacing up and down the live-long morning, he composed his _Lalla
Rookh_. It is a little confined gravel-walk, in length about twenty
paces; so narrow, that there is barely room on it for two persons to
walk abreast: bounded on one side by a straggling row of stinted
laurels, on the other by some old decayed wooden paling; at the end of
it was a huge haystack. Here, without prospect, space, fields, flowers,
or natural beauties of any description, was that most imaginative poem
conceived, planned, and executed. It was at Mayfield, too, that those
bitter stanzas were written on the death of Sheridan. There is a curious
circumstance connected with them; they were sent to Perry, the
well-known editor of the _Morning Chronicle_. Perry, though no
stickler in a general way, was staggered at the venom of two stanzas, to
which I need not more particularly allude, and wrote to inquire whether
he might be permitted to omit them. The reply which he received was
shortly this: "You may insert the lines in the _Chronicle_ or not,
as you please; I am perfectly indifferent about it; but if you _do_
insert them, it must be _verbatim_." Mr. Moore's fame would not
have suffered by their suppression; his heart would have been a gainer.
Some of his happiest efforts are connected with the localities of
Ashbourne. The beautiful lines beginning
"Those evening bells, those evening bells,"
were suggested, it is said, by hearing the Ashboume peal; and sweetly
indeed do they sound at that distance, "both mournfully and slow;" while
those exquisitely touching stanzas,
"Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb
In life's happy morning hath hid from our eyes,"
were avowedly written on the sister of an Ashbourne gentleman, Mr. P----
B----. But to his drolleries. He avowed on all occasions an utter horror
of ugly women. He was heard, one evening, to observe to a lady, whose
person was pre-eminently plain, but who, nevertheless, had been
anxiously doing her little endeavours to attract his attention,
"I cannot endure an ugly woman. I'm sure I could never live with one.
A man that marries an ugly woman cannot be happy." The lady observed,
that "such an observation she could not permit to pass without remark.
She knew many plain couples who lived most happily."--"Don't talk of
it," said the wit; "don't talk of it. It cannot be."--"But I tell you,"
said the lady, who became all at once both piqued and positive, "it can
be, and it is. I will name individuals so circumstanced. You have heard
of Colonel and Mrs. ----. She speaks in a deep, gruff bass voice;
he in a thin, shrill treble. She looks like a Jean Dorée; he like a
dried alligator. They are called Bubble and Squeak by some of their
neighbours; Venus and Adonis by others. But what of that? They are not
handsome, to be sure; and there is neither mirror nor pier-glass to be
found, search their house from one end of it to the other. But what of
that? No _unhandsome reflections_ can, in such a case, be cast by either
party! I know them well; and a more harmonious couple I never met with.
Now, Mr. Moore, in reply, what have you to say? I flatter myself I have
overthrown your theory completely." "Not a whit. Colonel--has got into a
scrape, and, like a soldier, puts the best face he can upon it." Those
still exist who were witnesses to his exultation when one morning he
entered Mrs----'s drawing-room, with an open letter in his hand, and,
in his peculiarly joyous and animated manner, exclaimed, "Don't be
surprised if I play all sorts of antics! I am like a child with a new
rattle! Here is a letter from my friend Lord Byron, telling me he has
dedicated to me his poem of the 'Corsair.' Ah, Mrs.----, it is nothing
new for a poor poet to dedicate his poem to a great lord; but it is
something passing strange for a great lord to dedicate his book to
a poor poet." Those who know him most intimately feel no sort of
hesitation in declaring, that he has again and again been heard to
express regret at the earlier efforts of his muse; or reluctance in
stating, at the same time, as a fact, that Mr. M., on two different
occasions, endeavoured to repurchase the copyright of certain poems;
but, in each instance, the sum demanded was so exorbitant, as of itself
to put an end to the negotiation. The attempt, however, does him honour.
And, affectionate father as he is well known to be, when he looks at his
beautiful little daughter, and those fears, and hopes, and cares, and
anxieties, come over him which almost choke a parent's utterance as he
gazes on a promising and idolized child, he will own the censures passed
on those poems to be just: nay more--every year will find him more and
more sensible of the paramount importance of the union of female purity
with female loveliness--more alive to the imperative duty, on a
father's part, to guard the maiden bosom from the slightest taint of
licentiousness. It is a fact not generally suspected, though his last
work, "The Epicurean," affords strong internal evidence of the truth of
the observation, that few are more thoroughly conversant with Scripture
than himself. Many of Alethe's most beautiful remarks are simple
paraphrases of the sacred volume. He has been heard to quote from it
with the happiest effect--to say there was no book like it--no book,
regarding it as a mere human composition, which could on any subject
even "approach it in poetry, beauty, pathos, and sublimity." Long may
these sentiments abide in him! And as no man, to use his _own_ words,
"ever had fiercer enemies or firmer friends"--as no man, to use those of
others, was ever more bitter and sarcastic as a political enemy, more
affectionate and devoted as a private friend, the more deeply his future
writings are impregnated with the spirit of that volume, the more
heartfelt, let him be well assured, will be his gratification in that
hour when "we shall think of those we love, only to regret that we have
not loved more dearly, when we shall remember our enemies only to
forgive them."
* * * * *