WORK AS BIOGRAPHER AND CONTROVERSIALIST
After his return from Paris to England, once the task was accomplished
of seeing his two books of verse, serious and comic, through the press,
Moore turned naturally to resume the _Life of Sheridan_ which he had
been obliged to drop during his stay on the Continent, remote from all
the living sources of information. But the business of collecting
material was a long one; the claims of the Sheridan family for a share
in profits were not yet settled; and in the summer of 1823 Moore
accepted an invitation which led to a new literary undertaking, carried
through before the _Sheridan_. This was a proposal from the Lansdownes
that he should accompany them on a tour through Ireland.
The party met in Dublin, and a characteristic little episode is recorded
in the Diary. Moore's mother wanted to see her son's distinguished
friend, but was shy of a visit from him; so it was arranged that Lord
Lansdowne should be walked past the windows where the old couple sat at
watch, while he and the poet waved their salutations.
On the way south Moore revived memories of his courtship by a visit to
Kilkenny. "Happy times!" he notes, "but not more happy than those which
I owe to the same dear girl still." Further south, alarming rumours
began to come in, telling of secret organisation among the peasantry,
and of the ascendency of "Captain Rock," a mysterious individual in
whose name orders and threatening letters were then issued. Killarney
charmed Moore with its loveliness, but we find sympathetic observations
also concerning Lord Lansdowne's trouble with his Kerry tenants,
occasioned by their habits of sub-letting, rearing large families, and
so forth. Altogether, the Journal is written by one who sees keenly the
oppression of tithes, but on all other matters wears a landlord's
spectacles; and this criticism was made sharply, and with justice, in an
answer to the book which resulted from this journey.
Moore came back with his head full of material, and set to work reading
for a projected narrative of his tour; but after a couple of weeks, the
brilliant idea occurred to him of converting it into a _History of
Captain Rock and his Ancestors_. The project expanded a good deal as he
wrote, and six months' work resulted in a considerable volume, of which
the first part was a review of Irish history, which showed with
ingenious irony how well English policy, from the first enactments of
Henry II. against Irish dress, has been adapted to perpetuate the type
and breed of Captain Rock. It was the first book which Moore had written
in prose, and nowhere else in his prose writings was he so lavish of
wit. I may cite a couple of examples.
"My unlucky countrymen," says Captain Rock (for the Captain was the
nominal author of his own Memoirs) "have always had a taste for
justice--a taste as inconvenient to them, situated as they have
always been, as a taste for horse-racing would be to a Venetian."
"Our Irish rulers have always proceeded in proselytism on the
principle of a wedge with its wrong side foremost.... The courteous
address of Launcelot to the young Jewess, 'Be of good cheer, for
truly I think thou art damned,' seems to have been the model on
which the Protestant Church has founded all its conciliatory
advances to Catholics."
The broad facts of English misrule in Ireland were not then staled by
much repetition, and Moore's statement of them was read with eagerness.
In execution the book was faulty, the irony being ill sustained towards
the latter part, where it touched contemporary topics. But the success
was brilliant, and from Almack's to Holland House Moore heard nothing
but its praises. Naturally enough, it made its way in Ireland; "the
people through the country are subscribing their sixpences and shillings
to buy a copy," a Dublin bookseller wrote; and the Catholics of Drogheda
forwarded a formal expression of gratitude, which pleased Moore the
better as he "rather feared the Catholics would not take very cordially
to the work, owing to some infidelities to their religion which break
out now and then in it." And, in truth, the tone is throughout that of
one who rather deplores the employment of tyranny to frighten Irish
Catholics out of their religion than dislikes the idea of a change of
faith. Politically speaking, however, the tone of the book was firm
enough. Moore, like most Irishmen, had little knowledge of Irish
history, and only began to read it when he had to instruct others in its
lessons. Whether because of its effect on his mind, or because _Captain
Rock_ gave him a reputation in Ireland, which he dearly valued, as the
champion of Irish liberties, it is certain that from this time onward
the direction of his mind was increasingly towards Irish subjects.
He had felt the attraction earlier. A letter to Corry, written when
_Lalla Rookh_ was nearly completed, says: "I have some thoughts of
undertaking a very voluminous work about Ireland (if properly encouraged
by _patres nostri_--the Longmans), and this will require my residence
for at least two or three years in or near Dublin." Nothing came of the
project, which was perhaps not strongly formed; and in any case he was
drawn away from it by the enforced move to France. And although one can
trace, from the publication of _Captain Rock_ onward, a steady bent of
purpose in him to use his pen in the service of his country, he was a
second time driven out of his course by an unforeseen event. In the
midst of the Captain's triumphs, while editions were rapidly succeeding
each other, a great stroke of misfortune fell on Moore. Byron died; and
the depositary of his Memoirs was immediately plunged into a most
embarrassing situation.
The case about this famous document may be briefly stated. In October
1819, Byron handed Moore the first portion of it, as a gift which would
ultimately be of value; and in 1821 he sent the remainder to his friend
in Paris, making the suggestion that money might be raised on it by
anticipation. This was accordingly done, and, in September 1821, Murray
agreed to pay two thousand guineas, and took the manuscript into his
keeping. Part of this money was applied in settlement of the Bermuda
claims, and in November of that year Moore signed a deed making over the
property. This deed was submitted to Byron, and Byron signed an
assignment of the manuscript to Murray. Scarcely was the transaction
completed, when scruples were aroused in Moore by Lord Holland's saying
that he wished the money could have been got in any other way. Lord
Holland's objection, as Moore states it (though expressly in his own
words) was, that it seemed like depositing in cold blood a quiver of
poisoned arrows for use in future warfare upon private character. Moore
protested against this view of the document, and Lord Holland, who had
read the manuscript, could recall nothing admitting of such a
description, except a passage relating to Mme de Staël, and a charge
against Sir Samuel Romilly--both of which, Moore pointed out, could be
omitted or neutralised in editing for publication, as he had reserved
the right to do. Nevertheless, the scruple wrought in him, and in the
following April (1822) he approached Murray with a request that the deed
of sale should be cancelled, and replaced by an agreement converting the
transaction into a loan, with the manuscript held as security till Moore
should be able to repay. An agreement on these lines was accordingly
drawn up, and Moore's conscience was relieved. He expresses strongly in
his Diary his feeling of satisfaction that the control of the matter was
again in his own hands.
In the succeeding year he appears to have arranged that the Longmans
should take over the debt (and presumably the security), advancing him
the means to repay Murray; and on May 13th one of the firm mentioned
that the money was ready. On the 14th it was too late; news of Byron's
death reached London; and that evening Moore received a note from
Douglas Kinnaird "anxiously inquiring in whose possession the Memoirs
were, and saying that he was ready on the part of Lord Byron's family
to advance the £2000 for the manuscript, in order to give Lady Byron and
the rest of the family an opportunity of deciding whether they wished
them to be published or no."
Moore soon learned that Murray, immediately on hearing the news, had
gone to Wilmot Horton, offering to place the Memoirs at the disposal of
the family, without recognising that Moore had any voice in the matter.
Moore went to Hobhouse and explained his view of the situation, which
was that nothing could be done without his consent; and he substantiated
his view by recalling a clause which he had inserted in the
draft-agreement. This gave him a period of three months, in case of
Byron's death, in which to raise the money. The agreement had never been
formally completed, and the draft could not be found. But Murray
admitted in principle Moore's claim, and expressed himself ready to
comply with the arrangement, provided his money were repaid in full,
with interest. The manuscript could then be disposed of, as Moore
suggested, by placing it in the hands of "Lord Byron's dearest friend,
his sister, Augusta Leigh."
From the proposal that the work should be placed at the disposal of Lady
Byron, Moore dissented altogether; it would be treachery, he said (and
Hobhouse agreed), to Byron's intentions and wishes. He also strongly
opposed the view, put forward by Hobhouse and Kinnaird, that Mrs. Leigh
ought "to burn the manuscript altogether without any previous perusal or
deliberation." This, he said, was to treat it as if it were a pest-bag,
whereas, "although the second part was full of very coarse things, the
first contained (with the exception of about three or four lines)
nothing which on the score of decency might not be safely published."
Matters were at this point on May 15th, and on the 16th a meeting took
place at Murray's between Moore, Hobhouse, and Mr. Wilmot Horton and
Colonel Doyle, the last two representing Mrs. Leigh. The agreement
between Moore and Murray had not yet been found, and discussion was
conducted on the assumption that Moore had a controlling voice in the
matter. Thus, although, as it was subsequently decided, Byron's formal
sanction of the assignment of the property to Murray would have rendered
the later agreement inoperative, Moore has full right to praise or blame
for the consent which he gave to the step taken at this memorable
meeting; when, as the world knows, after a very quarrelsome scene, the
manuscript was formally destroyed by Mrs. Leigh's representatives.
It does not appear that any one of the parties concerned in the act felt
in the least that they were depriving Byron of a posthumous
justification of his own career. Moore, in all the references to this
Memoir, treats it solely as a piece of literature, and Lord John
Russell, who had read most, if not all, of the composition, simply says
that it "contained little trace of Byron's genius and no interesting
details of his life." Those who were eager for suppression appear to
have been influenced by the desire to avoid scandal; and the notion was
widespread, for Moore, after the affair, was congratulated on having
"saved the country from a pollution." His most serious objection to
destroying the MS. rested on the support which such an action would give
to this view of what Byron had written.
But the objection was not strong enough to induce him to jeopardise his
own character. Moore's hands were tied in the transaction by the fact
that he stood to lose two thousand guineas if the MS. were destroyed,
and would avoid this loss if his own opinion, favouring publication,
were adopted. Whoever opposed publication in the discussion at Murray's,
had merely to hint that Moore's advocacy was interested, and pride would
at once constrain the needy poet to consent to the holocaust.
The two persons who stood to lose in the matter were Moore and Murray,
and both made a creditable sacrifice. Murray resigned his chances of a
considerable profit. But Moore incurred deliberately a ruinous burden of
debt. Even so, his sensitive conscience was not quite clear as to the
justification of his act; but Hobhouse appears to have decided him by
saying that Byron had more than once expressed a regret at having put
the Memoirs out of his own power, and had only been prevented from
reclaiming them by his dislike to taking back a gift.
Moore's need for consulting on points of honour did not end with the
burning of the MS. Byron's family were anxious to repay him the money
which he had paid to Murray before the cremation; and, not unnaturally,
Lord Lansdowne and other friends urged him to accept. But he refused
persistently to do so, though one adviser after another forced him to
postpone for a week the irrevocable step of publishing his account of
the transaction in the papers. His view was, that his duty had been to
surrender the trust into the hands most proper to receive it, and that
he could keep at least the credit of having made a sacrifice in order to
do so. With this credit he refused to part; and he notes that he had
little trouble in bringing his men of business, the Longmans, to take
his view of the matter, but could not so easily persuade Lord Lansdowne,
with Rogers and the rest, that a poor man ought to act on the same
principles as if he were rich. It should be remembered to Moore's credit
that he on many occasions followed his own sense of honour when he might
have pleaded the advice of most honoured and honourable persons for
adopting another course.
Friends of Moore's fame will rejoice that he acted in so scrupulous a
spirit, but the necessity is to be deplored. The heavy load of debt thus
thrown upon him forced him into producing too much. It also made it
practically inevitable that he should recoup himself for this loss by
undertaking the most lucrative task that offered--namely, a biography of
Byron; yet he was uncertain for a considerable time whether the thing
ought to be done, and, if done, whether he was the right person to do
it. Even when his mind was clear of these perplexities--which Hobhouse
strengthened by dissuading him from the task--there was a long period of
suspense for which Murray was answerable. During three years Moore was
distracted, anxious, and uneasy, unable to settle down to any important
work.
For the present, however, once the Byron business was settled, his mind
and his hands were full. It had been finally settled that the Longmans,
and not Murray, should be the publishers of the _Life of Sheridan_; they
undertaking, not only to pay Moore a thousand guineas, but to give the
Sheridan family half profits, once 2500 copies had been disposed. Moore
went resolutely to work, and in October of the next year the book made
its appearance, and succeeded beyond expectation. The Longmans expressed
their sense of its merits by adding £300 to the stipulated thousand.
The _Life of Sheridan_ did not interest contemporaries mainly as a piece
of biography. Many references to traits and stories of the dramatist and
statesman, which occur in the Diary, make it plain that Moore had
conceived an opinion of Sheridan by no means wholly favourable, and
biography of the unsparing order was not a task which he would have
undertaken. His aim was to outline Sheridan's career, rather than to
paint the man, and consequently the book's main value lay in the
historical view which it gave of the past fifty years. On this Moore was
congratulated by so good a judge as Jeffrey, and he had a right to feel
that his claim was established to rank with serious political thinkers.
Yet even before this, he was by no means regarded merely as a person of
quick fancy and lively talent. It was proposed that he should join
Jeffrey in editing the _Edinburgh_; and, still more remarkable, in 1822
the proprietors of the _Times_ invited him to replace Barnes for six
months in conducting their paper. Moore refused the offer (which was
made at the suggestion of Rogers), but felt highly gratified; and from
his return to England he was a constant contributor to the _Times_,
sending there all his satiric verses. Their popularity was so great that
the proprietors authorised Barnes to pay Moore a retainer of £400 a
year; and up to 1828 this source of income, with the annuity from Power,
was his main revenue. It was precarious, however; for the _Times_
sometimes took a tone in handling Irish topics which made it difficult
for Moore to continue the connection, and in 1827 he formally closed it.
It was renewed, however, after Barnes made a tour in Ireland (carrying
introductions from Moore), and returned ready "to support the Irish
cause with all his might."
Indeed, the best work of the three years 1825-8 is to be found in the
_Odes on Cash, Corn, and Catholics_, nearly all of which were
contributed to the _Times_. The first "evening" of _Evenings in Greece_,
and the fifth and sixth numbers of _National Airs_, which were the work
done for Power at this period, have little in them but fluent verse; and
even less can be said for the work which Moore took up as a _pièce de
résistance_, his discarded Egyptian story, which he now completed as a
prose romance. In _The Epicurean_ we have the last and by no means
sprightly runnings of the vein which produced _Lalla_ and the _Loves of
the Angels_: an imagination feeding itself on marvels read of in books,
and producing literature which appealed to curiosity more than to any
other instinct. The description of the Egyptian mysteries seen by the
young philosopher, who goes to the land of pyramids and catacombs in
search of new truth, is frigid in the extreme; and the flashes of
genuine poetry which redeem _Lalla_ and _The Angels_ find no place in
this very bad example of deliberately poetic prose. Nevertheless its
oversweetened eloquence found plenty of readers, and the book realised
£700 to its author,--of which, however, £500 had already been
anticipated, independently of the main debt, the two thousand guineas.
One may note here a very curious scruple of literary conscience which
Moore adhered to with surprising consistency. Although heavily in debt,
and forced to make every penny by sheer production, he constantly set
aside a means, which for at least ten years was constantly open to him,
of earning money with little labour. His reputation then stood at its
highest point; he was not only high in favour with the frequenters of
Holland House, but also with the whole fashionable world and its far-off
imitators. A single trait--which, with his usual naïve pleasure in
instances of his own popularity, he records--may illustrate the matter.
At a country ball, a young lady who was fortunate enough to shake hands
with the poet "wrapped the hand up in her shawl, saying no one else
should touch it that night." Fame of this sort is very marketable, and
to-day would bring its owner big offers from the popular magazines.
Their equivalent in those days was found in the annuals of the type of
the _Forget-me-not_, _Souvenir_, etc.; and request after request was
made to Moore for his name either as editor or contributor. The Longmans
proposed to undertake such a publication, and tempted him with the
prospects of £500 to £1000 a year if he would edit it. He replied, not
with a direct refusal, but with a letter stating his views concerning
literature of this class, which not only convinced the firm that he
personally would injure his reputation by accepting, but decided them to
abandon the scheme. Again, about 1827, Heath the engraver offered, first
£500 and subsequently £700 a year to Moore if he would edit a new album
or magazine, and at the same time tried to force on him a cheque for a
hundred pounds as the price of a contribution of a hundred lines. But
Moore was not to be tempted. Only once in his career did he depart from
what his sense of the dignity of letters demanded, and that was at a
time when he had brought himself low in purse by writing books to
express his convictions, and refusing commissions that would have
brought in large sums. His scruple, which nowadays seems strangely
demoded, is the more respectable because he never hints a word of blame
for those who did not share that "horror of Albumising, Annualising, and
Periodicalising which my one inglorious surrender (and for base money
too) has but confirmed me in." Characteristically enough, however, he
did for courtesy what he so often refused to do for profit, and waived
the scruple in favour of his old and beautiful friend Lady Blessington,
to whom he thus expressed himself. He sent her some verses for her _Book
of Beauty_, which are among the latest and by no means the worst that he
wrote.
In 1827, however, at a time when nothing was yet settled as to the _Life
of Byron_, his refusal of the inducements held out by Heath and the
Longmans was not his only example of constancy to a point of honour.
Letters apprised him in December 1826 that his father's death could not
be long deferred, and when he reached Dublin the old man was too far
gone to see or recognise his son. It is characteristic of Moore that he
counted this to be a great relief, "as I would not for worlds have the
sweet impression he left upon my mind when I last saw him exchanged for
one which would haunt me, I know, dreadfully through all the remainder
of my life." This morbid shrinking from actual physical impressions of
pain or horror was a marked trait of the man, and not a manly one; it
was doubtless closely connected with his temperamental liability to
uncontrollable bursts of emotion. Nevertheless it was a thing hardly
more within his will-power than is the common tendency to turn faint at
the sight of blood; and in other respects he made up for it by
exhibiting a noble staunchness. The death of his father was a heavy
blow, as making the first gap in a family so closely linked by
affection; but a man at forty-seven must be prepared to lose his
parents, and the actual trouble of so quiet a death in the fulness of
age would soon have passed naturally. But John Moore's pension died with
him, and his son, already sufficiently embarrassed, found his mother and
sister added to his other charges. The burden could have been avoided;
for Lord Wellesley, then Viceroy, at once signified a wish to continue
the half-pay pension to Moore's sister, out of a fund which he, as
Lord-Lieutenant, could dispose of without reference to England, where
the King might reasonably be presumed unfriendly to such a favour. "All
this," Moore notes, "very kind and liberal of Lord Wellesley; and God
knows how useful such an aid would be to me, as God alone knows how I am
to support all the burdens now heaped upon me; but _I could not_ accept
such a favour. It would be like that _lasso_ with which they catch wild
animals in South America; the noose would only be on the _tip_ of the
horn, it is true, but it would do."
He found himself again approved in his action by men of business (Power
the publisher and various Irish friends) but censured by Lord Lansdowne.
His answer was ready, however. _The Life of Sheridan_, with its
outspoken strictures on certain passages in Whig policy, had not been
altogether relished at Bowood, and Moore was for once not sorry, since
the lack of approbation proved the independence of his attitude. And it
was now easy for him to say that, since Lord Lansdowne had described his
last published book as too conciliatory to the Tories, any favour coming
to its author from a Tory government would certainly be construed by
unfriendly judges as the price of this civility.
At last, however, the long negotiations about Byron's Life and Letters
came to a conclusion. Moore, whose debt was to the Longmans, and who was
moreover bound to them by gratitude for much real friendliness, inclined
to write the _Life_ for them, and an arrangement to that effect was
made. But in February 1828, when Murray, who held the great bulk of the
material, finally made up his mind to secure Moore's services, if
possible, both as editor and biographer, the Longmans, with their
accustomed liberality, waived their claim. It was settled that Moore
should receive 4000 guineas, of which sum half was to be advanced, to
pay off his debt to the Longmans. And thus, after many efforts, he got,
for a time at least, level with the world.
The work once undertaken went on fast--Moore working, he writes, "as
hard as it is in my nature to work at anything"--and by the end of 1829
the first of two quarto volumes was ready for publication. In his
prefatory note to the second volume, which shortly followed, Moore--whom
Byron called "the only modest author he had ever known"--attributed the
success of the work to the interest of the subject and the materials.
There is no denying that his modesty was in this case justified. The
_Life of Byron_ has probably been more read than any biography in the
language, with the single exception of Boswell's; yet it has no claim to
rank, for instance, with Lockhart's masterpiece as a literary
achievement. Moore's task was simply to weave together a chain of
narrative from the copious materials presented to him by the poet's
journals, letters, and, not least, by his poems. His work was, however,
hampered by the necessity of sparing sensibilities, and we have
frequently to wish that he had been less discreet. Nevertheless, upon
the whole, a very difficult undertaking was carried through with supreme
tact, with well-practised dexterity, and, above all, with a most
commendable absence of pretension. Beyond the skilled selection and
grouping of materials, Moore's part is very considerable. It amounts to
a very acute exposition of the Byron whom he had known--a man wholly
unlike the popular conception of him. Naturally enough, the work has the
character of a defence or justification, and as such it is loyal and
sincere. Moore never goes back on his friend. But there were in that
friend's character certain elements which he disliked, and in his
intellect ranges which he did not fully comprehend; and we feel always
that the Byron whom Moore best understands is the Byron of earlier days,
the writer of vehement romance and impassioned soliloquy--a Byron who
had not yet come to the full scope of his powers. This also was natural
enough, for Moore's personal intercourse with Byron practically ended
when Byron married.
Their friendship began, drolly enough, as has been already mentioned,
out of a cartel resulting from another challenge. In 1809, Moore saw
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, and had no special cause to
quarrel with the attack upon his own work. Little,
"The young Catullus of his day,
As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay,"
might regard the attack as verging on a tribute; and indeed Little's
poems were among Byron's earliest favourites and models in verse. But
Moore was choleric; he did not like to hear himself entitled the
"melodious advocate of lust"; and further on he came upon a passage
which touched him on a sensitive point. His abortive duel with Jeffrey
furnished too obvious material for the satirist to miss--above all, when
Jeffrey was the special mark--and accordingly Moore found the following
reference to it:--
"Can none remember that eventful day,
That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little's leadless pistol met the eye,
And Bow Street's myrmidons stood laughing by?"
A note was appended, stating that, in the duel at Chalk Farm, "on
examination, the balls of the pistols were found to have evaporated."
The satire being anonymous, Moore, though sufficiently vexed, took no
steps; but when a second edition was issued with Byron's name, he wrote
from Ireland to the author, saying that in the note "the lie was given"
to his own public statement, published in the _Times_ concerning the
duel, and demanding to know whether Byron would "avow the insult."
This letter, as Moore soon learnt, had not reached its address, for
Byron had gone abroad; but he was told that Hodgson had undertaken to
forward it. Nothing more was heard, and Moore let things rest till a
year and a half later, when Byron returned from abroad. Moore had in the
meantime married, and was about to become a father; he was therefore, as
he admits, inclined to be conciliatory, but none the less determined to
push the matter to an explanation. Referring to the previous letter,
which he assumed to have miscarried, he re-stated his grievance in
writing, but then continued:--
"It is now useless to speak of the steps with which it was my
intention to follow up that letter. The time which has elapsed
since then, though it has done away neither the injury nor the
feeling of it, has in many respects materially altered my
situation; and the only object which I have now in writing to your
Lordship is to preserve some consistency with that former letter,
and to prove to you that the injured feeling still exists, however
circumstances may compel me to be deaf to its dictates at present.
When I say 'injured feeling,' let me assure your Lordship 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 friendship 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
friendship, 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 friendship, 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 friendship had been begun
when Moore was already rich in friendships and happy in a home, while
Byron was moody and lonely in a world against which he cherished
grievances; and this new companionship filled a large space 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 fashion, 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
assemblies to lobsters and brandy and water at Stevens's in Bond Street.
Their friendship 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 comradeship, 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 shore
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 passing mood, and
it is clear that Moore was always proud of the friendship; he is quick
to write down Lord Clare's assurance (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 substitution of what
he affected to be for what he was. Of any partiality, however,
beyond what our mutual friendship 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 illustrate 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 gratitude 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 illustrates 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
emancipating the Catholics or on the Reform Bill. It is sufficiently
evident, however, from other passages, 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 anticipate." 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 passed, Moore would have lived and died a staunch Reformer.
But the passing 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 associate 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 éclat 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,
unobtrusive in these days; and, although a note in the journals of
travel mentions the effect always produced on him by the celebration of
Mass, 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 passage, 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 Assent
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 emancipated legs, exclaimed, 'Thank God! I may now, if
I like, turn Protestant.'"
It would be wrong to say that Moore, after emancipation 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
incumbent on him to be able to speak with his enemies in the gate. I
believe also that the effect of his reading was to substitute for a
somewhat vague Christianity a definite attachment to Catholicism. His
earlier attitude of mind is well expressed by the following passage 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 God 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 passage 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
assume 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 circumstances 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.