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 circumstances 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 passage, 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 amusement; 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_ entitled 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 passage 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
fag 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 fêted 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 assembled 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.
Curiously enough, a second proposal of the same kind came to him from a
very different quarter. Lord Anglesey, then Viceroy, conveyed through a
third person his wish that Moore should stand for Dublin University, and
promised him all the Government support. In declining this offer on the
same grounds as he had alleged to the Limerick electors, Moore added a
very plain statement that, with the views he entertained, he could not
enter parliament under the sanction of that Government. The Whigs had
resorted to coercion, and "As long," he wrote, "as the principle on
which Ireland is at present governed shall continue to be acted on, I
can never consent to couple my name, humble as it is, with theirs."
The matter dropped then, so far as Government was concerned. But the
Limerick constituency was not so easily put off, although Moore had
explained to O'Connell--who was anxious to have the poet's
support--that he should never think of entering parliament except as a
purely unfettered representative. Such was the eagerness, that a scheme
was formed of purchasing an estate worth £300 a year in the county, and
presenting it to the poet; and after this proposal had been communicated
by letter, Gerald Griffin, author of _The Collegians_, came, along with
his brother, in person to Sloperton to urge its acceptance.
Moore was not prepared for the visit, but welcomed his guests. Part of
Gerald Griffin's account may be cited as showing an exceedingly able
young Irishman's attitude of mind towards the poet (_the_ poet), and the
impression which Moore left on him:--
"Oh, my dear L----, I saw the poet! and I spoke to him and he spoke
to me, and it was not to bid me 'get out of his way,' as the King
of France did to the man who boasted that his majesty had spoken to
him; but it was to shake hands with me and to ask me 'How I did,
Mr. Griffin?' and to speak of 'my fame.' _My_ fame! Tom Moore talk
of my fame! Ah the rogue, he was humbugging, L----, I'm afraid. He
knew the soft side of an author's heart, and perhaps he had pity on
my long, melancholy-looking figure, and said to himself, 'I will
make this poor fellow feel pleasant if I can,' for which, with all
his roguery, who could help liking and being grateful to him?...
..."We found our hero in his study, a table before him, covered
with books and papers, a draw half opened and stuffed with letters,
a piano also open at a little distance; and the thief himself, a
little man, but full of spirits, with eyes, hands, feet, and frame
for ever in motion, looking as if it would be a feat for him to sit
for three minutes quiet in his chair. I am no great observer of
proportions, but he seemed to me to be a neat-made little fellow,
tidily buttoned up, young as fifteen at heart, though with hair
that reminded me of 'Alps in the sunset'; not handsome perhaps, but
something in the whole cut of him that pleased me; finished as an
actor, but without an actor's affectation; easy as a gentleman, but
without _some_ gentlemen's formality; in a word, as people say when
they find their brains begin to run aground at the fag-end of a
magnificent period, we found him a hospitable, warm-hearted
Irishman, as pleasant as could be himself, and disposed to make
others so."
Nothing but civilities resulted from the interview. We learn from
Moore's Diary that he gave them dinner, and told them his opinion of
Repeal--which was, that separation must be considered as its inevitable
consequence. This startled his guests, and they disclaimed "all thoughts
and apprehensions" of such a result. "What strange short-sightedness!"
Moore exclaims. It may be noted that Moore was always exaggerated in his
estimate of consequences, and foretold the most prodigious upheavals as
a result of the Reform Bill. It is also to be noted, that in his
opinion, "so hopeless appeared the fate of Ireland under English
government, whether of Whigs or Tories," that he "would be almost
inclined to run the risk of Repeal even with separation as its too
certain consequence, being convinced that Ireland must go through some
violent and convulsive process before the anomalies of her present
position can be got rid of, and thinking such riddance well worth the
price, however dreadful would be the pain of it." So far was Moore from
thinking that Catholic Emancipation settled Ireland's claims in full.
His refusal to represent an Irish constituency was however definitely
conveyed to the envoys in a letter, written for publication, which after
grateful acknowledgment of the honour done him, and of the kindness
which had proposed a national subscription to provide him with the
necessary qualification, ended as follows:--
"Were I obliged to choose which should be my direct paymaster, the
government or the people, I should say without hesitation, the
people; but I prefer holding on my free course, humble as it is,
unpurchased by either; nor shall I the less continue, as far as my
limited sphere of action extends, to devote such powers as God has
gifted me with to that cause which has always been uppermost in my
heart, which was my first inspiration, and shall be my last--the
cause of Irish freedom."
Moore's friends with one accord congratulated him not only on the taste
of his letter, but on his decision. And indeed, quite apart from
considerations of money, his position in Parliament would have been
impossible. In agreement neither with Whigs nor Tories, he was hardly
more in sympathy with O'Connell's party; and he gave strong expression
to his feelings in a remarkable lyric included in the tenth and last
number of the _Irish Melodies_, published in 1834:--
"The dream of those days when first I sung thee is o'er,
Thy triumph hath stain'd the charm thy sorrows then wore;
And ev'n of the light which Hope once shed o'er thy chains,
Alas, not a gleam to grace thy freedom remains.
"Say, is it that slavery sunk so deep in thy heart,
That still the dark brand is there, though chainless thou art;
And Freedom's sweet fruit, for which thy spirit long burn'd,
Now, reaching at last thy lip, to ashes hath turn'd.
"Up Liberty's steep by Truth and Eloquence led,
With eyes on her temple fix'd, how proud was thy tread!
Ah, better thou ne'er hadst lived that summit to gain,
Or died in the porch, than thus dishonour the fane."
A footnote pointed the meaning in these words.
"Written in one of those moods of hopelessness and disgust which
come occasionally over the mind, in contemplating the present state
of Irish patriotism."
Not unnaturally, O'Connell was angry, and his friend Con Lyne wrote to
Moore, entreating "an alleviating word." Moore replied, the Journal
notes--
"that I was not surprised at O'Connell's feeling those verses, as I
had felt them deeply myself in writing them; but that they were
wrung from me by a desire to put on record (in the only work of
mine likely to reach after-times) that though going along, heart
and soul, with the great cause of Ireland, I by no means went with
the spirit or the manner in which that cause had been for a long
time conducted."
He admitted that, though the verses were addressed to Ireland, O'Connell
had a right to take them to himself, "as he is and has been for a long
time, to all public intents and purposes, Ireland." That was just what
Moore complained of. He disliked the removal of "all independent and
really public-spirited co-operators"; he regarded the position of this
"mighty unit of a legion of ciphers" as a threat to freedom, certain to
lead to an abuse of power. "Against such abuse of power, let it be
placed in what hands it might," he "had all his life revolted and would
to the last revolt." From the dignity of this really serious criticism
he detracted somewhat by adding that O'Connell's resolution against
duelling had done much "to lower the once high tone of feeling in
Ireland"; for he omitted to make the necessary observation that, when
O'Connell forswore duelling, he by no means forswore personal
vituperation. The letter contained no allusion to a feeling which
certainly was in Moore's mind when he wrote the verses--namely, his
dislike of the "annual stipend from the begging-box." But even without
this, it was an explanation ill calculated to alleviate, and Moore
thought that public feeling in Ireland might probably run strong against
him.
Ireland, however, was constant to her poet. In the next summer (1835) he
crossed to Dublin, when the British Association was meeting there, and
the demonstration when he was first seen in the theatre went beyond all
customary bounds and was not to be checked without a brief speech from
the box. But a more ceremonious ovation was to come. Moore decided to go
to Wexford to visit the home of his grand-parents, and he was to be the
guest of a Mr. Boyse who lived at Bannow. On the approach to this town
from Wexford--where Moore was met by his host--the party was encountered
by a cavalcade bearing green banners, and so escorted formally to a
series of triumphal arches, where a decorated car awaited the poet, with
Nine Muses ("some of them remarkably pretty girls") ready to place a
crown on his head. It had been arranged that the Muses should follow on
foot; but as the crowd pressed in, Moore made three of them get up on
the car. As they proceeded slowly along, with a band playing Irish
melodies, and the tune set to Byron's "Here's a health to thee, Tom
Moore," the hero turned to the pretty Muse behind him and said, "This is
a long journey for you." "'Oh, sir,' she exclaimed, with a sweetness and
kindness of look not to be found in more artificial life, 'I wish it was
more than three hundred miles.'"
Speeches followed, with dancing in the evening, and a green balloon
floated over the dancers, bearing to the skies, "Welcome, Tom Moore."
That evening there came an express from the Lady Superior of the
Presentation Convent at Wexford, begging for a visit to her community.
Thither accordingly Moore was taken next day, and, for a crowning
ceremony, planted with his own hands--"Oh Cupid, prince of gods and
men!"--a myrtle in the convent garden. No sooner was the plant in the
earth, than the gardener proclaimed, while filling up the hole, "This
will not be called _myrtle_ any longer, but the _Star of Airin_!" Well
may Moore ask, "Where is the English gardener chat would have been
capable of such a flight?"
Demonstrations of this organised character did not recur; but the
spontaneous outbursts of feeling manifested themselves, publicly and
privately, in ways often a little ridiculous, but not less often really
touching. When Moore next visited Ireland (in 1838) he went to the
theatre evidently with the purpose of making a speech, and the
opportunity was furnished with éclat: "There exists no title of honour
or distinction," he told them, "to which I could attach half so much
value as that of being called your poet--the poet of the people of
Ireland." Certainly the title was not grudged; and the people of Ireland
claimed a sort of proprietary right in their bard, as he found when he
embarked at Kingstown for his return.
"The packet was full of people coming to see friends off, and
amongst others was a party of ladies, who, I should think, had
dined on board, and who, on my being made known to them, almost
devoured me with kindness, and at length proceeded so far as to
insist on, each of them, _kissing_ me. At this time I was beginning
to feel the first rudiments of coming _sickness_, and the effort
to respond to all this enthusiasm, in such a state of stomach, was
not a little awkward and trying. However, I kissed the whole party
(about five, I think) in succession, two or three of them being,
for my comfort, young and good-looking, and was most glad to get
away from them to my berth, which through the kindness of the
captain (Emerson) was in his own cabin. But I had hardly shut the
door, feeling very qualmish, and most glad to have got over this
osculatory operation, when there came a gentle tap at the door, and
an elderly lady made her appearance, who said that having heard of
all that had been going on, she could not rest easy without being
also kissed as well as the rest. So, in the most respectful manner
possible, I complied with the lady's request, and then betook
myself with a heaving stomach to my berth."
A more modest and less embarrassing act of homage was brought to Moore's
notice in London by Panizzi. Among the labourers at work on the
buildings of the British Museum was a poor Irishman, who, learning that
Moore was sometimes to be seen there, offered a pot of ale to any one
who would point him out. Accordingly, next time Moore came, the Irishman
was taken to where he could get a sight of the poet, as he sat reading.
Such was his pleasure at being able to say "I have seen," that he
doubled the pot of ale to his conductor. Again, in 1842 Moore was coming
away from a public dinner with Washington Irving, and they found rain
falling and themselves in sore need of cab or umbrella.
"As we were provided with neither," Moore writes, "our plight was
becoming serious, when a common cad ran up to me and said: 'Shall I
get you a cab, Mr. Moore? Sure, ain't _I_ the man that patronises
your Melodies?' He then ran off in search of a vehicle, while
Irving and I stood close up, like a pair of male Caryatides under
the very narrow projection of a hall door-ledge, and thought at
last that we were quite forgotten by my patron. But he came
faithfully back, and while putting me into the cab (without minding
at all the trifle that I gave him for his trouble) he said
confidentially in my ear: 'Now mind, whenever you want a cab,
Misthur Moore, just call for Tim Flaherty, I'm your man.' Now this
I call _fame_, and of somewhat a more agreeable kind than that of
Dante, when the women in the street found him out by the marks of
hellfire on his beard."
Green balloons, effusive elderly spinsters and the rest, all had their
ridiculous side, and Moore was not slow to see it. But, taking these
merely as symptoms of a very genuine affection, one may conclude that he
had a fair right to feel in his country's gratitude a deep source of
strength and consolation. For the rest, the pleasures of friendship and
of society never failed him so long as he was able to enjoy them; and
his English friends, in the time when he most needed it, did him a real
service.
We have seen that he neither liked the measures of the Whig
administration--which included two of his intimates, Lord Lansdowne and
Lord John Russell, with many others of his friends--nor was in the least
disposed to conceal his dislike of them. Lord John wrote to say that he
was glad of Moore's decision not to enter Parliament, as it would pain
him to find his friend going into the opposite lobby. But he was none
the less inclined to serve Moore, and his first step showed an extreme
anxiety to propitiate the poet's easily alarmed scruples. He approached
Lord Melbourne, then Premier, with a proposal to bestow a pension on
Moore's sons. Melbourne replied, with great justice, that to make a
small provision for young men was only an encouragement to idleness, and
that whatever was done, should be done for Moore himself. When the
administration was reconstructed in July 1835, Lord John offered his
friend a place in the State Paper Office, which was declined, and Lord
Lansdowne then wrote, approving this refusal, but urging in the
strongest terms Moore's acceptance of a pension, "which," he said, "no
human being can blame the government for giving or you for accepting.
The administration is one of a more popular character as respects your
Irish opinions than any which has existed or is likely to exist; and
your literary reputation is so established that there is not a country
under the sun where literary rewards or distinctions exist in which you
would not be recognised as the first and most deserving object of them."
To this Moore replied that he would trust himself entirely to Lord
Lansdowne's guidance, and accordingly a letter reached him in Dublin,
saying that a pension of £300 a year had been granted him--the first
granted by the Administration. On his return from the festivities in
Bannow, a letter from Bessy awaited him, which is copied in the
Journal:--
"My dearest Tom,--Can it _really_ be true that you have a pension
of £300 a year? Mrs., Mr., two Misses and young Longman were here
to-day, and tell me it is really the case, and that they have seen
it in two papers. Should it turn out true, I know not how we can be
thankful enough to those who gave it, or to a Higher Power. The
Longmans were very kind and nice and so was _I_, and I invited them
_all five_ to come at some future time. At present I can think of
nothing but £300 a year, and dear Russell jumps and claps his hands
for joy.... If the story is true of the £300, pray give dear Ellen
£20, and _insist_ on her drinking £5 worth of wine _yearly_ to be
paid out of the £300 a year.... Is it true? I am in a fear of hope
and anxiety and feel very oddly. No one to talk to but sweet Buss,
who says, 'Now, Papa will not have to work so hard, and will be
able to go out a little.' ... _N.B._--If this good news be true, it
will make a great difference in my _eating_. I shall then indulge
in butter to potatoes. _Mind_ you do not tell this piece of
gluttony to _any_ one."
It is pleasant to think of this climax to all the exultation of the
Wexford processions. Moore was entitled to say to himself that he had
done yeoman's service to the principles for which a Whig administration
then stood, and yet had shown his complete independence of persons. What
he received, no man could say had been gained by any compromise with his
convictions; and it came at a time when it was much needed, for his
power of literary production had largely spent itself. The comic
inspiration had not indeed wholly run dry, for in 1835 Moore published
_The Fudges in England_ (a work even more unworthy of its predecessor
than most sequels); and in 1836 he entered into an agreement to supply
the _Morning Chronicle_ with squibs--his _Times_ connection having long
dropped. But except for this, and the furbishing up in 1839 of
_Alciphron_, his first draft in verse of the Egyptian story, nothing
more appears to have been produced by him, except the volumes of his
_History of Ireland_, which appeared respectively in 1835, 1836, 1840,
and 1846.
In fact, within the last seventeen years of his existence, Moore wrote
little or nothing but these volumes of history, for which he appears to
have received £500 apiece. It will be seen how timely was the succour of
the pension.
One other resource, however, and a considerable one, was afforded by a
project on which Moore's heart had long been set, and which finally
matured in 1837--that of collecting his poetical works into a complete
edition. The copyrights of his early Poems had returned to him, but the
great bulk of his lyrics was held by Power's widow--for the little
publisher had died in 1836, not before disputed accounts had altered the
long and friendly relation between him and the author of the _Irish
Melodies_. Longmans now bought out her rights for £1000, and paid Moore
another thousand for the task of collecting and arranging the poems and
writing prefaces, many of which contain interesting biographic detail.
It was a long labour, but the edition was finally completed in 1841.
Unhappily in that year, he was in no case to be concerned for its
success or failure; the Diary hardly refers to this event, of such
importance in a man's literary life. Troubles, which had long been heavy
and insistent upon him, then fairly culminated.
* * * * *
In spite of his love and talent for society, Moore was essentially a
domestic animal; and, as he advanced in life, his home ties were
stronger and stronger. The welfare of his children and their health--for
they were all delicate--preoccupied him with a constant and painful
anxiety, which was, however, more than compensated by the pleasure which
he derived from them as they grew up.
He was indeed no baby-worshipper, and notes profanely after one birth:
"Bessy doing marvellously well, and the little fright, as all such young
things are, prospering also." The first death in his household, that of
an infant girl, Byron's goddaughter, affected him mainly as a cause of
grief to his wife; and even when he lost his eldest daughter in 1817,
truly and deeply though he sorrowed, it is evident enough that the
weight of the blow fell on Bessy rather than on him. He was then the one
of the two to take thought for the other; not perhaps that he cared
less, but that his temperament was then more natural and healthy.
Eight years later he notes the first symptom of what was doubtless a
growing infirmity. About a fortnight after his father's death he spent
the evening in Dublin with some old friends, and sang a good deal for
them.--"In singing 'There's a song of the Olden Time,' the feeling which
I had so long suppressed" (for he had been active in endeavouring to
keep up his mother's spirits) "broke out; I was obliged to leave the
room, and continued sobbing hysterically on the stairs for several
minutes." From this onward, the same proclivity manifested itself at
intervals with growing vehemence. After any stress of emotion, the
plangent quality of his own voice in singing tended to produce one of
these outbursts, when it seemed as if his chest must burst under the
strain. Yet he always fought against the weakness, and notes more than
once how, after a sudden collapse of this kind, he made an effort, and
returned to the piano, laughing at himself, while he rattled off gay
songs.
But the wrench which of all others seems to have done most to shatter
him, came not long after this first breakdown (which dates from the end
of 1826, his forty-seventh year); and it found a man strangely altered
from what he had been ten or twelve years earlier. His eldest girl's
death had left the second, Anastasia, to inherit a double share of
affection, and her chronic delicacy kept her parents continually
anxious. At last the beginning of the end came early in 1829, just at
the moment when Moore was receiving news that Catholic emancipation was
a certainty. "Could I ever have thought," he writes, "that such an event
would, under any circumstances, find me indifferent to it? Yet such is
almost the case at present." Even when he wrote this, he did not realise
the worst; the truth was not forced on him till his wife had been
"wasting away on the knowledge of it" for three weeks. We have his
detailed account of the last fortnight, during which the parents could
do nothing but make their child's last days as happy as they
could--spending the evenings together with the girl, playing little
games, reading aloud and so forth. His description of the end must be
quoted:--
"Next morning (Sunday 8th) I rose early, and, on approaching the
room, heard the dear child's voice as strong, I thought, as usual;
but on entering, I saw death plainly in her face. When I asked her
how she had slept, she said 'Pretty well,' in her usual courteous
manner; but her voice had a sort of hollow and distant softness,
not to be described. When I took her hand on leaving her, she said
(I thought significantly), 'Good-bye, papa.' I will not attempt to
tell what I felt at all this. I went occasionally to listen at the
door of the room, but did not go in, as Bessy, knowing what an
effect (through my whole future life) such a scene would have on
me, implored me not to be present at it.... In about three quarters
of an hour or less, she called for me, and I came and took her hand
for a few seconds, during which Bessy leaned down her head between
the poor dying child and me, that I might not see her countenance.
As I left the room, too, agonised as her own mind was, my sweet
thoughtful Bessy ran anxiously after me, and, giving me a
smelling-bottle, exclaimed, 'For God's sake, don't you get ill.' In
about a quarter of an hour afterwards, she came to me, and I saw
that all was over. I could no longer restrain myself; the feelings
I had been so long suppressing found vent, and a fit of loud
violent sobbing seized me, in which I felt as if my chest were
coming asunder."
Avoiding, after his habit, the actual sensations of horror, Moore took
his wife out for a drive while the funeral was going on. There is no
doubt, as I have said already, something unmasculine in all this
shrinking from the physical impression, and one may trace something of
the luxury of grief in the detailed recital. But the note with which it
closes has the true accent of tragedy:--
"And such is the end of so many years of fondness and of hope; and
nothing is left us but the dream (which may God in his mercy
realise), that we shall see our pure child again in a world more
worthy of her."
Gradually, however, time healed the rawness of the wound, and in June of
the same year, a new interest was added to Moore's London visits. His
eldest boy, Tom, was installed at the Charterhouse, on a nomination
secured through Lord Grey, and from this onward the Diary is full of
references to the boy's charming (but idle) ways. Moore records dinners
with Master Tom,--"who, bless the dear fellow, was more amusing than any
of the _beaux esprits_,"--compliments on his beauty, valued all the more
because a likeness was noted to his mother, and, in short, gives every
instance of parental fondness. We read less perhaps about the other boy,
Lord John Russell's godson and namesake, who entered the same school a
year or two later, Sir Robert Peel this time giving the nomination. But
of both his boys Moore was mighty fond and proud, and it was a moment of
great happiness in his life when, in 1830, he conveyed Bessy and the
pair of them to Dublin for a visit to his other home in Abbey Street.
"My sweet sister Nell, just the same gentle spirit as ever; both in
great delight with our boys; and my dear Bess never looked so
handsome as she did sitting by my mother, with a face bearing the
utmost sweetness and affection, all for my sake. Had a most happy
family dinner."
The happiness lasted through the visit of six weeks. It was fifteen
years since Bessy Moore had been in Ireland, and then she had not lived
in the same house with her husband's folk, who consequently knew her
mainly by report. "They have now, however," Moore writes, "had her with
them as one of themselves, and the result has been what I never could
doubt it would be."
Six months later an urgent summons from his sister prepared him for the
severing of the closest and oldest of all ties. But when he reached
Dublin he found his mother rallied, and her doctor (Crampton) quoting
Mother Hubbard at her. After three or four days her strength was so far
restored that he felt able to return. But her parting from her son was
that of one taking the last farewell. She told him--and indeed she had
good right to--that he had always done his duty, and more than his duty,
by her and hers. Twelve months later she died, and the news was
announced by letter. The effect upon Moore was not that of shock, but
rather of deep and saddening depression, which continued for some days
and seemed more to be a bodily indisposition than any mental affliction.
"To lose such a mother was," he said, "like a part of one's life going
out of one."
There was, however, one consolation for this great loss. Moore's sister,
Ellen, became a yearly visitor to the Sloperton household, and was drawn
fairly into the home circle. Meanwhile, the enthusiasm of his
countrymen, and the good help of the pension, brightened matters; and,
as the boys grew up, Moore's pleasure in their society increased
steadily.
He had procured, under the most distinguished auspices, their admission
to a first-rate school; and, fond as he was, he enforced in some matters
a standard of conduct more rigid than usual. He set his face against
their taking money from any one but their parents, and expressed
righteous indignation when Lord Holland defended to him the practice of
tipping. Still more indignant was he when the head master represented to
him that the elder boy could get an exhibition worth about £100 a year
to take him to college, and that Moore need only add an allowance of
£150! It seems, however, that exhortations against extravagance
prevailed less than the example of spending money freely, which was set
to the young Tom by those with whom his father led him to associate. The
younger son, Russell, was steadier in character, but decided, like his
brother, for the army; and Moore was accordingly put to the heavy
expense of outfitting both and launching them in this costly profession.
Once launched, however, he was sanguine enough to expect that they could
live on their pay.
Tom was gazetted to the 22nd regiment in 1837, and was given six months
to study French in Paris, where his father established him under
pleasant conditions. Having joined his regiment in 1838 at Cork, he was
shortly transferred to Dublin, and here his presence was a pleasure to
his aunt, Moore's favourite sister; the news of this made a happy break
in the anxieties at Sloperton, where Bessy Moore, always delicate, had
just come through a severe illness. In the summer, Moore joined his son
and his sister, and was, as we have seen, enormously applauded by his
countrymen at the theatre. Next day the father and son were to have
dined with Lord Morpeth, the Irish Chief Secretary, but by one of the
lapses of memory which began to be habitual with Moore, they presented
themselves instead at the Vice-Regal Lodge and were half through dinner
before the guest realised what he had done, only to be overwhelmed with
expressions of delight at the mistake. It was no doubt a little
difficult for a young man with a father who was on such terms with both
the people and the rulers of Ireland to realise that he was only the son
of a needy and struggling worker, always at straits to make ends meet:
and probably Tom himself took the view, expressed to Moore by a friend
newly come from Ireland, that such an allowance should be made to the
young soldier as would enable him to "live like a gentleman." Moore was
angry, and it is easy to sympathise with his disappointment; easy also
to condemn his want of foresight.
Tom's regiment was ordered to India, and to India also went the younger
son, Russell, for whom a cadetship in the Company's Army had been
secured. The younger boy sailed in April 1840, and, although the
parting was a heartbreak (above all to the mother), Moore felt at every
turn what he calls gratefully "the value of a friendly fame like mine."
Directors of the Company, officers aboard ship, governors of provinces,
all vied with one another in services; and when the lad reached
Calcutta, Lord Auckland, then Governor-General, gave him a room in
Government House.
Little good came of all these good offices. Lord Auckland's sincere
kindness could only manifest itself in looking after an invalid and
writing cordial letters to the parents. Russell Moore's health was quite
unequal to the profession he had chosen, and eighteen months after he
had reached India, news came that he had been dangerously ill and was
ordered home.
In the meanwhile the other son, though keeping his health, was incurring
debts. There is a note from Bessy, copied into the Diary, surely as
heartbroken a cry as could come from a wife and mother. Enclosing a bill
for £120 drawn by Tom upon his father, she writes that she can hardly
bring herself to send it:--
"It has caused me tears and sad thoughts, but to _you_ it will
bring these and hard _hard_ work. Why do people sigh for children?
They know not what sorrow will come with them. How _can_ you
arrange for the payment? and what could have caused him to require
such a sum? Take care of yourself; and if you write to him, for
God's sake, let him know that it is the very last sum you will or
_can_ pay for him. My heart is sick when I think of you, and the
fatigue of mind and body you are always kept in. Let me know how
you think you can arrange this."
A second draft for £100 followed quick on it, and early in the next
year, still worse news. The young man had sold his commission and was on
his way home. £1500 in all had been spent in fitting him out and
purchasing, first an ensigncy, then a lieutenancy; and this was the
upshot of so much anxiety and outlay. And the second boy, who had done
all that could be hoped of him, was on his way home too, to a sad
meeting. "It seemed all but death," Moore writes, "when he stepped out
of the carriage exhausted with the journey, and wasted with lung
disease." There was a rally for a few months, during which Moore was
busy trying to shape some new future for the prodigal Tom, who was
remaining in France. Four hundred pounds would have preserved his
lieutenancy (being the money actually paid down out of the price of his
commission), but Moore refused to find it. He was already reduced to
borrowing from a friend, Mr. Boyse, his Wexford host; and though Rogers,
Lord Lansdowne, and probably many others would, as Lord John Russell
regretfully comments, have willingly advanced the larger sum, they heard
nothing of the need. Moore's own object was to secure his son a
commission in the Austrian service, but Tom himself wrote from France
suggesting the Légion Étrangère. Interest was quickly made with Soult
through Madame Adelaide, who received the prodigal and made much of him
for his father's sake--"a continuation of that spoiling process," Moore
writes sadly, "to which poor Tom (as my son) has been from his childhood
subjected." The thing was settled accordingly, not without another draft
for a hundred and odd pounds to enable the son to leave for Algiers. A
few days before he set out for the new dangers and hardships of Africa,
his brother had died peacefully at home. It was only the last straw in a
load of trouble that the one remaining child could not even get leave
for a farewell visit home, before he launched, under no good omens, into
a new career and clime.
The record of the nest year (1843) is short and uninteresting--notes of
engagements for the most part. One is characteristic enough to quote:--
"_March_ 23. Breakfasted at Rogers's to meet Jeffrey and Lord
John--two of the men I like best among my numerous friends.
Jeffrey's volubility (which was always superabundant) becomes even
more copious, I think, as he grows older. But I am ashamed of
myself for finding any fault with him."
_"Lenior et melior fit accedente senecta"_ is a phrase that has full
application to this veteran of letters. The year closed with a cruel
hoax (the crueller as it coincided with fresh demands from Tom). Some
one in Ireland wrote to inform Moore that £300 had been left him as a
testimony of regard. Moore had suspicions, but he adds:--
"There was an air of truth and reality which half lured my poor
Bess and myself into hailing it as a providential God-send.
Already, indeed, her generous heart was apportioning out the
different presents it would enable her to make to my sister, to the
poor H----s, etc. Alas! alas! I wish no worse to the ingenious
gentleman who penned the letter than an exactly similar
disappointment."
I shall add the next entry in the Diary, Moore's farewell to the year
1843:--
"A strange life mine; but the best as well as pleasantest part of
it lies _at home_. I told my dear Bessy, this morning, that while I
stood at my study window, looking out at her, as she crossed the
field, I sent a blessing after her. 'Thank you, bird,' she replied,
'that's better than money'; and so it is. Bird is a pet name she
gave me in our younger days, and was suggested by Hamlet's words,
'Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come'; being the call, it seems,
which falconers use to their hawk in the air, when they would have
him come down to them."
What one feels on reading these passages, and contrasting them with many
earlier ones, is perhaps best expressed by assenting to the view of Miss
Berry, recorded in the Diary. Moore had taken the liberty of an old
friend in going unasked to one of her famous _soirées_, and on his
saying something of this:--
"She reverted in her odd way to the early days of our acquaintance,
and said, 'I didn't so much like you in those days. You were
too-too--what shall I say?' 'Too brisk and airy perhaps,' said I.
'Yes,' she replied, taking hold of one of my grizzly locks, 'I like
you better since you have got these.' I could then overhear her,
after I left her, say to the person with whom I had found her
speaking, 'That's as good a creature as ever lived!'"
The light and buoyant nature, which had been so sorely battered,
received its final shock soon after the date to which I have brought
this story. 1844 was spent in scriving over the _History_,--Moore
repelling now the friendly advances even of his Bowood neighbours, yet
with difficulty repelling them. The task was finished at last in the
spring of 1845, but there remained the need of a preface, and Moore
records that after various endeavours he left this, "in utter despair,"
to the publishers to provide. Later in the year, the annual visit from
his sister Ellen made a brightness in the house, now so quiet; and after
she had gone, there came letters from Tom asking for money for a trip
home. It was sent, and he wrote back rejoicing at the prospect, but
explaining that he should not come before spring owing to a cough which
he had contracted. The words were ominous, and both his parents almost
made up their minds that they were never to see him again.
The foreboding was only too well justified. But the first blow which
fell was one little looked for. Ellen Moore died suddenly in her bed. A
month later came from Africa "a strange and ominous-looking letter which
we opened with trembling hands, and it told us that my son Tom was
dead." I add one last quotation from the Diary.
"The last of our five children now are gone and I am left desolate
and alone. Not a single relative have I now left in the world."
That is practically the end of Moore's life. A severe illness followed,
and "when he recovered," says Lord John Russell, "he was a different
man." "Nothing seemed to rest upon his mind," and, with his memory, his
wit had gone also. He made an excursion to town in 1846 to superintend
the production of the last volume of his history, and one year later
still, to be the guest of Rogers, who was to Moore, at any rate, a most
considerate, loyal, helpful, and constant friend. But what he wrote to
this friend from Sloperton was true: "I am sinking here into a mere
vegetable." So, peacefully at the last, after five years of mere
breathing, in which neither joy nor sorrow touched him, he faded out of
life; watched over to the last by the woman who had grown more necessary
to him with every year.
He left her unprovided with money, yet not without provision. The
Memoirs which he, himself a great lover and reader of such literature,
had scrupulously kept for a period of close on thirty years, were always
designed to be a posthumous resource; and he had confided them by a will
made many years earlier to the care of Lord John Russell. Had he
foreseen that the friend of whom he asked this office would be charged
with the cares of an Administration, when it fell to be accomplished,
the request would probably not have been made; but being made, it was
duly honoured, and Moore, who had always liked impressive auspices for
his children at the font,[1] had himself a Prime Minister for his
biographer.
The work might perhaps have been better done by a man less fully
occupied, but the purpose for which the Memoirs were written could not
have been more fully served. The Longmans offered £3000 for the Memoirs,
if Lord John would edit them, and it was found that for this sum an
annuity could be bought, equal to the pension which had for the last
part of Moore's life been the sole resource of the household. Bessy
Moore lived and died in Sloperton, and was laid in the churchyard beside
her husband and her children; and old men in the little Wiltshire hamlet
remember her and her good works--the only one of her lifelong pleasures
and occupations which was left to this good woman, whom it is impossible
to think of as lonely. The record of her life and her husband's--for the
two are inseparable--may close with as touching a little attention as
was ever paid by an elderly man to his elderly wife. In 1839, when
money was no way plenty with him, Moore sent five pounds to a friend,
which the friend was to forward anonymously to Bessy for her poor--thus
giving her the pleasure which he judged she would most value, without
the distress of thinking that he must labour more to make up the little
outlay.
[1] Lady Donegal, Byron, Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell, and Dr. Parr
were among the sponsors.