"LORD, WHEN WE SEARCH THE HUMAN HEART, WE FIND A FALLEN WORLD WITHIN-MONTGOMERY) WHEN AGE ADVANCES, MAY WE GROW IN FAITH AND LOVE,-(MONTGOMERY) THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Not Adam, loosened from the encumbering earth, He seemed to live and breathe throughout the whole. At the last look of resolute despair, The Hesperian isles, from distance dimly blue, In that proud moment, his transported mind Vain, visionary hope! rapacious Spain 307 And steeled to cruelty by lust of gold,— [From "The West Indies," part i.] AND WALK IN HOLINESS BELOW TO HOLINESS ABOVE."-JAMES MONGOMERY. THERE IS NO HEALTH IN ANY PART; SIN REIGNS THROUGHOUT, AND DEATH BY SIN."-MONTGOMERY. "WE PERISH IF WE CEASE FROM PRAYER; OH, GRANT US POWER TO PRAY-MONTGOMERY AND WHEN TO MEET THEE WE PREPARE, LORD, MEET US BY THE WAY."-MONTGOMERY. "THE GOD OF NATURE AND OF GRACE IN ALL HIS WORKS APPEARS-JAMES MONTGOMERY) WE TO A LAND OF PROMISE GO."-JAMES MONTGOMERY. 309 HIS GOODNESS THROUGH THE EARTH WE TRACE, HIS GRANDEUR IN THE SPHERES."-MONTGOMERY. "FULL OF THOSE DREAMS OF GOOD THAT, VAINLY GRAND, HAUNT THE YOUNG HEART; LIKE ECHO, SENDING BACK SWEET MUSIC, FRAUGHT (MOORE) THOMAS MOORE. Thomas Moore. [THE characteristics of Moore's poetry have been described by William Hazlitt in terms not less brilliant than accurate. His verse, he says, is like a shower of beauty; a dance of images; a stream of music; or like the spray of the waterfall, tinged by the morning beam with rosy light. The peculiar distinction of his style is this continuous and incessant flow of voluptuous thoughts and shining allusions. He ought to write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His subject is set off by a dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a wreath of flowers gemmed with innumerous dew-drops, that weep, tremble, and glitter in liquid softness and pearly light, while the song of birds ravishes the ear, and languid odours breathe around, and Aurora opens Heaven's smiling portals, peris and nymphs peep through the golden glades, and an angel's wing glances over the glossy scene. In Milton we meet with many prosaic lines, either because the subject does not require raising, or because they are necessary to connect the story, or serve as a relief to other passages; there is not such a thing to be found in all Mr. Moore's writings. His volumes present us with "a perpetual feast of nectared sweets," but we cannot add, "where no crude surfeit reigns." Still it would be unfair to deny that in some of his minor poems Moore has opened the very springs of pathos, and that in his music there is occasionally a pathetic cadence which moves to tears. His "Lalla Rookh" is an Oriental beauty, loaded with ornament, and flashing with jewellery; but many of his "Irish Melodies" are like the maidens of his own green isle-artlessly beautiful, with a strange power over the heart. His satires, moreover, are inspired by the most exquisite wit-the shafts discharged from his bow are all tipped with diamonds. His life was undistinguished by notable events. Born at Dublin, May 28, 1779, of respectable parents, he received a careful education; began to rhyme almost as soon as he could read and write; in 1793 was entered at Trinity College, Dublin; in 1799 proceeded to London, studied law, and translated Anacreon. In 1802 he issued a volume of amatory poems, under the nom de plume of Thomas Little, of which he had the grace in later life to be ashamed. He was plunged into some pecuniary embarrassments of a deputy whom he had appointed to discharge his duties in an official situation at Bermuda; they acted as a stimulus to his facile and fertile genius, and in 1806 he published a collection of "Odes and Epistles," whose mellifluous versification and happy descriptive power immediately gained the public ear. Embracing Whig politics, he issued a succession of light, airy, and sparkling satires, such as English literature had never before seen, and such as no foreign literature sui generis excels. In 1806 he commenced the publication of his "Irish Melodies," the work on which, we think, his fame will principally depend. "Lalla Rookh," an Oriental romance of dazzling gorgeousness, which literally wearies the reader by its very excess of sweetness, appeared in 1817. Then came "The Fudge Family in Paris;" WITH TWICE TH' AERIAL SWEETNESS IT HAD BROUGHT!"-MOORE. PROUD VIEWS OF HUMANKIND, OF MEN TO GODS EXALTED AND REFINED."-MOORE. "O REASON! WHO SHALL SAY WHAT SPELLS RENEW,- -(MOORE) Rhymes on the Road," the result of a Continental tour; "The Loves of the Angels;" "The Fables of the Holy Alliance;" and the prose tale of "The Epicurean." He was also the author of Lives of Sheridan and Byron, of a History of Ireland, and of numerous other works both in prose and poetry; for though fond of society-in which his wit, his manners, and his musical talent eminently fitted him to shine-he was an industrious labourer; and if his biographer must regret his adulation of rank and fashion, he must also do justice to his integrity and indefatigable energy. The last years of his life were overshadowed with mental disease, and the wit and poet was reduced to a condition of imbecility from which death was a happy release. He expired on the 26th of February 1852.] "THIS SPECK OF LIFE IN TIME'S GREAT WILDERNESS, THIS NARROW ISTHMUS-(MOORE) B THE DEATH OF HAFED. UT vainly hundreds, thousands bleed, Still hundreds, thousands more succeed!- Whose swords how keen, how fierce they knew, Crushed down by that vast multitude, Some found their graves where first they stood; Who, fronting to the foe, trod back WHEN LEAST WE LOOK FOR IT, THY BROKEN CLEW!"-MOORE. 'TWIXT TWO BOUNDLESS SEAS-THE PAST, THE FUTURE; TWO ETERNITIES!"-MOORE. |