Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works

by Thomas Moore

  “I believe you think that I have not been quite fair with that Alpha and Omega of beauty, &c. with whom you would willingly have united me. But if you consider what her sister said on the subject, you will less wonder that my pride should have taken the alarm; particularly as nothing but the every-day flirtation of every-day people ever occurred between your heroine and myself. Had Lady * * appeared to wish it — or even not to oppose it — I would have gone on, and very possibly married (that is, if the other had been equally accordant) with the same indifference which has frozen over the ‘Black Sea’ of almost all my passions. It is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious. It is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me sufficiently to fix; neither do I feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements. The proof of this is, that obstacles, the slightest even, stop me. This can hardly be timidity, for I have done some impudent things too, in my time; and in almost all cases, opposition is a stimulus. In mine, it is not; if a straw were in my way, I could not stoop to pick it up.

  “I have sent this long tirade, because I would not have you suppose that I have been trifling designedly with you or others. If you think so, in the name of St. Hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) let me be married out of hand — I don’t care to whom, so it amuses any body else, and don’t interfere with me much in the daytime. Ever,” &c.

  LETTER 184. TO MR. MOORE.

  “June 14. 1814.

  “I could be very sentimental now, but I won’t. The truth is, that I have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet quite succeeded — though there are great hopes — and you do not know how it sunk with your departure. What adds to my regret is having seen so little of you during your stay in this crowded desert, where one ought to be able to bear thirst like a camel, — the springs are so few, and most of them so muddy.

  “The newspapers will tell you all that is to be told of emperors, &c. They have dined, and supped, and shown their flat faces in all thoroughfares, and several saloons. Their uniforms are very becoming, but rather short in the skirts; and their conversation is a catechism, for which and the answers I refer you to those who have heard it.

  “I think of leaving town for Newstead soon. If so, I shall not be remote from your recess, and (unless Mrs. M. detains you at home over the caudle-cup and a new cradle,) we will meet. You shall come to me, or I to you, as you like it; — but meet we will. An invitation from Aston has reached me, but I do not think I shall go. I have also heard of * * * — I should like to see her again, for I have not met her for years; and though ‘the light that ne’er can shine again’ is set, I do not know that ‘one dear smile like those of old’ might not make me for a moment forget the ‘dulness’ of ‘life’s stream.’

  “I am going to R * *’s to-night — to one of those suppers which ‘ought to be dinners.’ I have hardly seen her, and never him, since you set out. I told you, you were the last link of that chain. As for * *, we have not syllabled one another’s names since. The post will not permit me to continue my scrawl. More anon.

  “Ever, dear Moore, &c.

  “P.S. Keep the Journal; I care not what becomes of it; and if it has amused you I am glad that I kept it. ‘Lara’ is finished, and I am copying him for my third vol., now collecting; — but no separate publication.”

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “June 14. 1814.

  “I return your packet of this morning. Have you heard that Bertrand has returned to Paris with the account of Napoleon’s having lost his senses? It is a report; but, if true, I must, like Mr. Fitzgerald and Jeremiah (of lamentable memory), lay claim to prophecy; that is to say, of saying, that he ought to go out of his senses, in the penultimate stanza of a certain Ode, — the which, having been pronounced nonsense by several profound critics, has a still further pretension, by its unintelligibility, to inspiration. Ever,” &c.

  LETTER 185. TO MR. ROGERS.

  “June 19. 1814.

  “I am always obliged to trouble you with my awkwardnesses, and now I have a fresh one. Mr. W. called on me several times, and I have missed the honour of making his acquaintance, which I regret, but which you, who know my desultory and uncertain habits, will not wonder at, and will, I am sure, attribute to any thing but a wish to offend a person who has shown me much kindness, and possesses character and talents entitled to general respect. My mornings are late, and passed in fencing and boxing, and a variety of most unpoetical exercises, very wholesome, &c., but would be very disagreeable to my friends, whom I am obliged to exclude during their operation. I never go out till the evening, and I have not been fortunate enough to meet Mr. W. at Lord Lansdowne’s or Lord Jersey’s, where I had hoped to pay him my respects.

  “I would have written to him, but a few words from you will go further than all the apologetical sesquipedalities I could muster on the occasion. It is only to say that, without intending it, I contrive to behave very ill to every body, and am very sorry for it.

  “Ever, dear R.,” &c.

  The following undated notes to Mr. Rogers must have been written about the same time: —

  “Sunday.

  “Your non-attendance at Corinne’s is very à propos, as I was on the eve of sending you an excuse. I do not feel well enough to go there this evening, and have been obliged to despatch an apology. I believe I need not add one for not accepting Mr. Sheridan’s invitation on Wednesday, which I fancy both you and I understood in the same sense: — with him the saying of Mirabeau, that ‘words are things,’ is not to be taken literally.

  “Ever,” &c.

  “I will call for you at a quarter before seven, if that will suit you. I return you Sir Proteus, and shall merely add in return, as Johnson said of, and to, somebody or other, ‘Are we alive after all this censure?’

  “Believe me,” &c.

  “Tuesday.

  “Sheridan was yesterday, at first, too sober to remember your invitation, but in the dregs of the third bottle he fished up his memory. The Staël out-talked Whitbread, was ironed by Sheridan, confounded Sir Humphry, and utterly perplexed your slave. The rest (great names in the red book, nevertheless,) were mere segments of the circle. Ma’mselle danced a Russ saraband with great vigour, grace, and expression.

  “Ever,” &c.

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “June 21. 1814.

  “I suppose ‘Lara’ is gone to the devil, — which is no great matter, only let me know, that I may be saved the trouble of copying the rest, and put the first part into the fire. I really have no anxiety about it, and shall not be sorry to be saved the copying, which goes on very slowly, and may prove to you that you may speak out — or I should be less sluggish. Yours,” &c.

  LETTER 186. TO MR. ROGERS.

  “June 27. 1814.

  “You could not have made me a more acceptable present than Jacqueline, — she is all grace, and softness, and poetry; there is so much of the last, that we do not feel the want of story, which is simple, yet enough. I wonder that you do not oftener unbend to more of the same kind. I have some sympathy with the softer affections, though very little in my way, and no one can depict them so truly and successfully as yourself. I have half a mind to pay you in kind, or rather unkind, for I have just ‘supped full of horror’ in two cantos of darkness and dismay.

  “Do you go to Lord Essex’s to-night? if so, will you let me call for you at your own hour? I dined with Holland-house yesterday at Lord Cowper’s; my Lady very gracious, which she can be more than any one when she likes. I was not sorry to see them again, for I can’t forget that they have been very kind to me. Ever yours most truly,

  “BN.

  “P.S. Is there any chance or possibility of making it up with Lord Carlisle, as I feel disposed to do any thing reasonable or unreasonable to effect it? I would before, but for the ‘Courier,’ and the possible misconstructions at such a time. Perpend, pronounce.”

  On my return to London, for a short time, at the beginning of July,
I found his poem of ‘Lara,’ which he had begun at the latter end of May, in the hands of the printer, and nearly ready for publication. He had, before I left town, repeated to me, as we were on our way to some evening party, the first one hundred and twenty lines of the poem, which he had written the day before, — at the same time giving me a general sketch of the characters and the story.

  His short notes to Mr. Murray, during the printing of this work, are of the same impatient and whimsical character as those, of which I have already given specimens, in my account of his preceding publications: but, as matter of more interest now presses upon us, I shall forbear from transcribing them at length. In one of them he says, “I have just corrected some of the most horrible blunders that ever crept into a proof:” — in another, “I hope the next proof will be better; this was one which would have consoled Job, if it had been of his ‘enemy’s book:’” — a third contains only the following words: “Dear sir, you demanded more battle — there it is.

  “Yours,” &c.

  The two letters that immediately follow were addressed to me, at this time, in town.

  LETTER 187. TO MR. MOORE.

  “July 8. 1814.

  “I returned to town last night, and had some hopes of seeing you to-day, and would have called, — but I have been (though in exceeding distempered good health) a little head-achy with free living, as it is called, and am now at the freezing point of returning soberness. Of course, I should be sorry that our parallel lines did not deviate into intersection before you return to the country, — after that same nonsuit, whereof the papers have told us, — but, as you must be much occupied, I won’t be affronted, should your time and business militate against our meeting.

  “Rogers and I have almost coalesced into a joint invasion of the public. Whether it will take place or not, I do not yet know, and I am afraid Jacqueline (which is very beautiful) will be in bad company. But in this case, the lady will not be the sufferer.

  “I am going to the sea, and then to Scotland; and I have been doing nothing, — that is, no good, — and am very truly,” &c.

  LETTER 188. TO MR. MOORE.

  “I suppose, by your non-appearance, that the philasophy of my note, and the previous silence of the writer, have put or kept you in humeur. Never mind — it is hardly worth while.

  “This day have I received information from my man of law of the non — and never likely to be — performance of purchase by Mr. Claughton, of impecuniary memory. He don’t know what to do, or when to pay; and so all my hopes and worldly projects and prospects are gone to the devil. He (the purchaser, and the devil too, for aught I care,) and I, and my legal advisers, are to meet to-morrow, the said purchaser having first taken special care to enquire ‘whether I would meet him with temper?’ — Certainly. The question is this — I shall either have the estate back, which is as good as ruin, or I shall go on with him dawdling, which is rather worse. I have brought my pigs to a Mussulman market. If I had but a wife now, and children, of whose paternity I entertained doubts, I should be happy, or rather fortunate, as Candide or Scarmentado. In the mean time, if you don’t come and see me, I shall think that Sam.’s bank is broke too; and that you, having assets there, are despairing of more than a piastre in the pound for your dividend. Ever,” &c.

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “July 11. 1814.

  “You shall have one of the pictures. I wish you to send the proof of ‘Lara’ to Mr. Moore, 33. Bury Street, to-night, as he leaves town to-morrow, and wishes to see it before he goes; and I am also willing to have the benefit of his remarks. Yours,” &c.

  TO MR. MURRAY.

  “July 18. 1814.

  “I think you will be satisfied even to repletion with our northern friends, and I won’t deprive you longer of what I think will give you pleasure; for my own part, my modesty, or my vanity, must be silent.

  “P.S. If you could spare it for an hour in the evening, I wish you to send it up to Mrs. Leigh, your neighbour, at the London Hotel, Albemarle Street.”

  LETTER 189. TO MR. MURRAY.

  “July 23. 1814.

  “I am sorry to say that the print is by no means approved of by those who have seen it, who are pretty conversant with the original, as well as the picture from whence it is taken. I rather suspect that it is from the copy and not the exhibited portrait, and in this dilemma would recommend a suspension, if not an abandonment, of the prefixion to the volumes which you purpose inflicting upon the public.

  “With regard to Lara, don’t be in any hurry. I have not yet made up my mind on the subject, nor know what to think or do till I hear from you; and Mr. Moore appeared to me in a similar state of indetermination. I do not know that it may not be better to reserve it for the entire publication you proposed, and not adventure in hardy singleness, or even backed by the fairy Jacqueline. I have been seized with all kinds of doubts, &c. &c. since I left London.

  “Pray let me hear from you, and believe me,” &c.

  LETTER 190. TO MR. MURRAY.

  “July 24. 1814.

  “The minority must, in this case, carry it, so pray let it be so, for I don’t care sixpence for any of the opinions you mention, on such a subject: and P * * must be a dunce to agree with them. For my own part, I have no objection at all; but Mrs. Leigh and my cousin must be better judges of the likeness than others; and they hate it; and so I won’t have it at all.

  “Mr. Hobhouse is right as for his conclusion: but I deny the premises. The name only is Spanish; the country is not Spain, but the Morea.

  “Waverley is the best and most interesting novel I have redde since — I don’t know when. I like it as much as I hate * *, and * *, and * *, and all the feminine trash of the last four months. Besides, it is all easy to me, I have been in Scotland so much (though then young enough too), and feel at home with the people, Lowland and Gael.

  “A note will correct what Mr. Hobhouse thinks an error (about the feudal system in Spain); — it is not Spain. If he puts a few words of prose any where, it will set all right.

  “I have been ordered to town to vote. I shall disobey. There is no good in so much prating, since ‘certain issues strokes should arbitrate.’ If you have any thing to say, let me hear from you.

  “Yours,” &c.

  LETTER 191. TO MR. MURRAY.

  “August 3. 1814.

  “It is certainly a little extraordinary that you have not sent the Edinburgh Review, as I requested, and hoped it would not require a note a day to remind you. I see advertisements of Lara and Jacqueline; pray, why? when I requested you to postpone publication till my return to town.

  “I have a most amusing epistle from the Ettrick bard — Hogg; in which, speaking of his bookseller, whom he denominates the ‘shabbiest’ of the trade for not ‘lifting his bills,’ he adds, in so many words, ‘G —— d d —— n him and them both.’ This is a pretty prelude to asking you to adopt him (the said Hogg); but this he wishes; and if you please, you and I will talk it over. He has a poem ready for the press (and your bills too, if ‘liftable’), and bestows some benedictions on Mr. Moore for his abduction of Lara from the forthcoming Miscellany.

  “P.S. Sincerely, I think Mr. Hogg would suit you very well; and surely he is a man of great powers, and deserving of encouragement. I must knock out a Tale for him, and you should at all events consider before you reject his suit. Scott is gone to the Orkneys in a gale of wind; and Hogg says that, during the said gale, ‘he is sure that Scott is not quite at his ease, to say the best of it.’ Ah! I wish these home-keeping bards could taste a Mediterranean white squall, or ‘the Gut’ in a gale of wind, or even the ‘Bay of Biscay’ with no wind at all.”

  LETTER 192. TO MR. MOORE.

  “Hastings, August 3. 1814.

  “By the time this reaches your dwelling, I shall (God wot) be in town again probably. I have been here renewing my acquaintance with my old friend Ocean; and I find his bosom as pleasant a pillow for an hour in the morning as his daughters of Paphos could be in the twilight. I ha
ve been swimming and eating turbot, and smuggling neat brandies and silk handkerchiefs, — and listening to my friend Hodgson’s raptures about a pretty wife-elect of his, — and walking on cliffs, and tumbling down hills, and making the most of the ‘dolce far-niente’ for the last fortnight. I met a son of Lord Erskine’s, who says he has been married a year, and is the ‘happiest of men;’ and I have met the aforesaid H., who is also the ‘happiest of men;’ so, it is worth while being here, if only to witness the superlative felicity of these foxes, who have cut off their tails, and would persuade the rest to part with their brushes to keep them in countenance.

  “It rejoiceth me that you like ‘Lara.’ Jeffrey is out with his 45th Number, which I suppose you have got. He is only too kind to me, in my share of it, and I begin to fancy myself a golden pheasant, upon the strength of the plumage wherewith he hath bedecked me. But then, ‘surgit amari,’ &c. — the gentlemen of the Champion, and Perry, have got hold (I know not how) of the condolatory address to Lady J. on the picture-abduction by our R * * *, and have published them — with my name, too, smack — without even asking leave, or enquiring whether or no! D —— n their impudence, and d —— n every thing. It has put me out of patience, and so, I shall say no more about it.