deed," he observes, in the preface to his eighth volume, "to the secluded life I led during the years 1813-1816, in a lone cottage in the fields in Derbyshire, that I owed the inspiration, whatever may have been its value, of some of the best and most popular portions of Lalla Rookh. It was amid the snows of two or three Derbyshire winters that I found myself enabled, by that concentration of thought which retirement alone gives, to call up around me some of the sunniest of those Eastern scenes which have since been welcomed in India itself as almost native to its clime." It is, he says, a peculiarity of his imagination that it is easily broken in upon aud diverted by striking external objects. "I am," he observed to me, "at once very imaginative, and very matter-of-fact. The matter-offact can at any moment put to flight all the operations of the imagination. It was, therefore, necessary for me to exclude matterof-fact, and all very striking or attractive objects, and to concentrate all my imagination on the objects I wished to portray. My story lay in the East, and I must imbue and saturate my imagination entirely with Eastern ideas, and Eastern imagery. I must create, and place, and keep before me a peculiar world, with all its people and characteristics. No place could be more favourable for this than Mayfield, because it had nothing prominent or seducing enough to rush through and force itself into the world which I had evoked, created, and was walking and working in. The result was most complete. Although I never have been in the East myself, yet every one who has been there declares that nothing can be more perfect than my representations of it, its people, and life, in Lalla Rookh." But though living in the country, Moore was always in the pretty regular habit of visiting town during the season. Here he was the charm of the circles of the Whig nobility, especially at Lansdowne and Holland houses. At these places, and especially the latter, he met all the distinguished men of the time-Byron, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Campbell, Brougham, and the like. Even in the country he lived much in the houses of his great friends. His visits at Chatsworth, and at Donnington Park, the seat of Lord Moira, where be describes himself as passing whole weeks in the library, even when the family was absent, "indulging in all the freest airy castle-building of authorship," were rather sojourns than visits. Here he met, oddly enough, with the rival princes of France, poor Charles X. and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier, and the Comte Beaujolais, at the same time with the Duke of Orleans, the late Louis Philippe, who in the library at the same house would be deep in a volume of Clarendon, "unconsciously preparing himself by such studies for the high and arduous destiny which not only the good genius of France, but his own sagacious and intrepid spirit, had early marked out for him." Rogers and Moore were for many years very intimate friends, and of course Moore was during those years much at home in the classic abode of the latter poet. But Lord Lansdowne was anxious to get the wit and poet down into his own neighbourhood, and pressed him to come and live near Bowood. "Tommy, who dearly loves a lord," according to the designation given to Moore by his dear friend LORD Byron, was willing to oblige Lord Lansdowne by living near him, as he obliged the relatives of Byron by burning the horror-creating Memoirs. His Lordship sent him word that there was a house just the thing for him, at Bromham, not far from Bowood. Moore went down to see it, but found it far too large and expensive for a poet's income. It was a huge, stately house, with extensive stabling, offices, rookeries, gardens, and land; "in fact," he said, "it might have done for Lord Lansdowne, but did not suit the finances of a poet." He, however, told Mrs. Moore on his return that he had seen a cottage on the road that was everything that he desired, with a most delicious garden and in a sweet situation. With her usual energy, Mrs. Moore took coach, hastened to the cottage, liked it as well as her husband did, and took it at once. This was Sloperton cottage, and here they resided more than thirty years. It is Sloperton cottage which hereafter will be regarded with the chief interest as the residence of the poet. It stands in the midst of a delightful country, and though itself buried, as it were, in an ordinary thickly wooded lane, branching off to the left from the high road, about two miles from Devizes, on the way to Chippenham, yet from its upper windows, as well as from its garden, it enjoys peeps through the trees into lovely scenes. Down southward from the far end of the house opens the broad and noble vale towards Trowbridge; in front to the right, across a little valley, stands on a fine mount, amid nobly grown trees, the village of Bromham, with the great house proposed to Moore by Lord Lansdowne as a suitable residence for him, standing, boldly backed and flanked by the masses of wood, and the church spire peering above it. More to the left, in front, you look across some miles of country, and see the historical foreland of Roundaway hill, the termination of the chalk-hills of the White-horse-vale, proudly overlooking Devizes. This hill, my driver gravely assured me, was Roundaway hill, where King John signed the charter! Behind the cottage, across some rich fields, are the wooded slopes of Spy Park, once the property of Sir Andrew Baynton. At a few hundred yards' distance, on the left-hand side of the lane as you advance from the Devizes road, there stands the old manor house of Nonsuch, which has gone through many hands, and had, when I was there, recently been sold, and was refitting for a modern mansion. A narrow foot-lane descends past its grounds down through the valley, between tall hedges and embowering alders to the village of Bromham, which gives you a view of the ancient knolls of the park-like environs of Nonsuch. Old sturdy oaks stand here and there on these knolls, and everything presents an air of great antiquity. A footpath runs through these grounds, by which you are admitted to loiter at your leisure amid the retired slopes and woodland hollows of this old English scenery. The footway which, I have said, leads also down past it, to Bromham, is peculiarly rural. It is paved, as the bottom abounds in water, where a beautiful spring gushes up from the foot of the ascent towards the village; and ir passing along it, you feel yourself to be shrouded amid a luxuriant growth of water-loving trees, and surrounded by the quietness of woodland banks, and rustic farm lands. The village is purely agricultural, and has a fine church, with a singularly richly ornamented battlement. Such is the immediate situation of Moore's cottage. Views of it every one has seen; but it is only when you stand actually before it, see it covered with clematis, its two porches hung with roses, and the lawn and garden which surround it kept in the most exquisite order, and fragrant with every flower of the season, that you are fully sensible of what a genuine poet's nest it is. And yet the house was originally merely a common labourer's cottage. This part forms still the end next to the Devizes road, which road, however, is three-quarters of a mile distant; but fresh erections have been added, so that now it is not a very large, but a very goodly and commodious dwelling. The old entrance has been left, as well as a new one made in the new part, so that no unnecessary interruption may be occasioned to the family by visitors. The old entrance leads to the little drawing-room, the newer one to the family sitting-room. The poet's study is up-stairs. In the garden there is a raised walk running its whole length, bounded by a hedge of laurel. This gives you the view over the fields of Spy Park, and its finely-wooded slopes. This was a favourite walk of the poet; and it was, indeed, the fascination of this garden which originally took his fancy, and occasioned him to think of securing it. One of the most pleasing traits of Moore's character is that, spite of his moving in high aristocratic circles, and having often great need of money, he maintained a most independent and unselfish disposition. Besides his Bermuda appointment, which turned out a loss through the dishonesty of his agent, he never received any other post. He was offered various literary and political editorships, with abundant incomes; but, like Southey, he declined them, because they would interrupt his own poetical pursuits. He had enjoyed for seventeen years a pension of 3001. per annum, and that was the extent of his Government patronage. He has been careful to tell us himself, in his preface to his third volume, the actual amount of royal patronage which he had been said to have received, and unworthily repaid by quizzing the modern Heliogabalus. It is this, and is worth reading: "Luckily, the list of benefits showered upon me from that high quarter may be despatched in a few sentences. At the request of the Earl of Moira, one of my earliest and best friends, his royal highness graciously permitted me to dedicate to him my Translation of the Odes of Anacreon. I was twice, I think, admitted to the honour of dining at Carlton House; and when the prince, on his being made regent in 1811, gave his memorable fête, I was one of the envied-about 1,500, I believe, in number-who enjoyed the privilege of being his guests on the occasion." The obligation was certainly not overpowering, especially when the country had to pay for it. Moore added, that history has now pretty well settled the character of this royal patron Moore was very unfortunate in regard to his children He had hree daughters and two sons, but they all died before him. From ome cause they do not appear to have possessed constitutional tamina sufficient to bear them through the wear and tear of exist -nce. This has been freely attributed to the early dissipations of he poet, who could purgate the new editions of his early and very icentious poems, but could not thus chase the mischief from new ditions of himself. If this were the fact, what a punishment in his life, and what a warning, if warnings are ever of any use! Moore seems to quote in his Diary, with an air of great satisfaction, Mr. Sneyd's verses on Lalla Rookh: "Lalla Rookh Is a book By Thomas Moore, Than the former; Yet, as he advanced in life, he deeply regretted the sensuality of the Little's Poems, and removed a good deal of it. But the publication of mischievous matter is a thing never to be remedied; for the original editions still exist, ready to be re-issued by low booksellers as soon as the law of copyright permits them. Moore's eldest daughter, Ann Jane Barbara, only about five years old, died at Muswell Hill, in 1817, and was buried in Hornsey churchyard. Her death was hastened by a fall; but the doctors had before said, that if she lived, it could only be as "an invalid, from the bad state of her inward parts." These are Moore's own words. His second daughter, Anastatia Mary, died in 1829. She lived to the age of nearly seventeen, and was buried at Bromham, near Sloperton, and where also the poet and his son Russell sleep. A third daughter, Olivia Byron, lived only a few months. John Russell Moore, the second son, was born in May, 1823, and died November, 1842; consequently, he was just turned nineteen. He had received a cadetship in the East India Company's service, but a residence in India of about eighteen months completely exhausted him. Lord John Russell tells us that "his constitution was too delicate to carry him on to manhood. Perhaps, as Anastatia, with an English home, fell a victim to disease, Russell would not have survived long, even in his native climate." The last surviving of Moore's children was his eldest son, Thomas Lansdowne Parr Moore. This youth was born October, 1818, and died March, 1846, so that he was in his eight-and-twentieth year. His father had purchased an ensigncy and lieutenancy in succession for him. He went to serve in India, where dissipation and the climate soon made him incapable of discharging his duty. Lord John Russell says he was not physically strong, and had little restraint over himself." Moore paid 1,500. for him, and then the young man sold his commission. He proposed to enter the French service in Algeria, which his father enabled him to do by applying to Louis Philippe. It was the most unfortunate thing he could have done. The climate and duty of Algiers he soon reported far worse than that of India, and consumption ended his days in the hospital of Mostorganem. The wildness of this son, and his melancholy death, told fearfully on the mind and strength of the poet. His memory failed rapidly, and the last time that I saw him, which was soon after this sad event, he had contracted all the appearance of the old man, stooping considerably, and being continually obliged to apply to Mrs. Moore to aid his recollection. This loss of memory was, in effect, a signal blessing, bestowing a calm on his closing period, which otherwise could not have existed. "His last days," says Lord John Russell, "were peaceful and happy: his domestic sorrows, his literary triumphs, seem to have faded away alike into a calm repose. He retained to his last moments a pious submission to God, and a grateful sense of the kindness of her whose tender office it was to watch over his decline." He died at Sloperton cottage on the 26th of February, 1852, aged seventy-two years and nine months; and was buried in the churchyard of Bromham, within view of his own house, and by the side of two of his children. It was a circumstance worthy of note in the termination of the life of a man so wholly devoted to the society of the aristocracy, that not one of his great friends was present at his funeral. The sole persons from a distance being a clergyman, and one of the Messrs. Longmans, his publishers, who had certainly, through their long connexion with him, proved themselves real and substantial friends. Lord John Russell, one of his latest and most intimate companions, though not present on this occasion, generously negotiated for the publication of his Memoirs with the Messrs. Longmans, and obtaining 3,000/. for them, purchased with that sum an annuity for Mrs. Moore, equal to the income which she and her husband had enjoyed during the latter years of his life. Lord John, moreover, edited the Memoirs himself, thus conferring the best boon on the widow of his friend, who seems to have been one of the best wives that ever man had. In reviewing the life of the poet, we cannot help feeling regret that so much of it should have been wasted in the empty glare of mere fashionable society. We do not mean the select and intelligent society of the Russells, Lansdownes, and Hollands, but in the mob of mere titled people, who used him in the same capacity as great people used their clever jesters of old,-to amuse them. Yet, so absurdly proud was Moore of his perpetual fluttering, singing, and collecting stale witticisms in these tinsel circles, that he looked with the profoundest contempt on men of the highest talents, whom he never met there. Several entries in his Diary of this kind are absolutely pitiable. At Dr. Bowring's he says he met many first-rate literali, not one of whom he knew by name; and was greatly surprised to meet so great a man as Washington Irving there, with whom he made a speedy escape. At Martin's, the painter's, he found himself, also, to his infinite disgust, amongst a host of small |