Poems,' that I have seen him shed tears,--tears of deep
contrition,--when we were talking of them."

I allude to his early triumphs only to show, that, while they would have
spoiled nine men out of ten, they failed to taint the character of
Moore. His modest estimate of himself was from first to last a leading
feature in his character. Success never engendered egotism; honors never
seemed to him only the recompense of desert; he largely magnified the
favors he received, and seemed to consider as mere "nothings" the
services he rendered and the benefits he conferred. That was his great
characteristic, all his life. We have ourselves ample evidence to adduce
on this head. I copy the following letter from Mr. Moore. It is dated
"Sloperton, November 29, 1843."

"MY DEAR MR. HALL,--

"I am really and truly ashamed of myself for having let so
many acts of kindness on your part remain unnoticed and
unacknowledged on mine. But the world seems determined to
make me a man of letters in more senses than one, and almost
every day brings me such an influx of epistles from mere
strangers that friends hardly ever get a line from me. My
friend Washington Irving used to say, 'It is much easier to
get a book from Moore than a letter.' But this has not been
the case, I am sorry to say, of late; for the penny-post has
become the sole channel of my inspirations. How _am_ I to
thank you sufficiently for all your and Mrs. Hall's kindness
to me? She must come down here, when the summer arrives, and
be thanked _a quattr' occhi_,--far better way of thanking
than at such a cold distance. Your letter to the mad
Repealers was far too good and wise and gentle to have much
effect on such rantipoles."[K]

The house in Aungier Street I visited so recently as 1864. It was then,
and still is, as it was in 1779, the dwelling of a grocer,--altered only
so far as that a bust of the poet is placed over the door, and the fact
that he was born there is recorded at the side. May no modern
"improvement" ever touch it!

"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."

This humble dwelling of the humble tradesman is the house of which the
poet speaks in so many of his early letters and memoranda. Here, when a
child in years, he arranged a debating society, consisting of himself
and his father's two "