This beautiful and popular work was published in 1817; and for it Moore
received from his publishers, the Longmans, L3000.

In the same year Moore took a small cottage at Sloperton on the estate of
the Marquis of Lansdowne, which, with some interruptions of travel, and a
short residence in Paris, continued to be his residence during his life.
Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in
Bermuda;--the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of
his deputy was L6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised
for a thousand guineas.

HIS DIARY.--It is very fortunate, for a proper understanding of Moore's
life, that we have from this time a diary which is invaluable to the
biographer. In 1820 he went to Paris, where he wasted his time and money
in fashionable dissipation, and produced nothing of enduring value. Here
he sketched an Egyptian story, versified in _Alciphron_, but enlarged in
the prose romance called _The Epicurean_.

On a short tour he visited Venice, where he received, as a gift from Lord
Byron, his autobiographical memoirs, which contained so much that was
compromising to others, that they were never published--at least in that
form. They were withdrawn from the Murrays, in whose hands he had placed
them, upon the death of Byron in 1824, and destroyed. A short visit to
Ireland led to his writing the _Memoirs of Captain Rock_, a work which
attained an unprecedented popularity in Ireland.

In 1825 he published his _Life of Sheridan_, which is rather a friendly
panegyric than a truthful biography.

During three years--from 1827 to 1830--he was engaged upon the _Life of
Byron_, which concealed more truth than it divulged. But in all these
years, his chief dependence for daily bread was upon his songs and glees,
squibs for newspapers and magazines, and review articles.

In 1831 he made another successful hit in his _Life of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald_, a rebel of '98, which was followed in 1833 by _The Travels of
an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion_.

In 1835, through the agency of Lord John Russel, the improvident poet
received a pension of L300. It came in a time of need; for he was getting
old, and his mind moved more sluggishly. His infirmities made him more
domestic; but his greater trials were still before him. His sons were
frivolous spendthrifts; one for whom he had secured a commission in the
army behaved ill, and drew upon his impoverish