ed father again and again
for money: both died young. This cumulation of troubles broke him down; he
had a cerebral attack in December, 1849, and lived helpless and broken
until the 26th of February, 1852, when he expired without suffering.

HIS POETRY.--In most cases, the concurrence of what an author has written
will present to us the mental and moral features of the man. It is
particularly true in the case of Moore. He appears to us in Protean
shapes, indeed, but not without an affinity between them. Small in
stature, of jovial appearance; devoted to the gayest society; not very
earnest in politics; a Roman Catholic in name, with but little practical
religion, he pandered at first to a frivolous public taste, and was even
more corrupt than the public morals.

Not so apparently as Pope an artificial poet, he had few touches of
nature. Of lyric sentiment he has but little; but we must differ from
those who deny to him rare lyrical expression, and happy musical
adaptations. His songs one can hardly _read_; we feel that they must be
sung. He has been accused, too violently, by Maginn of plagiarism: this,
of course, means of phrases and ideas. In our estimate of Moore, it counts
but little; his rare rhythm and exquisite cadences are not plagiarized;
they are his own, and his chief merit.

He abounds in imagery of oriental gorgeousness; and if, in personality,
he may be compared to his own Peri, or one of "the beautiful blue damsel
flies" of that poem, he has given to his unfriendly critics a judgment of
his own style, in a criticism made by Fadladeen of the young poet's story
to Lalla Rookh;--"it resembles one of those Maldivian boats--a slight,
gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but
vapid sweets and faded flowers on board." "The effect of the whole," says
one of his biographers, speaking of Lalla Rookh, "is much the same as that
of a magnificent ballet, on which all the resources of the theatre have
been lavished, and no expense spared in golden clouds, ethereal light,
gauze-clad sylphs, and splendid tableaux."

Moore has been felicitously called "the poet of all circles," a phrase
which shows that he reflected the general features of his age. At no time
could the license of _Anacreon_, or the poems of Little, have been so well
received as when "the first gentleman in Europe" set the example of
systematic impurity. At no time could _Irish Melodies_ have had such a
_furore_ of adopt