and useful
monograph. It would be possible, if I were merely reviewing it, to pick
out some of the curious errors of hasty deduction which are rarely
wanting in a book of its nationality. If (and no shame to him) Moore's
father sold cheese and whisky, _le whisky d'Irlande_ was no doubt his
staple commodity in the one branch, but scarcely _le fromage de Stilton_
in the other. An English lawyer's studies are not even now, except at
the universities and for purposes of perfunctory examination, very much
in "Justinian," and in Moore's time they were still less so. And if
Bromham Church is near Sloperton, then it will follow as the night the
day that it is not _dans le Bedfordshire_. But these things matter very
little. They are found, in their different kinds, in all books; and if
we English bookmakers (at least some of us) are not likely to make a
Bordeaux wine merchant sell Burgundy as his chief commodity, or say that
a village near Amiens is _dans le Bearn_, we no doubt do other things
quite as bad. On the whole, M. Vallat's sketch, though of moderate
length, is quite the soberest and most trustworthy sketch of Moore's
life and of his books, as books merely, that I know. In matters of pure
criticism M. Vallat is less blameless. He quotes authorities with that
apparent indifference to, or even ignorance of, their relative value
which is so yawning a pit for the feet of the foreigner in all cases;
and perhaps a wider knowledge of English poetry in general would have
been a better preparation for the study of Moore's in particular.
"Never," says M. Renan very wisely, "never does a foreigner satisfy the
nation whose history he writes"; and this is as true of literary history
as of history proper. But M. Vallat satisfies us in a very considerable
degree; and even putting aside the question whether he is satisfactory
altogether, he has given us quite sufficient text in the mere fact that
he has bestowed upon Moore an amount of attention and competence which
no compatriot of the author of "Lalla Rookh" has cared to bestow for
many years.

I shall also here take the liberty of neglecting a very great--as far as
bulk goes, by far the greatest--part of Moore's own performance. He has
inserted so many interesting autobiographical particulars in the
prefaces to his complete works, that visits to the great mausoleum of
the Russell memoirs are rarely necessary, and still more rarely
profitable. His work for the booksellers was done a