the volume containing the first six months of
the publication; but in the "List of Subscribers" in the second, we see
"_Master_ Thomas Moore;" and as we find this designation changed in the
fourth volume to "_Mr._ Thomas Moore, Trinity College, Dublin!" (a boy with
a black ribband in his collar, being as a collegian an "_ex officio_
man!"), we may take it for ascertained that we have arrived at the
well-spring of those effusions which have since flowed in such sparkling
volumes among the poetry of the day.

Moore's first contribution is easily identified; for it is prefaced by a
note, dated "Aungier Street, Sept. 11, 1793," which contains the usual
request of insertion for "_the attempts of a youthful muse_," &c., and is
signed in the semi-incognito style, "Th-m-s M--re;" the writer fearing,
doubtless, lest his fond mamma should fail to recognise in _his own copy_
of the periodical the performance of her little precocious Apollo.

This contribution consists of two pieces, of which we have room but for the
first: which is a striking exemplification (in subject at least) of
Wordsworth's aphorism, that "the child is father to the man." It is a
sonnet addressed to "Zelia," "_On her charging the author with writing too
much on Love!_" Who _Zelia_ was--whether a lineal ancestress of Dickens's
"Mrs. Harris," or some actual grown up young lady, who was teased by, and
tried to check the chirpings of the little {566} precocious singing
bird--does not appear: but we suspect the former, for this sonnet is
immediately followed by "A Pastoral Ballad!" calling upon some _Celia_
unknown to "pity his tears and complaint," &c., in the usual namby-pamby
style of these compositions. To any one who considers the smart,
_espiegle_, highly artificial style of "Tom Moore's" after compositions,
his "Pastoral Ballad" will be what Coleridge called his Vision, a
"psychological curiosity."

Passing on through the volumes, in the Number for February 1794 we find a
paraphrase of the Fifth Ode of Anacreon, by "Thomas Moore;" another short
poem in June 1794, "To the Memory of Francis Perry, Esq.," signed "T. M.,"
and dated "Aungier Street." These are all which can be identified by
outward and visible signs, without danger of mistake: but there are a
number of others scattered through the volumes which I conjecture may be
his; they are under different signatures, generally T. L., which may be
taken to stand for the _alias_ "Thomas Little," by which Moo