ant
oration, the great tribune went home exhausted, and, indeed, dying.

One of his last experiences was a pathetic interview with Talleyrand,
with whom he had often crossed swords in debate. His weakness dated from
February, 1788, when he was attacked with violent internal pains, and
was bled to such an extent by a surgeon that he never recovered his
wonderful natural vitality. After much suffering, endured with the most
heroic fortitude, he passed away as if in sleep, with a sweet smile on
his features. France mourned the loss of the greatest orator that had
ever graced her tribune. His funeral was celebrated at St. Genevieve
with splendid ceremonial. The verdict of those best qualified to judge
was that Mirabeau was the most remarkable man of the eighteenth century,
and that his premature death, soon after the outbreak of the Revolution,
led to the overthrow of a monarchy which he alone could have saved.

* * * * *

THOMAS MOORE

Life of Byron

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, was born in Dublin on May 28,
1779, was educated at Trinity College, and studied for the Bar
at the Middle Temple. At twenty-one years of age he published
a translation of Anacreon, and his reputation was further
established by his love-poems, under the pseudonym of Thomas
Little, in 1801. He received in 1803 an official post in
Bermuda, but entrusted his duties there to a substitute, by
whose defalcations he was later embarrassed. He was married at
thirty-one to a beautiful and amiable actress, Bessy Dyke, and
lived very happily for most of his life in Wiltshire, but with
an interval of a few years in Paris. In 1835 he received a
literary pension of L300, to which a Civil List pension of
L100 was added in 1850. He died on February 25, 1852.
Undoubtedly, Moore's most important contribution to prose
literature was his "Letters and Journals of Lord Byron,"
published in 1830, six years after the poet's death; as
payment he received L4,200. Although the work was frankly and
even severely criticised in many quarters, it did a great deal
to put Byron right with public opinion. Certainly no literary
contemporary was better fitted to write the biography of his
friend than Moore, who, moreover, had been marked for this
work by a free gift of Byron's own memoirs.

_I.--Ancestors and Early Days_

It