Chapter XVII: Part 17

Still this poem of Human Life is but the life of one section of our fellow-men--that of the gentry. It is curious, that it does not descend into the midst of the multitude, and give us any of those deep and somber shades which abound so much in Crabbe. The reason is obvious. Crabbe had seen it and felt it. He had been born among it, and had himself to struggle. Rogers has gone on that easy path of life that is paved with gold, and "the huts where poor men lie," therefore, probably never for a moment protruded themselves through the charmed circle of his poetic inspiration. Happily for him his are fully the Pleasures of Memory. Yet it is not the less true, or less honorable, that in actual life, there is no man who has remembered the struggling more sympathetically, nor has held out so generous a hand to the aid of unfriended merit.

From the Voyage of Columbus the following extract will afford an example of the beautiful description and rich imaginative power which abound in that poem:--

THE NEW WORLD.

"Long on the deep the mists of morning lay,
Then rose, revealing, as they rolled away,
Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods
Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods:
And say,--when all to holy transport given,
Embraced and wept as at the gate of Heaven,
When one and all of us, repentant, ran,
And on our faces, blessed the wondrous man,--
Say, was I thus deceived, or from the skies
Burst on my ear seraphic harmonies?
'Glory to God!' unnumbered voices sung,
'Glory to God!' the vales and mountains rung--
Voices that hailed creation's primal morn,
And to the shepherds sung a Savior born.

Slowly, bareheaded, through the surf we bore
The sacred cross, and kneeling, kissed the shore.
But what a scene was there? Nymphs of romance!
Youths graceful as the fawn, with eager glance
Spring from the glades, and down the alleys peep;
Some headlong rush, bounding from steep to steep,
And clap their hands, exclaiming as they run,
'Come and behold the children of the sun!'
When hark, a signal-shot! The voice it came
Over the sea, in darkness and in flame!
They saw, they heard; and up the highest hill,
As in a picture, all at once were still!
Creatures so fair, in garments strangely wrought,
From citadels, with Heaven's own thunder fraught,
Checked their light footsteps--statue-like they stood,
As worshiped forms, the Genii of the Wood!

At length the spell dissolves! the warrior's lance
Rings on the tortoise with wild dissonance!
And see, the regal plumes, the coach of state!
Still, where it moves, the wise in council wait!
See now borne forth the monstrous masks of gold,
And ebon chair of many a serpent fold;
These now exchanged for gifts that thrice surpass
The wondrous ring, and lamp, and horse of brass.
What long-drawn tube transports the gazer home,
Kindling with stars at noon the ethereal dome?
'Tis here: and here circles of solid light
Charm with another self the cheated sight;
As man to man another self disclose,
And now with terror starts, with triumph glows!"

Italy, Mr. Rogers's last published poem of any length, is a fine production, full of that glorious land, and abounding with the finest subjects for the painter and the sculptor; but we must not be tempted to speak further of it here.

The changes of Mr. Rogers's life, or of his abodes, have not been many. He was born at Newington-green, in 1763, and is, consequently, eighty-three years of age. Newington-green, his birthplace, has all the marks of an old locality. In this neighborhood the Tudor princes used to live a good deal. Canonbury, between this green and Islington, was a favorite hunting-seat of Elizabeth, and no doubt the woods and wastes extended all round this neighborhood. There is Kingsland, now all built on, there is Henry VIII.'s walk, and Queen Elizabeth's walk, all in the vicinity; and this old, quiet green seems to retain a feeling and an aspect of those times. It is built round with houses, evidently of a considerable age. There are trees and quietness about it still. In the center of the south side is an old house standing back, which is said to have been inhabited by Henry VIII. At the end next to Stoke Newington stands an old Presbyterian chapel, at which the celebrated Dr. Price preached, and of which, afterward, the husband of Mrs. Barbauld was the minister. Near this chapel De Foe was educated, and the house still remains. In this green lived, too, Mary Wollstoncraft, being engaged with another lady in keeping a school. Samuel Rogers was born in the stuccoed house at the southwest corner, which is much older than it seems. Adjoining it is a large, old garden. Here his father, and his mother's father, lived before him. By the mother's side he was descended from the celebrated Philip Henry, the father of Matthew Henry, and was therefore of an old Non-conformist family. Mr. Rogers's grandfather was a gentleman, pursuing no profession, but his father engaged in banking. Mr. Rogers continued to reside in this house till after his father's death, and wrote and published here his Pleasures of Memory, which appeared a short time before his father's decease.

On quitting Newington-green, Mr. Rogers took chambers in the Temple, where he continued to reside five years, or till about 1800, when he removed to his present house; so that he has occupied his present abode the greater part of half-a-century. In this house, 22, St. James's-place, he has not only written every one of his chief poems, except the Pleasures of Memory, but he has been visited in it by a vast number of the most celebrated men of his time, among them Byron, Scott, Moore, Crabbe, Fox, Campbell, Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, etc.

At an early period of his life he was anxious to purchase an estate in the country, not too far from London, where he could build a house after his own taste. He pitched on Fredley farm, in Norbury-park, near Mickleham, in Surrey, which was to be disposed of. By some means it escaped him, and disappointed in his object, he seems to have given up the search for another situation, and contented himself with building his house on paper. The result was the abode described in his Epistle to a Friend, published in 1798. His villa is placed in a rustic hamlet, has few apartments, but is not without its library and cold bath, and is furnished with prints after the best painters, and casts from the antique. The whole of this poem breathes the love of the country, of simplicity of life, and condemns the pomp and the follies of London fashionable life. Its accompaniments, its exterior and interior, are all of the same unostentatious character--it is an abode that any man of taste might possess without any great wealth.

"Still must my partial pencil love to dwell
On the home prospects of my hermit-cell:
The mossy pales that skirt the orchard green
Here hid by shrub-wood, there by glimpses seen;
And the brown pathway that with careless flow
Sinks, and is lost among the trees below.
Still must it trace, the flattering tints forgive,--
Each fleeting charm that bids the landscape live.
Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance pass,
Browsing the hedge by fits, the panniered ass;
The idling shepherd-boy with rude delight,
Whistling his dog to mark the pebble's flight;
And, in her kerchief blue, the cottage maid,
With brimming pitcher from the shadowy glade
Far to the south a mountain vale retires,
Rich in its groves, and glens, and village spires;
Its upland lawns, and cliffs with foliage hung,
Its wizard stream, nor nameless, nor unsung.
And through the various year, the various day,
What scenes of glory burst and melt away!"

His interior embellishment shall be my last extract:--

"Here no state chambers in long line unfold,
Bright with broad mirrors, rough with fretted gold:
Yet modest ornament, with use combined,
Attracts the eye to exercise the mind.
Small change of scene, small space his home requires,
Who leads a life of satisfied desires.
What though no marble breathes, no canvas glows,
From every point a ray of genius flows!
Be mine to bless the more mechanic skill,
That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will;
And cheaply circulates through distant climes
The fairest relics of the purest times.
Here from the mold to conscious being start
Those finer forms, the miracles of art;
Here chosen gems, impressed on sulphur shine,
That slept for ages in the secret mine;
And here the faithful graver dares to trace
A Michael's grandeur and a Raphael's grace!
Thy gallery, Florence, gilds my humble walls,
And my low roof the Vatican recalls."

But Mr. Rogers had the power to procure the originals; and therefore the same taste put him in possession of them. He was destined to spend his life in London, and only premising that the front of his house overlooks the Green-park, and possesses a gateway into it, I shall present the account of its interior, or rather of its treasures of art, from the pen of the well known Professor Waagen of Berlin, knowing from the poet himself that it is accurate.

"By the kindness of Mr. Solly, who continues to embrace every opportunity of doing me service, I have been introduced to Mr. Rogers the poet, a very distinguished and amiable man. He is one of the few happy mortals to whom it has been granted to be able to gratify, in a worthy manner, the most lively sensibility to every thing noble and beautiful. He has accordingly found means, in the course of his long life, to impress this sentiment on every thing about him. In his house you are everywhere surrounded and excited with the higher productions of art. In truth one knows not whether more to admire the diversity or the purity of his taste. Pictures of the most different schools, ancient and modern sculptures, Greek vases, alternately attract the eye, and are so arranged, with a judicious regard to their size, in proportion to the place assigned them, that every room is richly and picturesquely ornamented, without having the appearance of a magazine from being overfilled, as we frequently find. Among all these objects none is insignificant; several cabinets and portfolios contain, beside the choicest collections of antique ornaments in gold that I have hitherto seen, valuable miniatures of the middle ages, fine drawings by the old masters, and the most agreeable prints of the greatest of the old engravers, Marcantonio, Durer, etc., in the finest impressions. The enjoyment of all these treasures was heightened to the owner by the confidential intercourse with the most eminent, now deceased, English artists, Flaxman and Stothard; both have left him a memorial of their friendship. In two little marble statues of Cupid and Psyche, and a mantle-piece, with a bas-relief representing a muse with a lyre and Mnemosyne by Flaxman, there is the same noble and graceful feeling which has so greatly attracted me from my childhood in his celebrated compositions after Homer and Æschylus. The hair and draperies are treated with great, almost too picturesque softness. Among all the English painters, none, perhaps, has so much power of invention as Stothard. His versatile talent has successfully made essays in the domains of history, or fancy and poetry, of humor, and lastly, even in domestic scenes, in the style of Watteau. To this may be added much feeling for graceful movements, and cheerful, bright coloring. In his pictures, which adorn a chimney-piece, principal characters from Shakspeare's plays are represented with great spirit and humor; among them Falstaff makes a very distinguished and comical figure. There is also a merry company, in the style of Watteau; the least attractive is an allegorical representation of Peace returning to the earth, for the brilliant coloring approaching to Rubens can not make up for the poorness of the heads and the weakness of the drawing.

"As there are among the pictures some of the best works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, fine specimens of the works of three of the most eminent British artists of an earlier date are here united.

"Beside portraits, properly so called, Sir Joshua Reynolds was the happiest in the representation of children, where he was able, in the main, to remain faithful to nature, and in general an indifferent but naïve action or occupation alone was necessary. In such pictures, he admirably succeeded in representing the youthful bloom and artless manners of the fine English children. This it is which makes his celebrated strawberry girl, which is in this collection, so attractive. With her hands simply folded, a basket under her arm, she stands in her white frock, and looks full at the spectator, with her fine, large eyes. The admirable impasto, the bright, golden tone, clear as Rembrandt, and the dark landscape background, have a striking effect. Sir Joshua himself looked upon this as one of his best pictures. A sleeping girl is also uncommonly charming, the coloring very glowing; many cracks in the painting, both in the background and the drapery, show the uncertainty of the artist in the mechanical processes of the art. Another girl with a bird does not give me so much pleasure. The rather affected laugh is, in this instance, not stolen from nature, but from the not happy invention of the painter; in the glowing color there is something specky and false. Puck, the merry elf in Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, called by the English Robin Goodfellow, represented as a child, with an arch look, sitting on a mushroom, and full of wantonness, stretching out arms and legs, is another much admired work of Sir Joshua. But though this picture is painted with much warmth and clearness, the conception does not at all please me. I find it too childish, and not fantastic enough. In the background, Titania is seen with the ass-headed weaver. Psyche with the lamp, looking at Cupid, figures as large as life, is of the most brilliant effect, and, in the tender, greenish half-tints, also of great delicacy. In the regard for beautiful leading lines, there is an affinity to the rather exaggerated grace of Parmeggiano. In such pictures by Sir Joshua, the incorrect drawing always injures the effect. I was much interested at meeting with a landscape by this master. It is in the style of Rembrandt, and of very strong effect.

"Of older English painters, there are here two pretty pictures by Gainsborough, one by Wilson; of the more recent, I found only one by the rare and spirited Bonington, of a Turk fallen asleep over his pipe, admirably executed in a deep, harmonious chiaro-oscuro. Mr. Rogers's taste and knowledge of the art are too general for him not to feel the profound intellectual value of works of art in which the management of the materials was in some degree restricted. He has therefore not disdained to place in his collection the half-figures of St. Paul and St. John, and fragments of a fresco painting from the Carmelite Church at Florence, by Giotto; Salome dancing before Herod, and the beheading of St. John, by Fiesole; a coronation of the Virgin, by Lorenzo de Condi, the fellow-scholar and friend of Leonardo da Vinci, whose productions and personal character were so estimable. Next to these pictures is a Christ on the Mount of Olives, by Raphael, at the time when he had not abandoned the manner of Perugio. This little picture was once a part of the predella to the altar-piece which Raphael painted in the year 1505 for the nuns of St. Anthony, at Perugio. It came with the Orleans gallery to England, and was last in the possession of Lord Eldin, in Edinburgh. Unhappily it has been much injured by cleaning and repairing, but in many parts, particularly in the arms of the angel, there are defects in the drawing, such as we do not find in Raphael even at this period. So that, most probably, the composition alone should be ascribed to him, and the execution to one of the assistants, who painted the two saints belonging to the same predella now in Dulwich College.

"From the Orleans gallery, Mr. Rogers has Raphael's Madonna, well known by Flipart's engraving, with the eyes rather cast down, on whom the child standing by her fondly leans. The expression of joyousness in the child is very pleasing. The gray color of the under-dress of the virgin, with red sleeves, forms an agreeable harmony with the blue mantle. To judge by the character and drawing, the composition may be of the early period of Raphael's residence at Rome. In other respects, this picture admits of no judgment, because many parts have become quite flat by cleaning, and others are painted over. The landscape is in a blue-greenish tone, differing from Raphael's manner.

"Of the Roman school I will mention only one more. Christ bearing his cross, by Andrea Sacchi, a moderate-sized picture from the Orleans gallery, is one of the capital pictures of this master, in composition, depth of coloring, and harmony.

"The crown, however, of the whole collection, is Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene, by Titian. It was formerly in the possession of the family of Muselli at Verona, and afterward adorned the Orleans gallery. In the clear, bright, golden tone of the flesh, the careful execution, the refined feeling, in the impassioned desire of the kneeling Magdalene to touch the Lord, and the calm, dignified refusal of the Savior, we recognize the earlier time of this master. The beautiful landscape, with the reflection of the glowing horizon upon the blue sea, which is of great importance here, in proportion to the figures, proves how early Titian obtained extraordinary mastery in this point, and confirms that he was the first who carried this branch to a higher degree of perfection. This poetic picture is, on the whole, in very good preservation; the crimson drapery of the Magdalene is of unusual depth and fullness. The lower part of the legs of Christ have, however, suffered a little. The figures are about a third the size of life.

"The finished sketch for the celebrated picture, known by the name of La Gloria di Tiziano, which he afterward, by the command of Philip II., King of Spain, painted for the church of the convent where the Emperor Charles V. died, is also very remarkable. It is a rich, but not very pleasing composition. The idea of having the coffin of the emperor carried up to heaven, where God the Father and Son are enthroned, is certainly not a happy one. The painting is throughout excellent, and of a rich, deep tone in the flesh. Unfortunately, it is not wanting in re-touches. The large picture is now in the Escurial.

"As the genuine pictures of Giorgione are so very rare, I will briefly mention a young knight, small, full-length, noble and powerful in face and figure; the head is masterly, treated in his glowing tone; the armor with great force and clearness in the chiaro-oscuro.

"The original sketch of Tintoretto, for his celebrated picture of St. Mark coming to the assistance of a martyr, is as spirited as it is full and deep in the tone.

"The rich man and Lazarus, by Giacomo Bassano, is, in execution and glow of coloring, approaching to Rembrandt, one of the best pictures of the master.

"There are some fine cabinet pictures of the school of Carracci: a Virgin and Child, worshiped by six saints, by Lodovico Carracci, is one of his most pleasing pictures in imitation of Corregio. Among four pictures by Domenichino, two landscapes, with the punishment of Marsyas, and Tobit with the fish, are very attractive, from the poetry of the composition and the delicacy of the finish. Another likewise very fine one of Bird-catching, from the Borghese Palace, has unfortunately turned quite dark. A Christ, by Guido, is broadly and spiritedly touched in his finest silver tone.

"There is an exquisite little gem by Claude Lorraine. In a soft evening light, a lonely shepherd, with his peaceful flocks, is playing the pipe. Of the master's earlier time; admirable in the impasto, careful and delicate, decided and soft, all in a warm golden tone. In the Liber Veritatis, marked No. 11. Few pictures inspire like this a feeling for the delicious stillness of a summer's evening.

"A landscape by Nicolas Poussin, rather large, of a very poetic composition and careful execution, inspires, on the other hand, in the brownish silver tone, the sensation of the freshness of morning. There is quite a reviving coolness in the dark water and under the trees of the foreground.

"Two smaller historical pictures by Poussin, of his earlier time, class among his careful and good works.

"Of the Flemish school there are a few, but very good, specimens.

"There is a highly interesting picture by Rubens. During his residence in Mantua, he was so pleased with the triumph of Julius Cæsar, by Mantegna, that he made a fine copy of one of the nine pictures. His love for the fantastic and pompous led him to choose that with the elephants carrying the candelabra; but his ardent imagination, ever directed to the dramatic, could not be content with this. Instead of a harmless sheep, which in Mantegna is walking by the side of the foremost elephant, Rubens made a lion and a lioness, which growl angrily at the elephant. The latter, on his part, is not idle, but, looking furiously round, is on the point of striking the lion a blow with his trunk. The severe pattern which he had before him in Mantegna has moderated Rubens in his usually very full forms, so that they are more noble and slender than they generally are. The coloring, as in all his earlier pictures, is more subdued than in the later, and yet powerful. Rubens himself seems to have set much value on this study; for it was among the effects at his death. During the revolution, Mr. Champernowne brought it from the Balbi Palace, at Genoa. It is three feet high, and five feet five inches wide.

"The study for the celebrated picture, the Terrors of War, in the Pitti Palace at Florence, and respecting which we have a letter in Rubens's own hand, is likewise well worth notice. Rubens painted this picture for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Venus endeavors, in vain, to keep Mars, the insatiable warrior, as Homer calls him, from war; he hurries away to prepare indescribable destruction. This picture, one foot eight inches high, and two feet six and a half inches wide, which I have seen in the exhibition of the British Institution, is, by the warmth and power of the coloring, and the spirited and careful execution, one of the most eminent of Rubens's small pictures of this period.

"Lastly, there is a Moonlight by him. The clear reflection of the moon in the water, its effect in the low distance, the contrast of the dark mass of trees in the foreground, are a proof of the deep feeling for striking incidents in nature, which was peculiar to Rubens. As in another picture the flakes of snow were represented, he has here marked the stars.

"I have now become acquainted with Rembrandt in a new department; he has painted in brown and white a rather obscure allegory on the deliverance of the United Provinces from the union of such great powers as Spain and Austria. It is a rich composition, with many horsemen. One of the most prominent figures is a lion chained at the foot of a rock, on which the tree of liberty is growing. Over the rock are the words, '_Solo Deo gloria_.' The whole is executed with consummate skill, and the principal effect striking.

"His own portrait, at an advanced age, with very dark ground and shadows, and, for him, a cool tone of the lights, is to be classed, among the great number of them, with that in the Bridgewater Gallery; only it is treated in his broadest manner, which borders on looseness.

"A landscape, with a few trees upon a hill, in the foreground, with a horseman and a pedestrian in the background, a plain with a bright horizon, is clearer in the shadows than other landscapes by Rembrandt, and therefore, with the most powerful effect, the more harmonious.

"Among the drawings I must at least mention some of the finest.

"RAPHAEL. The celebrated Entombment, drawn with the utmost spirit with the pen. From the Crozat collection. Mr. Rogers gave £120 for it.

"ANDREA DEL SARTO. Some studies in black chalks, for his fresco paintings in the Chapel del Scalzo. That for the young man who carries the baggage in the visitation of the Virgin is remarkably animated.

"LUCAS VAN LEYDEN. A pen drawing, executed in the most perfect and masterly manner, for his celebrated and excessively rare engraving of the portrait of the Emperor Maximilian I. This wonderful drawing has hitherto been erroneously ascribed to Albert Durer.

"ALBERT DURER. A child weeping. In chalk, on colored paper, brightened with white; almost unpleasantly true to reality.

"Among the admirable engravings, I mention only a single female figure, very delicately treated, which is so entirely pervaded with the spirit of Francisco Francia, that I do not hesitate to ascribe it to him. Francia, originally a goldsmith, is well known to have been peculiarly skilled in executing larger compositions in niello. How easily, therefore, might it have occurred to him, instead of working as hitherto in silver, to work with his graver in copper, especially as in his time the engraving on copper had been brought into more general use in Italy, by A. Mantegna and others; and Francia had such energy and diversity of talents that, in his mature age, he successfully made himself master of the art of painting, which was so much more remote from his own original profession. Beside this, the fine delicate lines in which the engraving is executed indicate an artist who had been previously accustomed to work for niello-plates, in which this manner is usually practiced. The circumstance, too, that Marcantonio was educated in the workshop of Francia, is favorable to the presumption that he himself had practiced engraving.

"Among the old miniatures, that which is framed and glazed and hung up, representing, in a landscape, a knight in golden armor, kneeling down, to whom God the Father, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, appears in the air, while the damned are tormented by devils in the abyss, is by far the most important. As has been already observed by Passavant, it belongs to a series of forty miniatures, in the possession of Mr. George Brentano, at Frankfort-on-Maine, which were executed for Maître Etienne Chevalier, treasurer of France under King Charles VII., and may probably have adorned his prayer-book. They are by the greatest French miniature painter of the fifteenth century, Johan Fouquet de Tours, painter to King Louis XI. In regard to the admirable, spirited invention, which betrays a great master, as well as the finished execution, they rank uncommonly high.

"An antique bust of a youth, in Carrara marble, which, in form and expression, resembles the eldest son of Laocoon, is in a very noble style, uncommonly animated, and of admirable workmanship. In particular, the antique piece of the neck and the treatment of the hair are very delicate. The nose and ears are new; a small part of the chin, too, and the upper lip, are completed in a masterly manner in wax.

"A candelabrum in bronze, about ten inches high, is of the most beautiful kind. The lower part is formed by a sitting female figure holding a wreath. This fine and graceful design belongs to the period when art was in its perfection. This exquisite relic, which was purchased for Mr. Rogers, in Italy, by the able connoisseur, Mr. Millingen, is, unfortunately, much damaged in the epidermis.

"Among the elegant articles of antique ornament in gold, the earrings and clasps, by which so many descriptions of the ancient poets are called to mind, there are likewise whole figures beat out in thin gold leaves. The principal article is a golden circlet, about two and a half inches in diameter, the workmanship of which is as rich and skillful as could be made in our times.

"Of the many Greek vases in terra cotta, there are five, some of them large, in the antique taste, with black figures on a yellow ground, which are of considerable importance. A flat dish, on the outer side of which five young men are rubbing themselves with the strigil, and five washing themselves, yellow on a black ground, is to be classed with vases of the first rank, for the gracefulness of the invention, and the beauty and elegance of the execution. In this collection, it is excelled only by a vase, rounded below, so that it must be placed in a peculiar stand. The combat of Achilles with Penthesilia is represented upon it, likewise, in red figures. This composition, consisting of thirteen figures, is by far the most distinguished, not only of all representations of the subject, but, in general, of all representations of combats which I have hitherto seen on vases, in the beauty and variety of the attitudes, in masterly drawing, as well as in the spirit and delicacy of the execution. It is in the happy medium between the severe and the quite free style, so that in the faces there are some traces of the antique manner."

It remains only to add, that Mr. Rogers has embellished his works with the same exquisite taste as his house. They are splendid specimens of typography, and are rich in the most beautiful designs by Stothard and Turner, from the most celebrated burins of the day. I believe more than fifty thousand copies of them have been circulated.

THOMAS MOORE.

The author of Lalla Rookh, like most of the race of genius, is one whom his own genius has ennobled. The man who has not to thank his ancestors for what he enjoys of wealth, station, or reputation, has all the more to thank himself for. The heralds, says Savage Landor, will give you a grandfather if you want one, but a genuine poet has no need of a grandfather; he is his own grandfather, his own shield-bearer, and stands forth to the world in the proud attitude of debtor to none but God and himself, the shield-bearer and the grandfather of others. Thomas Moore was born in a humble house in Dublin, the son of humble but respectable parents. He has made his own way in the world, and given to those parents the honor of having produced a distinguished son. That is as it should be. People should honor their parents, it is rarely that parents can honor their children. They can not bequeath their genius to them; it is not always that they can succeed in engrafting on them their virtues; and if parents be glorious in reputation and in goodness, if the children do not walk worthy of that glory, the glory itself is only a blaze that exposes them to the world; lights up and aggravates every blemish to the general eye. How truly is honor, true honor, in nine cases out of ten, a self-acquisition. Wealth you may entail, station you may entail; but well won honor is a thing which, like salvation, every man must achieve for himself. Poets in general know no ancestry. In their poetic character they are as truly and newly created as Adam himself. Who cares a button for the ancestors of Byron, of Milton, of Shakspeare, of Goëthe, or of Schiller? These men start out to our eyes in the blaze of their own genius, which darkens all around them. They are creations of God, and not of man. They are sent forth into the world, and not born into it. Their ancestors are not the ancestors of their genius. They are the progenitors of the earthy caterpillar,--the butterfly, the Psyche of genius, is born of itself. With the splendid spirit which breaks forth sometimes from an old line, that line commonly has nothing more to do than the earth on which we tread, the common mother of us all, has to do with our soul and its celestial powers. These come out of the hand of God, gifts to us and the world; luminaries burning in a divine isolation; priests after the order of Melchisedec, whose ancestry and whose posterity are not known. God has vindicated to himself the origination of Genius and Christianity. They both came into the world independent of governments and princes; they spring out of the habitations of the poor, and walk among the poor: they disdain to confer on worldly pride the honor of their alliance, but they do their mission in the strength of their sender, and mount to heaven.

These are great truths that every man of genius should see, acknowledge, and act upon. His birth is higher than that of any prince, even be it more lowly than that of the Son of God, in a stable and a manger, with a stalled ox instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and an ass instead of a prime minister, attending as witnesses. Nobles can confer no nobility on him: he bears his patent of honor in his own bosom; the escutcheon of genius in his broad and exalted brow. He should remember this; and the world will not then forget it. He should think of himself as sent forth by God, doing God's work in the earth, and having to render up to God the account of his embassy. With this idea within him and before him, his work will be done the more nobly; and the public which is made what it is by him,--effeminate through his effeminacy, corrupt through his corruption, wise through his wisdom, will soon place him in his true rank, above all heaps of metal and spadefuls of earth, and honor him as the only true noble, the only man who has no need of heraldic lies and fictitious grandfathers. These are great truths that the children of men of genius too should bear in mind. They should feel that they can not inherit genius, but they may possess it in some new shape, an equal gift of heaven. This will keep alive in them the spirit of honorable action; and they may come to live, not in the moonshine of their ancestral lights, but in a genuine warm sunshine of their own. The honor of a distinguished parent is not our honor but our foil, if we do not seek to establish an alliance with it by our own exertion, and above all, by goodness.

For want of poets and poets' children entertaining these rational ideas, what miseries have from age to age awaited them! In the course of my peregrinations to the birthplaces and the tombs of poets, how often have these reflections been forced upon me. Humble, indeed, are frequently their birthplaces; but what is far worse, how wretched are often the places of their deaths! How many of them have died in the squalid haunts of destitution, and even by their own hand. How many of them have left their families to utter poverty; how many of those caressed in their lives, lie without a stone or a word of remembrance in their graves! Scott, with all his glory and his monuments in other places, has not even a slab bearing his name laid upon his breast. Chatterton's very bones have been dispersed to make a market. Motherwell, amid all the proud cenotaphs in the Necropolis at Glasgow, such men as Major Monteith having whole funeral palaces to themselves, has not even a cubic foot of stone, or a mere post with his initials, to mark his resting-place. But still more melancholy is the contemplation of the beginning and the end of Robert Tannahill, the popular song-writer of Paisley. Tannahill was no doubt stimulated by the fame of Burns. True, he had not the genius of Burns, but genius he had, and that is conspicuous in many of those songs which during his lifetime were sung with enthusiasm by his countrymen. Tannahill was a poor weaver at Paisley. The cottage where he lived is still to be seen, a very ordinary weaver's cottage in an ordinary street; and the place where he drowned himself may be seen too at the outside of the town. This is one of the most dismal places in which a poet ever terminated his career. Tannahill, like Burns, was fond of a jovial hour amid his comrades in a public-house. But weaving of verse and weaving of calico did not agree. The world applauded, but did not patronize; poverty came like an armed man; and Tannahill in the frenzy of despair resolved to terminate his existence. Outside of Paisley there is a place where a small stream passes under a canal. To facilitate this passage, a deep pit is sunk, and a channel for the waters is made under the bottom of the canal. This pit is, I believe, eighteen feet deep. It is built round with stone, which is rounded off at its mouth, so that any one falling in can not by any possibility get out, for there is nothing to lay hold of. Any one once in there might grasp and grasp in vain for an edge to seize upon. He would sink back and back till he was exhausted and sunk forever. No doubt Tannahill in moments of gloomy observation had noted this. And at midnight he came, stripped off his coat, laid down his hat, and took the fatal plunge. No cry could reach human ear from that horrible abyss; no effort of the strongest swimmer could avail to sustain him: soon worn out he must go down, and amid the black, boiling torrent be borne through the subterranean channel onward with the stream. Thus died Robert Tannahill, and a more fearful termination was never put to a poetical career. This place is called Tannahill's hole, and cats and dogs drowned in it, from its peculiar fitness for inevitable drowning, float about on the surface, and add to the revolting shudder which the sight of it creates.

Such are some of the dominant tendencies of poetic fate which made Wordsworth exclaim,

"We poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness;"

and such must there be till genius respect itself, and cause the public to respect it; till it reflect that it is a heavenly endowment, and not a trade stock.

Among the more fortunate men of genius,--among those who by strength of pinion, and by various resources of prose, poetry, and music, have soared above the poet's ordinary path, beset with ropes, poison, throat-cutting, razors, pistols, and drowning holes,--is the gay and genial Thomas Moore. Moore was born, as I have said, in Dublin. His father kept a shop in Aungier-street, and was a respectable grocer and spirit dealer. The shop continues exactly as it was to the present day, is employed for the same trade, and over it is the little drawing-room in which Mr. Moore himself tells us, that he used to compose his songs, and with his sister and some young friends, act plays as a boy.

He was first educated by Mr. Samuel Whyte, to whom in his fourteenth year he addressed a sonnet, which was published in a Dublin magazine, called the Anthologia. This Mr. Whyte was fond of dramatic representation, and is mentioned by Moore as having superintended private theatricals at different gentlemen's and noblemen's houses, as at the Duke of Leinster's, at Marly, the seat of the Latouches, etc., where he supplied prologues. Sheridan had been a pupil of Whyte's, and it is further stated by Mr. Moore, that many parents were alarmed at the danger of his instilling a love for these things into his scholars. Can there be a doubt that he did so with Sheridan and Moore?

He was sent to the university in Dublin, where the unfortunate Robert Emmet was at the time. Moore soon formed an acquaintance with him, and became a member of a debating society, at which Emmet and other young patriots assembled to prepare themselves for public life. On the approach of the frightful explosion of 1798, the university was visited by Lord Clare, its vice-chancellor, with a rigorous examination, government having become aware of the students being deeply engaged in the organization of the Irish union. Among those found to be thus implicated, were Emmet, John Brown, and others. They became marked men. Moore himself underwent examination, but came clear off. From these connections and early impressions, however, we may date his steady adherence to liberal and patriotic sentiments.

At the university his poetic genius early displaying itself, he soon found his way over to England, where his wit, his songs, and his conversational brilliancy, introduced him to the first circles of fashionable life, and to government patronage. He was appointed to the situation of Registrar to the Admiralty Court at the Bermudas. This appointment turned out unfortunately for him, but it enabled him to extend his knowledge of the world. He published on his return a collection of odes, epistles, and fugitive poems, illustrative of the scenery and life of that island; and he made a tour in the United States, from which he indited a series of most caustic and satirical epistles. From the hour that he settled down again in England, notwithstanding the time which he must have devoted to society, into which his peculiar powers of pleasing have continually drawn him, he has displayed an extraordinary industry. The catalogue of his writings from first to last is enormous. The Odes of Anacreon translated. A Candid Appeal to Public Confidence, or Considerations on the dangers of the Present Crisis, 1803. Corruption and Intolerance, two poems. Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, 1806. Little's Poems, 1808. A Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin, 1810. M.P., or the Blue Stocking; a comic opera, in three acts, performed at the Lyceum, 1811. Intercepted Letters, or the Twopenny Post Bag, by Thomas Browne the younger, 1812: this has gone through upward of fourteen editions. Irish Melodies. Arthur Murphy's Translation of Sallust completed. The Skeptic, a philosophical Satire. Lalla Rookh, 1817. The Fudge Family in Paris, 1818. Ballads, Songs, etc. Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress, in verse. Trifles Reprinted, in verse. Loves of the Angels. Rhymes on the Road. Miscellaneous Poems by Members of the Procurante Society. Fables for the Holy Alliance. Ballads, Songs, Miscellaneous Poems, etc. Memoirs of Captain Rock. Life of Sheridan. The Epicurean. Odes on Cash, Corn, Catholics, etc. Evenings in Greece. Life and Letters of Lord Byron, in 17 vols. History of Ireland, etc., etc., etc.

If Mr. Moore has been a gay man, it can not be said that he has been an indolent one. He was born in May, 1780, and is, consequently, now only sixty-six. It would appear that, on coming to England, he destined himself for the bar, as he entered himself of the Middle Temple, in 1799. But instead of legal studies, poetical ones seem to have occupied him in his chambers; for in the course of 1800, and before he had completed his twentieth year, he published his translation of the Odes of Anacreon. This seems to have decided his fate for literature. In 1801 out came Little's Poems, many of which, I am persuaded, the author would give a great portion of his fame to be able to cancel forever; and, indeed, in his late edition, in one volume, I am glad to see that the most exceptionable are excluded. In 1803 he set sail to take possession of his office in the West Indies; on which occasion he was absent something more than a year. To pursue a rapid outline of his life;--on his return to England he married a Miss Dyke, said to be a lady of great personal beauty, most amiable disposition, and accomplished manners. I believe she has always shown herself a woman of much energy of character and tact of judgment, and that the poet has found great cause to rely on her opinion in matters of daily life. His great poem, Lalla Rookh, appeared in 1817; and in the summer of that year Moore visited Paris, where he collected the materials for that humorous production, The Fudge Family in Paris. In the following year he made a visit to Ireland, where he was received with the highest enthusiasm and public honor. In 1822 he again visited Paris, where great respect was shown him by the French literati, and a public dinner was given to him by the English nobility and gentry resident there. In one of his prefaces to his different volumes, which, in fact, contain his literary life, we learn, that he was compelled to live in France at this time, in consequence of the responsibilities under which he had fallen from the conduct of his deputy in the Bermudas. He was, indeed, liable to demands of at least six thousand pounds, and it was not safe for him to remain in England till this matter was arranged; which was at length done by his friends, and the sum reduced to one thousand; of which the deputy's uncle paid three hundred. Two summers Moore states himself and family to have lived in a cottage of some Spanish friends, near their seat. La Butte Coaslin. He says that it conjured up an apparition of Sloperton, which by a happy quotation from Pope he defines--

"A little cot with trees a row.
And, like his master, very low."

Here he used to wander in the noble park of St. Cloud, with his pocket-book and pencil, composing verses, and pondering on the Epicurean; and closing the evening by practicing duets with the lady of his Spanish friend, or listening to her guitar. King, the dramatic writer, lived near them, and Washington Irving visited him there. In 1823 he published The Loves of the Angels; and since then, beside the Life of Sheridan, and various other productions, the Life and Letters of Lord Byron.

Perhaps the most important event connected with his later life was the destruction of the Memoirs of Lord Byron, which had been intrusted to him for publication after his death. These Memoirs had been given to Mr. Moore, and Mr. Moore had sold the copyright of them to Mr. Murray, for two thousand guineas. Lord Byron being dead, and the time for publication come, the relatives of Lord Byron took alarm, and implored Mr. Moore to allow them to be destroyed. To this Mr. Moore was weak enough to consent. That he did so from a sense of the most delicate honor, there could be no question; even had he not proved that by the sacrifice of two thousand guineas and interest, which he repaid to Mr. Murray, though he had to borrow it of Messrs. Longman. But if honor to Lord Byron's relatives was preserved, it was neither so to Lord Byron nor the public. It was a sacred trust of the one for the gratification of the other, and had Mr. Moore had any scruples on the subject of publication, he should have returned the MS. to Lord Byron while living. When dead, there was no such way out; there was no alternative, without a betrayal of the most sacred trust that could be reposed in man, but to allow the noble donor's intention to be faithfully carried out. There has been much controversy on this topic, but this still continues, and will continue to be, the result of public opinion.

One of the secrets of Mr. Moore's successful industry, perhaps, may be found in the fact of his having, spite of his social disposition, and of all the fascinations of society for a man of his fame, wit, and accomplishments, lived the greater part of his life since his marriage in the country. Among the various places of his abode, two only have been residences of much duration. These are Mayfield cottage, near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, and Sloperton cottage, near Devizes, in Wiltshire.

At Mayfield he lived several years, and here he wrote Lalla Rookh. This village is not particularly picturesque, nor is the immediate neighborhood striking; but it lies in a fine country, and within a short distance of it are Dovedale, and other beautiful scenes in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The recommendations of Mayfield have been thus enumerated by a cotemporary writer in a periodical. "Moore's cottage is in a secluded part of Mayfield, a village on the Staffordshire side of the river Dove, about two miles from Ashbourne. It is a spot not often alluded to in literature, though the neighborhood has been peculiarly honored by literary men. Three miles from Mayfield is Wootton-hall, where Rousseau lived several years; where he botanized, and where he wrote his Confessions. One mile from Mayfield, on the other side of the Dove, lived a great, and perhaps, a much better man than Rousseau, but who will not attain an equal renown--Michael Thomas Sadler. At Oakover, one mile from Mayfield, is the residence of the late Mr. Ward, author of Tremaine. Two miles farther up the river, in the loveliest of all villages, a grotto is still preserved in which Congreve wrote his first drama. A ten minutes' walk affords a view of the grand entrance to Dovedale, immortalized by old Izaak Walton. At Tissington, another most exquisite village, like the former without work-house or ale-house, lived Greaves, the author of the Spiritual Quixote. Dr. Taylor, one of Dr. Johnson's most esteemed friends, was an inhabitant of Ashbourne. The great lexicographer was a visitor of this neighborhood, and some of his most amusing conversations and peculiarities are recorded by Boswell while staying in this quiet town. Mayfield cottage bears now some claim to the notice of the lovers of literature, from its being the residence of Mr. Alfred Butler, the clever author of the novels of Elphinstone and The Herberts."

It was not, however, the attractions enumerated in the above passage which determined the settlement of Moore there. His wife and himself were traveling along from a scene of great aristocratic splendor, of which they had become so weary, that they sighed for the utmost simplicity, retirement, and repose, and vowed that they would take the very first place of such a character that they found vacant. Mayfield cottage was the one. "It was a poor place," said Moore to myself, "little better than a barn, but we at once took it, and set about making it habitable."

It is no doubt from some such remark on the part of the poet that a paragraph originated which I have lately seen going the round of the newspapers, that he wrote Lalla Rookh in a barn. That barn was, in fact, Mayfield cottage. The right-hand front window is pointed out as belonging to Moore's little parlor; the window at the side belonged to his not very extensive library, and the trees visible above the roof are part of the orchard, his favorite study, in which some of his choicest lyrics were composed.