« Rich and Rare,» taken music, words and all, is wörth an epic poem to the Irish nation,-simple, tender, elegant, sublime, it is the very essence of poetry and music;-there is not one simile or conceit, nor one idle crotchet to be met with throughout. The musical as well as the poetical taste of the author is evident in every line, nor is one allowed to shine at the expense of the other. Moore has composed some beautiful airs, but seems shy of exercising this faculty, dreading, perhaps, that success in that pursuit would detract from his poetical fame. The union of these talents is rare, and some have affirmed that they even exclude one another. When Gretry visited Voltaire at Ferney, the philosopher paid him a compliment at the expense of his profession: « Vous êtes musicien," said Voltaire, « et vous avez de l'esprit: cela est trop rare pour que je ne prenne pas à vous le plus vif intérêt.» Nature certainly may be supposed not over-inclined to be prodigal in bestowing on the same object the several gifts that are peculiarly hers; but, as far as the assertion rests on experience, it is powerfully contradicted by the names of Moore and Rousseau. The late Mr Charles Wolfe, having both a literary and a musical turn, occasionally employed himself in adapting words to national melodies, and in writing characteristic introductions to popular songs. Being fond of «The Last Rose of Summer» (IRISH MEL. No V), he composed the following tale for its illustration: This is the grave of Dermid:-He was the best minstrel among us all,-a youth of romantic genius, and of the most tremulous, and yet the most impetuous feeling. He knew all our old national airs, of every character and description: according as his song was in a lofty or a mournful strain, the village represented a camp or funeral; but if Dermid were in his merry mood, the lads and lasses hurried into a dance, with a giddy and irresistible gaiety. One day our chieftain com mitted a cruel and wanton outrage against one of our peaceful villagers. Dermid's harp was in his hand when he heard it: with all the thoughtlessness and independent sensibility of a poet's indignation, he struck the chords that never spoke without response, and the detestation became universal. He was driven from amongst us by our enraged chief; and all his relations, and the maid he loved, attended the minstrel into the wide world. For three years there were no tidings of Dermid; and the song and the dance were silent; when one of our little boys came running in, and told us that he saw our minstrel approaching at a distance. Instantly the whole village was in commotion; the youths and maidens assembled on the green, and agreed to celebrate the arrival of their poet with a dance; they fixed upon the air he was to play for them; it was the merriest of his collection; the ring was formed; all looked eagerly to the quarter from which he was to arrive, determined to greet their favourite bard with a cheer. But they were checked the instant he appeared; he came slowly, and languidly, and loiteringly along; his countenance had a cold, dim, and careless aspect, very different from that expressive cheerfulness which marked his features, even in his more melancholy moments; his harp was swinging heavily upon his arm; it seemed a burthen to him; it was much shattered, and some of the strings were broken. He looked at us for a few moments, then, relapsing into vacancy, advanced without quickening his pace, to his accustomed stone, and sate down in silence. After a pause, we ventured to ask him for his friends; -he first looked up sharp in our faces, next down upon his harp; then struck a few notes of a wild and desponding melody, which we had never heard before; but his hand dropped, and he did not finish it.—Again we paused:-then knowing well that, if we could give the smallest mirthful impulse to his feelings, his whole soul would soon follow, we asked him for the merry air we had chosen. We were surprised at the readiness with which he seemed to comply; but it was the same wild and heart-breaking strain he had commenced. In fact, we found that the soul of the minstrel had become an entire void, except one solitary ray that vibrated sluggishly through its very darkest part; it was like the sea in a dark calm, which you only know to be in motion by the panting which you hear. He had totally forgotten every trace of his former strains, not only those that were more gay and airy, but even those of a more pensive cast; and he had gotten in their stead that one dreary simple melody; it was about a Lonely Rose, that had outlived all its companions; this he continued singing and playing from day to day, until he spread an unusual gloom over the whole village: he seemed to perceive it, for he retired to the churchyard, and continued repairing thither to sing it to the day of his death. The afflicted constantly resorted there to hear it, and he died singing it to a maid who had lost her lover. The orphans have learnt it, and still chaunt it over Dermid's grave." " is a most humorous work, The Twopenny-Post Bag.» The Fudge Family in Paris» written partly in the style of These poetical epistles remind many persons of the Bath Guide, but a comparison can hardly be supported; the plan of Mr Moore's work being less extensive, and the subject more ephemeral. We pity the man, however, who has not felt pleased with this book; even those who disapprove the author's politics, and his treating Royalty with so little reverence, must be bigoted and loyal to an excess if they deny his wit and humour. Mr Moore, in his preface to the Loves of the Angels,» states, that he had somewhat hastened his publication, to avoid the disadvantage of having his work appear after his friend Lord Byron's « Heaven and Earth; or, as he ingeniously expresses it, « by an earlier appearance in the literary horizon, to give myself the chance of what astronomers call a heliacal rising, before the luminary, in whose light I was to be lost, " should appear." This was an amiable, but by no means a reasonable modesty. The light that plays round Mr Moore's verses, tender, exquisite, and brilliant, was in no danger of being extinguished even in the sullen glare of Lord Byron's genius. One might as well expect an aurora borealis to be put out by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Though both bright stars in the firmament of modern poetry, they were as distant and unlike as Saturn and Mercury; and though their rising might be at the same time, they never moved in the same orb, nor met or jostled in the wide trackless way of fancy and invention. Though these two celebrated writers in some measure divided the poetical public between them, yet it was not the same public whose favour they severally enjoyed in the highest degree. Though both read and admired in the same extended circle of taste and fashion, each was the favourite of a totally different set of readers. Thus a lover may pay the same attention to two different women; but he only means to flirt with the one, while the other is the mistress of his heart. The gay, the fair, the witty, the happy, idolize Mr Moore's delightful muse, on her pedestal of airy smiles or transient tears. Lord Byron's severer verse is enshrined in the breasts of those whose gaiety has been turned to gall, whose fair exterior has a canker within-whose mirth has received a rebuke as if it were folly, from whom happiness has fled like a dream! By comparing the odds upon the known chances of human life, it is no wonder that the admirers of his lordship's works should be more numerous than those of his more agreeable rival. We are not going to speak of any preference we may have, but we beg leave to make a distinction. The poetry of Moore is essentially that of fancy, the poetry of Byron that of passion. If there is passion in the effusions of the one, the fancy by which it is expressed predominates over it; if fancy is called to the aid of the other, it is still subservient to the passion. Lord Byron's jests are downright earnest; Mr Moore, when he is most serious, seems half in jest. The latter dallies and trifles with his subject, caresses and grows enamoured of it; the former grasped it eagerly to his bosom, breathed death upon it, and turned from it with loathing or dismay. The fine aroma that is exhaled from the flowers of poesy, every where lends its perfume to the verse of the bard of Erin. The noble bard (less fortunate in his muse) tried to extract poison from them. If Lord Byron cast his own views or feelings upon outward objects (jaundicing the sun), Mr Moore seems to exist in the delights, the virgin fancies of nature. He is free of the Rosicrucian society; and in etherial existence among troops of sylphs and spirits,-in a perpetual vision of wings, flowers, rainbows, smiles, blushes, tears, and kisses. Every page of his works is a vignette, every line that he writes glows or sparkles, and it would seem (to quote again the expressive words of Sheridan) "as if his airy spirit, drawn from the sun, continually fluttered with fond aspirations, to regain that native source of light and heat." The worst is, our author's mind is too vivid, too active, to suffer a moment's repose. We are cloyed with sweetness, and dazzled with splendour. Every image must blush celestial rosy red, love's proper hue;-every syllable must breathe a sigh. A sentiment is lost in a simile-the simile is overloaded with an epithet. It is « like morn risen on mid-noon.» eventful story, no powerful contrast, no moral, none of the sordid details of human life (all is etherial); none of its sharp calamities, or, if they inevitably occur, his muse throws a soft, glittering, veil over them, Like moonlight on a troubled sea, No We do not believe that Mr Moore ever writes a line that in itself would not pass for poetry, that is not at least a vivid or harmonious common-place. Lord Byron wrote whole pages of sullen, crabbed prose, that, like a long dreary road, however, leads to doleful shades or palaces of the blest. In short |