244 
“Com Aoore.” 
By the Rev. W. H. Hircucocr. 
[Read during the Calne Meeting, in August, 1888.] 
WI¥iT was justly remarked during the Calne Meeting that it 
SCRIQ would have been almost absurd for the Society to have 
met in the neighbourhood of Bowood and Sloperton without hearing 
something of Tom Moore, so weli known to all Wiltshiremen of a 
past generation, though remembered by comparatively few present 
here. 
He is described by Lord John Russell, in his “ Memoirs, Journal 
and Correspondence” of the Poet, as one of those men “ whose 
genius was so remarkable that the world ought to be acquainted 
with the daily current of his life, and the lesser traits of his char- 
acter”; for the kindliness of his nature, and the general benevolence 
which his bright talents and warm heart excited, tend to exhibit 
Society of the period in its best aspect. No dinner party in those 
days was accounted complete without his genial presence ; and even 
to this day the very name of “ Tom Moore” has power as a talisman 
“to bring light into the eyes and love into the.heart of every old 
inhabitant of the county.” : 
Moore was born of comparatively humble parentage in Ireland in 
the year 1779, his father, “one of nature’s gentlemen [to use the 
poet’s own words] having all the repose and good breeding of 
manner by which the true gentleman in all classes is distinguished.” 
His mother took the precaution to have his name and date of birth 
engraved on a crown piece smoothed for the purpose, inasmuch as 
the law at that time did not allow the births of Roman Catholic 
children to be registered. She appears to have been the chief guide 
of his youth and moulder of his character; and it was her ambition, 
in which she admirably succeeded, to secure for her boy an early 
