241 



"Com fjoore." 



By the Rev. W. H. Hitchcock. 



[Head during the Calne Meeting, in August, 1888.] 



\T was justly remarked during the Calne Meeting that it 

 |R 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 well 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." 



Moo^p 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 



