252 



To in Moore. 



the world, but which Mr. Hughes, Vicar of Staverton, Devon, has 

 supplied : — • 



" Little May Fly, 

 r The sun's in the sky, 



The dew is upon the flower ; 

 The beautiful bee 

 Hums round the tree, 



And the bird sings in the bower. 



Little May Fly, 

 Both you and I 



Should bless that God in heaven, 

 By whom the flower, 

 The bee, and the bower, 



For our delight were given." 



In her last illness her chief pleasure consisted in listening" to her 

 father's voice, while he sang to her some of her favourite " Melo- 

 dies," as no living man or woman could sing them. Her body was 

 laid to rest in a new tomb in Bromham churchyard in 1829. 



The second boy — " John Russell " — invalided in India, a young 

 officer aged 18 years, came home to die at Sloperton in his mother's 

 arms in 1842 : while Tom, the eldest — unfortunately too handsome 

 and too popular — died in Algeria o£ consumption, aged 28. Not 

 one of his five children survived him : the children of his fertile 

 brain alone remain to bear eloquent testimony to his genius. These 

 crying words of his diary tell the sad tale : — " The last of our five 

 children is now gone ; and we are left desolate and alone : not a 

 single relative have I now left in the world ! " 



Tom Moore had been born and brought up a Roman Catholic and 

 continued such throughout his life. At the same time he was 

 exceptionally tolerant, and allowed his children to be educated as 

 members of the Church of England. We find him frequently 

 attending services in Westminster Abbey, possibly attracted by the 

 music : and also in Bowood Chapel, which he tells us was opened in 

 1823, and where he frequently heard Canon Guthrie and Canon 

 Bowles. The latter, "poor dear Bowles/' as he calls him, was 

 afraid of giving offence by a sermon on S. Peter, when preaching 



