Tom Moore. 



described as {t that never-to-be-forgotten melodious warbling." ! 

 Either people were more musically sensitive and sympathetic in 

 those days than in the present, or the singing must have had un- j 

 paralleled power, for both ladies and gentlemen were frequently 

 obliged to leave the room in floods of tears over the melodies. On 

 one occasion, at Bowood, Moore himself was moved to tears — 

 Bowles followed suit, and Rogers the poet, and J ulian Young j 

 (Vicar of Lyneham, and son of Charles Young, the celebrated 

 actor} joined in the chorus : Lord Lansdowne describing the ex- I 

 hibition as high poetical excitement ! The musical editors of the I 

 melodies were, for the earlier numbers, Sir John Stevenson — and 

 for the later, Sir Henry Bishop ; but how far they would satisfy 

 the musical critics of to-day is somewhat questionable. 



We now come to the poet's last years, clouded by loss of memory 

 and a helplessness almost childish. The loss of his last child not 

 only saddened him, but obscured his bright intellect. His final 

 attempt to sing in public was at Mr. Schomberg's, of Wans, when 

 he broke down at a loss for the old familiar words, and declared he 

 would never again sing in public — and he never did. On the very 

 day before his death " he warbled/' as Mrs. Moore expressed it, and 

 passed without pain on February 26th, 1852. The body rests! 

 beside his favorite Anastasia in Bromham churchyard ; and thither 

 the widowed Bessy was borne thirteen years later, in September, I 

 1865. The beautiful east window is erected to her memory, the , 

 more doubtful west to his. 



In reviewing the life of Moore — by no means an ideal life — it is 1 

 ®nly fair to remember that, as he advanced in years, he deeply 

 regretted the sensuality of his earlier poems, and removed a great I 

 deal of it. Howitt, in his " Homes and Haunts of the British 

 Poets/' is severely just in his estimate of Tom Moore : — " We [/ 

 cannot help feeling regret that so much of his life should have beenH 

 wasted in the empty glare of mere fashionable Society. But it is 

 as useless to wish Moore anything but what he was as to wish a I 

 butterfly a bee, or that a moth should not fly to a candle. It was 

 bis nature ; and the pleasure of being caressed, flattered, and admired 

 by titled people must be purchased at any cost. Neither poverty^ 



