great political influence to effect a reconciliation between Moore and the ministers.
It was not long before the Spaniards summoned Sir John Moore’s army to assist them against the advance of Napoleon, and the troops were marched into Spain, Salamanca being their rendezvous. There Moore remained for a month, calling up Sir David Baird’s corps from Corunna to assist him. Soon, however, the overwhelming success of the emperor’s attack threatened to isolate Moore, and it was then that he formed the magnificent resolution of marching northwards against the French line of retreat. The bold and skilful operations which followed this step will be found outlined in the article Peninsular War. Moore’s advance paralysed the Emperor’s victorious armies. Napoleon himself turned against the British army, which was soon in grave danger, but Spain was saved. Under these circumstances took place the famous retreat on Corunna. The indiscipline of a large proportion of the troops made it painful and almost disastrous, but the reserve under Edward Paget, in which served Moore’s old Shorncliffe regiments, covered itself with glory in the ceaseless rearguard fighting which marked every step of the retreat. The march ended with the glorious battle of Corunna (Jan. 16, 1809), where, early in the day, Sir John Moore received his death wound. He would not suffer his sword to be unbuckled, though the hilt galled his wound, and so he was borne from the field. His last hours were cheered by the knowledge of victory, and his only care was to recommend his friends, and those who had distinguished themselves, to the notice of the government. He died with the name of Lady Hester Stanhope on his lips. By his own wish he was buried, before dawn on the 17th, in the ramparts of Corunna. Marshal Soult designed that a monument should be erected, with an inscription framed by himself, and the Spanish general La Romana afterwards carried out Soult’s wishes. The temporary monument thus erected was made permanent in 1811 by Sir Howard Douglas, acting for the prince regent. The duke of York issued to the army on the 1st of February a noble order in which reference was made to the services of the general, and, above all, to the fact that “the life of Sir John Moore was spent among the troops.” A memorial was erected in St Paul’s Cathedral by order of parliament early in 1809, and his native city of Glasgow erected in George Square a bronze statue by Flaxman. The poem by the Rev. Charles Wolfe, “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” became one of the most popular in the language. The best-known portrait of Sir John Moore is that by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.
For many years controversy, largely political, raged over the events of the Corunna campaign, and only at a later period has any examination of Sir John Moore’s merits and services been made in a dispassionate spirit. Mistakes were doubtless made in the retreat, but it is sufficient to accept Napoleon’s view that they were probably inseparable from the difficulties with which Moore was surrounded. His greatest claim to renown is, however, independent of his conduct of armies in the field. He was the finest trainer of men that the British army has ever known. He had the true gift of the great man, judgment of character. While Wellington, whose work would have been vain but for Moore’s achievements, perpetually complained of his officers and formed no school, Moore’s name is associated with the career of all who made their mark. The history of the Light Division is sufficient in itself to indicate the results of Moore’s training on the rank and file. In opposition to the majority, who regarded the lash and the gallows as the source of discipline, he sought always and by every means to develop the moral qualities no less than the physical. Of the senior officers Hope, Graham, Edward Paget, Hill and Craufurd all felt and submitted to his ascendancy. The flower of the younger generation, Colborne, Hardinge and the Napiers, even though they gained their laurels under Wellington and in chief command, were ever proud to call themselves “Sir John Moore’s men.”
See, besides the works mentioned in the article Peninsular War, J. C. Moore, Life of Sir John Moore (1833); Sir J. F. Maurice, Sir John Moore’s Journal (1904); and the Records of the 52nd (Oxfordshire Light Infantry). A shorter memoir will be found in Twelve British Soldiers (London, 1899).
MOORE, THOMAS (1779–1852), Irish poet, was born in Dublin on the 28th of May 1779. His father was John Moore, a prosperous grocer and wine merchant, and his mother’s maiden name was Anastasia Codd. In 1793 Tom Moore’s name first appeared in print, as a contributor of some verses “To Zelia,” to a Dublin periodical, the Anthologia Hibernica. In the same year Roman Catholic students began to be admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1794 Moore’s name was entered on the books, curiously enough, as a Protestant. At Trinity he made friends with Robert Emmet, and was nearly dragged into the plots of the United Irishmen. The events of 1798 and the execution of Emmet in 1803 made a deep impression on him. The words of Emmet’s address to his judges, asking the charity of silence—“Let no man write my epitaph”—are enshrined by Moore in one of his lyrics, “Oh, breathe not his name!” (Irish Melodies, 1808). The next song in the same collection—“When he who adores thee”—also owes its inspiration to Emmet’s fate, and the conscientious Orientalism of Lalla Rookh does not conceal the pre-occupation of the writer with the United Irishmen when he writes of “The Fire Worshippers,” and with Emmet and Sarah Curran when he describes the loves of Hafed and Hinda, especially in the well-known song, “She is far from the Land where her young Hero sleeps.” In 1798 Moore graduated, and in the next year left for England to keep his terms at the Middle Temple.
He rapidly became a social success in London. Joseph Atkinson, secretary in Ireland to the ordnance board, had been attracted to Moore in Dublin at first by his gifts as a singer. He now gave him an introduction to Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd earl of Moira, who invited him to his country seat at Donington Park, Leicestershire. Here Moore became a frequent guest. He had brought with him from Ireland a translation of the Odes of Anacreon, and the prince of Wales consented to have the volume dedicated to him. It was issued in 1800 with notes and a list of distinguished subscribers. His social successes involved him in expenses far beyond his means. His publisher had advanced him money, and he resolved to pay his debt by the anonymous publication of his juvenile poems, The Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little, Esq. (1801), a collection of love poems which Moore afterwards regretted. Through Lord Moira’s influence he was, in 1803, appointed registrar of the admiralty prize-court, at Bermuda. He went there to take possession of the post, but soon tired of the monotonous life, and in 1804, after appointing a deputy, returned to England by way of the United States and Canada. In 1806 he published Epistles, Odes and other Poems, chiefly dealing with his impressions of travel. The volume contained the “Canadian Boat Song” (“Faintly as tolls the evening chime”), and some love poems of the same kind as those connected with the name of “Mr Little.” Jeffrey made an unjustifiable onslaught on this collection in the Edinburgh Review for July 1806. Moore was in his view “the most licentious of modern versifiers, and the most poetical of those who, in our time, have devoted their talents to the propagation of immorality,” and the book was a “public nuisance.” Moore challenged Jeffrey, and a duel was arranged at Chalk Farm. The police interrupted the proceedings. Jeffrey’s pistol was found to be unloaded, and the ludicrous affair ended in a fast friendship between them.
The success of the satirical epistles in the 1806 volume encouraged Moore to produce further work of a similar kind, Corruption and Intolerance, Two Poems (1808), and The Sceptic: a Philosophical Satire (1809), but the heroic couplet and the manner of Pope did not suit his talents. At the end of 1806 he went to Dublin, and, with the exception of about six months in 1807 spent at Donington Park, the next three years were spent in Ireland. Here he met Miss Elizabeth Dyke, an actress, who became his wife in March 1811. They lived at first in London, but soon removed into the country, to Kegworth, near Lord Moira’s seat, and then to Mayfield Cottage, near
