spontaneity of utterance; if there is sometimes too much elaboration of wit and stimulation of fancy,—let it be remembered that no art is more difficult than that of writing a good song, and that compositions worthy of the name, the coinage of the heart rather than of the brain, and inspired by true feeling as distinguished from imitative and febrile sentiment, are much rarer, in this or any other language, than is generally suspected.
I have associated the name of Moore with that of Burns; the comparison, indeed, forces itself upon the mind, and, whether right or not, these two poets must stand forth as the lyrical genii of their respective countries. Each has his merits. We know the profound passion and simple pathos of the Scottish peasant, and regarding Moore as a national poet, cannot but see some truth in the saying of Hazlitt, that he "-changed the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box." Yet Moore has special merits of his own, as is pointed out by an elegant and liberal critic:—" If Moore had been born and bred a peasant as Burns was, or if Ireland had been such a land of knowledge, and virtue, and religion, as Scotland, — and, surely, without offence, we may say that it never was, and never will be, though we love the green island well,—who can doubt that with his fine fancy, warm heart, and exquisite sensibilities, he might have been as natural a lyrist as Burns; while, take him as he is, who can deny that in richness and variety, in grace, and in the power of wit, he is superior to the ploughman?"[1]
Jeffrey draws a fine comparison between the poetry of Moore and that of Byron:—"Mr. Moore's poetry is the thornless rose, its touch is velvet, its hue vermilion, and its graceful form is cast in beauty's mould. Lord Byron's, on the contrary, is a prickly bramble, or sometimes a deadly upas, of form uncouth and uninviting, that has its root in the clefts of the rock, and its head mocking the skies, that wars with the thunder-cloud, and the tempest, and round which the cataracts roar."[2]
But Jeffrey had not been always thus laudatory: Byron asks: —
"Can none remember that eventful day,
That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little's leadless pistol met his eye
And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by?"[3]
—in allusion to the ridiculous duel, when, on the challenge of Moore, the poet and the critic met at Chalk Farm, in 1806, to settle their literary differences.[4] The proceedings were stopped by the interference of the constabulary, when it was found on examination of the weapons that one, if not both, of the pistols was innocent of ball! Moore was always extremely sore on the subject, and wrote a letter to the Morning Chronicle vindicating his conduct, and asserting that his pistol, at least, was regularly loaded. However this may be, that of his antagonist was certainly found to contain nothing but a paper pellet. Moore was so incensed by Byron's jocular allusion to the harmless affray, that he
- ↑ Recreations of Christopher North, i. 272.
- ↑ Edinburgh Review, No. lxxv.
- ↑ English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, i vol. ed. of Byron's Poems, p. 428.
- ↑ The article which provoked the duel will be found in No. xvi. of the Edinburgh Review, July, 1806, where the poet is denounced as "the most licentious of modern versifiers, and the most poetical of the propagators of impiety"; and an additional sting added to the charge by the insinuation of mere mercenary motives.
