the manuscript of my translation as far as it had then proceeded, and requested his advice respecting my intention of laying it before the Board. On this latter point his opinion was such as, with a little more thought, I might have anticipated, namely, that he did not see how the Board of the University could lend their sanction, by any public reward, to writings so convivial and amatory as were almost all those of Anacreon. He very good-naturedly, however, lauded my translation, and advised me to complete and publish it; adding, I well recollect, "young people will like it." I was also indebted to him for the use, during my task, of Spaletti's curious publication, giving a facsimile of those pages of a MS. in the Vatican Library which contain the Odes, or "Symposiacs," attributed to Anacreon.* And here I shall venture to add a few passing words on a point which I once should have thought it profanation to question,—the authenticity of these poems. The cry raised against their genuineness by Robertellus and other enemies of Henry Stephen, when that eminent scholar first introduced them to the learned world, may be thought to have long since entirely subsided, leaving their claim to so ancient a paternity safe and unquestioned. But I am forced, however reluctantly, to confess that there appear to me strong grounds for pronouncing these light and beautiful lyrics to be merely modern fabrications. Some of the reasons that incline me to adopt this unwelcome conclusion are thus clearly stated by the same able scholar, to whom I am indebted for the emendations of my own juvenile Greek ode:-"I do not see how it is possible, if Anacreon had written chiefly in Iambic dimeter verse, that Horace should have wholly neglected that metre. I may add that, of those fragments of Anacreon, of whose genuineness, from internal evidence, there can be no doubt, almost all are written in one or other of the lighter Horatian metres, and scarcely one in Iambic dimeter verse. This may be seen by looking through the list in Fischer."

When the monument to Provost Baldwin, which stands in the hall of the College of Dublin, arrived from Italy, there came in the same packing-case with it two copies of this work of Spaletti, one of which was presented by Dr. Troy, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, as a gift from the Pope to the Library of the University, and the other (of which I was subsequently favoured with the use) he presented, in like manner,

The unskilful attempt at Greek verse from my own pen, which is found prefixed to the Translation, was intended originally to illustrate a picture, representing Anacreon conversing with the Goddess of Wisdom, from which the frontispiece to the first edition of the work was taken. Had I been brought up with a due fear of the laws of prosody before my eyes, I certainly should not have dared to submit so untutored a production to the criticism of the trained prosodians of the English schools. At the same time, I cannot help adding that, as far as music, distinct from metre, is concerned, I am much inclined to prefer the ode as originally written to its present corrected shape; and that, at all events, I entertain but very little doubt as to which of the two a composer would most willingly set to music.

For the means of collecting the materials of the notes appended to the Translation, I was chiefly indebted to the old library adjoining St. Patrick's Cathedral, called, from the name of the archbishop who founded it, Marsh's Library. Through my acquaintance with the deputy librarian, the Rev. Mr Cradock, I enjoyed the privilege of constant access to this collection, even at that period of the year when it is always closed to the public. On these occasions I used to be locked in there alone; and to the many solitary hours which, both at the time I am now speaking of and subsequently, I passed in hunting through the dusty tomes of this old library, I owe much of that odd and out-of-the-way sort of reading which may be found scattered through some of my earlier writings.

Early in the year 1799, while yet in my nineteenth year, I left Ireland, for the first time, and proceeded to London, with the two not very congenial objects, of keeping my terms at the Middle Temple, and publishing, by subscription, my Translation of Anacreon. One of those persons to whom, through the active zeal of friends, some part of my manuscript had been submitted before it went to press,

to my friend, Dr. Kearney. Thus, curiously enough, while Anacreon in English was considered-and, I grant, on no unreasonable grounds-as a work to which grave collegiate authorities could not openly lend their sanction, Anacreon in Greek was thought no unfitting present to be received by a Protestant bishop, through the medium of a Catholic archbishop, from the hands of his holiness, the Pope.

was Doctor Laurence, the able friend of Burke; and, as an instance, however slight, of that ready variety of learning-as well the lightest as the most solid-for which Laurence was so remarkable, the following extract from the letter written by him, in returning the manuscript to my friend Dr. Hume, may not be without some interest:

"Dec. 20. 1799.

"I return you the four odes which you were so kind to communicate for my poor opinion. They are, in many parts, very elegant and poetical; and, in some passages, Mr. Moore has added a pretty turn not to be found in the original. To confess the truth, however, they are, in not a few places, rather more paraphrastical than suits my notion (perhaps an incorrect notion) of translation.

In the fifty-third ode there is, in my judgment, a no less sound than beautiful emendation suggested would you suppose it?- by a Dutch lawyer. Mr. M. possibly may not be aware of it. I have endeavoured to express the sense of it in a couplet interlined with pencil. Will you allow me to add, that I am not certain whether the translation has not missed the meaning, too, in the former part of that passage which seems to me to intend a distinction and climax of pleasure:-'It is sweet even to prove it among the briery paths; it is sweet again, plucking, to cherish with tender hands, and carry to the fair, the flower of love.' This is nearly literal, including the conjectural correction of Mynheer Medenbach. If this be right, instead of

'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence,'

I would propose something to this effect:

'Tis sweet the rich perfume to prove,
As by the dewy bush you rove;

'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence,
To cull the timid beauty thence,
To wipe with tender hands away
The tears that on its blushes lay; *
Then, to the bosom of the fair,

The flower of love in triumph bear.

"I would drop altogether the image of the stems dropping with gems.' I believe it is a confused and false metaphor, unless the painter

* Query, if it ought not to be lie? The line might run, With tender hand the tears to brush, That give new softness to its blush (or, its flush).

THE Poems suggested to me by my visit to Bermuda, in the year 1803, as well as by the tour which I made subsequently, through some parts of North America, have been hitherto very injudiciously arranged; — any distinctive character they may possess having been disturbed and confused by their being mixed up not only with trifles of a much earlier date, but also with some portions of a classical story, in the form of Letters, which I had made some progress in before my departure from England. In the present edition, this awkward jumble has been remedied; and all the Poems relating to my Transatlantic voyage will be found classed by themselves. As, in like manner, the line of route by which I proceeded through some parts of the States and the Canadas, has been left hitherto to be traced confusedly through a few detached notes, I have thought that, to future readers of these poems, some clearer account of the course of that journey might not be unacceptable, together with such vestiges as may still linger in my memory of events now fast fading into the back ground of time.

For the precise date of my departure from England, in the Phaeton frigate, I am indebted to the Naval Recollections of Captain Scott, then a midshipman of that ship.

"We were

soon ready," says this gentleman, "for sea, and a few days saw Mr. Merry and suite embarked on board. Mr. Moore likewise took his passage

with us on his way to Bermuda. We quitted Spithead on the 25th of September (1803), and in a short week lay becalmed under the lofty peak of Pico. In this situation the Phaeton is depicted in the frontispiece of Moore's Poems." During the voyage, I dined very frequently with the officers of the gun-room; and it was not a little gratifying to me to learn, from this gentleman's volume, that the cordial regard these social and open-hearted men inspired in me was not wholly unreturned on their part. After mentioning our arrival at Norfolk, in Virginia, Captain Scott says, "Mr. and Mrs. Merry left the Phaeton, under the usual salute, accompanied by Mr. Moore;"- then, adding some kind compliments on the score of talents, &c., he concludes with a sentence which it gave me tenfold more pleasure to read,—“The gun- | room mess witnessed the day of his departure with genuine sorrow." From Norfolk, after a stay of about ten days, under the hospitable roof of the British Consul, Colonel Hamilton, I proceeded, in the Driver sloop of war, to Bermuda.

There was then on that station another youthful sailor, who has since earned for himself a distinguished name among English writers of travels, Captain Basil Hall,-then a midshipman on board the Leander. In his Fragments of Voyages and Travels, this writer has called up some agreeable reminiscences of that period; in perusing which, - -so full of life and reality are his sketches, — I found all my own naval recollections brought freshly to my mind. The very names of the different ships, then so familiar to my ears,—the Leander, the Boston, the Cambrian,-transported me back to the season of youth and those Summer Isles once

more.

food in a different direction. It is not as a poet I invoke the aid of Captain Hall's opinion, but as a traveller and observer; it is not to my invention I ask him to bear testimony, but to my matter-of-fact.

"The most pleasing and most exact description which I know of Bermuda," says this gentleman, "is to be found in Moore's Odes and Epistles, a work published many years ago. The reason why his account excels in beauty as well as in precision that of other men probably is, that the scenes described lie so much beyond the scope of ordinary observation in colder climates, and the feelings which they excite in the beholder are so much higher than those produced by the scenery we have been accustomed to look at, that, unless the imagination be deeply drawn upon, and the diction sustained at a correspondent pitch, the words alone strike the ear, while the listener's fancy remains where it was. In Moore's account there is not only no exaggeration, but, on the contrary, a wonderful degree of temperance in the midst of a feast which to his rich fancy must have been peculiarly tempting. He has contrived by a magic peculiarly his own, yet without departing from the truth, to sketch what was before him with a fervour which those who have never been on the spot might well be excused for setting down as the sport of the poet's invention.” *

How truly politic it is in a poet to connect his verse with well-known and interesting localities,-to wed his song to scenes already invested with fame, and thus lend it a chance of sharing the charm which encircles them,—I have myself, in more than one instance, very agreeably experienced. Among the memorials of this description, which, as I learn with pleasure and pride, still keep me remembered in some of those beautiful regions of the West which I visited, I shall mention but one slight instance, as showing how potently the Genius of the Place may lend to song a life and imperishableness to which, in itself, it boasts no claim or pretension. The following lines in one of my Bermudian poems,

present instance, however, my vanity (for so

this uneasy feeling is always called) seeks its

'Twas there, in the shade of the Calabash Tree, With a few who could feel and remember like me,

* Fragments of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. chap. vi.

shores, connecting my name with the picturesque spot they describe, and the noble old tree which I believe still adorns it.* One of the few treasures (of any kind) I can boast the possession of, is a goblet formed of one of the fruit-shells of this remarkable tree, which was brought from Bermuda, a few years since, by Mr. Dudley Costello, and which that gentleman, having had it tastefully mounted as a goblet, very kindly presented to me; the following words being part of the inscription which it bears:-"To Thomas Moore, Esq., this cup, formed of a calabash which grew on the tree that bears his name, near Walsingham, Bermuda, is inscribed by one who," &c. &c.

From Bermuda I proceeded in the Boston, with my friend Captain (now Admiral) J. E. Douglas, to New York, from whence, after a short stay, we sailed for Norfolk, in Virginia; and about the beginning of June, 1804, I set out from that city on a tour through part of the States. At Washington, I passed some days with the English minister, Mr. Merry; and was, by him, presented at the levee of the President, Jefferson, whom I found sitting with General Dearborn and one or two other officers, and in the same homely costume, comprising slippers and Connemara stockings, in which Mr. Merry had been received by himmuch to that formal minister's horror-when waiting upon him, in full dress, to deliver his credentials. My single interview with this remarkable person was of very short duration; but to have seen and spoken with the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence was an event not to be forgotten.

At Philadelphia, the society I was chiefly made acquainted with, and to which (as the verses addressed to "Delaware's green banks"† sufficiently testify) I was indebted for some of my most agreeable recollections of the United States, consisted entirely of persons of the Federalist or Anti-Democratic party. Few and transient, too, as had been my opportunities, of judging for myself of the political or social state of the country, my mind was left open too much to the influence of the feelings and prejudices of those I chiefly consorted with; and, certainly, in no quarter was I so

A representation of this calabash, taken from a drawing of it made on the spot, by Dr. Savage of the Royal Artillery,

sure to find decided hostility, both to the men and the principles then dominant throughout the Union, as among officers of the British navy, and in the ranks of an angry Federalist opposition. For any bias, therefore, that, under such circumstances, my opinions and feelings may be thought to have received, full allowance, of course, is to be made in appraising the weight due to my authority on the subject. All I can answer for, is the perfect sincerity and earnestness of the actual impressions, whether true or erroneous, under which my Epistles from the United States were written; and so strong, at the time, I confess, were those impressions, that it was the only period of my past life during which I have found myself at all sceptical as to the soundness of that Liberal creed of politics, in the profession and advocacy of which I may be almost literally said to have begun life, and shall most probably end it.

Reaching, for the second time, New York, I set out from thence on the now familiar and easy enterprise of visiting the Falls of Niagara. It is but too true, of all grand objects, whether in nature or art, that facility of access to them much diminishes the feeling of reverence they ought to inspire. Of this fault, however, the route to Niagara, at that period- at least the portion of it which led through the Genesee country-could not justly be accused. The latter part of the journey, which lay chiefly through yet but half-cleared wood, we were obliged to perform on foot; and a slight accident I met with, in the course of our rugged walk, laid me up for some days at Buffalo. To the rapid growth, in that wonderful region, of, at least, the materials of civilization, —-however ultimately they may be turned to account, this flourishing town, which stands on Lake Erie, bears most ample testimony. Though little better, at the time when I visited it, than a mere village, consisting chiefly of huts and wigwams, it is now, by all accounts, a populous and splendid city, with five or six churches, town-hall, theatre, and other such appurtenances of a capital.

In adverting to the comparatively rude state of Buffalo, at that period, I should be ungrate

has been introduced in the vignette prefixed to the second volume of the edition in ten volumes.

† See Epistle to Mr. W. R. Spencer, p. 125. of this edition.