bestowing upon it the gift of articulation, and thus enabling it to speak to others all that was conveyed, in its wordless eloquence, to myself. reached its utmost range; and to all verses connected with music, from a Birth-day Ode down to the libretto of the last new opera, might fairly be applied the solution which | Owing to the space I was led to devote, in our Figaro gives of the quality of the words of songs, in general,—“Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante." It may here be suggested that the convivial lyrics of Captain Morris present an exception to the general character I have given of the songs of this period; and, assuredly, had Morris written much that at all approached the following verses of his "Reasons for Drinking," (which I quote from recollection,) few would have equalled him either in fancy, or in that lighter kind of pathos, which comes, as in this instance, like a few melancholy notes in the middle of a gay air, throwing a soft and passing shade over mirth : "My muse, too, when her wings are dry, If then the nymph must have her share, "Then, many a lad I lik'd is dead, And many a lass grown old; And, as the lesson strikes my head, My weary heart grows cold. But wine awhile holds off despair Nay, bids a hope remain ; And that I think's a reason fair To fill my glass again." How far my own labours in this field—if, indeed, the gathering of such idle flowers may be so designated-have helped to advance, or even kept pace with the progressive improvement I have here described, it is not for me to presume to decide. I only know that in a strong and inborn feeling for music lies the source of whatever talent I may have shown for poetical composition; and that it was the effort to translate into language the emotions and passions which music appeared to me to express, that first led to my writing any poetry at all deserving of the name. Dryden has happily described music as being "inarticulate poetry;" and I have always felt, in adapting words to an expressive air, that I was but * I cannot let pass the incidental mention here of this social and public-spirited nobleman, without expressing my strong sense of his kindly qualities, and lamenting the loss which not last volume, to subjects connected with the Irish Melodies, I was forced to postpone some recollections, of a very different description, respecting the gala at Boyle Farm, by which my poem, entitled The Summer Fête, was suggested. In an old letter of my own to a friend in Ireland, giving an account of this brilliant festival, I find some memorandums which, besides their reference to the subject of the poem, contain some incidents also connected with the first appearance before the public of one of the most successful of all my writings, the story of the Epicurean. I shall give my extracts from this letter, in their original diarylike form, without alteration or dressing: June 30. 1837.-Day threatening for the Fête. Was with Lord Essex* at three o'clock, and started about half an hour after. The whole road swarming with carriages-and-four all the way to Boyle Farm, which Lady de Roos has lent, for the occasion, to Henry ;— the five givers of the Fête, being Lords Chesterfield, Castlereagh, Alvanley, Henry de Roos, and Robert Grosvenor, subscribing four or five hundred pounds each towards it. The arrangements all in the very best taste. The pavilion for quadrilles, on the bank of the river, with steps descending to the water, quite eastern-like what one sees in Daniel's pictures. Towards five the élite of the gay world was assembled — the women all looking their best, and scarce a single ugly face to be found. About half past five, sat down to dinner, 450 under a tent on the lawn, and fifty to the Royal Table in the conservatory. The Tyrolese musicians sung during dinner, and there were, after dinner, gondolas on the river, with Caradori, De Begnis, Velluti, &c., singing barcarolles and rowing off occasionally, so as to let their voices die away and again return. After these succeeded a party in dominos, Madame Vestris, Fanny Ayton, &c., who rowed about in the same manner, and sung, among other things, my gondola song, “Oh come to me when daylight sets." The evening only society, but the cause of sound and progressive Political Reform, has sustained by his death. was delicious, and, as soon as it grew dark, the melody, and require, to justify them, the presence of the music to whose wildness or sweetness the sacrifice had been made. In a preceding page of this preface, I have mentioned a Treatise by the late Rev. Mr. Crowe, on English versification; and I remember his telling me, in reference to the point I have just touched upon, that, should another edition of that work be called for, he meant to produce, as examples of new and anomalous forms of versification, the following songs from While talking with D-n (Lord P.'s the Irish Melodies :—“ Oh the days are gone brother), he said to me, "I never read any when Beauty bright"—"At the dead hour of thing so touching as the death of your heroine." night, when stars are weeping, I fly,”—and, "What!" said I, "have you got so far already ?"+" Through grief and through danger thy smile “Oh, I read it in the Literary Gazette." This hath cheer'd my way."‡ anticipation of my catastrophe is abominable. Soon after, the Marquis P-lm-a, said to me, as he and I and B-m stood together, looking at the gay scene, "This is like one of your Fêtes." "Oh yes," said B-m, thinking he alluded to Lalla Rookh, " quite oriental." “Non, non,” replied P―lm—a, “je veux dire cette Fête d'Athènes, dont j'ai lu la description dans la Gazette d'aujourd'hui." Respecting the contents of the present Volume I have but a few more words to add. Accustomed as I have always been to consider my songs as a sort of compound creations, in which the music forms no less essential a part than the verses, it is with a feeling which I can hardly expect my unlyrical readers to understand, that I see such a swarm of songs as crowd these pages all separated from the beautiful airs which have formed hitherto their chief ornament and strength—their "decus et tutamen." But, independently of this uneasy feeling, or fancy, there is yet another inconvenient consequence of the divorce of the words from the music, which will be more easily, perhaps, comprehended, and which, in justice to myself, as a metre-monger, ought to be noticed. Those occasional breaches of the laws of rhythm, which the task of adapting words to airs demands of the poet, though very frequently one of the happiest results of his skill, become blemishes when the verse is separated from the ↑ The Epicurean had been published but the day before. I shall avail myself of this opportunity of noticing the charge brought by Mr. Bunting against Sir John Stevenson, of having made alterations in many of the airs that formed our Irish Collection. Whatever changes of this kind have PREFACE ΤΟ THE SIXTH VOLUME. THE Poem, or Romance, of LALLA ROOKн, having now reached its twentieth edition, a short account of the origin and progress of a work which has been hitherto, at least, so very fortunate in its course, may not be deemed, perhaps, superfluous or misplaced. It was about the year 1812 that, impelled far more by the encouraging suggestions of friends than impelled by any confident promptings of my own ambition, I was induced to attempt a Poem upon some Oriental subject, and of those quarto dimensions which Scott's late triumphs in that form had then rendered the regular poetical standard. A negotiation on the subject was opened with the Messrs. Longman in the same year, but, from some causes which have now escaped my recollection, led to no decisive result; nor was it till a year or two after, that any further steps were taken in the matter, their house being the only one, it is right to add, with which, from first to been ventured upon (and they are but few and slight), the responsibility for them rests solely with me; as, leaving the Harmonist's department to my friend Stevenson, I reserved to myself entirely the selection and management of the airs. last, I held any communication upon the sub- having made some progress in my task, I wrote ject. On this last occasion, an old friend of mine, Mr. Perry, kindly offered to lend me the aid of his advice and presence in the interview which I was about to hold with the Messrs. Longman, for the arrangement of our mutual terms; and what with the friendly zeal of my negotiator on the one side, and the prompt and liberal spirit with which he was met on the other, there has seldom occurred any transaction in which Trade and Poesy have shone out so advantageously in each other's eyes. The short discussion that then took place, between the two parties, may be comprised in a very few sentences. "I am of opinion," said Mr. Perry,-enforcing his view of the case by arguments which it is not for me to cite, "that Mr. Moore ought to receive for his Poem the largest price that has been given, in our day, for such a work." "That was," answered the Messrs. Longman, "three thousand guineas." Exactly so," replied Mr. Perry," and no less a sum ought he to receive." It was then objected, and very reasonably, on the part of the firm, that they had never yet seen a single line of the Poem; and that a perusal of the work ought to be allowed to them, before they embarked so large a sum in the purchase. But, no;—the romantic view which my friend, Perry, took of the matter, was, that this price should be given as a tribute to reputation already acquired, without any condition for a previous perusal of the new work. This high tone, I must confess, not a little startled and alarmed me; but, to the honour and glory of Romance, as well on the publisher's side as the poet's, -this very generous view of the transaction was, without any difficulty, acceded to, and the firm agreed, before we separated, that I was to receive three thousand guineas for my Poem. At the time of this agreement, but little of the work, as it stands at present, had yet been written. But the ready confidence in my success shown by others, made up for the deficiency of that requisite feeling, within myself; while a strong desire not wholly to disappoint this "auguring hope," became almost a substitute for inspiration. In the year 1815, therefore, April 10. 1815. to report the state of the work to the Messrs. Longman, adding, that I was now most willing and ready, should they desire it, to submit the manuscript for their consideration. Their answer to this offer was as follows:-"We are certainly impatient for the perusal of the Poem; but solely for our gratification. Your sentiments are always honourable."* I continued to pursue my task for another year, being likewise occasionally occupied with the Irish Melodies, two or three numbers of which made their appearance, during the period employed in writing Lalla Rookh. At length, in the year 1816, I found my work sufficiently advanced to be placed in the hands of the publishers. But the state of distress to which England was reduced, in that dismal year, by the exhausting effects of the series of wars she had just then concluded, and the general embarrassment of all classes, both agricultural and commercial, rendered it a juncture the least favourable that could well be conceived for the first launch into print of so light and costly a venture as Lalla Rookh. Feeling conscious, therefore, that, under such circumstances, I should act but honestly in putting it in the power of the Messrs. Longman to reconsider the terms of their engagement with me,—leaving them free to postpone, modify, or even, should such be their wish, relinquish it altogether, I wrote them a letter to that effect, and received the following answer :-"We shall be most happy in the pleasure of seeing you in February. We agree with you, indeed, that the times are most inauspicious for 'poetry and thousands;' but we believe that your poetry would do more than that of any other living poet at the present moment."† The length of time I employed in writing the few stories strung together in Lalla Rookh will appear, to some persons, much more than was necessary for the production of such easy and "light o'love" fictions. But, besides that I have been, at all times, a far more slow and pains-taking workman than would ever be guessed, I fear, from the result, I felt that, in this instance, I had taken upon myself a more than ordinary responsibility, from the immense stake risked by others on my chance † November 9. 1816. of success. For a long time, therefore, after the agreement had been concluded, though generally at work with a view to this task, I made but very little real progress in it, and I have still by me the beginnings of several stories, continued, some of them, to the length of three or four hundred lines, which, after in vain endeavouring to mould them into shape, I threw aside, like the tale of Cambuscan, "left half-told." One of these stories, entitled The Peri's Daughter, was meant to relate the loves of a nymph of this aërial extraction with a youth of mortal race, the rightful Prince of Ormuz, who had been, from his infancy, brought up, in seclusion, on the banks of the river Amou, by an aged guardian named Mohassan. The story opens with the first meeting of these destined lovers, then in their childhood; the Peri having wafted her daughter to this holy retreat, in a bright, enchanted boat, whose first appearance is thus described : For, down the silvery tide afar, There came a boat, as swift and bright As shines, in heav'n, some pilgrim-star, That leaves its own high home, at night, To shoot to distant shrines of light. "It comes, it comes," young Orian cries, Within the boat a baby slept, Like a young pearl within its shell; The feathers of some holy bird, With which, from time to time, she stirr'd As on the mountains of Malay, And now the fairy boat hath stopp'd A song is sung by the Peri in approaching, of which the following forms a part: My child she is but half divine, Her father sleeps in the Caspian water; His funeral shrine, But he lives again in the Peri's daughter. Fain would I fly from mortal sight To my own sweet bowers of Peristan ; But, there, the flowers are all too bright For the eyes of a baby born of man. On flowers of earth her feet must tread; So hither my light-wing'd bark hath brought her; Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed, To rest the wandering Peri's daughter. In another of these inchoate fragments, a proud female saint, named Banou, plays a principal part; and her progress through the streets of Cufa, on the night of a great illuminated festival, I find thus described : It was a scene of mirth that drew A smile from ev'n the Saint Banou, But none might see the worldly smile There are yet two more of these unfinished sketches, one of which extends to a much greater length than I was aware of; and, as far as I can judge from a hasty renewal of my acquaintance with it, is not incapable of being yet turned to account. In only one of these unfinished sketches, the tale of The Peri's Daughter, had I yet ventured to invoke that most home-felt of all my inspirations, which has lent to the story of The Fire-worshippers its main attraction and interest. That it was my intention, in the concealed Prince of Ormuz, to shadow out some impersonation of this feeling, I take for granted from the prophetic words supposed to be addressed to him by his aged guardian : Bright child of destiny! even now I read the promise on that brow, That tyrants shall no more defile The glories of the Green-Sea Isle, But Ormuz shall again be free, And hail her native Lord in thee! In none of the other fragments do I find any trace of this sort of feeling, either in the subject or the personages of the intended story; and this was the reason, doubtless, though hardly known, at the time, to myself, that, finding my subjects so slow in kindling my own sympathies, I began to despair of their ever touching the hearts of others; and felt often inclined to say, "Oh no, I have no voice or hand For such a song, in such a land." Had this series of disheartening experiments been carried on much further, I must have thrown aside the work in despair. But, at last, fortunately, as it proved, the thought occurred to me of founding a story on the fierce struggle so long maintained between the Ghebers*, or ancient Fire-worshippers of Persia, and their haughty Moslem masters. From that moment, a new and deep interest in my whole task took possession of me. The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at home in the East. Having thus laid open the secrets of the workshop to account for the time expended in writing this work, I must also, in justice to my own industry, notice the pains I took in long and laboriously reading for it. To form a storehouse, as it were, of illustration purely Oriental, and so familiarise myself with its various treasures, that, as quick as Fancy, in her airy spiritings, required the assistance of fact, the memory was ready, like another Ariel, at her “strong bidding,” to furnish materials for the spell-work, such was, for a long while, the sole object of my studies; and whatever time and trouble this preparatory process may have cost me, the effects resulting from it, as far as the humble merit of truthfulness is concerned, have been such as to repay me more than sufficiently for my pains. I have not forgotten how Voltaire, in his tragedy of "Les Guèbres," written with a similar under-current of meaning, was accused of having transformed his Fire-worshippers into Jansenists: -"Quel I need hardly subjoin to this lively speech, that although D'Herbelot's valuable work was, of course, one of my manuals, I took the whole range of all such Oriental reading as was accessible to me; and became, for the time, indeed, far more conversant with all relating to that distant region, than I have ever been with the scenery, productions, or modes of life of any of those countries lying most within my reach. We know that D'Anville, though never in his life out of Paris, was able to correct a number of errors in a plan of the Troad taken by De Choiseul, on the spot; and, for my own very different, as well as far inferior, purposes, the knowledge I had thus acquired of distant localities, seen only by me in day-dreams, was no less ready and useful. An ample reward for all this painstaking has been found in such welcome tributes as I have just cited; nor can I deny myself the gratification of citing a few more of the same description. From another distinguished authority on Eastern subjects, the late Sir John Malcolm, I had myself the pleasure of hearing a similar opinion publicly expressed;—that eminent person having remarked, in a speech spoken by him at a Literary Fund Dinner, that together with those qualities of the poet which he much too partially assigned to me was combined also "the truth of the historian." Sir William Ouseley, another high authority, in giving his testimony to the same effect, thus notices an exception to the general accuracy for which he gives me credit:-"Dazzled by the beauties of this composition †, few readers can perceive, and none surely can regret, that the poet, in his magnificent catastrophe, has forgotten, or boldly and most happily violated, the precept of Zoroaster, above noticed, which held it impious to consume any portion of a human body by fire, especially by that which ques figuristes," he says, " prétendent que les Guèbres sont les Jansenistes." †The Fire-worshippers. |