PREFACE.* 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 background 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 From the collected edition of ten volumes, published in 1841, 1812] 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 gunroom 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. The testimony borne by so competent a witness as Captain Hall to the truth of my sketches of the beautiful scenery of Bermuda is of far too much value to me, in my capacity of traveller, to be here omitted by me, however conscious of but ill deserving the praise he lavishes on me, as a poet. Not that I mean to pretend indifference to such kind tributes ;— on the contrary, those are always the most alive to praise, who feel inwardly least confidence in the soundness of their own title to it. In the present instance, however, my vanity (for so this uneasy feeling is always called) seeks its 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 • Fragments of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. chap. vi. claim or pretension. The following lines in one of my Bermudian poems, "Twas there, in the shade of the Calabash Tree, still live in memory, I am told, on those fairy shores, connecting my name with the picturesque spot they describe, and the noble eld 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 fol lowing 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 introduced in the vignette prefixed to the second volume of the edition in ten volumes. + A representation of this calabash, taken from a drawing of it made on the spot, by Dr. Savage of the Royal Artillery, has been See Epistle to Mr. W. R. Spencer, p. 338. of this edition. States, consisted entirely of persons of the 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 civilisation,-however ultimately they may be turned to account, this flourishing town, which stands • The Commodore of the Lakes, as he is styled. 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 ungrateful were I to omit mentioning, that, even then, on the shores of those far lakes, the title of "Poet," however unworthily in that instance bestowed,—bespoke a kind and distinguishing welcome for its wearer; and that the Captain who commanded the packet in which I crossed Lake Ontario*, in addition to other marks of courtesy, begged, on parting with me, to be allowed to decline payment for my passage. When we arrived, at length, at the inn, in the neighbourhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening; and I lay awake almost the whole night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a sort of era in my life; and the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot where the full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters folding smoothly over the edge of the precipice; and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that, during the short interval that followed, imagination had far outrun the reality; and, vast and wonderful as was the scene that then opened upon me, my first feeling was that of disappointment. It would have been impossible, indeed, for anything real to come up to the vision I had, in these few seconds, formed of it; and those awful scriptural words, "The fountains of the great deep were broken up," can alone give any notion of the vague wonders for which I was prepared. But, in spite of the start thus got by imagination, the triumph of reality was, in the end, but the greater; for the gradual glory of the passage that occurs in the subsequent column, stood originally as + The two first sentences of the above paragraph, as well as a part of the Notes on one of the American Poems. |