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MEMOIR OF THOMAS MOORE.

THOMAS MOORE was born in Dublin on the 28th May 1779 The social circle in which his parents moved was neither elevated nor vulgar. His father was a small tradesman, of quiet, taciturn character, possessing a vein of humour which he occasionally did not scruple to exercise on the priests of his own faith. The poet's mother, good devout Catholic that she was, regarded these sallies of her husband with a pious horror. But though a little too susceptible to priestly influences, her superstition had in it nothing ascetic. Moore's gay pleasure-loving disposition, passion for music, taste for all social enjoyment, and general zest of life, were derived from his mother. To her tact, also, was he indebted for that varied training which contributed so remarkably to his success in society. At a very early age the future poet was placed at school. Mr White, an eminent Dublin elocutionist, was his master. Richard B. Sheridan had been White's pupil. From this distinguished pedagogue Moore acquired that facility in declaiming which rendered him, while yet a mere boy, the delight of those domestic re-unions in which his mother taught her son to associate social festivity with more refined and intellectual pleasures than the hard drinking with which enjoyment was then too often identified. Like Pope, Moore may almost, without hyperbole, be said to have lisped in numbers. The exact date of his earliest rhymes has not been preserved, but at the age of eleven we find him in print, and at the age of fourteen he has become a contributor of poetry to the Anthologia Hibernica, a Dublin magazine. Some of his verses then pubished as by" Master Moore" give no inadequate earnest of his style of song-writing.

The acquisition of the showy accomplishments in which Moore already excelled was happily not purchased by the sacrifice of more substantial learning. His classical attainments were more than respectable, and his knowledge of the ancient languages was supplemented by a knowledge of the more important of the modern tongues of Europe. Italian he learned from the family priest, and a French emigrant taught him the tongue of France. By this varied preliminary training, Moore was fully prepared to reap all the advantages the removal of those restrictions which had closed the University of Dublin against the Catholics of Ireland was now about to confer. In the summer of 1793

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