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 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 | 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 fervor 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, "Twas there, in the shade of the Calabash Tree, the soundness of their own title to it. In the still live in memory, I am told, on those fairy present instance, however, my vanity (for so this uneasy feeling is always called) seeks its * 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, taker. 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 skeptical 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. 181 of this edition ful 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 neighborhood 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 any thing 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. can in any respect be associated with the grand vision I have just been describing; and, however different the nature of their appeals to the imagination, I should find it difficult to say on which occasion I felt most deeply affected, when looking on the Falls of Niagara, or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum. Some changes, I understand, injurious to the beauty of the scene, have taken place in the shape of the Falls since the time of my visit to them; and among these is the total disappearance, by the graduai crumbling away of the rock, of the small leafy island which then stood near the edge of the Great Fall, and whose tranquillity and unapproachableness, in the midst of so much turmoil, lent it an interest which I thus tried to avail myself of, in a Song of the Spirit of that region: There, amid the island-sedge, Lone I sit at close of day, &c. &c. Another characteristic feature of the vicinity of the Falls, which, I understand, no longer exists, was the interesting settlement of the Tuscarora Indians. With the gallant Brock, who then commanded at Fort George, I passed the greater part of my time during the few weeks I remained at Niagara and a visit I paid to these Indians, in company with him and his brother officers, on his going to distribute among them the customary presents and prizes, was not the least curious of the many new scenes I witnessed. These people received But, i spite of the start thus got by imagin- us in all their ancient costume. The young ation, the triumph of reality was, in the end, men exhibited for our amusement in the race, but the greater; for the gradual glory of the | the bat-game, and other sports, while the old scene that opened upon me soon took posses- and the women sat in groups under the sursion of my whole mind; presenting, from day rounding trees; and the whole scene was as to day, some new beauty or wonder, and, like picturesque and beautiful as it was new to me. all that is most sublime in nature or art, awa- It is said that West, the American painter, kening sad as well as elevating thoughts. I when he first saw the Apollo, at Rome, exretain in my memory but one other dream-claimed instantly, " A young Indian warrior!" for such do events so long past appear-which-and, however startling the association may *The Commodore of the Lakes, as he is styled. †The two first sentences of the above paragraph, as well as a passage that occurs in the subsequent column, stood originally as part of the Notes on one of the American Poems. Introduced in the Epistle to Lady Charlotte Rawdon, p. 184 of this edition. This brave and amiable officer was killed at Queenston, in Upper Canada, soon after the commencement of the war with America, in the year 1812. He was in the act of cheering on his men when he fell. The inscription on the monument raised to his memory, on Queenston Heights, does out due honor to his manly character. appear, some of the graceful and agile forms which I saw that day among the Tuscaroras were such as would account for its arising in the young painter's mind. After crossing "the fresh-water ocean" of Ontario, I passed down the St. Lawrence to Montreal and Quebec, staying for a short time at each of these places; and this part of my journey, as well as my voyage on from Quebec to Halifax, is sufficiently traceable through the few pieces of poetry that were suggested to me by scenes and events on the way. And here I must again venture to avail myself of the valuable testimony of Captain Hall to the truth of my descriptions of some of those scenes through which his more practised eye followed me ;taking the liberty to omit in my extracts, as far as may be done without injury to the style or context, some of that generous surplusage of praise in which friendly criticism delights to indulge. In speaking of an excursion he had made up the river Ottawa," a stream," he adds, "which has a classical place in every one's imagination from Moore's Canadian Boat Song," Captain Hall proceeds as follows:-"While the poet above alluded to has retained all that is essentially characteristic and pleasing in these boat songs, and rejected all that is not so, he has contrived to borrow his inspiration from numerous surrounding circumstances, presenting nothing remarkable to the dull senses of ordinary travellers. Yet these highly poetical images, drawn in this way, as it were carelessly and from every hand, he has combined with such graphic-I had almost said geographicaltruth, that the effect is great, even upon those who have never, with their own eyes, seen the Utawa's tide,' nor flown down the Rapids,' or heard the bell of St. Anne's toll its evenAng chime;' while the same lines give to distant regions, previously consecrated in our imagination, a vividness of interest, when viewed on the spot, of which it is difficult to say how much is due to the magic of the poetry, and how much to the beauty of the real scene."* While on the subject of the Canadian Boat Song, an anecdote connected with that once "It is singularly gratifying," the author adds, "to discover that, to this hour, the Canadian voyageurs never omit their offerings to the shrine of St. Anne, before engaging in any enterprise; and that during its performance, they omit popular ballad may, for my musical readers at In my passage down the St. Lawrence, I had with me two travelling companions, one of whom, named Harkness, the son of a wealthy Dublin merchant, has been some years dead. To this young friend, on parting with him, at Quebec, I gave, as a keepsake, a volume I had been reading on the way,-Priestley's Lectures on History; and it was upon a fly-leaf of this volume I found I had taken down, in pencilling, both the notes and a few of the words of the original song by which my own boat-glee had been suggested. The following is the form of my memorandum of the original air : Then follows, as pencilled down at the same moment, the first verse of my Canadian Boat Song, with air and words as they are at present. From all this it will be perceived, that, in my own setting of the air, I departed in almost every respect but the time from the strain our voyageurs had sung to us, leaving the music of the glee nearly as much my own as the words. no opportunity of keeping up so propitious an intercourse. The flourishing village which surrounds the church on the 'Green Isle' in question owes its existence and support entirely to these pious contributions." Yet, how strongly impressed I had become with the notion that this was the identical air sung by the boatmen,-how closely it linked itself in my imagination with the scenes and sounds amidst which it had occurred to me,-may be seen by reference to a note appended to the glee as first published, which will be found in the following pages.' To the few desultory and, perhaps, valueless recollections I have thus called up, respecting the contents of our second volume, I have only to add, that the heavy storm of censure and criticism-some of it, I fear, but too well deserved-which, both in America and in England, the publication of my "Odes and Epistles" drew down upon me, was followed by results which have far more than compensated for any pain such attacks at the time may have inflicted. In the most formidable of all my censors, at that period, the great master of the art of criticism, in our day,-I have found ever since one of the most cordial and highly valued of all my friends; while the good-will I have experienced from more than one distinguished American sufficiently assures me that any injustice I may have done to that land of freemen, if not long since wholly forgotten, is now remembered only to be forgiven. As some consolation to me for the onsets of criticism, I received, shortly after the appearance of my volume, a letter from Stockholm, addressed to "the author of Epistles, Odes, and other poems," and informing me that "the Princes, Nobles, and Gentlemen, who composed the General Chapter of the most Illustrious, Equestrian, Secular, and Chapteral Order of St. Joachim," had elected me as a Knight of this Order. Notwithstanding the grave and official style of the letter, I regarded it, I own, at first, as mere ponderous piece of pleasantry; and even suspected that in the name of St. "Joachim" I could detect the low and irreverent pun of St. Jokehim. On a little inquiry, however, I learned that there actually existed such an order of knighthood; that the title, insignia, &c., conferred by it had, in the instances of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Bouillon, and Colonel Imhoff, who were all Knights of St. Joachim, been authorized by the British court; but that since then, *Page 183 of this edition this sanction of the order had been withdrawn. Of course, to the reduction thus caused in the value of the honor was owing its descent in the scale of distinction to "such small deer" of Parnassus as myself. I wrote a letter, however, full of grateful acknowledgment, to Monsieur Hansson, the Vice-Chancellor of the Order, saying that I was unconscious of having entitled myself, by any public service, to a reward due only to the benefactors of mankind; and therefore begged leave most respectfully to decline it. PREFACE ΤΟ THE THIRD VOLUME. THE three satirical Poems, with which this volume commences, were published originally without the author's name; "Corruption" and "Intolerance" in the year 1808, and "The Skeptic" in the year following. The political opinions adopted in the first of these Satires-the Poem on Corruption-were chiefly caught up, as is intimated in the original Preface, from the writings of Bolingbroke, Sir William Wyndham, and other statesmen of that factious period, when the same sort of alliance took place between Toryism and what is now called Radicalism, which is always likely to ensue on the ejection of the Tory party from power.† In the somewhat rash effusion, it will be seen that neither of the two great English parties is handled with much respect; and I remember being taken to task, by one of the few of my Whig acquaintances that ever looked into the poem, for the following allusion to the silencing effects of official station on certain orators : As bees, on flowers alighting, cease their hum, But these attempts of mine in the stately, Juvenalian style of satire, met with but little success,-never having attained, I believe, even the honors of a second edition; and I found that lighter form of weapon, to which I †Bolingbroke himself acknowledges that "both parties were become factions, in the strict sense of the word." |