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PREFACES

ΤΟ

THE COLLECTED EDITION OF TEN VOLUMES,

PUBLISHED IN 1841, 1842.

PREFACE

ΤΟ

THE FIRST VOLUME.

FINDING it to be the wish of my Publishers that at least the earlier volumes of this collection should each be accompanied by some prefatory matter, illustrating, by a few biographical memoranda, the progress of my humble literary career, I have consented, though not, I confess, without some scruple and hesitation, to comply with their request. In no country is there so much curiosity felt respecting the interior of the lives of public men as in England; but, on the other hand, in no country is he who ventures to tell his own story so little safe from the imputation of vanity and self-display.

The whole of the poems contained in the first, as well as in the greater part of the secon! volume of this collection were written between the sixteenth and the twenty-third year of the author's age. But I had begun still earlier, not only to rhyme but to publish. A sonnet to my schoolmaster, Mr. Samuel Whyte, written in my fourteenth year, appeared at the time in a Dublin magazine, called the Anthologi,—the first, and, I fear, almost only, creditable attempt in periodical literature of which Ireland has to boast. I had even at an earlier period (1793) sent to this magazine two short pieces of verse, prefaced

Some confused notion of this fact has led the writer of a Memoir prefixed to the "Pocket Edition" of my Poems, printed at Zwickau, to state that Brinsley Sheridan was my

by a note to the editor, requesting the insertion of the "following attempts of a youthful muse;" and the fear and trembling with which I ventured upon this step were agreeably dispelled, not only by the appearance of the contributions, but still more by my finding myself, a few months after, hailed as "Our esteemed correspondent, T. M."

It was in the pages of this publication,where the whole of the poem was extracted,— that I first met with the Pleasures of Memory; and to this day, when I open the volume of the Anthologia which contains it, the very form of the type and color of the paper brings back vividly to my mind the delight with which I first read that poem.

My schoolmaster, Mr. Whyte, though amusingly vain, was a good and kind-hearted man; and, as a teacher of public reading and elocution, had long enjoyed considerable reputation. Nearly thirty years before I became his pupil, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, then about eight or nine years of age, had been placed by Mrs. Sheridan under his care; and, strange to say, was, after about a year's trial, pronounced, both by tutor and parent, to be " an incorrigible dunce." Among those who took lessons from him as private pupils were several young ladies of rank, belonging to some of those great Irish families who still continued to lend to Ireland the enlivening influence of their presence, and made their country-seats, through a great part of the year, the scenes of

tutor!"Great attention was paid to his education by his tutor, Sheridan."

refined as well as hospitable festivity. The Miss Montgomerys, to whose rare beauty the pencil of Sir Joshua has given immortality, were among those whom my worthy preceptor most boasted of as pupils; and his description of them, I remember, long haunted my boyish imagination, as though they were not earthly women, but some spiritual "creatures of the element."

About thirty or forty years before the period of which I am speaking, an eager taste for private theatrical performances had sprung up among the higher ranks of society in Ireland; and at Carton, the seat of the Duke of Leinster, at Castletown, Marley, and other great houses, private plays were got up, of which, in most instances, the superintendence was intrusted to Mr. Whyte, and in general the prologue, or the epilogue, contributed by his pen. At Marley, the seat of the Latouches, where the masque of Comus was performed in the year 1776, while my old master supplied the prologue, no less distinguished a hand than that of our "ever-glorious Grattan,"* furnished the epilogue. This relic of his pen, too, is the more memorable, as being, I believe, the only poetical composition he was ever known to produce.

At the time when I first began to attend his school, Mr. Whyte still continued, to the no small alarm of many parents, to encourage a taste for acting among his pupils. In this line I was long his favorite show-scholar; and among the play-bills introduced in his volume, to illustrate the occasions of his own prologues and epilogues, there is one of a play got up in the year 1790, at Lady Borrowes's private theatre in Dublin, where, among the items of the evening's entertainment, is "An Epilogue, A Squeeze to St. Paul's, Master Moore."

With acting, indeed, is associated the very first attempts at verse-making to which my memory enables me to plead guilty. It was at a period, I think, even earlier than the date last mentioned, that, while passing the summer holidays, with a number of other young people, at one of those bathing-places, in the neighborhood of Dublin, which afford such fresh and healthful retreats to its inhabitants, it was proposed among us that we should combine together in some theatrical performance; and * Byron.

the Poor Soldier and a Harlequin Pa being the entertainments agreed upon, of Patrick and the Motley hero fell to m I was also encouraged to write and appropriate epilogue on the occasion; following lines, alluding to our speed to school, and remarkable only for thei lived so long in my memory, formed this juvenile effort :

Our Pantaloon, who did so aged look,

Must now resume his youth, his task, his bo Our Harlequin, who skipp'd, laugh'd, danced Must now stand trembling by his master's si I have thus been led back, step from an early date to one still earlier, view of ascertaining, for those who interest in literary biography, at what first showed an aptitude for the now craft of verse-making; and the resu far back in childhood lies the epoch am really unable to say at what age I gan to act, sing, and rhyme.

To these different talents, such as th the gay and social habits prevailing in afforded frequent opportunities of while, at home, a most amiable fathe mother such as in heart and head h been equalled, furnished me with th stimulus to exertion-the desire to those whom we, at once, most love respect. It was, I think, a year or t my entrance into college, that a masqu by myself, and of which I had adapte the songs to the air of Haydn's Spi was acted, under our own humble Aungier street, by my elder sister and one or two other young person little drawing-room over the shop grand place of representation and you now an eminent professor of music in enacted for us the part of orchestr piano-forte.

It will be seen from all this, that, imprudent and premature was my firs ance in the London world as an aut only lucky that I had not much earlier that responsible character; in which public would probably have treated my productions in much the same manner that sensible critic, my Uncle Toby have disposed of the "work which t Lipsius produced on the day he was b

While thus the turn I had so early shown for rhyme and song was, by the gay and sociable circle in which I lived, called so encouragingly into play, a far deeper feeling and, I should hope, power-was at the same time awakened in me by the mighty change then working in the political aspect of Europe, and the stirring influence it had begun to exercise on the spirit and hopes of Ireland. Born of Catholic parents, I had come into the world with the slave's yoke around my neck; and it was all in vain that the fond ambition of a mother looked forward to the Bar as opening a career that might lead her son to honor and affluence. Against the young Papist all such avenues to distinction were closed; and even the University, the professed source of public education, was to him "a fountain sealed." Can any one now wonder that a people thus wronged and trampled upon should have hailed the first dazzling outbreak of the French Revolution as a signal to the slave, wherever suffering, that the day of his deliverance was near at hand. I remember being taken by my father (1792) to one of the dinners given in honor of that great event, and sitting upon the knee of the chairman while the following toast was enthusiastically sent round:-"May the breezes from France fan our Irish Oak into verdure."

and suffering, the happy disposition of my countrymen had kept their cheerfulness still unbroken and buoyant; and, at the period of which I am speaking, the hope of a brighter day dawning upon Ireland had given to the society of the middle classes in Dublin a more than usual flow of hilarity and life. Among other gay results of this festive spirit, a club, or society, was instituted by some of our most convivial citizens, one of whose objects was to burlesque, good-humoredly, the forms and pomps of royalty. With this view they established a sort of mock kingdom, of which Dalkey, a small island near Dublin, was made the seat, and an eminent pawnbroker, named Stephen Armitage, much renowned for his agreeable singing, was the chosen and popular monarch.

Before public affairs had become too serious for such pastime, it was usual to celebrate, yearly, at Dalkey, the day of this sovereign's accession; and, among the gay scenes that still live in my memory, there are few it recalls with more freshness than the celebration, on a fine Sunday in summer, of one of these anniversaries of King Stephen's coronation. The picturesque sea-views from that spot, the gay crowds along the shores, the innumerable boats, full of life, floating about, and, above all, that In a few months after was passed the me- true spirit of mirth which the Irish temperamorable Act of 1793, sweeping away some of ment never fails to lend to such meetings, the most monstrous of the remaining sanctions rendered the whole a scene not easily forgotten. of the penal code; and I was myself among The state ceremonies of the day were performthe first of the young Helots of the land, who ed, with all due gravity, within the ruins of an hastened to avail themselves of the new privi- ancient church that stands on the island, where lege of being educated in their country's uni- his mock majesty bestowed the order of knightversity, though still excluded from all share hood upon certain favored personages, and in those college honors and emoluments by among others, I recollect, upon Incledon, the which the ambition of the youths of the ascen- celebrated singer, who arose from under the dant class was stimulated and rewarded. As I touch of the royal sword with the appropriate well knew that, next to my attaining some of title of Sir Charles Melody. There was also these distinctions, my showing that I deserved selected, for the favors of the crown on that to attain them would most gratify my anxious day, a lady of no ordinary poetic talent, Mrs. mother, I entered as candidate for a scholar- Battier, who had gained much fame by some ship, and (as far as the result of the examina-spirited satires in the manner of Churchill, and tion went) successfully. But, of course, the whose kind encouragement of my early atmere barren credit of the effort was all I en-tempts in versification were to me a source of joyed for my pains.

It was in this year, (1794,) or about the beginning of the next, that I remember having, for the first time, tried my hand at political satire. In their very worst times of slavery

much pride. This lady, as was officially announced, in the course of the day, had been appointed his majesty's poetess laureate, under the style and title of Henrietta, Countess of Laurel.

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