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hailed as the national bard of the country. In the same year he went to Paris with his friend Rogers, and laid up materials for his humorous piece, The Fudge Family in Paris. In 1818 it was found that his deputy at Bermuda had absconded, leaving him responsible for some ^6,000, and next year, pending a settlement, he was obliged to retire to the Continent. With Lord John Eussell he travelled through France and Switzerland to Milan, and spent some time at Venice with Lord Byron. Moore returned by the south of France to Paris, where his wife and family joined him in January 1820. During the three years he resided abroad he wrote The Epicurean and The Loves of the Angels, At length a settlement was made with his creditors (chiefly by means of a loan from Lord Lansdowne, which he was soon enabled to repay), and in November 1822 he returned to his home at Sloperton Cottage. During Moore's visit to Italy, Byron madehim a present of his manuscript autobiography, upon condition that it should not be published until after his death. Pressed for money in April 1824, he sold it to Murray, the publisher, for .£2,100. Byron died the same month. Lady Byron and her family desired its destruc- tion, and offered to reimburse the pub- lisher what he had paid upon it. Moore resisted the proposition for some time, and at last, nobly resolving to meet the loss himself, paid Murray the £2,100, with interest, and burned the manuscript. Scarcely any action of his life has been more canvassed : there can, however, be little doubt of his disinterestedness and conscientious desire to do what was right. A delightful episode was his visit to Abbotsford in October 1825, where he was received with all the warmth of Sir Wal- ter Scott's nature. His Life of Richard B. Sheridan was published in the same year, and in 1827 The Epicurean, yihich., " though perhaps the least popularly known of Moore's works, is by some considered among the most chaste and exquisite." Macaulay says that, " con- sidered merely as a composition, his Life of Lord Byron, published in 1830, deserves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose our age has produced." In 1831 was published his Life of Lord Edward FitzOerald, a feel- ing tribute to the memory of that noble- man. Moore had visited Ireland with his wife in the previous year, principally to collect materials for this work. His plod- ding literary labours were often lightened by visits to London, where his wit and musical talents made him ever welcome at

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the gayest and most brilliant assemblages. In 1832 an ineffectual effort was made to induce him to staud as candidate for Limerick, under O'Connell's banner. In 1835, under the ministry of Lord Mel- bourne, a Civil List pension of £300 was settled on him. In the same year he again paid a fljnng visit to Ireland — and was lionized in Dublin, enjoyed the beauties of the County of Wicklow from the top of a four-in-hand drag, and was feted at Wex- ford, and at Bannow, where his friends, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall then resided. This was one of several visits necessitated by his preparation of the History of Ireland. In his Captain Rock, already published, he showed that a protracted residence in England had not extinguished his love of country, or lessened his indignation at the disabilities under which his co-religionists suffered. His History of Ireland (which appeared between 1839 ^"^^ 1846), form- ing four volumes of Lardner's Cyclopaedia brings the history of the country down to the death of Owen Roe O'Neill in 1646. Although written in an easy and attrac- tive style, it does not possess much merit. The Athemzum remarked at the time of its publication : " Mr. Moore fortunately brings to his laboiu-s not only extensive learning in the rarely trodden paths of Irish history, but strict impartiality, ren- dered still more clear and imcompromising by an ennobling love of liberty. Every page of his work contains evidence of re- search ; and innumerable passages might be cited in proof of the independent and truth-seeking spirit of the author." This History was Moore's last important work. In 1841 he collected and published his Poetical Works in 10 vols, crown 8vo., with illustrations. The prefaces contain many interesting particulars regarding his life. His latter days were embittered by the death of the last of his children. Anne, aged 5, died in 181 7 ; Anastasia Mary, aged 17, in 1829 ; Olivia Byron lived but a few months-; John Russell, died in India, aged 19, in 1842, a cadet in the East India Com- pany's service ; and Thomas Lansdowne, his eldest son, a wild youth, died in Algiers, in the French service, in 1849, aged 27. Like Swift, Scott, and Southey, the end of Moore's life was passed in an increasingly depressed condition, owing to softening of the brain. Sustained to the last by the tender solicitude of his wife, he died at Sloperton —

" That dear home, that saving ark,

Where love's true light at last I've found. Cheering within when all grows dark. And comfortless, and stormy around"—

26th February 1852, aged 72. He was 349