Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/257

 Rh youth whose death was fully assured. In the same business-like spirit Miss Seward paid back Mr. Hayley flattery for flattery, until even the slow-witted satirists of the period made merry over this commerce of applause.

Moore, as became a poet of ardent temperament, wrote the most gallant album verses of his day; for which reason, and because his star of fame rode high, he endured sharp persecution at the hands of admiring but covetous friends. Young ladies asked him in the most offhand manner to "address a poem" to them; and women of rank smiled on him in ballrooms, and confided to him that they were keeping their albums virgin of verse until "an introduction to Mr. Moore" should enable them to request him to write on the opening page. "I fight this off as well as I can," he