A BOOK OF THE MOMENT

- TOM MOORE AND HIS DIARY

LCOPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE

New York Times.]

Twig is a satisfactory book. The selections are excellent and representative—a true distillation—while Mr. Priestley's intro- duction is a sound and attractive piece of criticism. It tells the reader of to-day what it was necessary for him to know in order to have 'Moore before his eyes and in proper perspec- tive. At the same time it is not patronising or schoolmasterish towards the poet, but in the best sense sympathetic. It does not make too much of Moore, but at the same time it does not fall into the common error of belittling him. The book has been a great pleasure to me and will, I believe, be a great pleasure to thousands of readers who like good stories of the great men of a great epoch. Indeed, if the book had appeared a month earlier than it did I should most unhesitatingly have put it into my list of the right kind of books for men and women of light and leading to pack for their holidays. But, though I say this without hesitation, it must not be supposed that I think Moore a great diarist. He was nothing of the kind, and I entirely agree with Mr. Priestley in the reasons he gives for that judgment. Diaries are of two kinds. First there is the diary in which the diarist writes with gusto about himself, and with an intense desire to confess to his paper sheets and to tell exactly his daily story, body and soul. Those are the diaries that touch us. They are worth a wilderness of anecdotes, no matter how distinguished or how full of literary charm and knowledge in the telling. If the diarist will put down what he feels and thinks from day to day, without any eye to the public, or indeed to anything but himself, it does not matter whether he lives in a palace or a hovel, whether he is Pepys the sly, salacious official, or Marcus Aurelius, who wears the purple over a hair shirt. To take another example, one would willingly sacrifice the whole of Tom Moore's Diary in order to get another ten or twelve flashes from the mirror held up to her mind by a girl of twenty, and so share the things which charmed the charming Elizabeth Roper.

The fact is that, like a good many other diaries, Moore's diurnal was not written under any system of internal compul- sion or combustion. He did not write down his acts or thoughts because he must, but because he wanted to create something which would be an endowment for his dear Bessy when he died. This does not mean that Moore was a wage slave to hirdiary. Probably he very much enjoyed writing it, but, all the same, it is a thing written to order, and not a thing inspired. He went out into the great world which he frequented so assiduously, and in a sense adorned, and then came home and reported, as might a man on the staff of a newspaper, what he had seen and heard—what they said and he said, and what they all said at Holland House, or at Bowood, in Paris or in Venice. It was the age of anecdote, and Moore, always affected by his environment, evidently thought telling stories shortly and characteristically was the most important thing in the world. When he goes to his great parties and meets his great men he never thinks of describing them outwardly or inwardly as Saint Simon would have done, or of noting the impact they made upon his mind. He simply writes down from memory, and his memory was a very good one, what these human gramophones ground out—the stories they told, and the epigrams they exchanged. Considering what a good raconteur Moore was, and what remarkable people he lived with and talked with, we need not be surprised that his diary is exceedingly readable. But that does not make it a live thing, as for example is the other diary of a man of letters of the Regency. I mean Scott's Diary. Scott did not write to make money, or to leave money's worth, but to console himself when he was caught in the dreadful trap of a period of credit contraction. He used his diary as an anodyne, and did not think of his readers. The result is one of the best of diary

fragments. , _ That Mr. Priestley's little book has gained very much by his careful and sympathetic selection I do not doubt; In the

same way, a reviewer's- selection from the s,4?.etions is -likely to prove very attractive, and may make the readers of the pages say " What a shame to pour cold water on such delightful stuff ! " Nevertheless, I am sure that the more the book is read, and still more the many volumes from which it is culled, the more will the judicious reader agree that he haS got an 'encyclopaedia of anecdotes, not a living book. Here is a good example of Moore's diary style :— " April 13 (in Pariti). Dined with Lord Trimlestown : company, Lord Granard, Lattin, Harry Bushe, &c. Lattin and I told Irish stories by the dozen. Some of his very arousing. A posting dialogue : ' Why,- this chaise is very damp." And a very good right it has to be so, sir ; wasn't it all night in the canal 1'

• • • • • • • • • • • • .

April 15 (in Paris). Dined at Fielding's : George Dawson and Montgomery. Dawson told a good story about the Irish landlord counting out the change of a guinea-. Twelve, 13, 14' (A shot beard) ; Bob, go and see who's that killed ; 15, 18, 17 ' ; (enter Bob) It's Kelly, sir.'—' Poor Captain Kelly, a very good customer of mine ; 18, 19, 20, there's your change, sir.' " These two entries show the average. The following entry is the anecdotal mood at its best.

" May 21 (In Paris). . . . Sat next Miss Randall, and had- much talk about Lord Byron. She said Lord B. was 'much wronged' by the world ; that he took up wickedness as a subject, just as Chateaubrituld did religion, without either of them having much of the reality of either feeling in their hearts."

It would not be fair, however, to talk as if there were nothing: in the diary but entries of the literary kind. There is often a: human touch. in it. Whenever Moore speaks about his wife: he shows a charming sentiment, though the sentiment of a' gentleman who seemed to think it quite natural that he should be always dining, lunching, and staying with the great and sharing their luxurious life while his beloved Bessy sat at home with the children. All the same, Moore, though a man of self-indulgence and a spendthrift, was really devoted to his wife. She was a charming young woman, and always main- tained her dignity and was treated with respect by her fine neighbours. She never sat at home yearning for social distinc- tion, though, as the diary shows, she . could on occasion thoroughly enjoy herself at a dance, at a supper, or at a theatre. Again, though it is very rare, we sometimes find Moore describing something with great ability, and also, though this is rarer still, describing the state of his own mind, and giving us proofs that if he had written a journal inlime, and not a social journal, we might have had something curious and distinguished. But unfortunately " Monsieur I'Amour," as Byron tells us the French footmen and butlers would announce him, was always in debt and was always thinking of what would happen to dear Bessy. Therefore he rushed home and made another entry in the endowment insurance diary. Here, however, is an example of Moore at his best. He visited Dublin just after the revolution of 1880 in Paris— the revolution which overthrew the Bourbons and put the Orleanist Louis Philippe in power. Moore was made a lion of and attended a truly Irish gathering of sentimental and revolutionary patriots.

" September 15 (in Dublin). Day of the meeting to celebrate the late French Revolution. Went at one o'clock ; Bossy, Ellen, Mrs. Meara, &e., having gone before. Saw that they were well placed, and my little Tom with them. The Committee still in deliberation on the forms of proceeding. At this time more than 2000 persons collected ; the room (the National Mart) being nearly full. Sheil one of the earliest speakers ; his manner, action, &c., all made me tremble a little for his chances of success in the House of Commons, about which I had before felt very sanguine. His voice has rio ,medium tone, and, when exerted, becomes a scream ; . his action theatrical, and of the barn order of theatricals ; but still his oratorical powers great, and capable of producing (in an Irish audience at least) great excitement. It was wished that I should second the resolution he proposed, and a call to that effect was becoming very general, but I resolved not. About this timo tho doors, which had been closed, were burst open by the people without and the room was completely filled : supposed to be about 3000 persons in all. After a resolution proposed by Mr. Hamilton, late candidate fOr the county of 'Dublin, the call for me became, obstreperOus, and I rose. My reception almost astoundingly ` enthusiastic. For some minutes I go on with perfect self-possession, but my very success alarmed me, and I at once lost the thread • of what I was about to say ; all seemed to have vanished from my mind. It was a most painful moment, and Sheil (who was directly . under me) told me afterwards that I had turned quite pale. I was enough collected, however, to go on saying something, though what I hardly knew, till at length my mind worked itself clear,- and I again got full possession of my subject. So luckily, too, hid I managed these few rniriutes of aberration that, as I found afterwards, , the greater part of my audience gave me credit for having assumed this momentary fit of embarrassment." I feel that I cannot write about Moore without putting on record my intense admiration of him as a satirist and political poet. He seems to me here to be at his best, and to be a true master of a very interesting form of poetry. Take, for example, his rendering, or perhaps he was the originator, of the terrible epigram in regard to President Jefferson—" He dreamt

of liberty in the arms of a slave." Here is what Moore made of it in his lines to Thomas Hume.

" The patriot, fresh from Freedom's councils come, Now pleas'd retires to lash his slaves at home ; Or woo, perhaps, some black Aspasia's charms, And dream of freedom in his bondsmaid's arms."

Again, here is a picture of a British patriot, which it may amuse readers to fit according to fancy to some of the statesmen of to-day.

" Half Whig, half Tory, like those midway things, 'Twist bird and beast, that by mistake have wings ; A mongrel Statesman, 'twist two factions nurst, Who, of the faults of each, combines the worst— The Tory's loftiness, the Whigling's sneer, The leveller's rashness, and the bigot's fear.

Those interested in the problems of Currency and the National Debt will be greatly amused by Moore's witticisms on these themes. They often seem as if made for the contro- versies of to-day. For example, take the " Amatory Colloquy between Bank and Government," 1826. The Bank was then much more coy than it is now. The Government tells the Bank, which was then not for, but against, the Gold Standard, that the time has come to return to Gold. The Government thus addresses the Bank :- " And when—if we still must continue our love, (After all that has pass'd)—our amour, it is"clear, Like that which Miss Dense manag'd with Jove, Must all be transacted in bullion, my dear t "

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.