persons. The little drawing-room over the shop was our grand place of representation, and young—how an eminent professor of music in Dublin, enacted for us the part of orchestra at the pianoforte." But before he ventured on the "masque," he had trained himself to loftier flights than a tributary verse to his quondam schoolmaster; for the same year that witnessed the production of the sonnet to Mr. Whyte, saw also his first translation, or paraphrase, rather, of the Fifth Ode of Anacreon; and the praise which he received for this, and other versions of odes of the Bard of Téos, stimulated him to complete the translation, which gave the youthful poet his first sobriquet.
Moore remained at the university, diligently working at his labour of love, and, moreover, "hiving knowledge with each studious year," till 1799, when, at the age of nineteen, he left Ireland for the first time, and proceeded to London, "with the two not very congenial objects, of keeping my terms at the Middle Temple, and publishing, by subscription, my ,translation of Anacreon." Along these parallel, but widely dissimilar paths to fame, he could not have travelled far, as we hear no more of Themis, though much of the Muse; and the probability is, that he soon abandoned the law for the more "congenial" occupation of the poet, having succeeded, in 1800, in finding a publisher for the Anacreon. Moore's reputation was made at once by this production; scholars admired his learning and critical skill, and poets hailed another master of the lyre. Il faisait fortune, also, in society, where his sparkling wit and graceful verse made him an ever-welcome guest; and, befriended alike by Prince and Peer, he was soon lancé in the most brilliant circles. It was an intoxicating and dangerous world for one so young; and much, under the circumstances, may fairly be said in extenuation of the poems which he published, in 1802, under the assumed name of Thomas Little, the second sobriquet by which he was distinguished. In spite of the licence by which they were blemished, and for which no one, afterwards, was more sorry than himself—witness the alterations and omissions in the "Collected Edition"—there was so much of the real poetic fire in them, that his popularity, if not his fame, was greatly increased by their publication.
While it was in its zenith, the young poet, through the instrumentality of his kind friend, Lord Moira, received the appointment of registrar of prizes in the Bermudas; and for those beautiful islands he sailed in the Phaeton frigate, on the 25th of September, 1803. The memory of the shores
Where Ariel has warbled, and Waller has stray’d,
has been embalmed by Moore in verse of exquisite sweetness, with all that fidelity which marks the hand of a master. Every poem that he has devoted to "the Summer Isles" is an absolute picture; the coral groves shine through the azure waves, the perfumed air breathes through the orange-bowers; the many-tinted birds people the lonely glades as vividly in the poet's lines as in Nature itself. We have Basil Hall's testimony to the exactness of Moore's descriptions of the scenery, and are ourselves in a position to vouch for their accuracy. For this, if for no other reason, the poet's visit to the Bermudas is ever freshly remembered there. There is one favourite haunt, where his name has been given to a fine old calabash-tree, which is the scene of more joyous al fresco meetings than any other spot in all the numerous cluster which make up the Summer Isles.
