Nor
had he in any degree caught the bardic spirit. His lyre was attuned to
reach the ear rather than the heart; his scenes are in enchanted lands;
his _dramatis personae_ tread theatrical boards; his thunder is a
melo-dramatic roll; his lightning is pyrotechny; his tears are either
hypocritical or maudlin; and his laughter is the perfection of genteel
comedy.
Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779: he was a
diminutive but precocious child, and was paraded by his father and mother,
who were people in humble life, as a reciter of verse; and as an early
rhymer also. His first poem was printed in a Dublin magazine, when he was
fourteen years old. In 1794 he entered Trinity College, Dublin; and,
although never considered a good scholar, he was graduated in 1798, when
he was nineteen years old.
ANACREON.--The first work which brought him into notice, and which
manifests at once the precocity of his powers and the peculiarity of his
taste, was his translation of the _Odes of Anacreon_. He had begun this
work while at college, but it was finished and published in London,
whither he had gone after leaving college, to enter the Middle Temple, in
order to study law.
Pages:
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650