Chapter I (1)

Having always had a great fondness for reading, I have gone through every book to which my very limited circle of acquaintance gave me access. Even this small literary experience was sufficient to impress upon my mind the superior value of personal memoirs. Of all my reading, they most interested me; and I have learned from others that such books have most interested them. Indeed, biography, and personal narrative of all kinds, seem to command a general popularity. Moreover, we like to know from the person himself what he does, how he thinks and feels, what fortunes or vicissitudes he encounters, how he begins his career, and how it ends. All biography gives us most of these particulars, but they are never so vividly recited as by the subject of the narrative himself. Accordingly what was once a kind of diary of the most unimportant events I have transformed into a personal history. I know the transformation will not give them any importance they did not originally possess, but it gives me at least one chance of making my recital interesting.

All who have any knowledge of the city of Philadelphia will remember that on its southern boundary there is a large district known as the township of Moyamensing. Much of it is now incorporated with the recently enlarged city, but the old name still clings to it. There are many thousand acres in this district, which stretches from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. The junction of the two rivers at its lower end makes it a peninsula, which has long been known as "The Neck." When the city was founded by William Penn, much of this and the adjoining land was in possession of the Swedes, who came first to Pennsylvania. They had settled on tracts of different sizes, some very large, and some very small, according to their ability to purchase. It was then covered by a dense forest, which required great labor to clear it.

My ancestors were among these early Swedes. They were so poor in this world's goods as to be able to purchase only forty acres of this extremely cheap land. Even that was not paid for in money, but in labor. In time they cleared it up, built a small brick house after the quaint fashion of those early days, the material for which was furnished from a superior kind of clay underlying the land all around them, and thenceforward maintained themselves from the products of the soil, then, as now, proverbial for its fruitfulness. It descended to their children, most of whom were equally plodding and unambitious with themselves. All continued the old occupation of looking to the soil for subsistence; and so long as the forty acres were kept together, they lived well. But as descendants multiplied, and one generation succeeded to another, so the little farm became subdivided among numerous heirs, all of whom sold to strangers, except my father, who considered himself happy in being able to secure, as his portion, the quaint old homestead, with its then well-stocked garden, and a lot large enough to make his whole domain an acre and a half.

I have many times heard him relate the particulars of this acquisition, and say how lucky it was for all of us that he secured it. The other heirs, who had turned their acres into money, went into trade or speculation and came out poor. With the homestead of the first settler my father seemed to have inherited all his unambitious and plodding character. His whole habit was quiet, domestic, and home-loving. He was content to cultivate his land with the spade, raising many kinds of fruits and vegetables for the family and for market, and working likewise in the fields and gardens of his neighbors; while in winter he employed himself in making nets for the fishermen.

But much of this work for others was done for gentlemen who had fine old houses, built at least a hundred years ago. The land in Moyamensing is so beautifully level, and is so very rich by nature, that at an early day in the settlement of the country a great many remarkably fine dwellings were built upon it, to which extensive gardens were attached. Father had been in and all over many of these mansions, and was fond of describing their wonders to us. They were finished inside with great expense. Some had curiously carved door-frames and mantels, with parlors wainscoted clear up to the ceiling, and heavy mouldings wherever they could be put in. These old-time mansions were scattered thickly over this beautiful piece of land. Such of them as were built nearest the city have long since been swept away by the extension of streets and long rows of new houses; but all through the remoter portion of the district there are many still left, with their fine gardens filled with the best fruits that modern horticulture has enabled the wealthy to gather around them.

I remember many of those that have been torn down. One or two of them were famous in Revolutionary history. The owners of such as remained in my father's time were glad to have him take charge of their gardens. He knew how to bud or graft a tree, to trim grapevines, and to raise the best and earliest vegetables. In all that was to be done in a gentleman's garden he was so neat, so successful, so quiet and industrious, that whatever time he had to spare from his own was always in demand, and at the highest wages.

When not otherwise occupied, my mother also worked at the art of net-making. At times she was employed in making up clothing for what some years ago were popularly called the slop-shops, mostly situated in the lower section of the city. These were shops which kept supplies of ready-made clothing for sailors and other transient people who harbored along the wharves. It was coarse work, and was made up as cheaply as possible. At that time the shipping of the port was much of it congregated in the lower part of the city, not far from our house.

When a little girl, I have often gone with my mother when she went on her errands to these shops, doing what I could to help her in carrying her heavy bundles to and fro; and more than once I heard her rudely spoken to by the pert young tailor who received her work, and who examined it as carefully as if the material had been silk or cambric, instead of the coarse fabric which constitutes the staple of such establishments. I thus learned, at a very early age, to know something of the duties of needle-women, as well as of the mortifications and impositions to which their vocation frequently subjects them.

My mother was a beautiful sewer, and I am sure she never turned in a garment that had in any way been slighted. She knew how rude and exacting this class of employers were, and was nice and careful in consequence, so as to be sure of giving satisfaction. But all this care availed nothing, in many cases, to prevent rudeness, and sometimes a refusal to pay the pitiful price she had been promised. Her disposition was too gentle and yielding for her to resent these impositions; she was unable to contend and argue with the rough creatures behind the counter; she therefore submitted in silence, sometimes even in tears. Twice, I can distinctly remember, when these heartless men compelled her to leave her work at less than the low price stipulated, I have seen her tears fall in big drops as she took up the mite thus grudgingly thrown down to her, and leave the shop, leading me by the hand. I could feel, young as I was, the hard nature of this treatment. I heard the rough language, though unable to know how harshly it must have grated on the soft feelings of the best mother that child was ever blessed with.

But I comprehended nothing beyond what I saw and heard,--nothing of the merits of the case,--nothing of the nature and bearings of the business,--nothing of the severe laws of trade which govern the conduct of buyer and seller. I did not know that in a large city there are always hundreds of sewing-women begging from these hard employers the privilege of toiling all day, and half-way into the night, in an occupation which never brings even a reasonable compensation, while many times the severity of their labors, the confinement and privation, break down the most robust constitutions, and hurry the weaker into a premature grave.

I was too young to reason on these subjects, though quick enough to feel for my dear mother. When I saw her full heart overflow in tears, I cried from sympathy. When we got into the street, and her tears dried up, and her habitual cheerfulness returned, I also ceased weeping, and soon forgot the cause. The memory of a child is blissfully fugitive. Indeed, among the blessings that lie everywhere scattered along our pathway, is the readiness with which we all forget sorrows that nearly broke down the spirit when first they fell upon us. For if the griefs of an entire life were to be remembered, all that we suffer from childhood to mature age, the accumulation would be greater than we could bear.

On one occasion, when with my mother at the slop-shop, we found a sewing-woman standing at the counter, awaiting payment for the making of a dozen summer vests. We came up to the counter and stood beside her,--for there were no chairs on which a sewing-woman might rest herself, however fatigued from carrying a heavy bundle for a mile or two in a hot day. And even had there been such grateful conveniences, we should not have been invited to sit down; and unless invited, no sewing-woman would risk a provocation of the wrath of an ill-mannered shopman by presuming to occupy one. Few employers bestow even a thought upon the comfort of their sewing-women. They seldom think how tired they become with overwork at home, before leaving it with a heavy load for the shop, nor that the bundle grows heavier and heavier with every step that it is carried, or that the weak and over-strained body of the exhausted woman needs rest the moment she sets foot within the door.

The woman whom we found at the counter was in the prime of life, plainly, but neatly dressed,--no doubt in her best attire, as she was to be seen in public, and she knew that her whole capital lay in her appearance. I judged her to be an educated lady. Though a stranger to my mother, yet she accosted her so politely, and in a voice so musical, that the gracefulness of her manner and the softness of her tones still linger in my memory. Looking down to me, then less than ten years old, and addressing my mother, she asked,--

"How many of them have you?"

"Only three, Ma'am," was the reply.

"I have six of them to struggle for," she said,--adding, after a moment's pause, "and it is hard to be obliged to do it all."

I saw that she was dressed in newly made mourning. I knew what mourning was,--but not then what it was to be a widow. My mother afterwards told me she was such, and was therefore in black. Other conversation passed between the two, during which I looked up into the widow's face with the unreflecting intensity of childish interest. Her voice was so remarkable, so kind, so gentle, so full of conciliation, that it won my heart. There was a sadness in her face which struck me most forcibly and painfully. There was an expression of care, of overwork, and great privation. Yet, for all this, the lines of her countenance were beautiful even in their painfulness.

While I thus stood gazing up into the widow's face, the shopkeeper came forward from a distant window, by whose light he had been examining the vests, threw them roughly down upon the counter in front of her, and exclaimed in a sharp voice,--

"Can't pay for such work as this,--don't want it in the shop,--never had the like of it,--look at that!"

He tossed a vest toward my mother, who took it up, and examined it. One end of it hung down low enough for me to catch, and I also undertook the business of inspection. I scanned it closely, and was a sufficient judge of sewing to see that it was made up with a stitch as neat and regular as that of my mother. She must have thought so, too; for, on returning it to the man, she said to him,--

"The work is equal to anything of _mine_."

Hearing a new voice, he then discovered, that, instead of tossing the vest to the poor widow, he had inadvertently thrown it to my mother. Then, addressing the former, he said, in the same sharp tone,--

"Can't pay but half price for this kind of work; don't want any more like it. There's your money; do you want more work?"

He threw down the silver on the counter. The whole price, or even double, would have been a mere pittance, the widow's mite indeed; but here was robbery of even that. What, in such a case, was this poor creature to do? She had six young and helpless children at home,--no husband to defend her,--no friend to stand between her and the man who thus robbed her. A resort to law were futile. What had she wherewith to pay either lawyer or magistrate? and was not continued employment a necessity? All these thoughts must have flashed across her mind. But in the terrible silence which she kept for some minutes, still standing at the counter, how many others must have succeeded them! What happy images of former comfort came knocking at her heart! what an agonizing sense of present destitution! what a contrast between the brightness of the one and the gloom of the other! and then the cries of hungry children ringing importunately in her ears! I noticed her all the time, and, child that I was, did so merely because she stood still and made no reply,--utterly unconscious that emotions of any kind were racking her grief-smitten heart. I felt no such emotions myself,--how should I suppose that they had even an existence?

She made no answer to the man who had thus wantonly outraged her, but, turning to my mother, looked up into her face as if for pity and advice. Were they not equally helpless victims on the altar of a like domestic necessity, and should not common trials knit them together in the bonds of a common sympathy? A new sadness came over her yet beautiful countenance; but no tear gushed gratefully to relieve her swelling heart. She took up the money,--I saw that her hand was trembling,--placed it in her purse, lifted from the counter a bundle containing a second dozen of vests, and, bidding my mother a graceful farewell, left the scene of this cruel imposition on one utterly powerless either to prevent it or to obtain redress. I have never forgotten the incident.

These labors of my mother were at no time necessary to the support of the family; but, though quiet and retiring in her habits, she had ambitious aspirations for supplying herself with pocket-money by the work of her own hands. As I said before, she was a beautiful sewer on the finest kinds of work, such as, if obtained from the families in which it is worn, would have yielded her remunerative wages. But we lived away beyond the thickly settled portion of the city, had no influential acquaintances from whom it could be procured, and hence my mother, with thousands who were really necessitous, resorted to the tailors, to the meanest as well as to the honorable. When my father heard of the indignities they practised on us, and of the shamefully low prices they paid us, he forbade my mother ever going to them again. He said their whole business was to grow rich by defrauding of their just dues the poor women who were thus competing with each other for work, and that we should do no more for any of them, until we could find an honest man and a gentleman to deal with.

But my father, always busy in his garden or in that of some wealthy neighbor, knew nothing even of the little outside world into which we had penetrated. His generous, unsuspecting nature thus led him to feel sure that the honest and the gentlemanly were to be found in abundance; but he overlooked the fact that it was only his quiet wife upon whom was devolved the task of discovering them, as well as that her explorations had never yet been rewarded with success.

Notwithstanding these discouragements, my mother was firmly of opinion that the needle was a woman's only sure dependence against all the vicissitudes of life. She believed, in a general way, that a good needlewoman would never come to want. The idea of diversifying employment for the sex had never crossed her mind; the vocation of woman was to sew. All must not only do it, but they must depend on it. She considered it of little use to think of anything beyond the needle. She could not see, that, if all the women of the country did the same thing, there must inevitably be more laborers than could find employment,--that the competition would be so great among them as to depress prices to a point so low that many women could not live on them,--and that those who did would drag out only a miserable existence.

Though a woman of excellent sense, with a tolerable education, and fond of all the reading she could find time to do, still she continued to plead for this supremacy of the needle, even after her humiliating experience at the slop-shops. She was the most industrious sewer I have ever known,--and not only industrious, but neat, conscientious, and rapid. Machines, with iron frames and wheels, had not then been invented; but since they have, I have never seen a better one than my mother. Her frame, if not of iron, seemed quite as indestructible, even if it did turn out fewer stitches. Times without number has she sat up till midnight, plying her needle by the dull light of a common candle: for there was no gas in our suburban district. While we children were sound asleep, there she sat, not from necessity, but from pure love of work. Yet she was up early, long before any of the dull sleepers of the household had stirred, and had more trouble to get us down to breakfast than to get up the meal itself. I scarcely thought of these things during the young years of my life, when they were occurring; but as I am writing this, they all come thronging before my memory with the freshness of yesterday. They will no doubt seem dull to others; but the recollection is very precious to me.

With this conviction of its being almost the sole mission of a woman to sew, she made the needle a vital point in my education, as well as in that of my sister. There were two girls of us, and a brother. I was the eldest, and my sister the youngest of the three. Thus, when I was quite a child, I learned to use the needle; and as I grew older, the utmost pains were taken to teach me every branch of sewing, from the commonest to the most difficult. My sister went through the same course of instruction.

At a very early age we were able to make and dress our own dolls, hem our handkerchiefs and aprons, and in due time were promoted to the darning of father's stockings and the patching of his working-clothes. We thought the being able to do these things for him a very great affair, and mother praised us for our work. But when sister Jane once put a patch over a hole in the knee of father's pantaloons, without covering all the rent,--she had let the patch slip down a little,--mother required her to rip it off and put it in the right place: but there was not a word of scolding for Jane; it was all softness, all kindness; she knew that Jane was a child. I think father, however, would never have noticed that the patch was a little out of place; and, indeed, I think it very likely he didn't care about having a patch of any kind put on, for his mind was on work, and not on appearances. But then it was my dear mother's way. We were taught that the needle was to be the staff of our future lives. Whatever we undertook must be done right; and then she had a just pride in making father always look respectable.

Thus in time we came to feel as much pride in being good seamstresses as did our mother. It was natural we should, for we believed all she taught us, and there was no one to controvert her positions,--except sometimes, when father heard her impressing her favorite dogma on our minds, he put in a word of doubt, saying, that, before the needle could be made so sure a dependence for poor women, there must be found a better market for female labor than the slop-shops, and a more honorable race of employers. To this questioning of her doctrine she made no reply, knowing that she had us all to herself, and that a doubt from father, only now and then uttered, would make no impression. But I remember it all now.

I can remember, too, how proud I felt when mother called me to her, one day, and gave me a piece of cotton cloth, of which she said I was to make father a shirt. It was of unbleached stuff, heavy and strong, but still nice and smooth. Father wore only one kind; and as it was to serve for best as well as for common wear, I was to make it as nicely as I could.

That afternoon all of us children were to go on a little fishing-excursion to the meadows on the Delaware, among the ditches which run all round the inside of the great embankment that has been thrown up to keep out the river. There was a vast expanse of beautiful green meadow inclosed by this embankment, on which great numbers of cattle were annually fatted. As viewed from the bank, it was luxuriant in the extreme; in fact, it was a prairie containing hundreds of acres, trimmed up and cared for with the utmost skill and watchfulness, and intersected with clean, open ditches, to secure drainage. Into these ditches the tide flowed through sluices in the bank, and thus they were always full of fish.

These beautiful meadows were the resort of thousands who resided in the lower section of the city, for picnics and excursions. The roads through them were as level as could possibly be, and upon them were continual trotting-matches. In summer, the wide flats outside the embankment were over-grown with reeds, among which gunners congregated in numbers dangerous to themselves, shooting rail and reed-birds. On Sundays and other holidays, the wide footpath on the high embankment was a moving procession of people, who came out of the city to enjoy the fresh breeze from the river. All who lived near resorted to these favorite grounds.

Several other little boys and girls were to come to our house and go with us. We had long been in the habit of going to the meadows to fish and play, where we had the merriest and happiest of times. Sometimes, though the meadows were only half a mile from us, we took a slice or two of bread-and-butter in a little basket, to serve for dinner, so that we could stay all day; for the meadows and ditches extended several miles below the city, and we wandered and played all the way down to the Point House. On these trips we caught sun-fish, roach, cat-fish, and sometimes perch, and always brought them home. We generally got prodigiously hungry from the exercise we took, and sat down on the thick grass under a tree to eat our scanty dinners. These dinner-times came very early in the day; and long before it was time to go home in the afternoon, we became even more hungry than we had been in the morning,--but our baskets had been emptied.

I think these young days, with these innocent sports and recreations, were among the happiest of my life. I do not think the fish we caught were of much account, though father was always glad to see them; and I remember how he took each one of our baskets, as we came into the kitchen, looked into it, and turned over and counted the fishes it contained. My brother Fred generally had the most, and I had the fewest: but it seems that even for other things than fishes I never had a taking way about me. Father was very fond of them, for mother had a way of frying their little thin bodies into a nice brown crisp, which made us all a good breakfast. So father had made us lines, with corks and hooks, tied them to nice little poles, and showed us how to use them and keep them in order, and had a corner in the shed in which he taught us to set them up out of harm's way. Occasionally he even went with us to the meadows himself.

But while I am speaking of these dear times, I must say that we always came home happy, though tired and dirty. Sometimes we got into great mud-holes along the ditch-bank, so deep as to leave a shoe sticking fast, compelling us to trudge home with only one. Then, when we found a place where the fish bit sharply, all of us rushed to the spot, and pushed into the wild rose-bushes that grew in clumps upon the bank: for I generally noticed, that, where the bushes overhung the water and made a little shade, the fish were most abundant. In the scramble to secure a good foothold, the briers tore our clothes and bonnets, sometimes so as to make us fairly ragged, besides scratching our hands and faces terribly. Occasionally one of us slipped into the ditch, and was helped out dripping wet; but we never mentioned such an incident at home. Then more than once we were caught in a heavy shower, with nothing but a rose-bush or a willow-tree for shelter; and there were often so many of us that it was like a hen with an unreasonably large brood of chickens,--some must stay out in the wet, and all such surplusage got soaked to the skin.

But we cared nothing for any of these things. Indeed, I am inclined to think that we were happy in proportion as we got tired, hungry, wet, and dirty. Mother never scolded us when we came home in this condition. Though we smelt terribly of mud and fish, and were often smeared over with the dried slime of a great slippery eel which had swallowed the hook, and coiled himself in knots all over our lines, and required three or four of the boys to cut off his head and get the hook out, yet all she did was to make us wash ourselves clean, after which she gave us a supper that tasted better than all the suppers we get now, and then put us to bed. We were tired enough to go right to sleep; but it was the fatigue of absolute happiness,--light hearts, light consciences, no care, nothing but the perfect enjoyment of childhood, such as never comes to us but once.

This is a long digression, but it could not be avoided. I said, that, when mother told me I was to make a shirt for father, we were that very afternoon to go down among these dear old meadows and dirty ditches to fish and play. Our lines were all in order, and a new hook had been put on mine, as on the last excursion the old one had caught in what the boys call a "blind eel," that is, a sunken log,--and there it probably remains to this day. Fred had dug worms for us, and they had coiled themselves up into a huge ball in the shell of an old cocoa-nut, ready to be impaled on our hooks. Everything was prepared for a start, and we were only waiting for dinner to be over: though I can remember, that, whenever we had such an afternoon before us, we had very little appetite to satisfy. The anticipation and glee were such that the pervading desire was not to eat, but to be off.

But when mother gave me the shirt to make, I felt so proud of the trust, that all desire to go to the meadows left me. I felt a new sensation, a new ambition, a new pride. It was very strange that I should thus suddenly give up the ditches, the fishing, the scratching, and the dirt; for none of us loved them more dearly than myself. But they were old and familiar, and father's shirt was a novelty; and novelty is one of the great attractions for the young. So they went without me, and after dinner I sat down to make my first shirt.

It was to be made in the plainest way; for father had no pride about his dress. I cut it out myself, basted it together, then sewed it with my utmost care. There was to be no nice work about collar or wristband,--no troublesome plaits or gussets,--no machine-made bosom to set in,--only a few gathers,--and all plain work throughout. My mother looked at me occasionally as the shirt progressed, but found no fault. She did not once stop me to examine it; but I feel sure she must have scrutinized it carefully after I had gone to bed. I was so particular in this, my first grand effort to secure the honors of a needlewoman, that quite two days were occupied in doing it.

When all done, I took it to mother, proud of my achievement, telling her, that, if she had more cotton, I was ready to begin another. She looked over it with a slowness that I am sure was intentional, and not at all necessary. The wristbands were all right, the buttons in the proper places, the hemming she said was done well. Then, taking it up by the collar, and holding the garment at full length before her, so that I could see it all, she asked me if I saw anything wrong. I looked closely, but could see no mistake. At last she exclaimed,--

"Why, my dear Lizzie, this is only a bag with arms to it! How is your father to get into it?"

She turned it all round before me, and showed me that I had left no opening at the bosom and neck,--father could never get it over his head! I cannot tell how astonished and mortified I felt. I cried as only such a child could cry. I sobbed and begged her not to show it to father, and promised to alter it immediately, if she would only tell me how. But, oh, how kind my dear mother was in soothing my excited feelings! There was not a word of blame. She made me comparatively calm by immediately opening the bosom as it should have been done, and showing me how to finish it. I hurried up to my chamber to be alone and out of sight. They called me to dinner, but my appetite had gone. Though my little heart was full, and my hand trembled, yet long before night the work was done.

Oh, how the burden rose from my spirits when my dear mother took me in her arms, kissed me tenderly, and said that my mistake was nothing but a trifle that I would be sure to remember, and that the shirt was far better made than she had expected! When father came in to supper, I took it to him and told him that _I_ had made it. He looked both surprised and pleased, kissed me with even more than his usual kindness,--I think mother must have privately told him of my blunder,--and said that he would surely remember me at Christmas.

I know that incidents like these can be of little interest to any but myself. But what more exciting ones are to be expected in such a history as mine? If they are related here, it is because I am requested to record them. Still, every poor sewing-girl will consider that the making of her first shirt is an event in her career, a difficulty to be surmounted,--and that, even when successfully accomplished, it is in reality only the beginning of a long career of toil.

MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.

A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE.

THOMAS MOORE.

More than forty years have passed since I first conversed with the poet Thomas Moore. Afterwards it was my privilege to know him intimately. He seldom, of late years, visited London without spending an evening at our house; and in 1845 we passed a happy week at his cottage, Sloperton, in the county of Wilts:--

"In my calendar
There are no whiter days!"

The poet has himself noted the time in his diary (November, 1845).

It was in the year 1822 I made his acquaintance in Dublin. He was in the full ripeness of middle age,--then, as ever, "the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own." As his visits to his native city were few and far between, the power to see him, and especially to _hear_ him, was a boon of magnitude. It was, indeed, a treat, when, seated at the piano, he gave voice to the glorious "Melodies" that are justly regarded as the most valuable of his legacies to mankind. I can recall that evening as vividly as if it were not a sennight old: the graceful man, small and slim in figure, his upturned eyes and eloquent features giving force to the music that accompanied the songs, or rather to the songs that accompanied the music.

Dublin was then the home of much of the native talent that afterwards found its way to England; and there were some, Lady Morgan especially, whose "evenings" drew together the wit and genius for which that city has always been famous. To such an evening I make reference. It was at the house of a Mr. Steele, then High Sheriff of the County of Dublin, and I was introduced there by the Rev. Charles Maturin. The name is not widely known, yet Maturin was famous in his day--and for a day--as the author of two successful tragedies, "Bertram" and "Manuel," (in which the elder Kean sustained the leading parts,) and of several popular novels. Moreover, he was an eloquent preacher, although probably he mistook his calling when he entered the Church. Among his many eccentricities I remember one: it was his habit to compose while walking about his large and scantily furnished house; and always on such occasions he placed a wafer on his forehead,--a sign that none of his family or servants were to address him then, to endanger the loss of a thought that might enlighten a world. He was always in "difficulties." In Lady Morgan's Memoirs it is stated that Sir Charles Morgan raised a subscription for Maturin, and supplied him with fifty pounds. "The first use he made of the money was to give a grand party. There was little furniture in the reception-room, but at one end of it there had been erected an old theatrical-property throne, and under a canopy of crimson velvet sat Mr. and Mrs. Maturin!"

Among the guests at Mr. Steele's were the poet's father, mother, and sister,--the sister to whom he was so fervently attached. The father was a plain, homely man,--nothing more, and assuming to be nothing more, than a Dublin tradesman.[F] The mother evidently possessed a far higher mind. She, too, was retiring and unpretending,--like her son in features,--with the same gentle, yet sparkling eye, flexible and smiling mouth, and kindly and conciliating manners. It was to be learned long afterwards how deep was the affection that existed in the poet's heart for these humble relatives,--how fervid the love he bore them,--how earnest the respect with which he invariably treated them,--nay, how elevated was the pride with which he regarded them from first to last.

The sister, Ellen, was, I believe, slightly deformed; at least, the memory to me is that of a small, delicate woman, with one shoulder "out." The expression of her countenance betokened suffering, having that peculiar "sharpness" which usually accompanies severe and continuous bodily ailment.[G] I saw more of her some years afterwards, and knew that her mind and disposition were essentially lovable.

To the mother--Anastasia Moore, _nee_ Codd, a humbly descended, homely, and almost uneducated woman[H]--Moore gave intense respect and devoted affection, from the time that reason dawned upon him to the hour of her death. To her he wrote his first letter, (in 1793,) ending with these lines--

"Your absence all but ill endure,
And none so ill as--THOMAS MOORE."

And in the zenith of his fame, when society drew largely on his time, and the highest and best of the land coveted a portion of his leisure, with her he corresponded so regularly that at her death she possessed (it has been so told me by Mrs. Moore) four thousand of his letters. Never, according to the statement of Earl Russell, did he pass a week without writing to her _twice_, except during his absence in Bermuda, when franks were not to be obtained, and postages were costly.

When a world had tendered to him its homage, still the homely woman was his "darling mother," to whom he transmitted a record of his cares and his triumphs, his anxieties and his hopes, as if he considered--as I verily believe he did consider--that to give her pleasure was the chief enjoyment of his life. His sister--"excellent Nell"--occupied only a second place in his heart; while his father received as much of his respect as if he had been the hereditary representative of a line of kings.

All his life long, "he continued," according to one of the most valued of his correspondents, "amidst the pleasures of the world, to preserve his home fireside affections true and genuine, as they were when a boy."

To his mother he writes of all his facts and fancies; to her he opens his heart in its natural and innocent fulness; tells her of each thing, great or small, that, interesting him, must interest her,--from his introduction to the Prince, and his visit to Niagara, to the acquisition of a pencil-case, and the purchase of a new pocket-handkerchief. "You, my sweet mother," he writes, "can see neither frivolity nor egotism in these details."

In 1806, Moore's father received, through the interest of Lord Moira, the post of Barrack-Master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In 1815, "Retrenchment" deprived him of this office, and he was placed on half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a situation to keep them in comfort without it." "Thank Heaven," he writes afterwards of his father, "I have been able to make his latter days tranquil and comfortable." When sitting beside his death-bed, (in 1825,) he was relieved by a burst of tears and prayers, and by "a sort of confidence that the Great and Pure Spirit above us could not be otherwise than pleased at what He saw passing in my mind."

When Lord Wellesley, (Lord-Lieutenant,) after the death of the father, proposed to continue the half-pay to the sister, Moore declined the offer, although, he adds,--"God knows how useful such aid would be to me, as God alone knows how I am to support all the burdens now heaped upon me"; and his wife at home was planning how "they might be able to do with one servant," in order that they might be the better able to assist his mother.

The poet was born at the corner of Aungier Street, Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779, and died at Sloperton, on the 25th of February,[I] 1852, at the age of seventy-two. What a full life it was! Industry a fellow-worker with Genius for nearly sixty years!

He was a sort of "show-child" almost from his birth, and could barely walk when it was jestingly said of him, he passed all his nights with fairies on the hills. Almost his earliest memory was having been crowned king of a castle by some of his playfellows. At his first school he was the show-boy of the schoolmaster: at thirteen years old he had written poetry that attracted and justified admiration. In 1797 he was "a man of mark"; at the University,[J] in 1798, at the age of nineteen, he had made "considerable progress" in translating the Odes of Anacreon; and in 1800 he was "patronized" and flattered by the Prince of Wales, who was "happy to know a man of his abilities," and "hoped they might have many opportunities of enjoying each other's society."

His earliest printed work, "Poems by Thomas Little," has been the subject of much, and perhaps merited, condemnation. Of Moore's own feeling in reference to these compositions of his mere, and thoughtless, boyhood, it may be right to quote two of the dearest of his friends. Thus writes Lisle Bowles of Thomas Moore, in allusion to these early poems:--

"'----Like Israel's incense laid
Upon unholy earthly shrines':--

Who, if, in the unthinking gayety of premature genius, he joined the sirens, has made ample amends by a life of the strictest virtuous propriety, equally exemplary as the husband, the father, and the man,--and as far as the muse is concerned, _more_ ample amends, by melodies as sweet as Scriptural and sacred, and by weaving a tale of the richest Oriental colors, which faithful affection and pity's tear have consecrated to all ages." This is the statement of his friend Rogers:--"So heartily has Moore repented of having published 'Little's Poems,' that I have seen him shed tears,--tears of deep contrition,--when we were talking of them."

I allude to his early triumphs only to show, that, while they would have spoiled nine men out of ten, they failed to taint the character of Moore. His modest estimate of himself was from first to last a leading feature in his character. Success never engendered egotism; honors never seemed to him only the recompense of desert; he largely magnified the favors he received, and seemed to consider as mere "nothings" the services he rendered and the benefits he conferred. That was his great characteristic, all his life. We have ourselves ample evidence to adduce on this head. I copy the following letter from Mr. Moore. It is dated "Sloperton, November 29, 1843."

"MY DEAR MR. HALL,--

"I am really and truly ashamed of myself for having let so
many acts of kindness on your part remain unnoticed and
unacknowledged on mine. But the world seems determined to
make me a man of letters in more senses than one, and almost
every day brings me such an influx of epistles from mere
strangers that friends hardly ever get a line from me. My
friend Washington Irving used to say, 'It is much easier to
get a book from Moore than a letter.' But this has not been
the case, I am sorry to say, of late; for the penny-post has
become the sole channel of my inspirations. How _am_ I to
thank you sufficiently for all your and Mrs. Hall's kindness
to me? She must come down here, when the summer arrives, and
be thanked _a quattr' occhi_,--far better way of thanking
than at such a cold distance. Your letter to the mad
Repealers was far too good and wise and gentle to have much
effect on such rantipoles."[K]

The house in Aungier Street I visited so recently as 1864. It was then, and still is, as it was in 1779, the dwelling of a grocer,--altered only so far as that a bust of the poet is placed over the door, and the fact that he was born there is recorded at the side. May no modern "improvement" ever touch it!

"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."

This humble dwelling of the humble tradesman is the house of which the poet speaks in so many of his early letters and memoranda. Here, when a child in years, he arranged a debating society, consisting of himself and his father's two "clerks." Here he picked up a little Italian from a kindly old priest who had passed some time in Italy, and obtained a "smattering of French" from an intelligent _emigre_, named La Frosse. Here his tender mother watched over his boyhood, proud of his opening promise, and hopeful, yet apprehensive, of his future. Here he and his sister, "excellent Nell," acquired music, first upon an old harpsichord, obtained by his father in discharge of a debt, and afterwards on a piano, to buy which his loving mother had saved up all superfluous pence. Hence he issued to lake country walks with unhappy Robert Emmet. Hither he came--not less proudly, yet as fondly as ever--when college magnates had given him honor, and the King's Viceroy had received him as a guest.

In 1835 he records "a visit to No. 12, Aungier Street, where I was born." "Visited every part of the house; the small old yard and its appurtenances; the small, dark kitchen, where I used to have my bread and milk; the front and back drawing-rooms; the bedrooms and garrets,--murmuring, 'Only think, a grocer's still!'" "The many thoughts that came rushing upon me, while thus visiting the house where the first nineteen or twenty years of my life were passed, may be more easily conceived than told." He records, with greater unction than he did his visit to the Prince, his sitting with the grocer and his wife at their table, and drinking in a glass of their wine her and her husband's "good health." Thence he went, with all his "recollections of the old shop about him," to a grand dinner at the Viceregal Lodge!

I spring with a single line from the year 1822, when I knew him first, to the year 1845, when circumstances enabled us to enjoy the long-looked-for happiness of visiting Moore and his beloved wife in their home at Sloperton.

The poet was then in his sixty-fifth year, and had in a great measure retired from actual labor; indeed, it soon became evident to us that the faculty for enduring and continuous toil no longer existed. Happily, it was not absolutely needed; for, with very limited wants, there was a sufficiency,--a bare sufficiency, however, for there were no means to procure either the elegances or the luxuries which so frequently become the necessities of man, and a longing for which might have been excused in one who had been the friend of peers and the associate of princes.

The forests and fields that surround Bowood, the mansion of the Marquis of Lansdowne, neighbor the poet's humble dwelling. The spire of the village church, beside the portals of which the poet now sleeps, is seen above adjacent trees. Laborers' cottages are scattered all about. They are a heavy and unimaginative race, those peasants of Wiltshire; and, knowing their neighbor had written books, they could by no means get rid of the idea that he was the writer of _Moore's Almanac_, and perpetually, greeted him with a salutation, in hopes to receive in return some prognostic of the weather, which might guide them in arrangements for seedtime and harvest. Once, when he had lost his way,--wandering till midnight,--he roused up the inmates of a cottage, in search of a guide to Sloperton, and, to his astonishment, found he was close to his own gate. "Ah, Sir," said the peasant, "that comes of yer skyscraping!"

He was fond of telling of himself such simple anecdotes as this; indeed, I remember his saying that no applause he ever obtained gave him so much pleasure as a compliment from a half-wild countryman, who stood right in his path on a quay in Dublin, and exclaimed, slightly altering the words of Byron,--"Three cheers for Tommy Moore, the pote of all circles, and the _darlint_ of his own!"

I recall him at this moment,--his small form and intellectual face, rich in expression, and that expression the sweetest, the most gentle, and the kindliest. He had still in age the same bright and clear eye, the same gracious smile, the same suave and winning manner I had noticed as the attributes of his comparative youth; a forehead not remarkably broad or high, but singularly impressive, firm, and full,--with the organ of gayety large, and those of benevolence and veneration greatly preponderating. Ternerani, when making his bust, praised the form of his ears. The nose, as observed in all his portraits, was somewhat upturned. Standing or sitting, his head was invariably upraised, owing, perhaps, mainly to his shortness of stature, with so much bodily activity as to give him the character of restlessness; and no doubt that usual accompaniment of genius was eminently his. His hair, at the time I speak of, was thin and very gray; and he wore his hat with the jaunty air that has been often remarked as a peculiarity of the Irish. In dress, although far from slovenly, he was by no means particular. Leigh Hunt, speaking of him in the prime of life, says,--"His forehead is bony and full of character, with 'bumps' of wit large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist. His eyes are as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves; his mouth generous and good-humored, with dimples." He adds,--"He was lively, polite, bustling, full of amenities and acquiescences, into which he contrived to throw a sort of roughening cordiality, like the crust of old Port. It seemed a happiness to him to say 'Yes.'" Jeffrey, in one of his letters, says of him,--"He is the sweetest-blooded, warmest-hearted, happiest, hopefullest creature that ever set Fortune at defiance"; he speaks also of "the buoyancy of his spirits and the inward light of his mind"; and adds,--"There is nothing gloomy or bitter in his ordinary talk, but, rather, a wild, rough, boyish pleasantry, much more like Nature than his poetry."

"The light that surrounds him is all from within."

He had but little voice; yet he sang with a depth of sweetness that charmed all hearers: it was true melody, and told upon the heart as well as the ear. No doubt much of this charm was derived from association; for it was only his own "Melodies" he sang. It would be difficult to describe the effect of his singing. I remember some one saying to me, it conveyed an idea of what a mermaid's song might be. Thrice I heard him sing, "As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow,"--once in 1822, once at Lady Blessington's, and once in my own house. Those who can recall the touching words of that song, and unite them with the deep, yet tender pathos of the music, will be at no loss to conceive the intense delight of his auditors.

I occasionally met Moore in public, and once or twice at public dinners. One of the most agreeable evenings I ever passed was in 1830, at a dinner given to him by the members of "The Literary Union." This club was founded in 1829 by the poet Campbell. I shall have to speak of it when I write a "Memory" of him. Moore was in strong health at that time, and in the zenith of his fame. There were many men of mark about him,--leading wits and men of letters of the age. He was full of life, sparkling and brilliant in all he said, rising every now and then to say something that gave the hearers delight, and looking as if "dull care" had been ever powerless to check the overflowing of his soul. But although no bard of any age knew better how to

"Wreathe the bowl with flowers of the soul,"