, planned, and executed. It was at Mayfield, too, that those
bitter stanzas were written on the death of Sheridan. There is a curious
circumstance connected with them; they were sent to Perry, the
well-known editor of the _Morning Chronicle_. Perry, though no
stickler in a general way, was staggered at the venom of two stanzas, to
which I need not more particularly allude, and wrote to inquire whether
he might be permitted to omit them. The reply which he received was
shortly this: "You may insert the lines in the _Chronicle_ or not,
as you please; I am perfectly indifferent about it; but if you _do_
insert them, it must be _verbatim_." Mr. Moore's fame would not
have suffered by their suppression; his heart would have been a gainer.
Some of his happiest efforts are connected with the localities of
Ashbourne. The beautiful lines beginning

"Those evening bells, those evening bells,"

were suggested, it is said, by hearing the Ashboume peal; and sweetly
indeed do they sound at that distance, "both mournfully and slow;" while
those exquisitely touching stanzas,

"Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb
In life's happy morning hath hid from our eyes,"

were avowedly written on the sister of an Ashbourne gentleman, Mr. P----
B----. But to his drolleries. He avowed on all occasions an utter horror
of ugly women. He was heard, one evening, to observe to a lady, whose
person was pre-eminently plain, but who, nevertheless, had been
anxiously doing her little endeavours to attract his attention,
"I cannot endure an ugly woman. I'm sure I could never live with one.
A man that marries an ugly woman cannot be happy." The lady observed,
that "such an observation she could not permit to pass without remark.
She knew many plain couples who lived most happily."--"Don't talk of
it," said the wit; "don't talk of it. It cannot be."--"But I tell you,"
said the lady, who became all at once both piqued and positive, "it can
be, and it is. I will name individuals so circumstanced. You have heard
of Colonel and Mrs. ----. She speaks in a deep, gruff bass voice;
he in a thin, shrill treble. She looks like a Jean Doree; he like a
dried alligator. They are called Bubble and Squeak by some of their
neighbours; Venus and Adonis by others. But what of that? They are not
handsome, to be sure; and there is neither mirror nor pier-glass to be
found, search their house from one end of it to the other. But what of
that? No _unhandsome