e had not a political head, and in English
as in Irish politics his beliefs were probably not founded on any
clearly comprehended principles. But such as they were he held to them
firmly. Against his domestic character nobody has ever said anything;
and it is sufficient to observe that not a few of the best as well as of
the greatest men of his time, Scott as well as Byron, Lord John Russell
as well as Lord Moira, appear not only to have admired his abilities and
liked his social qualities, but to have sincerely respected his
character. And so we may at last find ourselves alone with the plump
volume of poems in which we shall hardly discover with the amiable M.
Vallat "the greatest lyric poet of England," but in which we shall find
a poet certainly, and if not a very great poet, at any rate a poet who
has done many things well, and one particular thing better than anybody
else.

The volume opens with "Lalla Rookh," a proceeding which, if not
justified by chronology, is completely justified by the facts that Moore
was to his contemporaries the author of that poem chiefly, and that it
is by far the most considerable thing not only in mere bulk, but in
arrangement, plan, and style, that he ever did. Perhaps I am not quite a
fair judge of "Lalla Rookh." I was brought up in what is called a strict
household where, though the rule was not, as far as I can remember,
enforced by any penalties, it was a point of honour that in the nursery
and school-room none but "Sunday books" should be read on Sunday. But
this severity was tempered by one of the easements often occurring in a
world which, if not the best, is certainly not the worst of all possible
worlds. For the convenience of servants, or for some other reason, the
children were much more in the drawing-room on Sundays than on any other
day, and it was an unwritten rule that any book that lived in the
drawing-room was fit Sunday-reading. The consequence was that from the
time I could read, till childish things were put away, I used to spend a
considerable part of the first day of the week in reading and re-reading
a collection of books, four of which were Scott's poems, "Lalla Rookh,"
_The Essays of Elia_ (First Edition,--I have got it now), and Southey's
_Doctor_. Therefore it may be that I rank "Lalla Rookh" rather too high.
At the same time, I confess that it still seems to me a very respectable
poem indeed of the second rank. Of course it is artificial. The parade
of se