re afterwards
made himself so well known. There is an "Ode to Morning," in the Number for
March 1794, above the ordinary run of magazine poetry. And in the Number
for May following are "Imitations from the Greek" and Italian, all under
this same signature. And this last being derived from some words in
Petrarch's will, bequeathing his lute to a friend, is the more curious; and
may the more probably be supposed Moore's, as it contains a thought which
is not unlikely to have suggested in after years the idea of his celebrated
melody, entitled the "Bard's Legacy." The Number for Nov. 1794, last but
one in the fourth volume, contains a little piece on "Variety," which
independent of a T. M. signature, I would _almost swear_, from internal
evidence, to be Moore's; it is the last in the series, and indicates such
progress as two years might be supposed to give the youthful poet, from the
lack-a-daisical style of his first attempts, towards that light, brilliant,
sportive vein of humour in which he afterwards wrote "What the Bee is to
the Flowret," &c., and other similar compositions. I now give Moore's first
sonnet, including its footnote, reminding us of the child's usual
explanatory addition to his first drawing of some amorphous animal--"This
is a horse!" or "a bear!" as the case may be. Neither the _metre_ nor the
_matter_ would prepare us for the height to which the writer afterwards
scaled "the mountain's height of Parnassus:"

"TO ZELIA.

(_On her charging the Author with writing too much on Love._)

'Tis true my Muse to love inclines,
And wreaths of Cypria's myrtle twines;
Quits all aspiring, lofty views,
And chaunts what Nature's gifts infuse:
Timid to try the mountain's* height,
Beneath she strays, retir'd from sight,
Careless, culling amorous flowers;
Or quaffing mirth in Bacchus' bowers.
When first she raised her simplest lays
In Cupid's never-ceasing praise,
The God a faithful promise gave--
That never should she feel Love's stings,
Never to burning passion be a slave,
But feel the purer joy _thy_ friendship brings.

* Parnassus!"

If you think this fruit of a research into a now almost forgotten work,
which however contains many matters of interest (among the rest, "The
Baviad of Gifford"), worth insertion, please put it among "N. & Q.;" it may
incite others to look more closely, and perhaps trace other "disjecta
membra poetae."

A. B. R.