We have not so much endeavoured to criticise, as to dissect, these works, the contents and tone of which we have placed before the reader. We know that wise souls who would, in virtuous anger, pelt the backsliding author with the Ten Commandments, may consider the name, George Sand, quite unfit to be mentioned in the hearing of moral and christian people, and, beyond all doubt, if the reader is one of the class, who consider that, because Congreve, and Farquhar, and Aphra Behn were witty immoral dramatists, that therefore the whole world of dramatic authors must be witty and immoral, he should at once resolve to suspend his or her judgment, and should not, without enquiry, hurl moral thunderbolts upon poor, glittering, literary butterflies. In a future number we shall return to this subject, and give the general reader some further information, upon those French novels most adapted for the perusal of the intelligent, the virtuous, and the good. ART. V.-MOORE. ON the twenty-eighth day of May, seventeen hundred and eighty, a young barrister entertained a party of friends at dinner, in his lodgings, number twelve, Aungier Street, in the city of Dublin, the house of John Moore, a respectable Roman Catholic grocer. It was a noisy, and somewhat riotously convivial gathering, and, Jerry Keller being one of the guests, the fun at no time flagged, but, as the small hours stole on, the joyous laughter from the drawing room rang cheerily through the house. In the midst of the wildest burst of merriment, the maid servant entered the room, and informing the host that Mrs. Moore had just given birth to a son, and was very ill, it was hoped the company would enjoy themselves in a manner less noisy. The entertainer proposed they should adjourn to a tavern a few doors off, and there conclude the evening; the proposal was of course acceded to, Keller saying, amidst the laughter of all, "It is right we should adjourn pro re nata." The child, whose birth gave occasion for this bon mot, was Thomas Moore. The early life of our great poet was passed in Dublin, and in the humble house where he was born. John Moore, although long established in his shop, at the corner of Little Longford Street, was not a very opulent citizen. He belonged to the proscribed religion, and his chief anxiety was to grow rich, without exciting the ill-will of any of the men in brief authority, who, in those days, lorded it over the small traders of the city. But although John Moore was of this easy disposition, Mrs. Moore was actuated by other views: she meant that her son should rise above the position of a petty grocer, and at an early age he was sent to the school of Mr. Samuel Whyte, at that time the most respectable academy in Dublin. Whyte had been the preceptor of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and had, after a year's tuition, declared him to be "an incorrigible dunce." However much he might have been mistaken in his estimate of Sheridan's ability, Whyte, from the first, entertained a very high opinion of Moore's talents, and being fond of theatrical performances, he very often indulged himself, and his pupils, by allowing them to perform little pieces adapted to their years and intellect, and on one occasion, that of a ball given in the year 1790, by Lady Borrows, we find the epilogue, written by Whyte, and called "a Squeeze to Saint Paul's," spoken by Master Moore. Moore, however, did not confine his talents to the mere recitation of verses; he tried his poetic powers at a very early age, so early indeed, that he could not recollect the period at which he began to act, sing, and rhyme; but, during the summer vacation of 1789, while staying with other young companions at Clontarf, they got up, and represented, the Poor Soldier, and a Pantomime; Moore played Patrick, and Harlequin, and wrote an epilogue, ending thus: "Our Pantaloon, who did so aged look, Must now resume his youth, his task, his book; Our Harlequin who skipped, laughed, danced, and died, Amusements, such as these, could not fail to develope all the latent springs of genius in a mind like Moore's, whilst the pride and pleasure which his parents, his mother more particularly, found in witnessing his young triumphs, furnished him, as he tells us, "with that purest stimulus to exertion the desire to please those whom we, at once, most love and most respect." Even in the brightest hours of his after life, when he had enjoyed all the honors of literature, and had struck every string of his lyre with unfailing success, his heart turned "with love's true instinct," back to the old days, when in his fifteenth year he had written a masque and (as he tells us in a sweet home picture), "I adapted one of the songs to the air of Haydn's Spirit-song, and the masque was acted under our own humble roof in Aungier-street, by my elder sister, myself, and one or two other young persons. The little drawing room over the shop was our grand place of representation, and young now an eminent professor of music in Dublinenacted the part of orchestra at the piano-forte." Thus it was that in youth, the love of music and poetry, which was, in later years, to render him the "idol of his own" circle, was fostered and encouraged by his parents in their humble home. * * * The quick and ready ability with which he had availed himself of all the means of improvemement, placed so thoughtfully, and so liberally, around him by his mother, excited in her breast the hope, that her son might one day rise to eminence in some learned profession; but to what profession could he look? "Born of Catholic parents, I had come into the world with the slave's yoke around my neck, and it was all in vain, that the fond ambition of a mother looked forward to the bar as opening a career, that might lead her son to honour and affluence. Against the young Papist all such avenues to distinction were closed; and even the University, the professed source of public education, was to him a fountain sealed."" The iron rule of the penal code, however, was at last relaxed, and in 1793, the gates of Trinity College were flung open to the Irish nation, and amongst the first young Helots who entered, we find the name of Thomas Moore. Then, as now, the emoluments of collegiate distinction were withheld from all, save the members of the Established Church; but, knowing that next to attaining these honors and emoluments, his mother would be most gratified by his showing that he deserved them, Moore entered as a candidate for Scholarship, and had not his religion been a bar, he would have carried off the honor sought, as his answering was in all points sufficient. His college life was, like that of many other men of genius, neither very brilliant nor very useful, solely, because he neglected all studies excepting those which suited his particular tastes, and views of future fame. Two events, however, which marked his career in Trinity, are of importance, and must not be omitted. The first circumstance which drew attention to his poetic genius, was his having given in, an English poem as his theme, at one of the quarterly examinations. This, as a matter of course, at once, drew attention to him, as it was usual to write these themes, looked upon as mere form, in Latin prose. With a beating heart he watched the examiners whilst they looked through the themes, and his anxiety increased, as he saw the Fellow, in whose judgment the fate of the poem rested, coming towards him; leaning across the table, he asked the anxious boy if the verses were his own composition, and Moore, having answered in the affirmative, he said cheeringly-"They do you great credit; and I shall not fail to recommend them to the notice of the Board." "This result," ," writes Moore, "of a step ventured upon with some little fear and scruple, was of course very gratifying to me; and the premium I received from the Board was a well bound copy of the Travels of Anacharsis, together with a certificate, stating, in not very lofty Latin, that this reward had been conferred upon me, "propter laudabilem in versibus componendis progressum." He had written verses long before this time. In the year 1793 he had sent to that old Dublin monthly, "The Anthologia Hibernica," the following lines: "To the editor of the Anthologia Hibernica. 66 Aungier-street, Sept. 11, 1793. "Sir-If the following attempts of a youthful muse seem worthy of a place in your magazine, by inserting them you will much oblige A Constant Reader, T-H-M-S-M-R-E. 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 ; And chaunts what Nature's gifts infuse; * Parnassus. When first she rais'd her simplest lays But feel the purer joy thy friendship brings." A PASTORAL BALLAD. "Ah, Celia! when wilt thou be kind? "Oh! dart not disdain from thine eye! My gardens are crowded with flowers, "The shepherds admire my lays, When I pipe they all flock to the song ; “But their laurels and praises are vain, And that withers the wreath on my brow. “Then adieu, ye gay shepherds and maids ! He next addressed the following lines, printed also in the Anthologia, to his schoolmaster, and was referred to by the editor as, "our esteemed correspondent." "TO SAMUEL WHYTE ESQ. “Hail! heav'n-taught votary of the laurel'd Nine “If e'er from Genius' torch one little spark |