project of writing an oriental poem--a class of work greatly in vogue now
that Byron was inventing Giaours and Corsairs--was seriously entertained
by Moore. This project took shape in _Lalla Rookh_, written chiefly at
Mayfield Cottage--a performance for which Mr. Longman the publisher paid
the extremely large sum of L3150 in advance: its publication hung over
till 1817. The poem has been translated into all sorts of languages,
including Persian, and is said to have found many admirers among its
oriental readers. Whatever may be thought of its poetic merits--and I for
one disclaim any scintilla of enthusiasm--or of its power in vitalizing
the _disjecta membra_ of orientalism, the stock-in-trade of the Asiatic
curiosity-shop, there is no doubt that Moore worked very conscientiously
upon this undertaking: he read up to any extent,--wrote, talked, and
perhaps thought, Islamically--and he trips up his reader with some
allusion verse after verse, tumbling him to the bottom of the page, with
its quagmire of explanatory footnotes. In 1815 appeared the _National
Airs_; in 1816, _Sacred Songs, Duets, and Trios_, the music composed and
selected by Stevenson and Moore; in 1818, _The Fudge Family in Paris_,
again a great hit. This work was composed in Paris, which capital Moore
had been visiting in company with his friend Samuel Rogers the poet.

The easily earned money and easily discharged duties of the appointment in
Bermuda began now to weigh heavy on Moore. Defalcations of his deputy, to
the extent of L6000, were discovered, for which the nominal holder of the
post was liable. Moore declined offers of assistance; and, pending a legal
decision on the matter, he had found it apposite to revisit the Continent.
In France, Lord John (the late Earl) Russell was his travelling companion:
they went on together through Switzerland, and parted at Milan. Moore
then, on the 8th of October 1819, joined in Venice his friend Byron, who
had been absent from England since 1816. The poets met in the best of
humor, and on terms of hearty good-fellowship--Moore staying with Byron