talent can effect, by giving not only motion, but life and soul to subjects that seemed incapable of it.  I could enumerate, gentlemen, still more, and from thence would pass with delight to dwell upon the living poets of our own land.  The dramatic powers of a Maturin and a Shiel, the former consecrated by the applause of a Scott and a Byron, and the latter by the tears of some of the brightest eyes in the empire.  The rich imagination of a Philips, who has courted more than one Muse.  The versatile genius of a Morgan, who was the first that mated our sweet Irish strains with poetry worthy of their pathos and their force.  But I feel I have already trespassed too long upon your patience and your time.  I do not regret, however, that you have deigned to listen with patience to this humble tribute to the living masters of the English lyre, which I, ‘the meanest of the throng,’ thus feebly, but heartily, have paid them.”

Towards the close of 1822, Mr. Moore published “The Loves of the Angels,” a poem of exquisite tenderness and beauty.  The object of the poet is, by an allegorical medium, to shadow out the fall of the soul from its original purity—­the loss of light and happiness which it suffers, in the pursuit of this world’s perishable pleasures—­and the punishments from conscience and Divine justice.

Soon after the death of Lord Byron, in 1824, Mr. Moore became involved in a dispute which involved many private feelings.  The facts may be thus briefly stated:—­It appears that about two years previous to his death, Lord Byron wrote his own Memoirs, which, according to Captain Medwin, were given “to Moore, or Moore’s little boy, at Venice,” with the observation of “Here’s 2,000_l_. for you, my young friend;” and that they were not to be published till after his lordship’s death.  On the completion of the Memoirs, Lord Byron wrote to his lady, proposing to send them for her inspection; but she rejected the offer, desiring that they might never appear, and finishing with a threat.  Lord Byron concluded his reply by saying, that “she might depend on their being published;” and his lordship further says, “It was not till after this correspondence that I made Moore the depositary of the MS.”  Mr. Moore subsequently disposed of the MS. to Mr. Murray, the bookseller, for the sum of 2,000 guineas; but, at the anxious wish of some of Lord Byron’s relatives, the purchase-money was returned to Mr. Murray, and the MS. was burnt.  The circumstances being so recent, we do not think it requisite to enlarge upon them.  Mr. Moore has since entered into an agreement with his publishers for a Life of Lord Byron, and a few weeks since the first portion of the copy was sent to the printer.