LATER FORTUNES.—­Moore was now the favorite—­the poet and the dependent of the nobility; and his versatile pen was principally employed to amuse and to please.  He soon began that series of Irish Melodies which he continued to augment with new pieces for nearly thirty years.

Always of a theatrical turn, he acted well in private drama, in which the gentlemen were amateurs, and the female parts were personated by professional actresses.  Thus playing in a cast with Miss Dyke, the daughter of an Irish actor, Moore fell in love with her, and married her on the 25th of March, 1811.

With a foolish lack of judgment, he lost his hopes of preferment, by writing satires against the regent; but as a means of livelihood, he engaged to write songs for Powers, at a salary of L500 per annum, for seven years.

LALLA ROOKH.—­The most acceptable offering to fame, and the most successful pecuniary venture, was his Lalla Rookh.  The East was becoming known to the English; and the fancy of the poet could convert the glimpses of oriental things into charming pictures.  Long possessed with the purpose to write an Eastern story in verse, Moore set to work with laudable industry to read books of travels and history, in order to form a strong and sensible basis for his poetical superstructure.  The work is a collection of beautiful poems, in a delicate setting of beautiful prose.  The princess Lalla Rookh journeys, with great pomp, to become the bride of the youthful king of Bokkara, and finds among her attendants a handsome young poet, who beguiles the journey by singing to her these tales in verse.  The dangers of the process became manifest—­the king of Bokkara is forgotten, and the heart of the unfortunate princess is won by the beauty and the minstrelsy of the youthful poet.  What is her relief and her joy to find on her arrival the unknown poet seated upon the throne as the king, who had won her heart as an humble bard!

This beautiful and popular work was published in 1817; and for it Moore received from his publishers, the Longmans, L3000.

In the same year Moore took a small cottage at Sloperton on the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne, which, with some interruptions of travel, and a short residence in Paris, continued to be his residence during his life.  Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in Bermuda;—­the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of his deputy was L6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised for a thousand guineas.

HIS DIARY.—­It is very fortunate, for a proper understanding of Moore’s life, that we have from this time a diary which is invaluable to the biographer.  In 1820 he went to Paris, where he wasted his time and money in fashionable dissipation, and produced nothing of enduring value.  Here he sketched an Egyptian story, versified in Alciphron, but enlarged in the prose romance called The Epicurean.