This subject, however apparently trivial, is not trifling in a Memoir of Moore; for, independently of its being his chief introduction into society, it was a _characteristic_ of the man. He was the originator of a style, in which he had many imitators, but no equal; and after he abandoned it for other means of shining, almost no follower. It was neither Italian, nor, as we have observed, German; it had neither the frivolity of the French school nor the wildness of the Irish; it was exclusively his own—a mixture of the playful and the pathetic; sweet, and yet singular; light, and yet often drawing tears. This effect, the finest in music—for what taste would compare a Sinfonia to a song?—he accomplished by the admirable management of a sweet voice, though but of small compass, accompanied by a few chords of the instrument, rather filling up the intervals of the voice than leading them: the whole rather an exquisite recitation than a song; the singer more the _minstrel_ than the _musician_. This description of his early powers, however extravagant it may seem to strangers, will be recognised as literally true by those who heard him in Ireland, and in the budding of his talent. He was an _inventor_; his art required the united taste of the composer and the poet, and this accounts for its having perished with him. But a larger field was soon to open before Moore. The Rebellion of 1798 was a death-blow to the hopes of all those sanguine speculators who longed to become Presidents of the new republic. It drained the national resources—it disgusted the national understanding—it made Ireland disunited, and England at once contemptuous of Irish feeling, and suspicious of Irish loyalty. The safety of the empire obviously rendered it impossible to leave in its rear a nation which might throw itself, at a moment’s notice, into the arms of France, Spain, or America—which had actually solicited a French army, and which still carried on transactions amounting to treason at home, and alliance abroad. Thus, the _regenerators_ of Ireland, instead of raising her to a republic, sank her into a province. Even the dream of national independence was at an end; her Parliament was extinguished, and the only reality was the UNION.