But what surprises more than all about Moore, is the very great reputation that he had in his day. We, in these latter times, have come to reckon him (rather rashly, perhaps) only an arch gossipper of letters--a butterfly of those metropolitan gardens--easy, affable, witty, full of smiles, full of good feeling, full of pretty little rhythmical utterances--singing songs as easy as a sky-lark (and leaving the sky thereafter as empty); planting nothing that lifts great growth, or tells larger tale than lies in his own lively tintinnabulation of words. Yet Byron said of him: “There is nothing Moore may not do, if he sets about it.” Sydney Smith called him “A gentleman of small stature, but full of genius, and a steady friend of all that is honorable.” Leigh Hunt says: “I never received a visit from him, but I felt as if I had been talking with Prior or Sir Charles Sedley.” It is certain that he must have been a most charming companion. Walter Scott says: “It would be a delightful addition to life if Thomas Moore had a cottage within two miles of me.” Indeed, he was always quick to scent anything that might amuse, and to store it up. His diaries overflow with these bright specks and bits of talk, which may kindle a laugh, but do not nestle in the memory. But considered as a poet whose longish work ought to live and charm the coming generations, his reputation certainly does not hold to the old illuminated heights. Poems of half a century ago, which _Lalla Rookh_ easily outshone, have now put the pretty orientalisms into shade. Nor can we understand how so many did, and do, put such twain of verse-makers as Byron and Moore into one leash, as if they were fellows in power. In the comparison the author of the _Loves of the Angels_ seems to me only a little important-looking, kindly pug--nicely combed, with ribbons about the neck--in an embroidered blanket, with jingling bells at its corners; and Byron--beside him--a lithe, supple leopard, with a tread that threatens and a dangerous glitter in the eye. Milk diet might sate that other; but this one, if occasion served, would lap blood. In the pages that follow we shall, among others, more or less notable, encounter again that lithe leopard in some of his wanton leaps--into verse, into marriage, into exile, and into the pit of death at Missolonghi. CHAPTER V.