But his return did not extend to England. He knew that country was no place for him, just then. He had made a blunder in his business of the Bermuda registrarship, the consequences of which had now reached him. He had taken no security of the deputy he had appointed to do the duties of that office. The latter, in the course of time and trade, fell into temptation—the easy carelessness of Moore led him, perhaps, into it—and he made way with the proceeds of some American cargoes, and then, with himself—leaving the unprophetic little bard, in the heyday of his glory, to be responsible for near six thousand pounds. The terrible Court of Admiralty now issued a law process against “the smiling bard of pleasure,” which the latter did not think it wise to confront in person, and so stopped short at Paris, where—along with his family, which had joined him—he remained till the close of 1822. His friends, in the mean time, came forward to the rescue; and if, for a moment, he wronged his better genius by hard thoughts against the honor or honesty of his fellows, he was soon brought round to the nobler and better human creed, by generous offers of gifts, loans, etc. Thus, sustained in his exile, he passed his time pleasantly enough, at La Butte Coaslin, near Paris, singing Spanish songs to the guitar in the evening, in company with Madame V——, a neighbor, and spending the mornings of the two summers he remained in France, wandering through the noble park of St. Cloud, spinning and polishing verses and jotting down new ideas in his memorandum-book. His exile was, certainly, pleasanter than that of his erotic, erratic brother, Ovid, lamenting his frost-bitten muses, long ago, on the inhospitable shores of the Black Sea. Moore had a great many visitors at Coaslin, among them our Washington Irving, “who still, I trust,” he says, “recollects his reading to me some parts of his then forthcoming work, ‘Bracebridge Hall,’ as we sat together on the grass walk that leads to the Rocher, at La Butte.” To meet his awkward liabilities, Moore had agreed with Messrs. Murray and Wilkie to write a Life of Sheridan; but finding himself too distant from documents and authorities, he went on with his customary business of verse, and projected an epistolary romance, with Egyptian characters. But this romance was postponed: and it appeared afterward, done in prose, as the “Epicurean.” He also took up the allegory of “The Loves of the Angels,” and working away with his usual octosyllabic facility, he had soon woven it into shape. For this poem he was allowed one thousand guineas by his publisher.