In order to obtain the necessary leisure and quiet for the composition of such a work, Moore resolved to retire from the gayeties of Holland and Lansdowne Houses, and other mansions of his distinguished patrons and friends, to the seclusion and tranquillity of the country. He made choice of Mayfield Cottage, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire, and not far distant from Donnington Park, Lord Moira's country-seat, where an excellent library was at his service. It may be as well to mention that when this early and influential friend of Moore went out to India as governor-general, he apologized for not being able to present his poetical protégé with any thing worth his acceptance in that country. "But," said Lord Moira (Marquis of Hastings), "I can perhaps barter a piece of India patronage against something at home that might suit you." This offer, which would have gravely compromised Moore with his Whig friends, he with some asperity declined. The governor-general went to India, and Moore retired to Derbyshire, remaining, with the exception of his Bermudan registrarship, placeless. This offer and refusal Moore communicated by letter to Leigh Hunt. Mayfield Cottage, when the poet and his wife arrived to view it, wore any thing but an inviting aspect. "It was a poor place," Moore wrote, "little better than a barn; but we at once took it, and set about making it habitable and comfortable." He now commenced the formidable task of working himself up into a proper Oriental state of mind for the accomplishment of his work. The first part of this process consisted in reading every work of authority that treated of the topography, climate, zoology, ornithology, entomology, floriculture, horticulture, agriculture, manners, customs, religion, ceremonies, and languages of the East. Asiatic registers, D'Herbelot, Jones, Tavernier, Flemming, and a host of other writers were industriously consulted; and so perfect did Mr. Moore become in these various branches of knowledge, that a great Eastern traveler, after reading "Lalla Rookh," and being assured that the poet had never visited the scenes in which he placed his stories, remarked that if it were so, a man might learn as much of those countries by reading books as by riding on the back of a camel! This, however, was but a part of the requisite preparation. "I am," says Mr. Moore, "a slow, painstaking workman, and at once very imaginative and very matter-of-fact;" and he goes on to say that the slightest exterior interruption or contradiction to the imaginary state of things he was endeavoring to conjure up in his brain threw all his ideas into confusion and disarray. It was necessary, therefore, to surround himself in some way or other with an Eastern atmosphere. How this could be managed in the face of the snows of the Derbyshire winters, during which the four stories which compose "Lalla Rookh" were written, it is difficult to conceive, and perhaps to the fact that it could _not_ be