Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 3, no. 18, November, 1851Harper, Various (magazine)
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 3, no. 18, November, 1851
Harper, Various (magazine)
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
patriot; a faithful, and at the same time prudent and circumspect lover
of his country, its people, and its faith. There are very high-sounding
names in the list of political celebrities, of whom it would be well if
such real though not highly-flattering praise could be truly spoken.
Moore's prose works require but little notice at our hands beyond that
incidentally bestowed upon them in our passage through his works. None
of them that we are acquainted with add at all to the reputation for
genius acquired by his poetry. The flow and rhyme of verse are
indispensable to carry the reader through stories without probability or
interest, and to render men and women, not only without
originality--that frequently happens--but destitute of individualism,
decently tolerable. We are ignorant of the contributions to the
"Edinburgh Review;" but they could scarcely have much enhanced the power
and attractiveness of a periodical which in his time numbered among its
contributors such names as Jeffrey, Brougham, Sidney Smith, Hallam,
Macaulay, and others of that mint and standard. Moore is assigned by his
friends a high rank among the defenders or apologists of the Church of
Rome; and we believe his "Travels," like Cobbett's "Reformation," have
been translated by papal authority and command into most of the
languages of Europe. Of his merits in this department of literature,
which is quite out of our way, we do not presume to offer an opinion.
His book unquestionably displays a vast deal of research and learning;
but whether it is so entirely perverse as its adversaries contend, or so
pre-eminently irrefragable and convincing as its admirers assert, we
really can not say.
It is, after all, in the home-life of individuals that their true
character must be read and studied. The poet and the politician--the
latter more especially--dwell, as regards their vocations, apart from
the household tests which really measure the worth, the truth, the
kindliness of individual men and women. Moore, we are pleased to be able
to repeat, as a son, a husband, a father, a friend, and neighbor, bore,
and deservedly, the highest character. His domestic affections were
ardent, tender, and sincere; and the brilliant accomplishments which
caused his society to be courted by the great ones of the world, shed
their genial charm over the quiet fireside at which sat his wife, and in
whose light and warmth the children whose loss has bowed him to the
grave, grew up only to bloom and perish. There have been much greater
poets, more self-sacrificing, though perhaps no more sincere lovers of
their country; but in the intimate relations of domestic life, and the
discharge of its common, every-day, but sacred obligations, there are
few men who have borne a more unspotted and deservedly-high reputation
than Thomas Moore.
THE FAIRY'S CHOICE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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