In 1835 the influence of Lord Lansdowne obtained for Moore a pension of three hundred pounds a year from Lord Melbourne's government,--"as due from any government, but much more from one some of the members of which are proud to think themselves your friends." The "wolf, poverty," therefore, in his latter years, did not prowl so continually about his door. But there was no fund for luxuries, none for the extra comforts that old age requires. Mrs. Moore now lives on a crown pension of one hundred pounds a year, and the interest of the sum of three thousand pounds,--the sum advanced by the ever-liberal friends of the poet, the Longmans, for the Memoirs and Journal edited by Lord John, now Earl, Russell,--a lord whom the poet dearly loved. When his diary was published, as from time to time volumes of it appeared, slander was busy with the fame of one of the best and most upright of all the men that God ennobled by the gift of genius.[N] For my own part, I seek in vain through the eight thick volumes of that diary for any evidence that can lessen the poet in this high estimate. I find, perhaps, too many passages fitted only for the eye of love or the ear of sympathy; but I read _no one_ that shows the poet other than the devoted and loving husband, the thoughtful and affectionate parent, the considerate and generous friend. It was said of him by Leigh Hunt, that Lord Byron summed up his character in a sentence,--"Tommy loves a lord!" Perhaps he did; but if he did, only such lords as Lansdowne and Russell were his friends. He loved also those who are "lords of humankind" in a far other sense; and, as I have shown, there is nothing in his character that stands out in higher relief than his entire _freedom from dependence_. To which of the great did he apply during seasons of difficulty approaching poverty? Which of them did he use for selfish purposes? Whose patronage among them all was profitable? To what Baael did the poet Moore ever bend the knee? He had a large share of domestic sorrows; one after another, his five beloved children died; I have quoted his words, "We are left--alone." His admirable and devoted wife survives him. I visited, a short time ago, the home that is now desolate. If ever man was adored where adoration, so far as earth is concerned, is most to be hoped for and valued, it is in the cottage where the poet's widow lives, and will die.