It was in 1812 that Moore determined to write an Indian poem. Mr. Perry, of the _Morning Chronicle_, accompanied the poet to the Messrs. Longman, and through his intervention the great sum of 3,000 guineas was settled on as the price of a piece of which not one word was yet written. Moore then retired to Mayfield Cottage, a desolate place in Derbyshire, and after a long and hard struggle with a coquettish muse--after a three years' retirement--he sent forth _Lalla Rookh_. Its success was immense; the poem ran rapidly through several editions, and Moore's fame stood upon a higher and surer pedestal than ever. The tales were the triumph of poetic lusciousness; but not a few old judges stigmatized their taste by preferring Fadladeen and his criticisms, even to the Fireworshippers, or the tribulations of the Peri. We need hardly say that the judgment of these tough critics has now a far greater number of adherents than it once commanded. After a continental tour, Moore wrote the clever and popular _Fudge Family_. In the following year he met Byron in Italy, and then the latter intrusted to him his memoirs for publication. These memoirs Moore sold to Murray for two thousand guineas; but, as is well known and a good deal regretted, the purchase money was refunded, and the papers regained, and destroyed. Pecuniary difficulties connected with the misconduct of his Bermuda deputy, about this time, compelled Moore to seek a temporary refuge in Paris, and there he led a pleasant social life, such as he loved, and composed the _Loves of the Angels_, which is not much more than an elaborate and carefully wrought repetition of all his previous love-and-flower poetry. The whole thing is dreamy, lulling, and beautiful, but vague and misty. The words tinkle like falling fountains, and the essence of the closing fancy floats about one like perfume; but this enervating species of composition is far from high or true poetry, and accordingly the work is now far oftener alluded to than it is read. In Paris he occupied the same hotel for a long time with his intimate friend Washington Irving.