Ireland, however, was constant to her poet. In the next summer (1835) he crossed to Dublin, when the British Association was meeting there, and the demonstration when he was first seen in the theatre went beyond all customary bounds and was not to be checked without a brief speech from the box. But a more ceremonious ovation was to come. Moore decided to go to Wexford to visit the home of his grand-parents, and he was to be the guest of a Mr. Boyse who lived at Bannow. On the approach to this town from Wexford--where Moore was met by his host--the party was encountered by a cavalcade bearing green banners, and so escorted formally to a series of triumphal arches, where a decorated car awaited the poet, with Nine Muses ("some of them remarkably pretty girls") ready to place a crown on his head. It had been arranged that the Muses should follow on foot; but as the crowd pressed in, Moore made three of them get up on the car. As they proceeded slowly along, with a band playing Irish melodies, and the tune set to Byron's "Here's a health to thee, Tom Moore," the hero turned to the pretty Muse behind him and said, "This is a long journey for you." "'Oh, sir,' she exclaimed, with a sweetness and kindness of look not to be found in more artificial life, 'I wish it was more than three hundred miles.'" Speeches followed, with dancing in the evening, and a green balloon floated over the dancers, bearing to the skies, "Welcome, Tom Moore." That evening there came an express from the Lady Superior of the Presentation Convent at Wexford, begging for a visit to her community. Thither accordingly Moore was taken next day, and, for a crowning ceremony, planted with his own hands--"Oh Cupid, prince of gods and men!"--a myrtle in the convent garden. No sooner was the plant in the earth, than the gardener proclaimed, while filling up the hole, "This will not be called _myrtle_ any longer, but the _Star of Airin_!" Well may Moore ask, "Where is the English gardener chat would have been capable of such a flight?" Demonstrations of this organised character did not recur; but the spontaneous outbursts of feeling manifested themselves, publicly and privately, in ways often a little ridiculous, but not less often really touching. When Moore next visited Ireland (in 1838) he went to the theatre evidently with the purpose of making a speech, and the opportunity was furnished with éclat: "There exists no title of honour or distinction," he told them, "to which I could attach half so much value as that of being called your poet--the poet of the people of Ireland." Certainly the title was not grudged; and the people of Ireland claimed a sort of proprietary right in their bard, as he found when he embarked at Kingstown for his return.