After his return from Paris to England, once the task was accomplished of seeing his two books of verse, serious and comic, through the press, Moore turned naturally to resume the _Life of Sheridan_ which he had been obliged to drop during his stay on the Continent, remote from all the living sources of information. But the business of collecting material was a long one; the claims of the Sheridan family for a share in profits were not yet settled; and in the summer of 1823 Moore accepted an invitation which led to a new literary undertaking, carried through before the _Sheridan_. This was a proposal from the Lansdownes that he should accompany them on a tour through Ireland. The party met in Dublin, and a characteristic little episode is recorded in the Diary. Moore's mother wanted to see her son's distinguished friend, but was shy of a visit from him; so it was arranged that Lord Lansdowne should be walked past the windows where the old couple sat at watch, while he and the poet waved their salutations. On the way south Moore revived memories of his courtship by a visit to Kilkenny. "Happy times!" he notes, "but not more happy than those which I owe to the same dear girl still." Further south, alarming rumours began to come in, telling of secret organisation among the peasantry, and of the ascendency of "Captain Rock," a mysterious individual in whose name orders and threatening letters were then issued. Killarney charmed Moore with its loveliness, but we find sympathetic observations also concerning Lord Lansdowne's trouble with his Kerry tenants, occasioned by their habits of sub-letting, rearing large families, and so forth. Altogether, the Journal is written by one who sees keenly the oppression of tithes, but on all other matters wears a landlord's spectacles; and this criticism was made sharply, and with justice, in an answer to the book which resulted from this journey. Moore came back with his head full of material, and set to work reading for a projected narrative of his tour; but after a couple of weeks, the brilliant idea occurred to him of converting it into a _History of Captain Rock and his Ancestors_. The project expanded a good deal as he wrote, and six months' work resulted in a considerable volume, of which the first part was a review of Irish history, which showed with ingenious irony how well English policy, from the first enactments of Henry II. against Irish dress, has been adapted to perpetuate the type and breed of Captain Rock. It was the first book which Moore had written in prose, and nowhere else in his prose writings was he so lavish of wit. I may cite a couple of examples. "My unlucky countrymen," says Captain Rock (for the Captain was the nominal author of his own Memoirs) "have always had a taste for justice--a taste as inconvenient to them, situated as they have always been, as a taste for horse-racing would be to a Venetian."