Yet even before this, he was by no means regarded merely as a person of quick fancy and lively talent. It was proposed that he should join Jeffrey in editing the _Edinburgh_; and, still more remarkable, in 1822 the proprietors of the _Times_ invited him to replace Barnes for six months in conducting their paper. Moore refused the offer (which was made at the suggestion of Rogers), but felt highly gratified; and from his return to England he was a constant contributor to the _Times_, sending there all his satiric verses. Their popularity was so great that the proprietors authorised Barnes to pay Moore a retainer of £400 a year; and up to 1828 this source of income, with the annuity from Power, was his main revenue. It was precarious, however; for the _Times_ sometimes took a tone in handling Irish topics which made it difficult for Moore to continue the connection, and in 1827 he formally closed it. It was renewed, however, after Barnes made a tour in Ireland (carrying introductions from Moore), and returned ready "to support the Irish cause with all his might." Indeed, the best work of the three years 1825-8 is to be found in the _Odes on Cash, Corn, and Catholics_, nearly all of which were contributed to the _Times_. The first "evening" of _Evenings in Greece_, and the fifth and sixth numbers of _National Airs_, which were the work done for Power at this period, have little in them but fluent verse; and even less can be said for the work which Moore took up as a _pièce de résistance_, his discarded Egyptian story, which he now completed as a prose romance. In _The Epicurean_ we have the last and by no means sprightly runnings of the vein which produced _Lalla_ and the _Loves of the Angels_: an imagination feeding itself on marvels read of in books, and producing literature which appealed to curiosity more than to any other instinct. The description of the Egyptian mysteries seen by the young philosopher, who goes to the land of pyramids and catacombs in search of new truth, is frigid in the extreme; and the flashes of genuine poetry which redeem _Lalla_ and _The Angels_ find no place in this very bad example of deliberately poetic prose. Nevertheless its oversweetened eloquence found plenty of readers, and the book realised £700 to its author,--of which, however, £500 had already been anticipated, independently of the main debt, the two thousand guineas.