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castle of Mellifont, near Drogheda, which, with the surrounding abbey lands, had been granted to his ancestors by Queen Elizabeth. On the news reaching him of the rising of the Catholic Irish, he has- tened to Drogheda and put the town in a proper state of defence. The particulars of the ensuing hostilities, in which he took a prominent part, and the raising of the siege at the end of five months, belong more properly to the notice of Sir Eoger Tichborne. Viscount Drogheda had been obliged at an early period to abandon his own castle of Mellifont to the enemy. He assisted at the subsequent operations at Ardee and Navan ; in August 1643 ^^ hastened to defend Athboy against Owen Eoe O'Neill; and on the isths^ of the same month fell in an engagement with the Irish at Portlester ford, on the Black- water, five miles from Trim. The present Marquis of Drogheda is his descendant.
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Moore, Thomas, poet and prose writer, was born at 12 Aungier-street, Dublin, 28th May 1779. His father, John Moore, kept a grocer's shop, which he had probably established with the small fortune he received with his wife, Anasta- sia Codd, a Wexford girl. Both parents were Catholics. Young Moore's cheerful and sprightly disposition made him a favourite with many besides his own fa- mily. One of his earliest recollections was of being taken to a public dinner in honour of Napper Tandy, and sitting on that gen- tleman's knee. At an early age he was sent to a school kept by a Mr. Malone, and a lit- tle later to the academy of the well-known teacher Samuel Whyte, where Sheridan and many distinguished men received their education. Whyte was passionately fond of the stage, and encouraged young Moore's declamatory and histrionic powers ; and before he was twelve years of age his name appeared in the handbills of his master's private theatricals. He soon began to scribble verses, and when four- teen was referred to in the Anthologia Hihernica as "our esteemed correspondent, T. M." His family were anxious he should go to the Bar, and such were then ttte dis- qualifications to which Catholics were subjected, that it was seriously debated whether he should not be entered on the books of Trinity College as a Protesttot. His mother strongly opposed such a step, which was, however, rendered unnecessary by the legislation of 1 793, which opened the University to Catholics, and he entered in 1794 with much credit, under his true designation. At college he showed more disposition to cultivate the modern than
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the ancient languages. He joined the College Historical Society, of which Robert Emmet and Arthur O'Connor were then the most prominent members. Edward Hudson, one of those afterwards arrested at Bond's, and Robert Emmet, were among his most intimate friends ; and nothing but his mother's influence prevented Moore himself becoming perhaps fatally involved in the revolutionary movement of 1798. In his diary he gives a graphic account of the difficulty with which he pulled through without implicating any of his friends, at the visitation of the Chancellor (Lord Clare) for the purpose of clearing the College of students infected with revolu- tionary principles. Thanks to a friend- ship with the librarian of Marsh's Library, Moore had.free access to it even during the summer months, when it was closed to the public, and in exploring its shelves he laid up much of that out-of-the-way information which afterwards appeared in his works. He acquired a tolerable know- ledge of Italian from a Catholic clergyman, and of French from a refugee. In 1799 he took the degree of B.A., and next year entered at the Middle Temple, London. An introduction to Lord Moira soon made him at home at his seat near London, and the best literary society of the metropolis was opened to him. He delighted all by his pleasant manners, literary tastes, and effective, although not brilliant, musical abilities. He brought with him to London his Odes ofAnacreon in manuscript, which, published by subscription in 1800, were much admired, and established his reputa- tion as apoet. In 1 80 1 , under the pseudonym of " Thomas Little," he published a volume of light poetical pieces, which brought him £60, but did not add much to his re- putation. In 1803, through Lord Moira's influence and the friendship of Lady Donegal, Moore received the appointment of Admiralty Registrar at Bermuda, and proceeded thither in the Phaeton frigate. The seclusion of the Bermuda islands was, however, little to his taste, and after a residence extending only from January to April 1804, he confided his duties to a deputy, and made an extended tour through the United States and Canada, during which he wrote his poems relating to America, and had the good fortune to be presented by the British minister to Pre- sident Jefferson. The institutions of the country were little to his taste; but we can scarcely excuse the coarse terms in which he afterwards wrote of it and its inhabitants. His conception of the enor- mity of slavery was clear and decided. In October 1804 Moore returned to Eng- 347
