the troops been committed to the charge of a less able, resolute, and prompt man, ten thousand of the finest soldiers in England would have been sacrificed." He was next (1808) despatched to Portugal, but did not arrive there till after the convention of Cintra. One of the generals implicated in that unpopular transaction having been recalled, and the other having resigned, Sir John Moore was left commander-in-chief of the army. His orders were to march into Spain, for the purpose of assisting the patriot who had risen in arms against the French. The agents of the British government, as well as the Spaniards themselves, held out the most brilliant prospects of success, and gave him the most positive promises of assistance. His advance, they assured him, would be covered by sixty or seventy thousand men, and the whole nation was burning with enthusiasm against the French invaders. He soon discovered, however, that these promises were utterly fallacious. The boasted enthusiasm of the people had either never existed, or had entirely evaporated. The Spanish armies were scattered over all the peninsula, and cut up by the enemy in detail. There was the greatest difficulty in obtaining either provisions or information; and the people, though hostile to the French, were too apathetic and indifferent to the cause, to afford any assistance to the British forces. Moore's position had become exceedingly critical. His army, amounting to twenty-five thousand men, was now the only force remaining in the field, and it was exposed to attack on all sides by overwhelming numbers. But well aware of the exaggerated impressions entertained in England respecting the state of matters in the peninsula, he resolved, even in these circumstances, to push into Spain at all hazards, and by a forward movement to draw towards himself the whole mass of the French troops, and thus to afford the Spaniards in the centre and south of the country, an opportunity to rise in aims against the invaders. With this view he advanced from Salamanca on the 12th of December, and prepared to strike a blow against a detached French army on the Carrion, under Soult. He had actually defeated the enemy's cavalry at Sahagun, and was preparing to follow up his success, when he learned that Madrid had fallen, and that Napoleon, at the head of from sixty to seventy thousand men, was rapidly advancing on a point in his rear, while Soult was ordered to march by a different road to cut him off at Astorga. He had no alternative left, therefore, but to retreat. His retrograde march through the mountainous region of Gallicia was long and difficult, the weather was severe, provisions scanty, the inhabitants either apathetic or unfriendly, and the enemy pressing closely on his track. But though the discipline of the soldiers was somewhat relaxed by privations and sufferings and their numbers diminished, they repulsed the pursuers in several smart skirmishes, and performed a march of more than two hundred miles without losing a standard or sustaining a single check in action. They reached Corunna on the 12th of January, 1809, with a gain of two marches on their pursuers; and on the 13th, 14th, and 15th, embarked the sick and artillery on board the transports which lay in the harbour. Moore's design was to embark his whole army without fighting, but the ships did not arrive in time; and though his troops were greatly inferior in number, without cannon, and suffering from fatigue and privation, and drawn up in a bad position, he did not hesitate to accept the battle which Soult offered. The conflict took place on the 16th, and terminated in the complete victory of the British forces, but with the loss of their gallant commander, who, in the heat of the action, was mortally wounded by a cannon ball, and died in a few hours, though not before he had learned the total defeat of the enemy. Sir John Moore was an accomplished gentleman, as well as a consummate general and a brave soldier—"a hero cast in the true classical mould." He was tall, vigorous, and handsome; and his appearance indicated great dignity of mind and amiability of disposition, intrepidity, and manliness. "Integrity, honour, generosity, patriotism," says Napier, "adorned the whole course of his existence." His abilities were decried at the time, and his proceedings censured by malignant faction; but the hope expressed in his last words, "that his country would do him justice," has been amply fulfilled. Napoleon and Soult bestowed a warm commendation on the talents and firmness displayed in his retreat, which the former declared "alone had saved the English army from destruction;" and the duke of Wellington had a high opinion of Moore's talents, and was one of his warmest eulogists. "That is an honourable retreat," says Napier, "in which the retiring general loses no trophies in flight, sustains every charge without being broken, and finally, after a severe action, re-embarks his troops in the face of a superior enemy without being seriously molested. It would be honourable to effect this before a foe only formidable from numbers; but it is infinitely more creditable when the commander, when struggling with bad weather and worse fortune, has to oppose veterans with inexperienced troops, and to contend against an antagonist of eminent ability, who scarcely suffered a single advantage to escape him during his long and vigorous pursuit. All this Sir John Moore did, and finished his work by a death as firm and glorious as any that antiquity can boast of." A fine statue by Flaxman has been erected to the memory of Moore in his native city.—J. T.
MOORE, Sir Jonas, an English mathematician of great repute in his day, was born at Whitlee or Whitle in Lancashire, in 1617. Charles I. took notice of him, but the breaking out of the civil war prevented the advancement of his fortunes by means of the royal favour. During the struggle, Moore supported himself by teaching mathematics. He was amply rewarded for his attachment to the cause of the king after the restoration of Charles II., who appointed him surveyor-general of the ordnance. Sir Jonas appears to have been anxiously concerned about the progress of mathematical science in his native country. He induced the king to found a mathematical school at Christ's Hospital, and to fit up Flamsteed house as an observatory.
MOORE, Thomas, the national poet of Ireland and biographer of Byron, was born on the 28th of May, 1779, in Dublin, where his father was a vintner of no great figure. Both his parents were Roman catholics, and his mother was a superior woman, who exerted herself to give her genius of a son an education that would fit him for one of the professions. From an early age Moore displayed musical, poetical, and romantic tastes, the indulgence of which it required his mother's influence and authority to retain within proper limits. At fourteen he began to contribute poetry to a Dublin magazine, and at fifteen he entered Trinity college, Dublin, with views towards the legal profession. He studied pretty diligently, though he continued to cultivate the muse, and still more disturbing occupation, to dabble in politics. As a Roman catholic he belonged to a communion the members of which suffered severe civic disabilities, and practical grievances fed the flame of his imaginative discontent. The college friend of Robert Emmet, Moore incurred the suspicion of active disloyalty, and narrowly escaped expulsion in 1798. Having taken his degree, however, he settled in London, to read for the bar, and with but a slender outfit in the way of money. Among his Irish letters of introduction was one to Lord Moira, who took a fancy to the agreeable and gifted young man; and Lord Moira's friendliness procured Moore admission to those higher circles of fashion in which he moved until the close of his career. A translation of Anacreon, which he had begun at Trinity college, was published in 1801, dedicated by permission to the prince of Wales, and with a brilliant list of patrons. It was successful, and "Anacreon Moore" became a lion. The original poems, too Anacreontic, which he published as the "Works of the late Thomas Little" (in person Moore himself was diminutive), followed in 1802. In 1803, through the influence of Lord Moira, he was appointed registrar of the admiralty court of Bermuda, and proceeded to the scene of his new duties. He soon discovered that they did not suit him, and leaving them to be discharged by a deputy, he returned to England towards the close of 1804. In 1805 he published his "Odes and Epistles," which, with his previous writings, were severely condemned on ethical grounds by the Edinburgh Review; hence the "bloodless duel" with Lord Jeffrey, described with such causticity in the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Jeffrey became afterwards his friend, and an angry correspondence with Byron was closed by the formation of that personal acquaintance in 1811, which speedily ripened into affectionate friendship. It was in this year that he formed a still more important connection, marrying Miss Elizabeth Dyke, the beautiful and loving "Bessy" of his Diary—a lady who had been for a brief period on the stage, and whose acquaintance he had made at some private theatricals, in which he acted with her during one of his visits to Ireland. In the meantime, though everywhere received in the best society, Moore had not been making a fortune. His chief literary performance had been those "Irish Melodies," on which his future fame will probably rest, and the arrangement to produce which had been made in 1807.
