103-586: The Epicurean is a novel by Thomas Moore , published in 1827. It relates the story of Alciphron , leader of the Epicurean sect in Athens in the 3rd century AD, who is on a journey to Egypt to find the secret to immortality. Some editions of the book include etchings by J. M. W. Turner . The book purports to be a translation of an ancient, "curious Greek manuscript", found in the Monastery of Saint Macarius
206-586: A St Patrick's day dinner Moore had organised in Paris because of the presiding presence of Wellesley Pole Long, a nephew of the Duke of Wellington . Once Moore learned the Bermuda debt had been partly cleared with the help of Lord Lansdowne (whom Moore repaid almost immediately by a draft on Longman, his publisher), the family, after more than a year, returned to Sloperton Cottage. To support his family Moore entered
309-635: A "Protestant reformer" who wished for "a democratic House of Commons and the Emancipation of his Catholic countrymen", driven toward the republican separatism of the United Irishmen . He absolves Fitzgerald of recklessness: but for a contrary wind, decisive French assistance would have been delivered by General Hoche at Bantry in December 1796. In his own Memoirs , Moore acknowledges his Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1831) as
412-567: A "justification of the men of '98 – the ultimi Romanorum of our country". Moore's History of Ireland , published in four volumes between 1835 and 1846, reads as a further and extended indictment of English rule. It was an enormous work (consulted by Karl Marx in his extensive notes on Irish history), but not a critical success. Moore acknowledged scholarly failings, some of which stemmed from his inability to read documentary sources in Irish. In his journal, Moore confessed that he "agreed with
515-538: A Catholic Parliament in Dublin, "which they would be sure to have out and out", the British government would be continually at odds, first over the disposal of Church of Ireland and absentee property, and then over what would be perennial issues of trade, foreign treaties and war. So "hopeless appeared the fate of Ireland under English government, whether of Whigs or Tories", that Moore declared himself willing to "run
618-480: A European novel is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his Irish Melodies . His setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish to English. Politically, Moore
721-447: A Religion (1833) is again fictional. He is, as Moore had been, a Catholic student at Trinity College. On news of Emancipation (passage of the 1829 Catholic Relief Bill), he exclaims: "Thank God! I may now, if I like, turn Protestant". Oppressed by the charge that Catholics are "a race of obstinate and obsolete religionists […] unfit for freedom", and freed from "the point of honour" that would have prevented him from abandoning his church in
824-485: A career in law. Through the literary salon of the poet and satirist Henrietta Battier , and his friends at Trinity, Robert Emmett and Edward Hudson, Moore was connected to the popular politics of the capital agitated by the French Revolution and by the prospect of a French invasion. With their encouragement, in 1797, Moore wrote an appeal to his fellow students to resist the proposal, then being canvassed by
927-553: A charitable mixed repertory of professional players and high-society amateurs. He favoured comic roles in plays like Sheridan 's The Rivals and O'Keeffe 's The Castle of Andalusia . Among the professionals, on stage in Kilkenny with her sister, the tragedienne-to-be Mary Ann Duff , was Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke. In 1811, Moore married Bessy in St Martin-in-the-Fields , London. Together with Bessy's lack of
1030-457: A consequence of the union": "We sent thee Castlereagh – as heaps of dead Have slain their slayers by the pest they spread". The second is that at the time of the Acts of Union Castlereagh's support for Catholic emancipation had been disingenuous. Castlereagh had been master of "that faithless craft", which can "court the slave, can swear he shall be freed", but then "basely spurns him" when his "point
1133-558: A dedication to the Prince of Wales . His introduction to the future prince regent and King, George IV was a high point in Moore's ingratiation with aristocratic and literary circles in London, a success due in great degree to his talents as a singer and songwriter. In the same year he collaborated briefly as a librettist with Michael Kelly in the comic opera, The Gypsy Prince , staged at
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#17327725172251236-502: A disastrous affair with Harriet Spencer , beginning in 1789. Sheridan's affair with Harriet was disastrous for her, as the worst-case scenario actually happened: her abusive husband Viscount Duncannon walked in on Harriet and Sheridan having intercourse. Violently enraged, Duncannon immediately wanted to divorce Harriet. Divorce in the 18th century was social ruin for women, and Harriet narrowly escaped such calamity only when Duncannon's father William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough and
1339-848: A dowry, the Protestant ceremony may have been the reason why Moore kept the match for some time secret from his parents. Bessy shrank from fashionable society to such an extent that many of her husband's friends never met her (some of them jokingly doubted her very existence). Those who did held her in high regard. The couple first set up house in London, then in the country at Kegworth , Leicestershire , and in Lord Moira's neighbourhood at Mayfield Cottage in Staffordshire , and finally in Sloperton Cottage in Wiltshire near
1442-586: A friend of Fox . Moore judged Sheridan an uncertain friend of reform. But he has Sheridan articulate in his own words a good part of what was to be the United Irish case for separation from England. Writing in 1784 to his brother, Sheridan explains that the "subordinate situation [of Ireland] prevents the formation of any party among us, like those you have in England, composed of person acting upon certain principles, and pledged to support each other". Without
1545-570: A large European audience. In the United States, "The Last Rose of Summer" alone sold more than a million copies. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 1751 – 7 July 1816) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester . The owner of
1648-553: A large sum for which Moore was liable. To escape debtor's prison , in September 1819, Moore left for France, travelling with Lord John Russell (future Whig prime minister and editor of Moore's journals and letters). In Venice in October, Moore saw Byron for the last time. Byron entrusted him with a manuscript for his memoirs, which, as his literary executor, Moore promised to have published after Byron's death. In Paris, Moore
1751-654: A newspaper article defaming the character of Elizabeth Ann Linley , whom Sheridan intended to marry. In the first duel, they agreed to fight in Hyde Park , but finding it too crowded they went first to the Hercules Pillars tavern (on the site where Apsley House now stands at Hyde Park Corner ) and then on to the Castle Tavern in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden . Far from its romantic image,
1854-470: A propagandist for Castlereagh in Paris, the Fudges are accompanied by an accomplished tutor and classicist, Phelim Connor. An upright but disillusioned Irish Catholic, his letters to a friend reflect Moore's own views. Connor's regular epistolary denunciations of Castlereagh have two recurrent themes. The first is Castlereagh as "the embodiment of the sickness with which Ireland had infected British politics as
1957-477: A request by the publishers James and William Power, he wrote lyrics to a series of Irish tunes in the manner of Haydn 's settings of British folksongs, with Sir John Andrew Stevenson as arranger of the music. The principal source for the tunes was Edward Bunting 's A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music (1797) to which Moore had been introduced at Trinity by Edward Hudson. The Melodies
2060-547: A social pariah if he had not. The second duel, fought in July 1772 at Kingsdown near Bath, was a much more ferocious affair. This time both men broke their swords but carried on fighting in a 'desperate struggle for life and honour'. Both were wounded, Sheridan dangerously, and he had to be 'borne from the field with a portion of his antagonist's weapon sticking through an ear, his breast-bone touched, his whole body covered with wounds and blood, and his face nearly beaten to jelly with
2163-422: A son: Elizabeth also had a daughter, Mary, born 30 March 1792 but fathered by her lover, Lord Edward FitzGerald . After Elizabeth's death, Sheridan fulfilled his promise to look after Thomas and FitzGerald's baby daughter. A nurse was employed to care for the child at his Wanstead home. The baby had a series of fits one evening in October 1793, when she was 18 months old, dying before a doctor could attend. She
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#17327725172252266-399: A young composer who worked with him at Drury Lane Theatre, died in a boating accident. Sheridan had a rivalry with his fellow playwright Richard Cumberland and included a parody of Cumberland in his play The Critic . On 24 February 1809 (despite the much vaunted fire safety precautions of 1794) the theatre burned down. On being encountered drinking a glass of wine in the street while watching
2369-437: Is folkloric but the history is in earnest. When it catches up with the narrator in the late Penal Law era, his family has been reduced to the "class of wretched cottiers ". Exposed to the voracious demands of spendthrift Anglo-Irish landlords (pilloried by Maria Edgeworth ), both father and son assume captaincies among the "White-boys, Oak-boys, and Hearts-of Steel", the tenant conspiracies that attack tax collectors, terrorise
2472-642: Is gain'd". Through a mutual connection, Moore learned that Castlereagh had been particularly stung by the verses of the Tutor in the Fudge Family. For openly casting the same dispersions against the former Chief Secretary—that he bloodied his hands in 1798 and deliberately deceived Catholics at the time of the Union—in 1811 the London-based Irish publisher, and former United Irishman, Peter Finnerty
2575-522: Is said to have paid the burgesses of Stafford five guineas apiece to allow him to represent them. As a consequence, his first speech in Parliament was a defence against the charge of bribery. In 1787 Sheridan demanded the impeachment of Warren Hastings , the first Governor-General of India . His speech in the House of Commons was described by Edmund Burke , Charles James Fox, and William Pitt as
2678-634: Is the interest of all parties [Catholic and Protestant, Irish and English] to forget". Such argument made little headway against the man Moore decried as a demagogue , but who, as a result of his uncompromising stand, was to emerge as the undisputed leader of the Catholic interest in Ireland, Daniel O’Connell . Even when, in 1814, the Curia itself (then still in silent alliance with Britain against Napoleon ) proposed that bishops be "personally acceptable to
2781-642: The Act of Union through the Irish Parliament . In what were the "verbal equivalents of the political cartoons of the day", Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress (1818) and Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823), Moore lampoons Castlereagh's deference to the reactionary interests of Britain's continental allies. Widely read, so that Moore eventually produced a sequel, was the verse novel The Fudge Family in Paris (1818). The family of an Irishman working as
2884-539: The Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, but following his move to England in 1758, he gave up acting and wrote several books on the subject of education, especially the standardisation of the English language in education. His elder brother was Charles Francis Sheridan . His paternal grandfather was The Rev. Thomas Sheridan from County Cavan , who was a close friend of Jonathan Swift . While his family
2987-662: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane , in London, he wrote several prominent plays such as The Rivals (1775), The Duenna (1775), The School for Scandal (1777) and A Trip to Scarborough (1777). He served as Treasurer of the Navy from 1806 to 1807. Sheridan died in 1816 and was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey . His plays remain a central part of the Western canon and are regularly performed around
3090-541: The Theatre Royal, Haymarket , In 1801, Moore hazarded a collection of his own verse: Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little Esq. . The pseudonym may have been advised by their juvenile eroticism. Moore's celebration of kisses and embraces skirted contemporary standards of propriety. When these tightened in the Victorian era , they were to put an end to what was a relative publishing success. In
3193-459: The Ton (le bon ton) , Sheridan drank heavily and was a gambling addict, gambling most nights with money he did not have. Whilst most of his fellow gambling addicts attempted to pay their creditors, Sheridan pointedly never paid his debts, as he believed paying his creditors "only encourages them." Sheridan's behaviour towards women in particular was dishonourable. A rake and professional storyteller, he
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3296-483: The republican rebellion of 1798 (Moore was at home, ill in bed), or in the uprising in Dublin for which Emmett was executed in 1803. Later, in a biography of the United Irish leader Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1831), he made clear his sympathies, not hiding his regret that the French expedition under General Hoche failed in December 1796 to effect a landing. To Emmett's sacrifice on the gallows Moore pays homage in
3399-634: The "Whigs as Whigs", Moore claimed not to have received "even the semblance of a favour" (Lord Moira, they "hardly acknowledge as one of themselves"). And with exceptions "easily counted", Moore was convinced that there was "just as much selfishness and as much low-party spirit among them generally as the Tories". But for Moore, the fact that the Prince Regent held fast against Catholic admission to parliament may have been reason sufficient to turn on his former friend and patron. Moore's Horatian mockery of
3502-410: The "treasonous truths" of his book on Fitzgerald. The difficulty, Moore suggested, was that these "truths" did not permit him to pretend with O'Connell that reversing the Acts of Union would amount to something less than real and lasting separation from Great Britain. Relations had been difficult enough after the old Irish Parliament had secured its legislative independence from London in 1782 . But with
3605-659: The American Congress offered Sheridan £20,000 in recognition of his efforts to prevent the American War of Independence . He refused the offer. In December 1815 Sheridan became ill and was largely confined to bed. He died in poverty. However, dukes, earls, lords, viscounts, the Lord Mayor of London , and other notables attended his funeral, and he was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey . In 1825
3708-639: The British Army in Afghanistan , and then with French Foreign Legion in Algeria . He was dying of tuberculosis that riddled the family when, according to Foreign Legion records, he was killed in action on 6 February 1846. Despite these heavy personal losses, the marriage of Thomas Moore is generally regarded to have been a happy one. In 1818, it was discovered that the man Moore had appointed his deputy in Bermuda had embezzled 6,000 pounds sterling ,
3811-577: The Crown a "negative control", a veto, on the appointment of Catholic bishops. In an open Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin (1810), Moore noted that the Irish bishops (legally resident in Ireland only from 1782) had themselves been willing to comply with a practice otherwise universal in Europe. Conceding a temporal check of papal authority, he argued, was in Ireland's Gallican tradition. In
3914-548: The English-appointed Dublin Castle administration , to secure Ireland by incorporating the kingdom in a union with Great Britain . In April 1798, Moore was interrogated at Trinity but acquitted on the charge of being a party, through the Society of United Irishmen , to sedition. Moore, though a friend of Emmett, had not taken the United Irish oath with Emmett and Hudson, and he played no part in
4017-519: The Great in Egypt around 1800. The narrative begins with Alciphron's election to the leadership of the "school" or "sect" of Epicurus. He has a flash of insight indicating to him that "eternal life" awaits him in Egypt. Unsure of its meaning, he decides to pursue this premonition. He travels there and undergoes various adventures, including initiation into the mysteries of the state religion, in pursuit of
4120-561: The Irish writer Thomas Moore published a sympathetic two-volume biography, Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan , which became a major influence on subsequent perceptions. A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque was unveiled in 1881 to commemorate Sheridan at 14 Savile Row in Mayfair. Another plaque is in Stafford. He was twice married. He and his first wife Elizabeth had
4223-750: The Prince in the pages of The Morning Chronicle were collected in Intercepted Letters, or the Two-Penny Post-Bag (1813). Another, and possibly more personal, target for Moore was the Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh . A reform-minded Ulster Presbyterian turned Anglican Tory , as Irish Secretary Castlereagh had been ruthless in the suppression of the United Irishmen and in pushing
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4326-545: The Spanish exile and Protestant convert Joseph Blanco White . Brendan Clifford , editor of Moore's political writings, interprets Moore's philosophy as "cheerful paganism", or, at the very least, " à la carte Catholicism" favouring "what scriptural Protestantism hated: the music, the theatricality, the symbolism, the idolatry". Despite his mother being a devout Catholic, and like O'Connell acknowledging Catholicism as Ireland's "national faith", Moore appears to have abandoned
4429-436: The Tories in their opinion" as to the consequences of the first Parliamentary Reform Act (1832) . He believed it would give "an opening and impulse to the revolutionary feeling now abroad" [England, Moore suggested, had been "in the stream of a revolution for some years"] and that the "temporary satisfaction" it might produce would be but as the calm before a storm: "a downward reform (as Dryden says) rolls on fast". But this
4532-779: The appointment of the Rector of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, Paul Cullen, as Primate Archbishop of Armagh . In a call heeded by Protestants of all denominations, in 1822 the new Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, William Magee , declared the absolute necessity of winning an Irish majority for the Reformed faith — a "Second Reformation". Carrying "religious tracts expressly written for
4635-420: The assault: "...when I defied [his] threat he took another most extraordinary method – I was told one day that a servant had brought a message which he would deliver to no one but myself, and before I could order him to be admitted, in entered Sheridan, wrapped up in a great watchcoat, and after my servant had quitted the room he rushed up to me and with a ferociousness quite frightful bit my cheek so violently that
4738-458: The author's identity as Sheridan's from his handwriting. Sheridan accosted Harriet in public and made a scene any chance he could, reproaching her for not loving him enough and declaring his undying love for her. Despite his cruelty towards her, Harriet was kind to him on his deathbed in 1816. In return, Sheridan grasped her hand hard and told her he would haunt her after his death. Harriet, petrified, asked why, having persecuted her all his life, he
4841-525: The authorities. To dramatically emphasise his point he threw down a knife onto the floor of the House of Commons. Sheridan shouted, "Where's the fork?", which led to much of the house collapsing in laughter. In April 1798 he appeared at the trial in Maidstone of United Irishmen accused of treasonable conspiracy with the French. Along with Charles James Fox , Lord Moira and other radical Whig grandees, he testified on behalf of Arthur O'Connor . O'Connor
4944-414: The baby, whom they named Fanny Mortimer. Fanny "grew up at Devonshire House as a sort of foundling, inhabiting a nether world between the servants' quarters and the nursery. After Georgiana died in 1806, Harriet sent Fanny to private school and eventually saw her marry quite well. Fanny always suspected that either Harriet or Georgiana was her mother and never quite recovered from learning that her true mother
5047-632: The beautiful priestess Alethe. She, a crypto-Christian, escapes the mystery rites with Alciphron, and they journey together along the Nile into Upper Egypt, heading for a Christian monastery, which is run by a follower of Origen . Alciphron endures initiation into the Christian religion in hopes of remaining with Alethe. An imperial edict soon establishes the persecution of all Christians who will not renounce their faith, and Alciphron's companions, including Alethe, are captured and killed. This article about
5150-478: The bible preachers. Moore's purpose, he was later to write, was to put "upon record" the "disgust" he felt at "the arrogance with which most Protestant parsons assume […] credit for being the only true Christians, and the insolence with which […] they denounce all Catholics as idolators and Antichrist ". Had his young man found "among the Orthodox of the first [Christian] ages" one "particle" of their rejection of
5253-472: The blood ran on down my neck – I had just enough sense to ring the bell and he withdrew." By 1802, Sheridan's despicable behaviour took an even more sinister turn, and he began harassing one of his few remaining friends, Harriet Spencer, Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough . In 1805, Sheridan had escalated his harassment of Harriet to anonymously sending her threatening letters; as they had been longtime friends and former lovers, Harriet quickly deduced
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#17327725172255356-456: The commanding issue of the day was not tenant rights or land reform. It was the final instalment of Catholic Emancipation : Castlereagh's unredeemed promise of Catholic admission to parliament. Since within a united kingdom, Irish Catholics would be reduced to a distinct minority, Castlereagh's promises of their parliamentary emancipation seemed credible at the time of the Union. But the provision
5459-415: The country seat of another close friend and patron, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne . Their company included Sheridan and John Philpot Curran , both in their bitter final years. Thomas and Bessy had five children, none of whom survived them. Three girls died young, and both sons lost their lives as young men. One of them, Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, as a lowly officer fought first with
5562-647: The desperate Chance of Something better which they promise .—Be our plain Answer this: The Throne WE honour is the PEOPLE'S CHOICE—the Laws we reverence are our brave Fathers' Legacy—the Faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of Charity with all Mankind, and die with Hope of Bliss beyond the Grave. Tell your Invaders this; and tell them too, we seek no Change; and, least of all, such Change as they would bring us. He held
5665-399: The duel was short and bloodless. Mathews lost his sword and, according to Sheridan, was forced to 'beg for his life' and sign a retraction of the article. The apology was made public and Mathews, infuriated by the publicity the duel had received, refused to accept his defeat as final and challenged Sheridan to another duel. Sheridan was not obliged to accept this challenge but could have become
5768-696: The edification of the Irish peasantry", the "editor" of Captain Rock's Memoirs is an English missionary in the ensuing "bible war". Catholics, who coalesced behind O'Connell in the Catholic Association , believed that proselytising advantage was being sought in hunger and distress (that tenancies and food were being used to secure converts), and that the usual political interests were at play. Moore's narrator in Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of
5871-460: The evil." Despite their initially greater opposition to reform, Moore predicted that the Tories would prove themselves better equipped to ride out this "general routing". With the young Benjamin Disraeli (who was to be the author of the Second Reform Act in 1867) Moore agreed that since the Glorious Revolution first led them to court an alliance with the people against the aristocracy, the Tories had taken "a more democratic line". For Moore this
5974-411: The face of continuing sanctions, he sets out to explore the tenets of the "true" religion. Predictably, the resolve the young man draws from his theological studies is to remain true to the faith of his forefathers (not to exchange "the golden armour of the old Catholic Saints" for "heretical brass"). The argument, however, was not the truth of Catholic doctrine. It was the inconsistency and fallacy of
6077-429: The fashionable world and apparently held up their end in entertaining. Sheridan was a patron of Margaret Cuyler and she was his presumed mistress. As his protégée she appeared at Drury Lane in January 1777, despite being a poor actress. In 1775 Sheridan's first play, The Rivals , was produced at London's Covent Garden Theatre . It was a failure on its first night, and John Lee 's performance as Sir Lucius O'Trigger
6180-422: The field of political squib writing on behalf of his Whig friends and patrons. The Whigs had been split by the divided response of Edmund Burke and Charles Fox to the French Revolution. But with the antics of the Prince Regent, and in particular, his highly public efforts to disgrace and divorce Princess Caroline , proving a lightning rod for popular discontent, they were finding new unity and purpose. From
6283-404: The fire, Sheridan was famously reported to have said, "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside." Sheridan was the manager of the theatre for many years, and later became sole owner with no managerial role. In 1780, Sheridan entered the House of Commons as the ally of Charles James Fox on the side of the American Colonials in the political debate of that year. He
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#17327725172256386-414: The formal practice of his religion as soon as he entered Trinity. In 1825, Moore's Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan was finally published after nine years of work on and off. It proved popular, went through a number of editions, and helped establish Moore's reputation among literary critics. The work had a political aspect: Sheridan was not only a playwright, he was a Whig politician and
6489-490: The greatest ever delivered in ancient or modern times. In Commons, Sheridan was known as an engaging, and often entertaining orator. His speeches at the Hastings impeachment were later published as a 59-page booklet. In 1793, during the debates on the Aliens Act designed to prevent French Revolutionary spies and saboteurs from flooding into the country, Edmund Burke made a speech in which he claimed there were thousands of French agents in Britain ready to use weapons against
6592-404: The hilt of Mathews' sword'. Mathews escaped in a post chaise . Eight days after the bloody affair the Bath Chronicle was able to announce that Sheridan was out of danger. Later that year, Elizabeth and the 21-year-old Richard eloped and set up house in London on a lavish scale. Sheridan had little money and no immediate prospects of any, other than his wife's dowry . The young couple entered
6695-402: The hope of future advancement, Moore reluctantly sailed from London in 1776 to take up a government post secured through the favours of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira. Lord Moira was a man distinct in his class for having, on the eve of the rebellion in Ireland, continued to protest against government and loyalist outrages, and to have urged a policy of conciliation. Moore was to be
6798-454: The immediate abuses of the (Anglican and landed) "Irish establishment". As he had O'Connell's uncompromising stance on the Veto, Moore regarded O'Connell's campaign for Repeal as unhelpful or, at best, "premature". This perspective was shared by some of O'Connell's younger lieutenants, dissidents with the Repeal Association . Young Irelander Charles Gavan Duffy sought to build a " League of North and South " around what Michael Davitt (of
6901-450: The king", O'Connell was opposed. Better, he declared, that Irish Catholics "remain for ever without emancipation" rather than allow the king and his ministers "to interfere" with the Pope's appointment of Irish prelates. At stake was the unity of church and people. "Licensed" by the government, the bishops and their priests would be no more regarded than the ministers of the established Church of Ireland. When final emancipation came in 1829,
7004-430: The landlords' agents and violently resist evictions. This low-level agrarian warfare continued through, and beyond, the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. It was only after this catastrophe, which as Prime Minister Moore's Whig friend, Lord Russell, failed in any practical measure to allay, that British governments began to assume responsibility for agrarian conditions. At the time of Captain Rock' s publication (1824),
7107-407: The later Land League ) described as "the programme of the Whiteboys and Ribbonmen reduced to moral and constitutional standards"—tenant rights and land reform. In the early years of his career, Moore's work was largely generic, and had he died at this point he would likely not have been considered an Irish poet. From 1806 to 1807, Moore dramatically changed his style of writing and focus. Following
7210-593: The posts of Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall (1804–1807) and Treasurer of the Navy (1806–1807). Sheridan was noted for his close political relationship with the Prince of Wales , leading a faction of his supporters in the Commons. By 1805 when the Prince was cooling on his previous support of Catholic Emancipation Sheridan, George Tierney and others announced their own opposition to it. When, after 32 years in Parliament, he lost re-election in 1812, his creditors closed in on him and his last years were harassed by debt and disappointment. On hearing of his debts,
7313-426: The powerful Cavendish clan sided with Harriet, making divorcing her social suicide. Whilst attempting to win back his wife Eliza , one of multiple similar occasions, he conceived a child with a governess named Caroline Townsend in 1789. Sheridan's friends, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire and Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough helped him arrange for Caroline to go abroad to deliver, and adopted
7416-462: The price O'Connell paid was the disenfranchisement of the Forty-shilling freeholders – those who, in the decisive protest against Catholics exclusion, defied their landlords in voting O'Connell in the 1828 Clare by-election . The "purity" of the Irish church was sustained. Moore lived to see the exceptional papal discretion thus confirmed reshaping the Irish hierarchy culminating in 1850 with
7519-525: The prospect of obtaining power – which in Ireland is "lodged in a branch of the English government" (the Dublin Castle executive) – there is little point in the members of parliament, no matter how personally disinterested, collaborating for any public purpose. Without an accountable executive the interests of the nation are systematically neglected. It is against this, the truncated state of politics in Ireland, that Moore sees Lord Edward Fitzgerald ,
7622-552: The provincialism of the average American, Moore consorted with exiled European aristocrats, come to recover their fortunes, and with oligarchic Federalists from whom he received what he later conceded was a "twisted and tainted" view of the new republic. Following his return to England in 1804, Moore published Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems (1806). In addition to complaints about America and Americans (including their defence of slavery), this catalogued Moore's real and imagined escapades with American women. Francis Jeffrey denounced
7725-594: The registrar of the Admiralty Prize Court in Bermuda . Although as late as 1925 still recalled as "the poet laureate" of the island, Moore found life on Bermuda sufficiently dull that after six months he appointed a deputy and left for an extended tour of North America. As in London, Moore secured high-society introductions in the United States including to the President, Thomas Jefferson . Repelled by
7828-514: The risk of Repeal, even with separation as its too certain consequence." But with Lord Fitzgerald, Moore believed independence possible only in union with the "Dissenters" (the Presbyterians) of the north (and possibly then, again only with a prospect of French intervention). To make "headway against England" the "feeling" of Catholics and Dissenters had first to be "nationalised". This is something Moore thought might be achieved by fixing upon
7931-469: The satirical Restoration play The Rehearsal . Having quickly made his name and fortune, in 1776 Sheridan bought David Garrick 's share in the Drury Lane patent, and in 1778 the remaining share; his later plays were all produced there. In 1778 Sheridan wrote The Camp , which commented on the ongoing threat of a French invasion of Britain. The same year Sheridan's brother-in-law Thomas Linley ,
8034-808: The semi-insurrection of " Whiteboyism ". Today Moore is best remembered for his Irish Melodies (typically " The Minstrel Boy " and " The Last Rose of Summer "), his chivalric romance Lalla Rookh and, less generously, for the role he is thought to have played in the loss of the memoirs of his friend Lord Byron . Thomas Moore was born to Anastasia Codd from Wexford and John Moore from County Kerry over his parents' grocery shop in Aungier Street, Dublin , He had two younger sisters, Kate and Ellen. Moore showed an early interest in music and performance, staging musical plays with his friends and entertaining hope of being an actor. In Dublin he attended Samuel Whyte's co-educational English grammar school, where he
8137-418: The son of a Dublin grocer entertaining English audiences from Wiltshire was himself connected to the great mass of his countrymen – to those whose remitted rents helped sustain the great houses among which he was privileged to move. The Memoirs relate the history of Ireland as told by a contemporary, the scion of a Catholic family that lost land in successive English settlements. The character, Captain Rock ,
8240-637: The song "O, Breathe Not His Name" (1808). More veiled references to Emmett are found in the long oriental poem "Lalla Rookh" (1817). In 1799, Moore continued his law studies at Middle Temple in London . The impecunious student was assisted by friends in the expatriate Irish community in London, including Barbara, widow of Arthur Chichester, 1st Marquess of Donegall , the landlord and borough-owner of Belfast . Moore's translations of Anacreon , celebrating wine, women and song, were published in 1800 with
8343-482: The success of The Rivals , Sheridan and his father-in-law Thomas Linley the Elder , a successful composer, produced the opera The Duenna . This piece, warmly received, played for seventy-five performances. His most famous play, The School for Scandal , premiered at Drury Lane on 8 May 1777. It is considered one of the greatest comedies of manners in English. It was followed by The Critic (1779), an updating of
8446-492: The supposed "corruptions" of the Roman church – justification not by faith alone but also by good works , transubstantiation , and veneration of saints, relics and images — he would have been persuaded. Moore's work elicited an immediate riposte. The Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of Religion (1833) was a vindication of the reformed faith by an author described as "not the editor of Captain Rock's Memoirs " —
8549-535: The time of "her native monarchy", the Pope had had no share in the election of Irish bishops. "Slavish notions of papal authority" developed only as a consequence of the English conquest. The native aristocracy had sought in Rome a "spiritual alliance" against the new "temporal tyranny" at home. In resisting royal assent and in placing "their whole hierarchy at the disposal of the Roman court", Irish Catholics would "unnecessarily" be acting in "remembrance of times, which it
8652-572: The tradition of the Church in Ireland against both evangelising Protestants and uncompromising lay Catholics. Longer prose works reveal more radical sympathies. The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald depicts the United Irish leader as a martyr in the cause of democratic reform. Complementing Maria Edgeworth 's Castle Rackrent , Memoirs of Captain Rock is a saga, not of Anglo-Irish landowners, but of their exhausted tenants driven to
8755-455: The two then became fast friends. Moore, nonetheless, was dogged by the report that the police had found that the pistol given to Jeffrey was unloaded. In his satirical English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), Byron , who had himself been stung by one of Jeffrey's reviews, suggested Moore's weapon was also "leadless": "on examination, the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants, were found to have evaporated". To Moore, this
8858-491: The volume in the Edinburgh Review (July 1806), calling Moore "the most licentious of modern versifiers", a poet whose aim is "to impose corruption upon his readers, by concealing it under the mask of refinement." Moore challenged Jeffrey to a duel but their confrontation was interrupted by the police. In what seemed to be a "pattern" in Moore's life ("it was possible to condemn [Moore] only if you did not know him"),
8961-476: The world. Sheridan was born in 1751 in Dublin , Ireland, where his family had a house on the then fashionable Dorset Street . His mother, Frances Sheridan , was an Anglo-Irish playwright and novelist. She had two plays produced in London in the early 1760s, though she is best known for her novel The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph (1761). His Irish father, Thomas Sheridan , was for a while an actor-manager at
9064-581: Was a gifted apologiser and made promises to his wives and lovers he knew he would never keep. Sheridan sexually harassed and assaulted women. An example of this is his sexual harassment and then assault of Lady Webster, later known as Lady Holland, Elizabeth Fox, Baroness Holland . After falsely accusing her of having an affair with a man she "did not care for in the least", he threatened to ruin her by telling society of her imaginary affair. When Lady Webster did not submit to his advances, he retaliated by later assaulting her in her home. Lady Webster herself recorded
9167-469: Was a mere governess." To his contemporaries, Sheridan was as known for his dazzling wit, lively humour, and political acuity as for his duplicitousness, vindictive nastiness, and general profligacy. Sheridan was a social-climber who had no qualms about backstabbing friends to maintain his social status amongst actual aristocrats and to gain power in Whig society. Perhaps the best summary of Sheridan's character
9270-423: Was a prospect he embraced. In conversation with the Whig grandee Lord Lansdowne , he argued that while the consequences might be "disagreeable" for many of their friends, "We have now come to that point which all highly civilised countries reach when wealth and all the advantages that attend it are so unequally distributed that the whole is in an unnatural position: and nothing short of a general routing up can remedy
9373-537: Was acquitted. His companion, Father James Coigly was hanged. During the invasion scare of 1803 Sheridan penned an 'Address to the People': THEY, by a strange Frenzy driven, fight for Power, for Plunder, and extended Rule—WE, for our Country, our Altars, and our Homes.—THEY follow an ADVENTURER, whom they fear—and obey a Power which they hate —WE serve a Monarch whom we love—a God whom we adore...They call on us to barter all of Good we have inherited and proved, for
9476-414: Was by Sir Gilbert Elliot, Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto who observed to his wife: "He employs a great deal of art, with a great deal of pain, to gratify, not the proper passion in such affairs, but vanity; and he deals in the most intricate plotting and under plotting, like a Spanish play." By 1789, Sheridan's two-faced cunning made him despised by most of Whig society. Like most of
9579-403: Was criticised for rendering the character "ridiculous and disgusting". Sheridan rewrote the play and presented it again a few days later, with Laurence Clinch replacing Lee in the role. In its reworked form it was a huge success, immediately establishing the young playwright's reputation and the favour of fashionable London. It went on to become a standard of English literature . Shortly after
9682-517: Was evidenced by the prime-ministerial careers of George Canning and Robert Peel : "mere commoners by birth could never have attained the same high station among the Whig party". In 1832, Moore declined a voter petition from Limerick to stand for the Westminster Parliament as a Repeal candidate. When Daniel O'Connell took this as evidence of Moore's "lukewarmness in the cause of Ireland", Moore recalled O'Connell's praise for
9785-782: Was in Dublin, Richard attended the English Grammar School in Grafton Street . In 1758, when he was seven years old, the Sheridans moved permanently to England. He was a pupil at Harrow School from 1762 to 1768. At the end of his 1768 school year, his father employed a private tutor, Lewis Ker, to direct his studies in his father's house in London, while Domenico Angelo instructed him in fencing and horsemanship. In 1772, aged 20 or 21, Sheridan fought two duels with Captain Thomas Mathews, who had written
9888-502: Was interred beside her mother at Wells Cathedral . In 1795, Richard B. Sheridan married Esther Jane Ogle (1776–1817), daughter of the Dean of Winchester . They had at least one child: Charles Brinsley Sheridan (1796–1843). At one time Sheridan owned Downe House, Richmond Hill in London. Sheridan was a womanizer . He had recorded affairs with Frances Crewe, Lady Crewe (he dedicated his 1777 play The School for Scandal to her), and
9991-484: Was joined by Bessy and the children. His social life was busy, often involving meetings with Irish and British and travellers such as Maria Edgeworth and William Wordsworth . However, his attempt to bridge the gulf in his connections between his exiled fellow countrymen and members of the British establishment was not always successful. In 1821, several emigres, prominent among them Myles Byrne (a veteran of Vinegar Hill and of Napoleon's Irish Legion ) refused to attend
10094-611: Was published in ten volumes, together with a supplement, over 26 years between 1808 and 1834. The musical arrangements of the last volumes, following Stevenson's death in 1833, were by Henry Bishop . The Melodies were an immediate success, " The Last Rose of Summer ", " The Minstrel Boy ", " Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms " and "Oft in the Stilly Night" becoming immensely popular. There were parodies in England, but translations into German, Italian, Hungarian, Czech, and French, and settings by Hector Berlioz guaranteed
10197-404: Was recognised in England as a press, or " squib ", writer for the aristocratic Whigs ; in Ireland he was accounted a Catholic patriot. Married to a Protestant actress and hailed as " Anacreon Moore" after the classical Greek composer of drinking songs and erotic verse, Moore did not profess religious piety. Yet in the controversies that surrounded Catholic Emancipation , Moore was seen to defend
10300-629: Was scarcely more satisfactory, and he wrote to Byron implying that unless the remarks were clarified, Byron, too, would be challenged. In the event, when Byron, who had been abroad, returned there was again reconciliation and a lasting friendship. In 1809, Moore was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia . Between 1808 and 1810, Moore appeared each year in Kilkenny , Ireland, with
10403-607: Was schooled in Latin and Greek and became fluent in French and Italian. By age fourteen he had had one of his poems published in a new literary magazine called the Anthologia Hibernica (“Irish Anthology”). Samuel Whyte had taught Richard Brinsley Sheridan , Irish playwright and English Whig politician , of whom Moore later was to write a biography. In 1795, Moore was among the first Catholics admitted to Trinity College Dublin , preparing, as his mother had hoped, for
10506-466: Was sentenced to eighteen months for libel. As a partisan squib writer, Moore played a role not dissimilar to that of Jonathan Swift a century earlier. Moore greatly admired Swift as a satirist, but charged him with caring no more for the "misery" of his Roman Catholic countrymen "than his own Gulliver for the sufferings of so many disenfranchised Yahoos ". The Memoirs of Captain Rock might have been Moore's response to those who questioned whether
10609-473: Was stripped out of the union bills when in England the admission of Catholics to the "Protestant Constitution" encountered the standard objection: that as subject to political direction from Rome, Catholics could not be entrusted with the defence of constitutional liberties. Moore rallied to the "liberal compromise" proposed by Henry Grattan , who had moved the enfranchisement of Catholics in the old Irish parliament. Fears of "Popery" were to be allayed by according
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