Moore, Thomas

Moore, Thomas, 1779–1852, Irish poet, b. Dublin. He achieved prominence in his day not only for his poetry but also for his love of Ireland and personal charm. A lawyer, he was for a time registrar of the admiralty court in Bermuda. He is remembered today for Irish Melodies, a group of lyrics published between 1808 and 1834 and set to music by Sir John Stevenson and others; the songs include several of lasting fame, such as "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms," "Oft in the Stilly Night," and "The Harp That Once through Tara's Halls." His amusing satires, Intercepted Letters; or, The Two-Penny Post Bag (1813) and The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), were widely read, and the long poem Lalla Rookh (1817), a lush romance of India and the Middle East, was one of the most popular poems of his day. Byron, who was his friend, left him his memoirs, which Moore later—on the advice of Byron's executor and friends—destroyed. His biography of Byron appeared in 1830 and is among his best prose works.

Bibliography

See biography by H. J. Jordan (2 vol., 1975); study by T. Tessier and J. Hogg (1981).

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Moore, Thomas

(born May 28, 1779, Dublin, Ire.—died Feb. 25, 1852, Wiltshire, Eng.) Irish poet, satirist, composer, and singer. Moore graduated from Trinity College and studied law in London, where he became a close friend of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His collections Irish Melodies and National Airs (1807–34) consist of 130 original poems set to folk melodies, including “The Minstrel Boy,” “Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms,” and “The Last Rose of Summer.” Performed by Moore for London's aristocracy, they aroused sympathy and support for Irish nationalists. His reputation among his contemporaries rivaled that of Byron and Walter Scott. His poem Lalla Rookh (1817), a romantic Oriental fantasy, became the most translated poem of its time. In 1824 he was entrusted with Byron's memoirs; he burned them, presumably to protect Byron. He later published biographies of Byron and others, as well as a History of Ireland (1827).