IN DEFENCE OF TOM MOORE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 66, 19 March 1930, Page 6

IN DEFENCE OF TOM MOORE.

Miss Eileen Duggan is, in my opinion, singularly unjust to Thomas Moore. Whether intentionally or otherwise, the. impression she conveys is that the poet was a barefaced cribber, who lifted all the old Irish airs that pleased him, wrote new words for them, mutilated the tunes, and then passed them off, words and music both, as his own. Tom Moore never did that. If _ Miss Duggan will look up some of the earliest editions of the "Melodies," she will find the musical arrangements and accompaniments credited to Sir John Stevenson, and the name of the old air to which Moore set his words printed at the begin-, ning of each song, with the composer's name added, if the name happened to be known. Of course, in the majority of the very old ballads it was not known. The Irish people draw in the old traditional ballads almost with their mothers' milk, and neither Moore nor anyone else would be foolish, enough to pose as the original _ composer. There was no accident of phrasing in the case Miss.Duggan quotes; it was probably intentional, and, like all the others, credit would be given where it was due. Everyone knows "The Last Rose of Summer" was written to the tune of "The Groves of Blarney." In the same way "The Valley Lay Smiling Before Me" was fitted to the. old song, "The Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow," which was also used by Lady Dufferin for "Terence's Farewell," but neither claimed that the music was original. Miss Duggan says incidentally. that Goldsmith was a bigger man than Moore. ' That is naturally a matter of .opinion. We are all proud of poor, lovable Goldsmith and his attainments, but every Irish person conversant with the literature of bis native land must know that from the time Goldsmith left Ireland he never wrote a word about her either in .liis poems, plays or books. "The Deserted Village" is not distinctively Irish—it might be a village in any part of the British Isles. On the other hand, the man who wrote "Where's the Slave ?" "Let Erin Remember," "By That Lake," etc., was so full of the love of his native land that he simply had to sing about it, while "When He Who Adores Thee" and "Forget Not the Field" were i;he outpourings of a patriotic soul. Miss Duggan speaks rather contemptuously of the "popular little Mr. Moore of the drawing rooms . . . the lesser singer with hie plump bands and smooth face." Well, those plump hands and that mellow, expressive voice made the songs of Ireland popular in England for the first time in the history of the Emerald Isle. They were the rage everywhere, in the most exclusive London drawing rooms and in the harmonic meetings held weekly in many of the public-houses. Not bad for one Irishman's work among the Sassenaclis, aided, of course, by the lovely, lilting old tunes that had been floating round Ireland from prehistoric times. Miss Duggan tells us Ireland had to wait another century for her great poets, and "she lias them now." It is true a quantity of good poetry has been turned out lately, but is it really "great"? Will it live as long as Tom Moore's has done? Also (perhaps my poetical taste is old-fashioned), will Miss Duggan tell me which of these great poets has written anything equal to "The Fire Worshippers"? What is the matter with our young writers? A few weeks ago one of them was belittling Burns in the "Star," and now Miss Dugcan must needs tbrow mud at Tom Moore. E. GIBSON.