HONOURING MOORE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 48, 21 March 1890, Page 13

HONOURING MOORE.

(From the Nation.) On the anniversary of the day upon which Peter Lnlor and his companion Irishmen made their stand for Australian liberty behind the Ballarat Btockade, a statue of Moore was unveiled at Ballarat. The et .'ue is the work of an Australian sculptor. It was paid for by tbe subscriptions tf Scotchmen, Englishmen, and Irishmen. It Btands in the same street with a statue of the bard of Scotland, whom tbe Irishmen of Ballarat united with Burns's own countryman to honour. It is based on a pedestal of Tullamore limestone, and it has been received into the custody of the Australian city as a beautiful and precious possession. The orator on the occasion was Sir Bryan O Loghlen. He had no hesitation in interpreting the meaning of the celebration. " Irishmen ani Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen, and Australians, all had joined in meeting the cost and labour of the erection of that enduring monument to Moore's memory. Tbie, he believed, was an evidence of the present, and, he hoped, might be a happy omen of the future unity of all their races in one nation in that happy and blessed Australian land of theirs. He hoped that the various branches would transmit to their Australian sons the beßt attributes of each race, and that those sons would form in a glorious future a great Australian nation, that would ever preserve that heritage of free self-government with which it is now endowed, and with which it start* peacefully on a career such as it never saw before. The celebration was a compliment to the Irish element of the Australian nation. It was also a compliment to a poet who had devoted his genius to the service of liberty, and a recognition of the part the sons of his native land have played in the foundation of the freedom of Australia. "It was the anniversary, the orator observed, "of an event which all looked upon as the precursor of the free institutions of the country, He knew that in the eyes of the law and in the ideas of the lawyers a very unP *! a ? *. term T wa8 I . applied to those who struggled, fought, and fell oa that day. Let them hear what Moore bad said of that term :— 4 Bebellion — foul,|dishonouring word, Whose wrongful blight so oft has stained The holiest cause that tongue or sword Of mortal ever lost or gained. How many a spirit born to bliss Hath sunk beneath that withering name, Whom but a day's, an hour's success Had wafted to eternal fame.' "

They honoured the poet of liberty, and they honoured also the poet of the people. "He was not a man of high descent, wealth or property. He was of the people, with tbe people, and always for the people. It was to the Irish poet, the poet of freedom and the poet of the people, that the statue was erected. At the suggestion of a Tullamore prisoner the Btatue was placed on a base of Tullamore limestone. This was meant as a compliment to the soldiers of the present day who are carrying on the battle of which Moore sang. This tribute to Moore by the young Australian nation is a welcome one. It comes at a time when the popularity of Moore is not as high as it should be, not alone among other people, but among his own. The dominant school of criticism in English literature seeks for eomething of; which Moore cannot give much. They ask for a didacticmm and a philosophy which Moore never Btrove to give. He sang as the moment and the music in his eoul inspired him. As the crator noted on the occasion to which we are referring, Moore himself disclaims the wild sweetness of his melodies as his creation, and claims but to be the wind passing heedlessly over the strings of his country's harp. His disclaimer is an evidence of the freedom and light-heartedness with which he went to his work. But the modern critic looks for the gloomy brow and deliberate purpose, and disiikes the frolicsome and the fres. Yet ease and grace and fertile fancy are marks of genius, as well as the high seriousness of the solemn classic. As Sir Bryan O'Loghlen truly said : " The heedless wind was heavenborn and appealed by its own magnetic sympathy to the finest chords of self-sacrificing patriotism, of manliness, of love, of mirth, and of sadness that thrill the human heart."

The demand for solemnity has injured Moore in another way. The present age values wit as an intellectual gift lees than any of its predecessors. The eiehteenth century appreciated it, and though a prosy century it was never dull. It saved that century from the tragicomedies of the pessimists, and, thereby, rendered it a great service. We are punished for oar depreciation of this gift divine by a dull life and a deliberately gloomy one. We would be all the healthier, both morally and intellectually, if we had the breeze of Moore's wit blowing through the atmosphere of our poetry. But Moore has had no successor here. He was the last of the great satirists— the greatest since hope. He moved more Dimbly than Pope, and was leBB brutal, though he may not have displayed the s*me power. With the seriousness of the age is blended a cynicism, and this also has worked against Moore's fame. Cynicism has nnde sentimentality hide its head. Sentimentality may be carried too far, and may end in mere water and gush. But sentimentality is, after all, a human quality. A critic of Moore has claimed for him that be has written the best sentimental poem in the language. So that nere, too, the temper of the hour has worked against his fame. These remarks apply to the position occupied by Moore in the estimation of English critic*. But Irishmen value grace and wit and •entiment more highly. They can take life seriously without committing suicide to prove it. In the natural course of things Moore's fame would have been safe with them. But the stress of the political storm, Hnd its direct bearing on both the material and spiritual life of the people, bas developed a tendency to weigh every writer's merits more or less from the political standpoint. The question, was Moore a great Irish poet is answered in tbe negative by those who ask of a great Irish poet, that he shall be practically Irish as well as spiritually Irish— lrish in the field of action as well as Irish in the field of thought. Moore is contrasted unfavourably with Davis on this ground. But we think the contrast is unfair, the judgment unjust, if not ungrate -

Si 1 ' Moore was a poet before all ; Davis was a politician before all. The former used politics as merely the material upon which to vent his poetic impulse ; the latter used his poetic gifts simply as political instruments. Yet Moore, under greater temptation, and more disheartening circumstances than Davis,wag true to hisc mntry according to his opportunity. He lived in a season of darkness; Davis in a season of comparative light. He was almost solitary ; Davis bad a risen nation round him. He had paused through the bitterness of defeat, and tasted of despair. Davis's heart was filled with hope to the la3t, and he fought on with the expectation of success. Moore was, therefore, less actual than Davis. He consoled himself by contemplation of the past for the miserias of his day. But to his countrymen he gave the help of his genius in the battle which they were waging through bis prime. He satirised the bigots out oE power and place, and helped materially to the achievement of liberty of conscieuce ; and his best work ensbnnes the enduring aspirations of his nation for liberty. But even if he had never devoted his genius deliberately to the furtheranca of his country's cause, his achievements would ba a possession which his couatry should pride in. his memory one which his countrymen should cherish. We are not so rich in great men that we could afford to forget Moore or allow him to be forgotten. Had he never done anything for Ireland but sing as the birds sing he would still deserve well of his countrymen. Nations are sometimes instructed by the manner in which other nations judge of them. We should note, then, that in the commingling of nations in Australia honouring Moore is taken as honouring Ireland, and honouring Moore is regarded as honouring a poet, though not a soldier, of liberty. Let us have no more measuring, comparing, or contrasting ; let vi take each of the great men of our past for all their worth and pride in them according to its measure.