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7/ 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. J. W. CROKEK 
 
 RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL, 
 
 ON 
 
 SOAIE PASSAGES OF 'MOORE'S DIARY.' 
 
 WITH A 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 BY MR. (CROKER, 
 
 EXPLANATORY OF MR.' MOORE'S ACQUAINTANCE 
 AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIM. 
 
 Vou% Vavez voulu — Georges Dandin 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1854. 
 
N.B. — Tliese sheets are in a form to he hound up with 
 * Moore's Memoirs.* 
 
 tONDON : PKINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
COEEESPONDENCE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 MR. CROKER AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 
 
 To THE Editor of the Times. 
 
 West Molesey, Surrey, Jan. 28, 1854. 
 Sir, 
 
 The spontaneous good nature of a former editor 
 of the 'Times' having been perverted by Lord John 
 Russell into the occasion of a public and personal attack 
 on me, I trust I shall not be thought unreasonable in 
 hoping that the * Times' will give publicity to the enclosed 
 remonstrance which I have addressed to his Lordship, 
 and to the subsequent correspondence. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient humble Servant, 
 
 J. W. Croker. 
 
 ( No. 1. ) 
 
 •• West Molesey, Surrey, Jan. 26, 1854. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " It was only last night that I read in the 268th page 
 of the 6th volume of Moore s Memoirs, under the date of 
 the 7th of April, 1833, the following passage : — 
 
 " ' Barnes (then editor of the Times*) begged me, in 
 anything I might now write for him, to spare Croker ; 
 
 * I know not why Mr. Banies should have thus kindly interposed ; I 
 never, to my knowledge, saw him nor had any communication with him. 
 
 b2 
 
4 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. CROKER 
 
 which I told him was an unnecessary caution, as Croker 
 and I were old allies.' 
 
 " To this text your Lordship has appended the follow- 
 ing Note : — 
 
 ^' *" To Moore it was unnecessary to address a request to 
 spare a friend. If the request had been addressed to the 
 other party ^ ashing him to spare Moore, what would have 
 been the result ? Probably, while Moore was alive, and 
 able to wield his pen, it might have been successful. Had 
 Moore been dead, it would have served only to give addi- 
 tional zest to the pleasure of safe malignity J 
 
 " I do not feel myself called upon to examine the 
 conjectural estimate that your Lordship makes of the 
 ' zest and pleasure ' of ' safe malignity.' It has been, no 
 doubt, formed on the best data a man can have for his 
 opinions — the feelings of your own mind. ' Those best 
 can paint them who have felt them most ;' and, when it 
 is recollected that the person to whom you have thus 
 hypothetically attributed the results of your own personal 
 experience is in his 74th year and in a probably advanced 
 stage of a mortal disease, it will be, I think, generally 
 admitted that your Lordship is well entitled to lecture us 
 on both the theory and practice of ' safe malignity.' 
 
 " Your Lordship's opinion of me, or mine of you, is a 
 matter on which I should not have thought it worth while 
 to have said a word ; but you have embodied with your 
 personal impertinence to me a gross misrepresentation of 
 a fact which I wish to set right. 
 
 "You say * that it was unnecessary to address a request 
 to Moore to spare a friend.' Now, it appears that through 
 the whole of your six volumes my name is never mentioned 
 by Moore but in the most friendly terms, from as early as 
 the 11th of June, 1799, when he writes to his mother, 
 ' Croker is a friend whom I have resolved to cultivate,' 
 
AMD LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 5 
 
 down to the 7th of April, 1833, under which date occurs 
 the passage which you have selected as a pe'g on which to 
 hang your own * safe malignity.' 
 
 ** There is no appearance that this good feeling was 
 interrupted, at least not on my part. It appears further, 
 from twenty intermediate passages, that when Moore got 
 into his Bermuda troubles he had frequent recourse to my 
 private advice and official influence to help him, which I 
 cordially and to the best of my ability did, as his * Diary* 
 frequently and thankfully acknowledges, and as his letters 
 to me more fully show. Yet, in the midst of this con- 
 tinuous and friendly intercourse, it appears, from the pub- 
 lished ' Diary,' vol. iii. p. 156, under the date of the " 14th 
 of October, 1820," that, with no other cue than having 
 happened to meet me in the street, and quite d propos de 
 hotteSy he registers, and your Lordship has published, a 
 character of me as offensive, and apparently as malignant, 
 as if I had been a bitter enemy whom he felt happy at 
 knowing so little about. That, however, did not, it ap- 
 pears, prevent his accepting my invitation to dinner that 
 day, and again two days after; and again and again, 
 whenever circumstances brought us together. 
 
 '• In that passage your Lordship thought fit to leave 
 the name in blank, but, with a spiteful slyness, which I 
 believe is a main feature of your character, you give in 
 the next page but one an unmistakeable designation of 
 the person meant. So that those who might not recog- 
 nize me under the injurious character given in the first 
 passage could have no doubt, fi-om the incidental circum- 
 stances of the second, which identified me. 
 
 " Why you thus juggled away in your third volume 
 the name which you have so gratuitously produced in 
 your sixth, I care not to inquire ; all I need say about it 
 is, that, comparing the assertion in the Note of your sixth 
 
6 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. CROKER 
 
 volume, that ' Moore would not have attacked a friend/ 
 with the gross attack on me published in your third, I am 
 forced to conclude either that you do not know what you 
 have published, or that you have in that note advanced a 
 falsehood which you must have known to be one. 
 
 " I am, my Lord, your Lordship's humble servant, 
 
 " J. W. Croker. 
 " The Right Hon. Lord John Russell :' 
 
 ( No. 2. ) 
 
 *' Chesham Place, Jan. 27, 1854. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " The note to which you refer in your letter of 
 yesterday's date was written on the supposition that you 
 are the author of an article on Moore in the * Quarterly 
 Review.' 
 
 " I cannot think that the passage you mention in 
 Moore's * Diary,' vol. iii. p. 156, affords any justification 
 of that article. The case is this : — 
 
 " Mr. Moore dies, leaving his widow nearly unpro- 
 vided for, but intrusting to my care some manuscript 
 volumes which he thought might furnish the means for 
 her subsistence and comfort. 
 
 " Seeing her broken health and shattered spirits, I 
 judged it necessary for her comfort that she should remain 
 in her cottage, and continue in her accustomed way of 
 life. 
 
 " I endeavoured, in publishing the ' Diary,' to omit 
 passages offensive to individuals. 1 omitted some re- 
 garding you, which, though not bitter or malicious, 
 might, I thought, give you pain. There was one in 
 
AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 7 
 
 which he said he found you less clever and more vain 
 than he expected, or had supposed. This I allowed to 
 stand. 
 
 " As one of the public men of the day you are accus- 
 tomed to write most severely of others. To escape all 
 criticism on yourself seems an immunity hardly to be 
 expected. 
 
 " But were you justified in embittering the last years 
 of the widow of Moore, sneering at his domestic affections, 
 and loading his memory with reproach, on account of the 
 few depreciatory phrases to which you refer ? 
 
 " Mrs. Moore, when she was told that you were the 
 author of the article in the ' Quarterly,' would not believe 
 it. She was deeply wounded when she was assured it was 
 so. She had considered you as the friend of her husband. 
 
 " In reply to a long and bitter attack, I wrote the note 
 to which you refer. I have no further explanations to 
 offer. 
 
 " I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 " J. Russell. 
 " The Right Hon. J. W. Crokerr 
 
 ( No. % ) 
 " West M(.lesey, Surrey, Jan. 28, 1854. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Your Lordship's letter is not only no answer to 
 mine, but it makes your case nuich worse than I had sup- 
 posed it to be. 
 
 " You evade the point I put to you by starting two 
 other topics extraneous to the real subject, and, I think, 
 unfounded in fact, 
 
 " First, you assume that I, who am supposed ' to write 
 most severely of others, have claimed immunity from all 
 
8 C0RKESP0]!O)ENCE BETWEEN MR. CROKER 
 
 criticism on myself.' I have not been guilty of any such 
 absurdity. I believe that few men have had during a 
 long life more incessant proofs that I have no such con- 
 venient privilege. Such an idea I never uttered nor 
 entertained. It would be not merely arrogance, but 
 imbecility ; and I trust this correspondence will convince 
 your Lordship that I am not yet in my dotage. 
 
 " Your Lordship's second mistake is, that I allege the 
 * offensive ' mention of me in vol. iii. p. 156, as a * justifi- 
 cation ' of my article in the ' Quarterly Review ' on your 
 Lordship's publication. That article needs, in my opinion, 
 no justification, at least to no one who has read your 
 volumes ; but, however that may be, I should certainly 
 never have thought of one so flimsy and so mean. The 
 passage itself was, though malevolently meant, so trivial 
 in substance, and so like what I had often been contro- 
 versially told, that it excited in me no other feeling than 
 a slight surprise at its appearance under a date when I 
 thought that Moore and I were on the most cordial terms ; 
 and I so little resented it, that my friends know that I 
 endeavoured to excuse it as a hasty and accidental 
 ebullition of temper, for which I suggested that there 
 might be a motive not unamiable in itself, though unjust 
 as to me ;* and I only produced it in my former letter, 
 not as any complaint against Moore, but as a contradic- 
 tion of your Lordship's assertion of Moore's undeviating 
 kindness to his friends, and especially towards me. It 
 was a fact, not a plea. 
 
 " This, and not the two imaginary topics you have 
 now raised, is the real point of the case, and this only 
 it was that ' forced me to conclude, either that you did 
 not know what you had published, or that you had 
 advanced a falsehood, knowing it to be one.' 
 
 * See this suggestion explained in No. 6. 
 
AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 9 
 
 " Your Lordship has not only not extricated yourself 
 from that dilemma, but you have, as I set out by saying, 
 made your case infinitely worse ; for you now admit that 
 tlie passage which I had referred to as contradicting your 
 assertion was not the only one, there having been ' some 
 others ' so much more ' offensive,' that you thought 
 proper to omit them. What ! my Lord, you have ven- 
 tured to contrast, what you indicate as my malignant 
 ingratitude towards Moore, with his undeviating and 
 kindly feelings towards me, while it turns out that you 
 had before your eyes several instances of mentions of me 
 still more offensive than the one which you had produced, 
 and, after producing it, conveniently, or at least oppor- 
 tunely forgotten. 
 
 " There is another very serious consideration arising out 
 of this surprising confession, which is, that for the purpose, 
 I suppose, of attributing to yourself the gloriole of a 
 generous delicacy towards me, as well as others, you 
 sacrifice not only your argument, but the character of 
 your poor friend, by revealing, what I never suspected, 
 that during the many years in which he was living on 
 apparently the most friendly terms with me, and asking, 
 and receiving, and acknowledging such good offices, both 
 consultative and practical, as my poor judgment and 
 interest were able to afford him, he was making entries 
 in his ' Diary ' concerning me so * offensive,' that even the 
 political and partizan zeal of Lord John Russell shrank 
 from reproducing them. 
 
 " I must be allowed to say, under such strange circum- 
 stances, that I reject your Lordship's indulgence with 
 contempt, and despise the menace, if it be meant for one, 
 that you have such weapons in your sleeve ; I not only 
 dare you, but I condescend to entreat you to publish all 
 about me that you may have suppressed. Let me know. 
 
 b3 
 
10 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. CROKER 
 
 the full extent of your crooked indulgence, and of Moore's 
 undeviating friendship. Let us have the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth, while I am still living 
 to avail myself of it. Let it not be said that * poor dear 
 Moore told such things of Croker that even Lord John 
 Russell would not publish them.' I feel pretty confident 
 that there will not be found any entry of Moore's deroga- 
 tory of me against which I shall not be able to produce his 
 own contemporaneous evidence of a contrary tendency. 
 
 '* Your Lordship's letter introduces another subject, 
 on which I am reluctant to say a word, and shall say no 
 more than your Lordship forces from me, — I mean the 
 pain that these discussions must give to an amiable lady, 
 for whom I feel, without knowing her, and have always 
 expressed, as much respect and sympathy as your Lord- 
 ship professes, and more than you have shown in the 
 indiscreet and heedless way in which you have so inex- 
 tricably mixed up her name in almost every page of the 
 discordant farrago that you have compiled from your 
 friend's papers. 
 
 " The discretion allowed to an editor is never better 
 employed than in keeping domestic life separate from 
 what you yourself describe as the ' idle gossip and calum- 
 nies of the day,' — the squabbles of authorship, and the 
 hot conflict of political parties. Your Lordship has not 
 thought fit to do so, and of this gross and unfeeling 
 neglect of your own editorial duty you now seek to throw 
 the blame on those who venture to observe it, and to 
 prove that Moore's ostentatious display of his domestic 
 tastes was just as hollow as his professions of friendship 
 or his parade of patriotism ; and you will not even allow 
 your interesting victim to escape from this by-battle 
 which you have provoked with me, although one should 
 have thought that she had as little to do with it as your 
 
AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 1 1 
 
 Lordship's wife or mine ; for you introduce lier to tell me 
 that, * when she heard that I was the author of the article 
 in the Quarterly Review, she would not believe it ; she 
 thought I was the friend of her husband/ 
 
 " This crowns your Lordship's inconsistency, to use 
 the gentlest term. I admit that .Mrs. Moore had for 
 thirty years good reason to believe me to be her husband's 
 friend, but if she was aware of all those * offensive 
 passages,' which you now admit to exist in the * Diary,' 
 could she have supposed that he was mine ? 
 
 " Your Lordship will naturally expect that I shall give 
 publicity to this correspondence. If your Lordship has 
 anything to add to it, I request that I may receive it here 
 by noon on Monday. 
 
 " I am, my Lord, 
 
 " Your Lordship's humble servant, 
 "J. W. Croker." 
 
 Copies of the foregoing were sent to town on the 29th, 
 with the intention that they should appear in the ' Times ' 
 of Tuesday the 31sf, hut hy some accident, of which I was 
 not aware, they appeared on Monday the 30^^. As this 
 seemed inconsistent with the last paragraph of my last 
 letter, I thought it necessary to lose no time in addressing 
 the following letter to Lord John Russell: — 
 
 ( No. 4. ) 
 
 "West Molesey, Surrey, 30th January, 1854, 
 9.30 A.M. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I SEE with great surprise and regret that our cor- 
 respondence appears in the * Times ' of this morning^ 
 which has just reached me by the railroad. 
 
 " I had yesterday sent copies to a friend in town, with 
 
12 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. CROKER 
 
 the clearest directions, as I thought, that they should not 
 appear till Tuesday morning, so that there might be time 
 for adding any reply that your Lordship might think 
 proper to make me before noon to-day. 
 
 " Under what circumstances the publication has been 
 thus accelerated I am totally uninformed, but I hasten to 
 exonerate myself in your Lordship's opinion from having 
 either wilfully or by negligence contributed towards its 
 premature appearance. 
 
 " If your Lordship should not have had the intention 
 of adding anything to the correspondence, there is no 
 harm done ; if you have anything to add, I shall have it 
 conveyed to the ' Times,' with such explanation of the 
 mistake as I may be able to give. 
 
 " I am sincerely sorry for the occasion of giving your 
 Lordship the trouble of reading this letter, but there is 
 no. reason why you should take the additional trouble of 
 acknowledging it ; it is merely an apology on my part 
 for a mistake committed I know not how, and which I 
 can only hope may be as indifferent to your Lordship as 
 it has been wholly unexpected by me. 
 " I have the honour be, my Lord, 
 
 " Your Lordship's obedient humble Servant, 
 
 " J. W. Croker. 
 " TJie Right Hon. Lord John Husseil" 
 
 ( No. 5. ) 
 
 From Lord John Russell to the Right Hon. John 
 Wilson Croker. 
 
 a gjj^ " Chesham Place, Jan. 30th, 1854. 
 
 " I BEG to assure you that although I understood 
 you meant to wait till 12 o'clock to-day for any further 
 
AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 13 
 
 answer from me, yet, as I did not wish to add anything 
 to the letters you have published, I have no reason to 
 complain. I am quite satisfied that your intention was 
 that the letters should not appear till Tuesday morning. 
 
 " I may add an expression of my regret that, at your 
 age and in your present state of health, you should have 
 been annoyed by the publication of Moore's Diary. 
 " I remain, vSir, 
 
 " Your obedient Servant, 
 
 " J. Russell.'' 
 
 ( No. 6. ) 
 
 " West Molesey, Surrey, 31st January, 1854. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I AM much obliged to your Lordship for both the 
 substance and the tone of your letter of yesterday. Tour 
 regret at our recent difference ensures mine, and I readily 
 accept any approach to a conciliatory explanation; but 
 your Lordship seems to be still under an error which, /or 
 both our sakes, I am bound to set right, which I shall 
 endeavour to do in an equally conciliatory spirit. 
 
 " I was not ' annoyed hy the publication of Moore* s 
 Diary,' but by your Lordship's Note, which was no part 
 of the Diary, but, on the contrary, at variance with the 
 text, and which contained a double imputation which I 
 felt to be wholly undeserved. Your Lordship, I am sure, 
 will feel that the nearer one approaches to the limits of 
 life the more chary one ought to be of one's reputation 
 and honour. 
 
 " This is, I believe, enough to say in return to your 
 last letter; but I think it may be satisfactory to your 
 Lordship — especially for Moore's sake — to know why it 
 was that the entry in the Diary of the 1 4th of October, 
 
14 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. CROKER 
 
 1820, gave me really (as I told you in my published 
 letter) so little annoyance, and why I excused it, in my 
 own mind and to my friends, as a venial, though unjust, 
 spirt of ill-humour. The case is this ; — 
 
 " In the summer of 1820, in consequence of a deep 
 and irreparable domestic calamity, 1 took Mrs. Croker to 
 make a short tour in France for change of scene. It 
 happened that, walking one evening in the garden of 
 St. Cloud, we met Mr. and Mrs. Moore (the latter we 
 neither of us ever saw before or since) ; after a few words 
 of very cordial greeting between Moore and me, he intro- 
 duced Mrs. Moore. A short conversation ensued, and 
 then each party pursued their walk. We left Paris in 
 a few days, and did not return for a fortnight, when I 
 looked out for Moore, and saw as much of him as I 
 could ; but Mrs. Croker did not make any advances — as 
 Moore evidently wished — to improve her acquaintance 
 with Mrs. Moore. Moore probably did not know, or at 
 least appreciate, the extent of my wife's affliction and 
 reluctance to see strangers (which was the sole motive of 
 her reserve towards Mrs. Moore), and being, as we now 
 see (which at the time I did not), in a constant fidget 
 as to the way in which Mrs. Moore was received by his 
 acquaintance, and particularly ladies, he, I have no doubt, 
 resented our reserve as a slight, and this feeling might have 
 prompted his momentary irritation against me ; for whether 
 his estimate of me was true or false, it is evident that 
 there must have been some special cause for his recording 
 it at that moment, 
 
 " This, at least, is my solution of the matter, and it 
 will explain, I think satisfactorily, why / regarded so 
 lightly what would otherwise have been an unpardonable 
 breach of professed friendship ; and I cannot but hope, 
 for Moore's sake, that those other passages which your 
 
AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL . 1 5 
 
 Lordship has alluded to in your published letter may be 
 traceable to the same not unamiable motive.* I can only 
 say that his letters to me were, from first to last, of the 
 most friendly, and I must even add flattering^ character, 
 to a degree that I think would surprise your Lordship, as 
 they did me when I lately looked over such of them as I 
 was able to find. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, my Lord, 
 
 ** Your Lordship's obedient humble servant, 
 
 " J. W. Croker. 
 " The Right Hon. Lord John JRusselL" 
 
 ( No. 7. ) 
 From Lord John Russell to the Right Hon. J. W. Croker. 
 " Chesham Place, February 3rd, 1854. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I AM much obliged to you for giving me an ac- 
 count of circumstances which may have wounded the 
 susceptibility of Moore. 
 
 " I do not know that I have anything to add to our 
 correspondence ; it would, of course, be useless for us to 
 attempt to persuade one another. 
 
 " Mrs. Moore has many, or at least several, letters of 
 
 yours to her husband, which I have not seen ; of course 
 
 I should not think of publishing any of them without your 
 
 permission. 
 
 " I remain, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " J. Russell." 
 
 » Lord John Russell's silence on this point seems to negative the 
 indulgent view I had been disposed to take of Moore's motives. 
 
16 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 
 
 ( No. 8. ) 
 
 " West Molesey, February 4th, 1854. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " There is an expression in your last note which, as 
 it seems to me to imply another misconception of our late 
 correspondence, I think it necessary to notice. 
 
 " I had no motive and no intention to ' persuade ' your 
 Lordship to anything. I did not meddle with your 
 opinions. I charged you with a gross and wilful offence 
 against me. The public is now the judge whether I have 
 proved my charge. 
 
 " I remain, my Lord, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " J. W. Croker. 
 
 " The Right Hon. Lord John Russelir 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 EXPLANATORY OF 
 
 THE ACQUAINTANCE AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 MR. MOORE AND MR. CROKER. 
 
 The vague, but very significant assertion made by Lord 
 John Russell, that Mr. Moore's Memoirs contain passages 
 still more offensive to me than that which he published, 
 must be my justification for meeting that assertion, as well 
 as his Lordship's own previous insinuation of my malignity 
 towards Moore, by the only means in my power — a 
 statement, chiefly from Moore's own written evidence, of 
 the relation in which we stood to each other during the 
 whole period comprised in those Memoirs. 
 
 In the Third Volume of the Diary is the following 
 passage, written during his residence at Sevres, near 
 Paris : — 
 
 ** 14 Oct., 1820. 
 
 " Met , who walked about with me, and made me take 
 
 a family dinner with him at his hotel. / have not seen so 
 much of him since we were in College together, and I find that 
 his vanity is even greater than has been reported to me, and 
 his cleverness much less than I expected. He is, undoubtedly, 
 a good partizan, a quick skirmisher of reviews and news- 
 
18 MR. moore's correspondence 
 
 papers, and a sort of servant-of-all-work for his employers; 
 but as to anything of a higher order of talent, I am greatly 
 mistaken if he has the slightest claim to it." — iii. 156. 
 
 The name is here left blank, but in the next page but 
 one (158) I am designated as plainly as if it had been 
 given in full letters. 
 
 I confess I read this entry with some surprise — not at 
 the low estimate made of my talents and character — for 
 in a long life of political and literary conflict I was well 
 inured to such strictures — but that it should have been 
 recorded and left for publication by Moore, with whom 
 I had lived in early intimacy and in an uninterrupted 
 cordiality (as I thought j of friendship for above forty 
 years, without, as far as I could remember, even a cloud 
 between us, though we happened to be on the extreme 
 and opposite verges of political parties — a strong proof, 
 I flattered myself, of mutual and sincere personal regard. 
 We did not, indeed, see so much of one another personally 
 as he appeared to wish, and as I certainly did. I was 
 absorbed by office, parliament, and London — he by his 
 literary occupations and country residence, and, during 
 his occasional visits to town, by a society altogether dif- 
 ferent from mine ; but still our intercourse was as fre- 
 quent as could be expected under such circumstances, 
 and always of the most agreeable and cordial character. 
 I therefore read the passage, I can truly say, with more 
 of sorrow than of anger ; and on looking more closely 
 at this part of the Diary, I thought 1 discovered a cause 
 for this temporary ebullition of temper in a motive which, 
 though unjust to me, was not unamiable in him. This 
 cause is stated in my letter to Lord John Russell, No. 6. 
 I saw also some subsequent passages of a more friendly, 
 and — if I may use the expression — compensatory character, 
 which, on the whole, seemed to leave, if not a balance in 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 1 9 
 
 my favour, at least so slight an injury that it really left 
 no serious impression on my mind. 
 
 And there the matter would have rested, if Lord John 
 Russeirs attack on me in the Note in his Sixth Volume, 
 p. 268, had not forced me to produce that offensive pas- 
 sage — not as a complaint against Moore, hut as affording 
 a direct contradiction of the assertion in his Lordship's 
 Note. In reply to my remonstrance (No. 1 ), Lord John 
 Russell surprised me by a confession (No. 2) that this was 
 not the only offensive passage in the Diary, for that he had 
 ** omitted some others which might have given me pain** This 
 confession at once settled the question as between his 
 Lordship and me — it left his Lordship's Note without a 
 colour of justification — but it has opened a new question as 
 between me and Moore, which — in ignorance as Lord John 
 Russell leaves me — as to the precise nature of the other 
 attacks which Moore's papers may contain — renders it 
 necessary that I should give a short statement of ray 
 relations with Moore, to enable those who take any 
 interest in either his character or mine to appreciate the 
 sincerity of his feelings and the value of his opinions. 
 
 I was not aware till this discussion arose how many 
 of Moore's letters had happened to be preserved in the 
 chaos of my papers, nor of their exact nature. They 
 had been thrown aside, and never were looked at or 
 thought of from their original dates — some above forty, 
 and the most recent Jive-and-twenty years old. All I 
 recollected was that they were frequent and friendly, but 
 I confess that on searching for and reading them — which 
 I have only done in consequence of Lord John Russell's 
 publication — I am surprised to find how decisively at 
 variance they are with the spirit of both Moore's and his 
 Lordship's allusions to me. 
 
 Such as they are, I think it due to my own character to 
 
20 MR. moore's correspondexce 
 
 give publicity to as much of them as affects the questions 
 which his Lordship's proceedings have raised. 
 
 In the above-cited passage of the Diary— '' 14th Oct., 
 1820" — it will be observed that Mr. Moore begins by say- 
 ing that he had not seen so much of me since we had 
 been " in college together" as in this short chance 
 meeting of a couple of hours in Paris. The object of 
 this was, obviously, to represent that this was the first 
 opportunity that had occurred, during two-and-twenty 
 years, of appreciating the true character of his quondam 
 acquaintance. Now I must state and show that the very 
 reverse of all this was the fact. The College acquaintance 
 was comparatively slight — the subsequent intimacy, as 
 appears even from the Diary itself, long and cordial. 
 
 Moore entered College on the 2nd June, 1794 ; I 
 entered on the 5th December, 1796, and I need not say 
 that a difference of standing of two years and a half — a 
 considerable one at that period of life — left but a short 
 interval and little opportunity for a close acquaintance 
 between the Freshman and the Sophister — as our respec- 
 tive classes were designated. Moreover, Moore was an 
 extern, and lived with his family in the town ; I resided 
 with my tutor (Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Provost) within 
 the College. ' The truth is, that in Moore's last year 
 and my second we became acquainted, but the inti- 
 macy did not ripen till after Moore had left College^ 
 which he did about the close of 1798, while I remained 
 there till the summer of 1800. This is confirmed by 
 Moore's own letter to his mother, dated from London, 
 11^/i June, 1799 — six months after he had left College, in 
 which he writes— 
 
 " Does Croker ever call ? He is a friend whom I have 
 resolved to cultivate.^^ — Memoirs, i. 90. 
 
 and whom, it appears, from a subsequent letter (Mem., 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 21 
 
 20th May, 1803), he (Wd for four years at least cultivate, 
 and consult both on his literary and personal concerns. 
 
 I now see in another of the earlier letters to his mother 
 (9th June, 1800) his solicitude about his subscription to 
 the first edition of his * Anacreon,' and his indignation at 
 the shabby contributions of his Irish friends. I have 
 turned to the original list of subscribers, and I find that 
 
 I was (with the exception of one " Brown, Esq." ) the 
 
 only person, English or Irish, who subscribed for two 
 copies. It further appears from the said first edition of 
 ' Anacreon,' that he consulted me in the progress of that 
 work, published a year and a half after he had " left 
 College^^ and while I was still there; and I am the person 
 alluded to in the following note on the 67th Ode : — 
 
 " I have formed this poem of three or four different frag- 
 ments, which is a liberty that perhaps may be justified by the 
 example of Barnes, who has thus compiled the fifty-seventh of 
 his edition, and the little ode beginning ^tp' vliap, <f)ep' oivov w 
 Trot, which he has subjoined to the epigrams. A literary 
 friend of mine {\ hope hrevi venturus in or a) has translated 
 in this manner the remains of Sappho, Alcaeus, &c." — Anac, 
 p. 231. 
 
 This acknowledgment that an anonymous friend had 
 done something of the same kind is, I think, a very im- 
 perfect performance of the promise conveyed to me in 
 the following letter of the 16th of January, 1800, while 
 the * Anacreon' was in progress: I was then just 19 
 years old, and Moore near 21 : — 
 
 " Dear Croker — I am delighted to find that your friend- 
 ship is unchanged, and, believe me, my gratitude is as warm 
 as ever. I had intended writing to you to confess the theft 
 of an idea from you, which I have committed, not, however, 
 without acknowledyment. In translating the fragments of 
 ' Anacreon,' I have adopted your idea of combini?ig them, so 
 
22 MR. MOORE'S CORRESPONDEN(JE 
 
 as to form little odes of them. Will you forgive me for the 
 plagiary {sic) ? I assure you I shall oiun the source whence 
 I have drawn it^ 
 
 Did the note above-quoted fulfil this promise ? But 
 even that acknowledgment, such as it was, Moore 
 omitted (without any explanation to me) from his second 
 and all subsequent editions. Was this ingenuous ? I 
 took no notice of this trifle, and never, I believe, till this 
 moment, mentioned it. It has now become a trait of 
 character. 
 
 Soon after this, as I recollect, a severe illness confined 
 Moore for some weeks to his lodgings in London, where 
 I visited him assiduously, and was happy to serve him 
 occasionally, while under a fit of ophthalmia, as an 
 amanuensis, and one, or I rather think, two, of Moore's 
 prettiest songs first saw the light in my hand- writing. 
 
 An entry in the Diary (under a much later date) testi- 
 fies the existence of the intimacy when that ingenious 
 exhibition called the * Invisible Girl ' was in vogue, at least 
 three or four years after Moore had " left College ;" — 
 
 " 1 820, April 23rd. — Lord Trimleston wrote, some years 
 ago, rather pretty French verses to me on my poem of the 
 ' Invisible Girl,' which also at the same time produced some 
 very lively verses from Croker. I lost copies of both by 
 lending them. Croker imagined a woman of fashion to 
 address me on the prospect of my becoming a lawyer, depre- 
 cating the idea that I should ever be — 
 
 "Wrapt in a gown a world too big, 
 
 And shaded in a waste of wig." — iii. p. 113. 
 
 Moore, we see, could recollect at p. 113 my verses 
 in the flattering masquerade of * A Lady of Fashion ;' 
 though at p. 156 of the same volume he forgets that we 
 had ever seen one another for so much as two or three 
 hours since we were at " College together'' It is evident. 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 23 
 
 then, that Moore's assertion, with whatever object made, 
 was a gross anachronism. 
 
 But much more remains — worse than anachronism. 
 Many years after we both had " left College" —y\z. in the 
 autumn of 1809 — Moore got into some difficulty by the 
 incompetency or misconduct * of his deputy in the Ad- 
 miralty Court of Bermuda. It happened that just at the 
 same time I became Secretary of the Admiralty, to whom the 
 complaints of the injured parties were officially addressed. 
 There had been at that time a coolness between us — " a 
 quarrel," as Moore says, of his own making ; I should 
 rather have called it a distance or estrangement — but, 
 whatever was its degree, it appears from the following 
 letter that it did not prevent my feeling kindly towards my 
 old friend, and offering him my good offices in this disagree- 
 able affair : — 
 
 "Dublin, 11th December, 1809. 
 " Dear Croker, 
 
 *' I am sincerely rejoiced at the idea of our being friends 
 again, and little expected that my office at Bermuda would 
 produce me anything half so valuable as this opportunity of 
 reconciliation which you have so liberally availed yourself of. 
 I have long thought that / was a fool to quarrel with you, 
 and by no means required your present conduct to convince 
 nie how much you are in every way superior to me. In 
 warmth of feeling, however, I will not be outdone, and I 
 assure you that it is with all my heart and soul that I enter 
 into the renewal of our friendship." 
 
 The rest of the letter relates to his Bermuda business, 
 and suggests an arrangement for turning, with my assist- 
 ance — 
 
 * This was not the affair that produced his great embarrassment — 
 which occurred from a different deputy in 1818 (ii. 133). So long had 
 Moore neglected the duties of his oflBice and his own interest, contrary 
 to the advice of his friends. 
 
24 MR. moore's correspondence 
 
 *' the appointment to more account than I have ever been able 
 to do hitherto. Would it be possible, do you think, to procure 
 the office for any unobjectionable person, who should make it 
 worth my while to resign in his favour ? If this were possible, 
 it would materially serve me ; and though I have no right, nor 
 indeed much inclination, to ask a favour from any of your 
 present colleagues, yet if You could manage this matter for 
 me, I should feel it to be the act of di friend, and be made 
 easy and comfortable in more ways than one by it." 
 
 I have no copy of my answer. I dare say 1 was un- 
 willing that even a copyist should see such a proposition ; 
 but it appears from Moore's reply that I endeavoured — by 
 supposing that he meant an exchange and not a sale of 
 offices — to shut my eyes to the real drift of a proposal 
 so indecent to a person in my official situation. Moore, 
 however, did not at all appreciate the indelicacy of his 
 proposal, or the delicacy of my evasion. His reply was 
 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Friday, 22nd December, 1809. 
 '*My dear Croker, 
 
 " I feel most gratefully the readiness with which you an- 
 swered my letter, and should not write now to teaze you with 
 my importunities, but that you mistook a little the manner in 
 which I wished you to assist me. I had by no means the 
 audacity to expect to exchange my Bermuda appointment for 
 another at home. AYhat 1 wanted to know was simply this — 
 whether if the deputy I should appoint would mahe it worth 
 wy ivhile to resign in his favour {i. e. in plain placemen's 
 language, would consent to purchase the appointment), you 
 could have interest enough to get him nominated my successor, 
 as by that means I should get rid of the very troublesome 
 medium of a deputation, and have a good large sum at once 
 in my pocket, without waiting for the slow process of annual 
 remittances, accounts, &c. I know this sounds very like one 
 oj" those transactions which we Patriots* cry out against 
 as unworthy of the great Hussell and Algernon Sydney." 
 
 * These words are ironically underscored in the original. 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 25 
 
 I (no doubt for the reason already stated) find no copy 
 of my answer to a proposal of which not even my ^'Patriot " 
 friend's droll abjuration of the " Russelh and Sydney s " 
 could attenuate the indecorum and illegality ; but I find 
 its substance docketed on the back of the letter in three 
 short words, " cannot he done^ This refusal was probably 
 less crudely expressed ; and it certainly created no visible 
 breach of the renewed friendship, and a long subsequent 
 series of Moore's letters now before me — some asking 
 small favours — others advice — all in the most friendly, and 
 e^ven flattering^ style (several of them and of my answers 
 are noted in the ' Diary') attest the continuance and 
 apparent cordiality of our intercourse to the last. 
 
 Irksome as it is to me on every account to reproduce 
 such excessive, and therefore such disagreeable, flattery 
 as one passage of the foregoing letter of the 11th of 
 December, 1809 and some others which follow, it is 
 necessary that I should exhibit Moore's own evidence of 
 his continuous profession of friendship towards me during 
 the whole period when Lord John Russell says he was 
 making in his * Diary ' several entries that would " give 
 me pain." I shall select no more than is necessary to 
 prove that the professed friendship was uninterrupted, and 
 I am pretty certain that some of these ultra-laudatory 
 passages give me more "pain" to transcribe than I should 
 have felt from reading any of the suppressed sneers or 
 censures. 
 
 1 request my readers to observe the series of dates. 
 On the \4,th Novemher, 1810, he writes — 
 
 *' My deab Croker, 
 
 " I have been asked for a letter of recommendation to 
 you, and I give it more for the pleasure of showing that I 
 
 c 
 
26 . MR. moore's correspondence 
 
 can do such a thing, than from any very sanguine hope that 
 the person whom I recommend can profit by it." 
 
 On the 26th October, 1811, he writes — 
 
 " My dear Croker, 
 
 " I am most sincerely sorry to be obliged to persecute 
 you as I do, but having the reputation of enjoying some little 
 share of your regard, I assure you it is with difficulty I can 
 fight off the numerous demands there are upon mi/ influence 
 with the Secretary of the Admiralty." 
 
 Then follows another solicitation for an Admiralty 
 favour, concluding with — 
 
 " To a generous mind like yours it will be some stimulus to 
 learn, &c. " Ever most truly yours, Thomas Moore." 
 
 On the 22nd May, 1812, he announced to me 
 
 " his sudden appearance to his friends in the new character of 
 a husband and a father." 
 
 This approximation of characters, usually separated by 
 a longer interval, I remember very much surprised me. 
 After some details about the marriage, and the reasons 
 which induced him to keep it so long concealed from every 
 one but Mr. Rogers and Lady Donegal, he proceeds — 
 
 " I should have been most happy to have made her known 
 to you, but I found it impossible to stand the expenses of 
 town, and therefore made a hasty retreat hither into Lord 
 Moira's neighbourhood, where, with his fine library and a 
 happy home, I hope to live a life of peace and goodness, and 
 to become, at last, perhaps, respectable. I am glad to take 
 the opportunity of troubling you with the enclosed to show 
 you that I am not unmindful of your good opinion, nor in- 
 different to your remembrance of me. 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 "Thomas Moore." 
 
WrrH MR. CROKER. '27 
 
 On the llth January, 1813, he acquaints me at some 
 length of what he " hopes I had felt anxious about," the 
 failure of his expectations from Lord Moira's India ap- 
 pointment, and he concludes — 
 
 *' I think I have at last found out the life that suits me, for 
 I never was so happy. I read a great deal, and write a little, 
 and have the best samples of human nature before me from 
 morning till night — which samples consist in a pure affec- 
 tionate wife, and a little rosy pug-nosed innocent child — should 
 you know me in this kind of life ? — I intend however to take 
 a taste of your London corruptions in spring, when I hope 
 (notwithstanding my magnanimity about ministers) I may 
 find a vacant place at the table of the Secretary of the Ad- 
 miralty. Ever, my dear Croker, faithfully yours, 
 
 " Thomas Moore." 
 
 On the 1st November, 1813, he wrote to request ray 
 advice as to a new diflficulty about his Bermuda deputy ; 
 after which he adds — 
 
 " I was sincerely sorry I saw so little of you when I was 
 last in town — but we deal in different kinds of town know- 
 ledge, you in the esoteric, I in the ex — yet believe me, my 
 dear Croker {and those I live with* can attest it for me), there 
 is no one feels more high respect for your talents, or bears 
 more ready testimony to the great good-nature experienced 
 from you than yours, very sincerely, 
 
 "Thomas Moore." 
 
 I see, in the Memoirs (i. 369), that he says that he 
 sent my answer to this letter to his Bermuda deputy — 
 " principally to show that he had such a friend at the 
 Admiralty ,^^ 
 
 In 1814, 1815, and 1816, the letters I find are on very 
 trifling subjects, and not worth special notice, but still of 
 the same familiar and friendly character. 
 
 * Me ning, no doubt, his Whig friends, Mr. Rogers, Holland House, &c. 
 
 c2 
 
28 MR. moore's correspondence 
 
 On the 26th June, 1817, I find hira writing to his 
 mother — 
 
 '* Croker was the person who gave my health [at a public 
 dinner of Dublin Collegemen]. I could not have a better 
 proof of the station which I hold in the public eye than that 
 Croker should claim friendship with me before such men as 
 Peel, the Duke of Cumberland," &c. &c. 
 
 But he gives no hints of the warmth with which he 
 urged me to attend on that occasion. 
 
 "Tuesday morning, I7th June, 1817. 
 " My dear Croker, 
 
 " You will perceive that they have put upon me the 
 honour of being Chairman to the Trinity College dinner next 
 Monday, and it was matter of much consolation and hope to 
 me to hear that you had dined there last time, as 1 flattered 
 myself that you would now have more pleasure in giving the 
 sanction of your presence to the meeting from a consciousness 
 of the support and gratification v\ hich it would afford to me in 
 my awful undertaking of President. Pray come — I will take 
 care that there shall be nothing offensive in the political way, 
 and I shall feel it as a tribute not only to the Chair but the 
 Chairman. Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 " Thomas Moore." 
 
 The letters for the next few years, and particularly 
 while Moore was living abroad, seem to have been less 
 frequent, and were chiefly about forwarding his corre- 
 spondence under my franks, and his Bermuda affairs. 
 There were, probably, many more than I can now find, and 
 indeed I only wonder how even these happened to be pre- 
 served. They were all, however, in the same tone of 
 cordiality and kind feeling. 
 
 On the 13th October, 1820, I arrived in Paris (as 
 stated in my preceding letter No. 6), and met Moore on 
 the 14th, on which day he dined with me, and made the 
 first offensive entry. On the 17th, while walking with 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 29 
 
 Mr. Canning, I met him again, and introduced him to 
 the " Right Honourable Orator" (iii. 158), who received 
 him, Moore adds, with a cordiality of manner " as credit- 
 able to him as it is certainly flattering to me." 
 
 I suppose my intervention on this " flattering" occasion 
 a little mollified Moore's feelings towards me, for he, next 
 day, again dined with me, and made the second entry 
 in the * Diary,' not so offensive as the first. I left Paris 
 again about the 27th for London, whither this letter 
 
 immediately followed me. 
 
 "[Paris], 2nd November, 1820. 
 " My dear Croker, 
 
 " I send you the packet for JeflTrey, but if that ' con- 
 science ' you spoke of interferes with your franking it on to 
 him, pray lose no time in sending it to the Longmans, in 
 Paternoster-row, to whom I have given directions about it ; 
 but I had rather, for expedition sake, that yon would frank it 
 to him. There is no treason in it, I assure you. 
 
 " My best remembrances to Mrs. Croker and my little play- 
 mate [Miss Croker]. " Ever yours, 
 
 " Thomas Moore." 
 
 These are the only circumstances that I find relating 
 to this particular period ; but they are not altogether 
 insignificant as to the question of Moore's sincerity, 
 for they show that at the very time he was journalizing 
 so contemptuously of my taste and talents, and priding 
 himself on knowing so little about me, he was not only 
 dining with me eii famille two at least of the ten days 
 I remained in Paris, but telling me of his connexion 
 with the * Edinburgh Review,' and asking me to facili- 
 tate it by allowing his packets, and especially " the 
 packet" to '"'Jeffrey^' to pass under my cover. The al- 
 lusion to my " conscience^ was occasioned, I believe, by 
 my having told him that he was perfectly welcome to 
 use my personal privilege as a member of Parliament 
 
 c3 
 
30 MR. Moore's correspondence 
 
 AS freely as he pleased, but that I had scruples of " con- 
 science^^ as to my more extensive official privilege and 
 hoped he would be moderate in the use of that. 
 
 On the 1 4^A November^ 1 82 1 , it appears by the ' Diary ' 
 that he vi^rote to request me to contradict some reports of 
 his having written certain political squibs. Of my answer 
 he gives only a few words, but then adds — 
 
 " It is flattering enough to think that I have now within the 
 last month received letters full of the most cordial attachment 
 from three persons so widely sundered in the political hemi- 
 sphere as are Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Lansdowne, and 
 Crokerr— Diary, iii. 303. 
 
 On the l^th April, 1822, Moore arrived in London, 
 on account, it seems (' Diary,' iii. p. 339), of some fresh 
 difficulties about his Bermuda concern. On the very 
 night he arrived, and before he had even taken lodgings, 
 he wrote me a hurried note by a special messenger : — 
 
 " I am actually here, and shall take my chance of seeing 
 you to-morrow, between two and three. 
 
 " Yours ever, T. M." 
 
 He was aware that the sitting of the Admiralty Board 
 prevented my seeing any one before two. What the par- 
 ticular object of this visit was I forget; it was no doubt 
 something about the Bermuda affair, and the haste he 
 made to see me shows its importance and his reliance on 
 my friendship. 
 
 On the 2Srd January, 1823, the * Diary ' states that he 
 wrote to Mr. Murray to say that he had half a hope that 
 / might undertake to review his ' Loves of the Angels,' 
 and that between the 12th and 1 5th February he had 
 received — 
 
 " a long letter from Croker on the intended metamorphosis 
 of my ^ angels^ into Turks — very kind and sensible." — Diary, 
 iv. p. 44. 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 31 
 
 In 1823, 18-21, and 182j, I find about thirty letters 
 about a variety of small matters, no further worthy of 
 notice than as showing the continuance of the easy and 
 friendly terms on which we had been. 
 
 On the bth December, 1826, he writes to request my 
 advice and assistance as to exchanging his Bermuda 
 office, of which he says : — 
 
 " The only thing for which I am indebted to that * still- 
 \exing Bermoothes,' is it having been the means, my dear 
 Croker, of bringing you and me together again in statu quo. 
 But this is like the ballad I sang to you at Kensington, * a song 
 of the olden time.' " 
 
 He had, however, forgotten that amicable status ijuo 
 during the month of October 1820 and at the dates of 
 those other unspecified entries that Lord John Russell had 
 at first so delicately suppressed, and afterwards, with a 
 more dubious delicacy, took care to let me know that he 
 had suppressed. 
 
 In April, 1827, the * Diary * gives an account of his 
 employing me to disculpate him " to my friend Peel " 
 from having written some verses in the ' Times * attacking 
 him. He adds — 
 
 " Forgot to mention that these verses contained also a 
 violent attack on Croker, which, as I said in my letter, would 
 be to him a sufficient proof that these were not mine." — Vol. v. 
 p. 163. 
 
 This tenderness for me, more fully expressed in the 
 original letter, must, I should think, have appeared, 
 even to Lord John Russell, somewhat inconsistent with 
 the suppressed passages. Moore's letter shows at least 
 that I had no reason to expect that he would have left 
 behind him any criticisms on me so offensive as to induce 
 his Lordship to think them unfit for publication. 
 
 In May, 1827, I had the honour to be elected Member 
 
32 MR. moore's correspondence 
 
 for the University of Dublin, and Moore addressed me 
 
 the following letter : — 
 
 " Sloperton Cottage, 22nd May, 1827. 
 *' My dear Croker, 
 
 " Seeing by the papers that you are returned to London, 
 I hasten to wish you joy on your very honourable success. I 
 feel it the more — mournfully as well as joyfully — from its 
 bringing back the recollection of times when we little thought 
 what strange things were before us. You, since then, have 
 advanced, while I have remained stationary. As to any little 
 fame I may have earned on my way, the praise that you and 
 a few others gave me at that time was worth all that has 
 followed since, because it was the first. The friendship of a 
 few good men, and a home as happy as love can make it, are 
 all (and after all not a little) that I have gained in the 
 scramble. Your honours, however, my dear Croker, I rejoice 
 in sincerely, and long may you live to wear them ! 
 " Believe me yours ever faithfully, 
 
 " Thomas Moore." 
 
 In June, 1828, I was admitted to the Privy Council. 
 Moore thought he lost too much time in letting three 
 weeks pass before he congratulated me on this honour : — 
 
 " Sloperton, 15th July, 1828. 
 " My dear Croker, 
 
 " I have been longing for an opportunity to write your 
 neiv adjunct, of which I wish you joy sincerely, and trust it 
 will be followed by something still better. 
 
 " I hope you do not forget to keep a look out for me in your 
 Bermuda quarter, &c." 
 
 The sincerity of these congratulations may be judged 
 by the obvious spirit exhibited in a note, written about the 
 same time to Mr. Power, his music publisher, and which 
 a gentleman who bought it at Mr. Power's sale has since 
 sent to me.^ It is a curious pendant to the foregoing con- 
 gratulation ; the following is an exact copy : — 
 
My dear Sir, 
 
 WITH MR. CROKER. 33 
 
 "24th June, 1828. 
 
 " Thinking you may want the ' Rose of the Desert,' I 
 send it up by parcel, and shall enclose the * Legends,' as I 
 finisii them, through the Righf Honorable (! !) Croker." — 
 Power Cafalngue, p. 89. 
 
 This slight sneer — even if it were as innocent as the 
 " noil equidem invideo, miror magis^^'' of the shepherd in 
 Virgil— would be rather misplaced on an occasion when 
 he was making a convenience of his ''''Right Honourable! .'" 
 friend ; but when contrasted with his amiable impatience 
 to congi-atulate me, and his hope that it may soon be 
 followed by something better^ it takes, I think, a less 
 excusable character. 
 
 On the '22nd September^ 1829, his affectionate interest 
 in my welfare breaks out again in a very marked way : — 
 
 My dear Croker 
 
 " I am in dismay at the rumours in the newspapers of a 
 prospect of your quitting the Admiralty. I dare say that you 
 yourself would care little about it, but the public are not 
 likely to be so poco-curanteish on the subject, and for myself, 
 speaking personally and selfishly, I shall feel the loss of your 
 good offices most grievously. I do not ask for secrets, but, if 
 the matter is in a tellable state, pray set my mind at rest on 
 the subject. I was in hopes that you would have been able, 
 according to your kind promise, to arrange something for me 
 in the shape of a deputy for my office, &c. 
 
 " Ever yours truly, 
 
 " Thomas Moore." 
 
 And finally the following letter of the 28th of July, 
 1«29, shows that the same friendly disposition subsisted 
 — at least, to all appearance —between us : — 
 
34 MR. moore's correspondence 
 
 "My dear Croker, 
 
 "It is most kind of you to take so much trouble about 
 us, and I assure you Mrs. Moore feels it to be so as much as 
 myself. I meant to have told you in my last note (but I 
 believe did not) that her state of health at present puts it en- 
 tirely out of her power to dine away from home, and the same 
 cause prevents me from leaving her at night. She is, how- 
 ever, before long about to return into Wiltshire, when / shall 
 be left in a state of bachelorship and vagabondage, and then if 
 you will have me, I shall be most happy to come to you, and 
 accept dinner and bed and all the other good things I am sure 
 to find with you. 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " Thomas Moore." 
 
 I have brought down these extracts from the more 
 extensive correspondence of twenty consecutive years to 
 the latest period at which any of those suppressions 
 that Lord John Russell alludes to could have taken place, 
 and all the subsequent, like all the preceding letters 
 that I have been able to find, are just of the same 
 familiar and friendly character. I have produced no 
 more than was necessary to my own defence, and I think 
 I may now venture to repeat my confidence that his 
 Lordship " cannot have found any passage derogatory to 
 me of which I could not produce Moore's own con- 
 temporary evidence in a contrary direction." 
 
 I must also repeat how very painful it has been to me 
 to transcribe professions and compliments which I always 
 felt to be excessive, and which, it now appears, were " false 
 and hollow ;" but my readers will easily believe that even 
 when they reached me fresh and fresh, any vanity I might 
 otherwise have felt from them must have been a good 
 deal moderated by observing that the most fulsome of 
 
 <r 
 
WITH MR. CROKER. 35 
 
 them were always — but not always very adroitly — 
 mixed up with appeals for my assent, or advice, or assist- 
 ance towards objects of his own personal vanity or 
 interest. 
 
 With this explanation the public will be better able to 
 understand and appreciate the correspondence between 
 Lord John Russell and me, as well as anything that has 
 appeared, or may hereafter appear^ concerning me from the 
 peevishness or malice of that double-faced friendship 
 which Lord John Russell's indiscretion has forced into 
 light. 
 
 J. w. c. 
 
 20th February, 1854. 
 
 LOKDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND 80S8, 8TAMFOBD STREET, 
 AND CHARING 
 
 

 
 
 
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