OM MOORE, the Irish poet, was one of the most popular men of his time. He graduated from the Dublin University, and had filled a post in the West Indies and traveled extensively before, in 1811, he married Miss Dyke, an actress of many attractions and high character. He lived for some years in Paris, but his principal residence was in London. He was famous as a brilliant talker, a good singer, and his poems were very widely read. His early works have been almost forgotten, but his "Irish Songs and Melodies" retain their popularity, and some of them are veritable gems of lyric poetry. His longest poem, "Lalla Rookh," an Oriental romance, has been said to be more Eastern than the East itself. His thought and feeling were of a somewhat superficial character, and it was in elegance of verse and in airy wit that he excelled. His prose writings were of importance, and comprised several biographies, a history of Ireland, and one or two romances. He was intrusted with Byron's autobiography, but yielded to the pressure of that poet's friends and allowed it to be destroyed. He had already received two thousand guineas for the manuscript, and this sum he repaid to the prospective publishers, and would not accept reimbursement from Byron's family. In his later years his faculties decayed, and he died, in 1852, at the age of seventy-three.

PARADISE AND THE PERI.

FROM "LALLA ROOKH."

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE FOUNDER OF THE LAKE SCHOOL OF POETRY.

IT was the mission of Wordsworth to bring back the art of poetry to nature. He contended that the ordinary affairs of daily life are fit subjects for poetry, and that the language of the poet should be that really used by men. He thus violated all the established rules of poetic diction, encountered the most hostile criticism, and drew upon himself and those with whom he was associated showers of ridicule. It was only after fifty years that he was recognized as the first poet of his age. There can be no doubt that he erred upon the side of simplicity, descending at times even to triviality, and so justified the ridicule with which the first critics of his age received his poems. On the other hand, there are golden veins of real poetry running throughout everything he has written, and in some places, as in his "Ode on Immortality," he rises to the perfection of human

utterance.

His parents were of the middle class, and he was intended for the church, but as he came near the time when he should have definitely prepared himself for the ministry, he found himself more and more inclined to devote his life to poetry. In this resolution he persevered, and the measure of his devotion may be judged from the fact that for the sake of his chosen vocation he resolutely faced a life of poverty, and contrived to live with his sister for about eight years upon the income of a legacy of nine hundred pounds left him by a friend of his youth. A debt of some three thousand pounds due his father being finally paid, the poet was placed beyond pecuniary difficulty.

In 1798 Wordsworth and his sister made a tour of Germany in company with Coleridge. Returning, he took up his residence at Grasmere, in the Lake region, and afterward at Rydal Mount, which was his home during the remainder of his uneventful life. Coleridge and Southey also made their home in the Lake region, and thus the three came to be known, somewhat in derision, as the "Lake Poets."

Wordsworth's most extensive work, "The Excursion," appeared in 1814. It was intended to be only a part of an extended poem to be entitled "The Recluse," having for its principal subject "The Sensations and Opinions of a Poet Living in Retirement." It was to be composed of three parts: "The Prelude," not published until 1850, "The Excursion," and a third which was never written. "The Excur