In the drawing-room he is a sleeker lapdog, and lies
upon more and choicelier-clothed laps than he would in "the two-pair
back;" and that is about all that needs to be said or speculated in such a
case. As a matter of fact, the demeanor of Moore among the socially great
seems to have been that of a man who respected his company, without
failing to respect himself also--any ill-natured caviling or ready-made
imputations to the contrary notwithstanding.
In 1802 Moore produced his first volume of original verse, the _Poetical
Works of the late Thomas Little_ (an allusion to the author's remarkably
small stature), for which he received L60. There are in this volume some
erotic improprieties, not of a very serious kind either in intention or in
harmfulness, which Moore regretted in later years. Next year Lord Moira
procured him the post of Registrar to the Admiralty Court of Bermuda; he
embarked on the 25th of September, and reached his destination in January
1804. This work did not suit him much better than the business of the bar;
in March he withdrew from personal discharge of the duties: and, leaving a
substitute in his place, he made a tour in the United States and Canada.
He was presented to Jefferson, and felt impressed by his republican
simplicity. Such a quality, however, was not in Moore's line; and nothing
perhaps shows the essential smallness of his nature more clearly than the
fact that his visit to the United States, in their giant infancy, produced
in him no glow of admiration or aspiration, but only a recrudescence of
the commonest prejudices--the itch for picking little holes, the petty joy
of reporting them, and the puny self-pluming upon fancied or factitious
superiorities.
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