1%; r\¥J 
 
TOM MOORE IN BERMUDA 
 
 A BIT OF LITERARY GOSSIP. 
 
 J. C. LAWRENCE CLARK. 
 
 ^^iW/ ) 
 
 LANCASTER, MASS., U.S.A.; 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE .AUTHOR 
 
 Bv W. J. Coulter, Cour.ant Office, Clinton, M.^ss. 
 
 1897. 
 L- 
 
 
 — ^'^ o^u ^ 
 
ILL USTRA TIOXS. VII 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Nea Smith, of Bermuda. From a photoi^rapli, ------- § 
 
 Nea Tucker, oi-' Fiji. From a ph(itoi;raph. -------- g 
 
 "Nea'.s" Home, St. George's, Bermuda. I'Vom a photoi:;raph b)- Lu.sher. - - g 
 
 Buildings Bay. From a photograph by Lu.sher. ------- jo 
 
 "A Shady Bermuda Road." From a photograph b}^ Lu.sher. - - - - ii 
 
 Water Street, St. George's. From a Photograph by Lusher. - - - - 12 
 
 St. George's, Eighty Years Since. From an engraving b>- L C. Stadt (pubUshed 
 
 at London in 1816), in the possession of the Hon. Joseph M. Ha\\vard. - 12 
 
 Caric.\ture of Moore. By T. Crofton Croker. From "Notes from the Letters 
 
 of Thomas Moore to his Music Publisher, James Power." New \'ork: 1S54. - 16 
 
7 
 
 Tom Moore in Bermuda 
 
 Bermuda, that "inchauntcd isle" of which earl>- voy- 
 agers fabled, and wliich, in hitter-day romance, the good 
 ship Grosvcnor tried so hard to make, has its literary 
 associations. Who does not know that there Prospero 
 reigned? No se\enteenth century anthology is complete 
 w'ithout Andrew Marvell's "Song of the Emigrants in 
 
 Bermuda": 
 
 "Where the remote Bermudas ride 
 On the ocean's bosom unespied." 
 
 There, as tradition tells, sojourned Edmund Waller, ex- 
 iled by a hostile Parliament, or mayhap seeking in the 
 new world a balm for unrequited love. In the last of his 
 poems to "Sacharissa" (the Lady Dorothy Sidne\' ). 
 written shorth- before her marriage, he exclaims: 
 
 "Ah, cruel nvmph, from whom her humble swain 
 Flies for relief unto the raging main. 
 And from the waves and tempests does expect 
 A milder fate than from her cold neg;lect." 
 
 W.\LI.ILr's l'nl\T 
 
 A century and a 
 half later a little 
 boy picked up 
 on the shore of 
 Bermuda a gold 
 ring bearing the 
 t initials " E. W." 
 Some say that 
 this ring appear- 
 ed once to have 
 contained a lock 
 nf hair, and that 
 scratched on the 
 inner side was 
 the tender posy, 
 "Whose hair I 
 -\ear 1 loved 
 dear." Whether 
 or not the poet- 
 politician e\'er 
 -aw Bermuda! I), 
 the spot on .'^t. 
 
TOM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 
 
TOM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 
 
 3 
 
 David's Island where the ring was found is 
 known to this day as Waller's Point. 
 
 Ninety \-ears ago another poet came to the 
 Summer Islands. 
 
 Thomas ;\Ioore. at the age of twenty, had 
 gone over to London from Dublin, in order 
 to enter himself at the Inner Temple and 
 publish a translation of Anacreon. His wit 
 and good nature, and his gift for singing and 
 playing, soon made him a favorite in society. 
 
 F"our years later, through the influence of 
 
 the Earl ot Aloira, he received the appoint- 
 ment of Registrar of the Court of Vice- 
 Admiralty at Bermuda. Flarl)- in November, 
 1S03, he reached Norfolk, Virginia, and about 
 the middle of the following January arrived 
 at Bermuda. His duties were, he writes, " to 
 overhaul the accounts of skippers and their 
 mates." 
 
 The perquisites of the office were largely 
 dependent on \\ar. Moore was chagrined 
 to find that, in a time of peace, an income 
 
 which he had been led to suppose was be- 
 tween three and four thousand pounds dwin- 
 dled to a very trifling sum. In a letter to 
 his mother, written 19 January, 1804, he says: 
 " I shall tell you at once that it is not worth 
 my while to remain here; that I shall just 
 
 wait till the spring months come in, 
 
 when the passages home are always delight- 
 fully pleasant, and that then I shall get upon 
 the wing to see my dear friends once more. 
 
 I"A'en a Spanish war would make my 
 
 income by no means worth staying for." He 
 
 notes in passing that there are two American 
 ships for trial, "whose witnesses I have e.\- 
 amined, and whose cause will be decided 
 ne.\t month. ' 
 
 In the same letter he writes: "The Admi- 
 ral, Sir Andrew Mitchell, has insisted on m\- 
 making his table my own during my sta)- 
 here." He seems also to have spent much of 
 his time at Walsingham (2), the residence 
 of the Hon. Samuel Trott, afterwards Presi- 
 dent or Acting Governor of the colony. At 
 any rate, the estate is now exhibited to tour- 
 
TOM MOORK IX hi-:kmvi)a. 
 
 ists as " Moore's home." VV'alsinsjham House 
 stands looking across the Castle Harbour, on 
 a neck of land traversed by the hiLjh\\a\' 
 from Hamilton to St. George's. Through an 
 avenue of cedars one approaches a large, 
 farm-like dwelling near the shore, between 
 two mangrove-bordered lakes. A bell to 
 announce visitors hangs on a pride-of-India 
 
 tree near by. Like nearly all Bermudian 
 buildings, walls and roof alike are of white- 
 washed limestone. Inside, the woodwork is 
 of native cedar, which time has stained a 
 rich, dark brown. The high, empt\' rooms, 
 the winding staircase, have a look at once of 
 manorial ease and of loneliness and decay. 
 The house is vacant, except an ell in the rear. 
 
 which is inhabited b_\' a not over clean fam- 
 ily of Portuguese. What is shown as "Moore's 
 room" is an ample apartment with a blue- 
 tiled fireplace, on the ground-floor. 
 
 F"rom the house a foot-path leads through 
 wooded grounds. Here the coffee-tree and 
 the cherry, the lemon and the orange, mingle 
 with the omnipresent cedar and oleander, 
 and the mxrtle clambers over rock and tree. 
 
 Here you may see " Moore's calabash tree," 
 a veteran of its race, still bearing on gnarled 
 branches its green, oval gourds. It was of 
 this ver\' tree that Moore wrote to his friend 
 Joseph Atkinson: 
 
 " 'The daylight is gone — but before we depart 
 Here's a brimmer of love to the friend of my heart. 
 To the friend who himself is a chalice, a bowl 
 In which heaven has poured a rich bumper of 
 soul.' (3) 
 
TOM MOORE IX HKRMCDA. 
 
T(KM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 
 
 " 'Twas thus by the shade of a calabash tree (4) 
 W ith a few who can feel and remember like me, 
 The charm that to sweeten my goblet I threw 
 Was a tear to the past and a blessin^ on you." 
 
 At Walsinghan), tiny pools give back the 
 blue of the summer sk\-. One may enter 
 mysterious caverns, where the guide sets fire 
 to a handful of dry palmetto-leaves, and you 
 see, festooned with icicle-like stalactites, 
 which pearly, limpid pools reflect, long galler- 
 ies winding awaj' undergroimd. 
 
 Perhaps it was at Walsingham that Moore 
 wrote: 
 
 "Close to my wooded bank below 
 In glassy calm the waters sleep, 
 And to the sunbeam proudly show 
 The coral rocks they love to steep. 
 
 "The fainting breeze of morning fails. 
 
 The drowsy boat moves slowly past. 
 And I can almost touch its sails 
 
 That languish idly round the mast. 
 The sun has now profusely given 
 The flashes of a noontide heaven. 
 And, as the wave reflects his beams. 
 Another heaven its surface seems ! 
 Blue light and clouds of silvery tears 
 
 So pictured o'er the waters lie. 
 That every languid bark appears 
 
 To float along a burning sky !" 
 
 With similar enthusiasm he writes to his 
 mother, in the letter of the 19th January: 
 
 "These little islands of Bermuda form certainly 
 one of the prettiest and most romantic spots that 1 
 could ever have imagined, and the descriptions which 
 represent it as a place of fairy enchantment are very 
 little beyond the truth. From my window now as 1 
 write, I can see five or si.x different islands, the most 
 distant not a mile from the others, and separated by 
 the clearest, sweetest coloured sea you can conceive; 
 for the water here is so transparent that, in coming in, 
 we could see the rocks under the ship quite plainly. 
 These little islands are thickly covered with cedar 
 groves, through the vistas of which you catch a few 
 pretty white houses (5), which my poetical short-sight- 
 edness always transforms into temples; and I often 
 expect to see Nymphs and Graces come tripping from 
 them, when, to my great disappointment, I find that a 
 few miserable negroes is all 'the bloomy flush of life' 
 it has to boast of. Indeed, you must not be surprised, 
 dear mother, if I fall in love with the first pretty face 
 1 see on my return home, for certainly ' the human 
 face divine' has degenerated wonderfully in these 
 
 countries; and if I were a painter, and wished to pre- 
 serve my ideas of beauty immaculate, I would not 
 suffer the brightest belle of Bermuda to be my house- 
 maid." 
 
 But the future is yet unseen, as the Em- 
 peror Marcus reminds us. In a note to 
 Moore's rhymed epistle to Joseph Atkinson, 
 which bears date of March, 1804, we read: 
 
 "The women of Bermuda, though not generally 
 handsome, have an affectionate languor which is 
 always interesting. What the French imply by their 
 epithet aimanie seems very much the character of the 
 young Bermudian girls — that pre-disposition to lov- 
 ing, wliich. without being awakened by any particular 
 object, diffuses itself through the general manner in 
 a tone of tenderness that never fails to fascinate." 
 
 The reason for this change of view is not 
 far to seek. Between January and March, 
 Moore had met with one of those frequent 
 and not too profound e.xperiences of the 
 heart which furnished him such plentiful lit- 
 erar}- material. He had become acquainted 
 with "Nea" — "the Rose of the Isles." as she 
 has been called — and was already celebrating 
 her charms in half playful, half passionate 
 verse. 
 
 Hesther Louisa Tucker, the "Nea" (6) of 
 the poems, was born at sea (so sa_\'s the 
 legend) eighteen years before this time. In 
 1829, twelve years after " Nea's" death, a vis- 
 itor to the islands (7) wrote of her: " From a 
 likeness which I saw, I should judge her to 
 have been a fine woman, but it is said that 
 she was indebted for her fame less to her 
 beaut\- than to the fascination and easy 
 gracefulness of her manners." We have 
 Aloore's testimony that "Nea," like other 
 Bermudian girls, danced well: 
 
 "Divinely through the graceful dance 
 You seemed to float in silent song, 
 Bending to earth that beamy glance, 
 As if to guide your steps along." 
 
 But beyond the tradition of her beauty 
 we have little knowledge what manner of 
 woman she was. The house at St. George's 
 where her girlhood was spent is yet stand- 
 ing, but the "alley of lin:es" of which Moore 
 sang, leading to her home, has vanished as 
 
TOM MOORK IN BERMirn.l. 
 
T(UI MOORE IN HERMIWA. 
 
 uttcrh' as have the men and women who 
 passed beneath its shade. The nearest house 
 was the Admiral's, where we know that Moore 
 was a frequent sjjuest. 
 
 Thouf:;h the "Odes 
 to Nea" are tainted 
 with the fashionable 
 libitliosity of the time, 
 the flirtation between 
 these young people 
 seems to have been 
 quite an innocent one. 
 Each probabl)- under- 
 stood that nothing;" se- 
 rious was meant. Like 
 the TnntviTcs of the 
 twelfth centur_\-, Moore 
 made it a religious duty 
 to love. Miss Hett)-'s 
 satisfaction at the at- 
 tentions of the clever 
 Irishman was presum- 
 ably not lessened b_\- 
 the fact that they 
 aroused the jealousy 
 of one William Tuck- 
 er, to whom she was 
 alread)- betrothed. This gentleman had, 
 when very young, been brought to Bermuda 
 from St. Eustatius, perhaps in consequence 
 of the cap- -- 
 
 ture of that , \ 
 
 island b>- the /' 
 
 French the 
 ver}' year of 
 his birth 
 (I 781 ). In 
 the lines, 
 
 "Well, peace to , 
 
 thy heart, tho' X 
 
 another's it be. 
 And health to 
 
 thy cheek, tho' 
 
 it bloom not 
 
 for mel" 
 
 he is apparently referred to. Not long after 
 the Moore episode William and Hett\ Tucker 
 were married. When, two vcars later, in 
 
 V 
 
 Nea Tuckf-R, of I'iji. 
 
 " Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, "Moore 
 published thirteen somewhat erotic "Odes to 
 Nea, written in Bermuda," Mr. Tucker seems 
 to have felt that insult 
 was added to injury; 
 and it is related that 
 to the end of his life 
 he would never allow 
 the works of the ob- 
 no.xious bard in his 
 house. He died, full 
 of }-ears and honour, 
 in 1S71. By one of 
 time's little ironies, 
 two of William Tuck- 
 er's great-granddaugh- 
 ters are christened Nea 
 in memory of their an- 
 cestress's acquaintance 
 with the man he de- 
 tested. Hesther Tuck- 
 er died while still 
 N'oung (8), after bear- 
 ing her husband a large 
 family. 
 
 Of the "Odes to Nea" 
 themselves something 
 should be said. They show the most marked 
 characteristics of the author's earl>- poet r_\-; the 
 oriential voluptuousness of his fanc_\-, his 
 
 fondness for 
 classical allu- 
 sion, the mel- 
 ody of his 
 verse, the fre- 
 quent triviali- 
 t\", or, if one 
 may be par- 
 d o n e d the 
 pun. Little- 
 ness of his 
 thought. He 
 is still the 
 "young Ca- 
 tullus uf his day," as Lord Byron called him; 
 his lay is "sweet," and occasionall\- "immor- 
 al." The following lines were praised b\- an 
 
 Nf.a Smith, of Bermuda. 
 
TOM MOORE AV BERMUDA. 
 
TOM MOORE LV HERMUDA. 
 
 10 
 
 ■earh' American critic for " an almost Arabian 
 boldness of expression": 
 
 "Behold the leafy mangrove, bending 
 O'er the waters blue and bright, 
 Like Nea's silky lashes, lending 
 Shadow to her eyes of light." 
 
 ■One of the best of the "Odes" is that entitled 
 "The Snow .Spirit," beginning: 
 
 "No, ne'er did the wave in its element steep 
 
 An island of lovelier charms; 
 It blooms in the giant embrace of the deep 
 
 Like Hebe in Hercules's arms! 
 The tint of your bowers is balm to the eye. 
 
 Their melody balm to the ear; 
 But the fiery planet of day is too nigh. 
 
 And the Snow-Spirit never comes here!" 
 
 Another commemorates a stroll with " Nea" 
 beside 
 
 "That little bay, where winding in 
 From ocean's rude and angry din, 
 
 (As lovers steal to bliss) 
 The billows kiss the shore, and then 
 Flow canily to the sea again. 
 
 As though they did not kiss!" 
 
 This is said to be Buildings Bay, near the 
 south-eastern corner of St. George's Island. 
 The ba\' is so called because there Sir George 
 Somers and his shipwrecked crew built their 
 two cedar vessels. Moore's description of 
 the spot is pretty enough to make up for a 
 later stanza: 
 
 "I stooped to cull, with faltering hand, 
 .A shell that on the golden sand 
 
 Before us faintly gleamed; 
 I raised it to your lips of dew, 
 You kissed the shell, I kissed it too — 
 
 Good heaven! how sweet it seemed!" 
 
 Can youthful sentimentality farther go:' I 
 shall quote /;/ extcnso the lines "On Seeing an 
 Infant in Nea's Arms," in spite of the fact 
 that Moore excluded them from the later 
 ■editions. They seem to me, after all, to pos- 
 sess a certain grace: 
 
 "The first ambrosial child of bliss 
 
 That Psyche to her bosom prest, 
 Was not a brighter babe than this. 
 
 Nor blushed upon a lovelier breast; 
 His little snow-white fingers, straying 
 
 ISUII-IJINGS It.W. 
 
 Along her lip's luxurious flower. 
 Looked like a flock of ring-doves playing 
 
 Silvery, 'mid a roseate bower. 
 And when, to shade the playful boy. 
 
 Her dark hair fell, in mazes bright. 
 Oh! 'twas a type of stolen joy; 
 
 'Twas love beneath the veil of night! 
 Soft as she smiled, he smiled again; 
 
 They seemed so kindred in their charms 
 That one might think the babe had then 
 
 Just budded in her blooming arms! 
 He looked like something formed of air. 
 
 Which she had uttered in a sigh. 
 Like some young spirit, resting there. 
 
 That late had wandered from her eye !" 
 
 Taken as a whole, the "Odes to Nea" are 
 neither better nor worse than the general run 
 of Moore's minor verse. 
 
 One anecdote of Moore's life in Bermuda 
 has come down to us. He was very inquisi- 
 tive. Also he was morbidl\- afraid of a 
 mouse. A Bermudian lad>- whom he often 
 visited learned of his timidit}-, and deter- 
 mined to use it to punish him for his habit 
 of prying. She secured a live mouse, and, 
 e.xpecting a call from the Registrar, locked 
 it in her work-box. Moore had not been 
 long seated when he began trying the lock, 
 and at last raised the lid, when, to his fright 
 and disgust, out jumped the mouse into his 
 lap. He never forgave the lad)', and to her, 
 it is said, were addressed the verses, — 
 
 "When I loved you 1 can't but allow 
 I had many an e.xquisite minute; 
 But the scorn that I feel for you now 
 Hath even more luxurv in it! 
 
TOM MOORE IN BERMUDA. 
 
 II 
 
 "Thus, whether we're on or we're off, 
 
 Some witchery seems to await you; 
 To love you is pleasant enough, 
 And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you!" 
 
 Hut even love-making, and the "innum- 
 erable" dances of which he wrote home, with 
 gay conceit, "There has been nothing but 
 gaiety since I came, and there never was 
 such a furor for dissipation known in the 
 town of St. George's before," even the grand 
 turtle feasts of calapash and Madeira, could 
 not stay the departure of the Mercurial poet. 
 Toward the end of April he sailed away on 
 the frigate Boston; and the 7th May found 
 him in New York, writing to his mother in 
 the usual tone of British travellers in Amer- 
 ica at that time: ".Such a place! Such a peo- 
 ple! Barren and secluded as Bermuda is, I 
 think it a paradise to an\' spot in America I 
 have )-et seen." After some travel in the 
 United States and Canada, he sailed in Octo- 
 ber for England (9). 
 
 Moore's experience in sinecure-holding 
 was dearly bought. In 1818 he became liable 
 for six thousand pounds, which his deputy at 
 Bermuda had embezzled, and for two years 
 he was obliged to remain abroad to avoid 
 imprisonment. During this e.xile Moore 
 made the acquaintance in Paris of Washing- 
 ton Irving. In a conversation which Irving 
 noted in his diary ( 16 May, 1821 ), the poet's 
 vanit\' crops out a little: "Moore told me 
 that he was once giving Kenney an account 
 of his misfortunes; the heavy blow he sus- 
 tained in consequence of the default of his 
 agent in Bermuda. Kenney expressed the 
 strongest sympathy. 'Gad, Sir, it's well you 
 were a Poet; a Philosopher never would have 
 borne it.'" Earl\- in 1822 the matter was 
 settled by compromise ( 10). Moore retained 
 the office till 1844, eight \ears before his 
 death, when he was removed on the ground 
 of continued non-residence ! During the 
 fort} years he held the appointment he had 
 been in the active discharge of its duties less 
 than four months. 
 
 Nine \ears after his departure from Ber- 
 nuula, Moore wrote, in the "Irish ^lelodies": 
 
 "Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own. 
 In a blue summer ocean far off and alone. 
 Where a leaf never dies in the still-blooming bowers, 
 And the bee banquets on through a whole year of 
 flowers; 
 Where the sun loves to pause 
 
 With so fond a delay, 
 That the night only draws 
 A thin veil o'er the day, 
 Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, 
 Is worth the best joy that life elsewhere can give;" 
 
 and it may be that this ideal tropic isle was 
 but a memor\' of Bermuda, with its sunny 
 skies, and its shores washed by delicate blue 
 waters (11). 
 
 F'or one not wholly possessed b}- that 
 Zeitgeist which no longer knows the Bard 
 of F>in, memories of Moore still linger 
 
 about those pleasant coasts. Often, strolling 
 along a shady Bermuda road, I have fancied 
 I might meet him, riding out " into the coun- 
 try parts of the island, to swear a man to the 
 truth of a Dutch invoice he has translated." 
 Or in the dim parish church I have asked 
 myself half seriously if that were not Mr. 
 Registrar Moore, nodding over the sermon, 
 in the corner of the Admiral's pew. At St. 
 George's Town — in his da\- the centre of 
 Bermuda — it is easy enough to picture him, 
 perhaps attending through the narrow streets 
 some island belle, who listens, shy but 
 amused, to his clever sallies. 
 
 At St. George's the hundreth anniversa\- 
 of Moore's birth was not unremembered. 
 
TOM MOORE IN BERMrDA. 
 
 The Hon. Joseph M. Ha\\vard, the present 
 Ma\or (iSg/), writes me: 
 
 "On the 28th May, 1877, the occasion of Moore's 
 centennial, I caused the town flag of St. George's to 
 15C hoisted, in memory of Thomas Moore and his con- 
 nection witli Bermuda. To explain the reason to the 
 public, 1 copied from the Epistle ' To the Marcioness 
 Dowager of Donegall, from Bermuda, January, 1804,' 
 the stanza beginning, 
 
 ' The morn was lovely, every wave was still. 
 When the first perfume of a cedar hill 
 Sweetly awaked us, and with smiling charms 
 The fairy harbour woo'd us to its arms,' 
 
 and posted it on the flag-staff. It was read contin- 
 ually during the day, and several Irishmen of all 
 classes, finding out with whom it originated, called at 
 my place of business, thanking me for honouring 
 their countryman, Tom Moore." 
 
 Wateh Street. .St. George's. 
 
 Sr. t ,{■:<. H(;i-:"s El(,Hl\ \ kaks >i.»J(.h. 
 
TOM MOORE /X BERMUDA. 
 
 13 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ( I ) The Waller myth rests on the burlesque poem, 
 ■"The Battle of the Summer Islands," which narrates 
 the attempted capture of two whales off the south 
 coast of Bermuda. Though the poem bears strong 
 internal evidence that the author was never in Ber- 
 muda — for instance the lines, 
 
 "With the sweet sound of Sacharissa's name 
 I'll make the list'ning savages grow tame ;'' 
 
 for whatever inhabitants Bermuda had originally 
 were exterminated by Spanish slavers long before its 
 settlement by Englishmen — the central incident 
 smacks of truth. Waller may well have heard it 
 from some sea-faring acquaintance. 
 
 " Waller's lively picture of the battle of the whales with Ber- 
 muda's roclcy shores, and his charming description of the nature 
 and products of the island, have so much original freshness that 
 -one can easily understand iiow the poem has been interpreted as 
 the utterance of impressions received in the place itself." Carl 
 Forsstrand : "' Bland ( Heandrar och Liljor."' rl'ranslated by the 
 Rev. Manfred LilUefors.) 
 
 (2) It seems likely that this part of the island and the adja- 
 cent bay have borne the name Walsingham for almost three 
 hundred years. One of Sir George Soniers's shipwrecked 
 mariners was Robert Walsingham. That he bore his part 
 bravely, when, in 1010, after almost a year's e.^ile,* Sir George 
 sailed for Virginia out of the dangerous harbour of Bermu- 
 da, we know; "When shee strncke vpon the Rocke, the 
 Cock-swayne one Walnngham beeiug in the Boate, with a 
 quicke spirit (wheu wee were all amazed, and our hearts 
 failed) did give way stoutly, and so by Gods gooilness lice 
 led it out at three fadome, and three fadome and an halfe 
 
 ».An expedition bound for Virginia with settlers and supplies, 
 commanded by Sir George .Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Cap- 
 tain Newport, was dispersed in a storm ; and the admiral's ship, 
 the Sea-Adventure, was cast on the rocks, and firmly wedged be- 
 tween two of them, off the coast of Bermuda. By means of boats, 
 all on board, about one iiundred and fifty persons, came safely to 
 land. They found the reputed Isle of Devils to be "the richest, 
 healthfullest. and pleasing land Uhe quality and bigness thereof 
 considered) and meerly naturall, as ever man set foot upon." 
 Food was so abundant that another writer declares: ".\ll the 
 fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birds, and all the devils that 
 haunted the woods but herds of swine." Here they remained nine 
 months. .At length they sailed away to Virginia in two pinnaces 
 built of the cedar with which the land abounded. Arriving at 
 Jamestown, they found tlie colonists there in great destitution. 
 
 water." Walsingham is also mentioned by Captain 
 John Smith, who records that "the hunting and fish- 
 ing was appointed to Captain Robert Wahim^/iam 
 and Mr. Henry Shelly for the company in general." 
 
 Oddly enough, this Mr. Shelly "found a bay so 
 
 full of Mullets, as none of them before had ever seen 
 the like," and ////.( bay is known as Shelly Bay to the 
 present time. 
 
 Walsingham House is one of the oldest residences 
 on the islands. It was one of the first houses built 
 chiefly of stone, and is a good specimen of the early 
 style of building — upright cedar studs with lath and 
 plaster between. It seems worth while to glance at 
 its history and that of the family by memories of 
 whom it is haunted — one of those old Bermudian 
 families who played their parts so picturesquely in 
 the large, extravagant, bygone days before slavery 
 was abolished throughout the British Empire. 
 
 PerientTrott.a London merchant, was "Husband" 
 of the Bermuda Company. Three sons of his emi- 
 grated to the colony, to take charge of the whale fish- 
 eries, and to safeguard the interests of their kinsman, 
 the Earl of Warwick, .-^bout 1665 or 1670, one of 
 these three brothers, Samuel by name, built Walsing- 
 ham House, on land belonging to the Earl. He left 
 it by will to his eldest son. Years after the coming 
 of the Trotts, the Warwick family tried, unsuccess- 
 fully, to dispossess their relatives of this property. 
 For a generation or so the estate descended by entail. 
 
 The place was famous for open-handed hospitality. 
 
 .Almost immediately Sir George Somers started back for Bermuda 
 in one of the pinnaces, to found a settlement there as a base of 
 supplies for the Virginia colony. He reached the islands only to 
 die, and his discouraged companions embarked for England, 
 carrying Sir George Somers's body with them. But his heart they 
 buried at Bermuda, near the spot which is now the .St. George's 
 park. With an intentional double significance the islands were 
 renamed the Suiumer Isles. 
 
 In England the advantages of these delectible islands were 
 glowingly set forth, a Bermuda Company was formed, as an off 
 shoot from the \'irginia Company, and, in 1612. a colony was 
 established. 
 
 Not only was this storm the means of opening up the Beriiiuda.s 
 to European settlement, but a very good case ean be made out 
 to show that it was the original of -Shakspere's "Tempest" 
 
TOM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 
 
 14 
 
 No stranijer of distinction visited Bermuda but was 
 welcome at Walsinghani. Among others, the Rev. 
 John Whitetield, during one of his meteoric evangel- 
 izing tours, was entertained there. 
 
 At length the eldest son of the family displeased 
 his father by being "ower thick" with a Bermudian 
 girl of lower station than his own, and was sent away 
 to recover from his infatuation. After he was gone 
 the girl gave birth to a son; and on coming home he, 
 like an honourable man, married her. By English 
 law, however, this act did not legitimize the son 
 already born. Other children came. He inherited 
 the propertv, and, in course of time, died. The first 
 son born in wedlock had died earlier. To that son's 
 infant daughter was bequeathed another estate, at 
 Bailey's Bay, on the north shore of Bermuda, and 
 VValsingham went to the bastard. 
 
 The grandson of Samuel, the bastard, was Presi- 
 dent of Bermuda, and the last nf the Trotts to own 
 Walsingham. The President was a man who lived 
 not wiselv but too well; and, at his death, the place 
 passed by marshal's sale into the hands of another 
 family. 
 
 (3) In the later editions of Moore's works the 
 second distich appears thus altered : 
 
 " 'To the kindest, the dearest— oh! judge by that tear, 
 That I shed when 1 name him, how kind and how dear!' " 
 
 (4) Richard Cotter, Purser, R. N., wrote in 1824; 
 "The shade of the Calabash Tree, mentioned in the 
 writings of our celebrated poet, Moore, and which 
 time appears only to have improved, is still the rest- 
 ing-place of pic-nic parties from St. George's and oth- 
 er parts of the colony." Years afterward, in the intro- 
 duction to the second volume of his collected works, 
 Moore himself observed ; 
 
 " How truly politic it is in a poet to connect his verse with well 
 known and interesting localities, — to wed his song to scenes 
 already invested with fame, and thus lend it a chance of sharing 
 the charm which encircles them, — I liave myself, in more than 
 -one instance, very agreeably experienced. Among the memorials 
 of this description, wliich as I learn with pleasure and pride, still 
 keep me remembered in some of those beautiful regions of the 
 West which I visited, 1 shall mention but one slight instance, as 
 showing liow potently the Genius of the Place may lend to song a 
 life and imperishableness to which, in itself, it boasts no claim or 
 pretension. The following lines in one of my Bermudian poems: 
 ' "Twas thus by the shade of the Calabash tree. 
 With a few who could feel and remember like me.' 
 still live in memory, I am told, on those fairy shores, connecting 
 my name with the noble old tree, which, I believe, still adorns it. 
 One of the few treasures (of any kind) 1 possess, is a goblet formed 
 of one of the fruit-shells of tliis remarkable tree, which was brought 
 from Bermuda a few years since by Mr. Dudley Costello, and 
 which that gentleman very kindly presented to me.*'* 
 
 •"20th [March, 1S34]. A beautiful present from Mr. Costello 
 of a cup formed out of the calabash nut, which he brought some 
 years ago for me from Bermuda. The cup very handsomely and 
 tastefully mounted, and Bessy all delight with \\..^'~Moorc s 
 -Diary. 
 
 The old tree has been thus commemorated by a 
 Bermudian poet, Thomas E. Nelmes : 
 
 "Think of that social day. 
 
 Which gave the Tree its fame. 
 Full sixty years away,— 
 
 -And breathe in love his name. 
 Friends absent not forgot,— 
 
 Friends present ! frank and free. 
 Own this a pleasant spot. 
 
 And this a hallowed Tree." 
 
 (c) —"thickly sprinkled over hill and plain, 
 
 And by the margin of the dimpled main. 
 Oft half concealed o'er topping groves behind 
 Of lines, palmettoes, and the pride of Ind, 
 The white-washed cottages with smiling mien 
 Seemed tell-tales of the happiness within." 
 
 — T. E. Nelmes. 
 
 (6) viu ivouvvu"-A. new one is queen," Euripides: 
 "Medea," line 967 — in other words, "off with the old 
 love, on with the new." The fitness of the words, 
 which stand at the head of the "Odes to Nea," the 
 first of these "Odes" shows : 
 
 " Nea, the heart which she forsook 
 For thee were but a worthless shrine." 
 
 I was assured at Bermuda that " Nea" was an Indian 
 name ! 
 
 (7) Susette Harriet Lloyd. In her " Sketches of 
 Bermuda" (Londcfn; 1835), Miss Lloyd gives an ac- 
 count of her sojourn in Bermuda in l82g, as a member 
 of the family of Archdeacon Spencer. 
 
 (8) "DIED 
 
 "In St. George's, after a short illness, on the morning of the 
 2d instant, (aged 31 years), Mrs. HESTHER LOUISA TUCK- 
 ER, Wife of William Tucker, Esq., a Member of .Assembly, 
 and also a Magistrate for that Town and Parish. 
 
 " Possessing a most amiable and benevolent disposition, no one 
 was more esteemed and beloved by her Friends, when living, and 
 no one has been more unfeignedly regretted and lamented by them 
 after death, than Mrs. Tucker. 
 
 " The unprecedented assemblage of persons of either sex, and 
 of all ages and conditions, collected to pay the remains the last sad 
 tribute of respect, the tears which fell in sympathetic unison with 
 those that graced the modest eulogy of the pulpit : and those un- 
 numbered which bedewed her early grave, have sufficiently attested 
 the merits of the deceased : and the Individuals who are more im- 
 mediately affected by this dispensation of the Divine Providence, 
 will, doubtless, find due consolation in the well founded confidence, 
 that as the Friend and Relative wiiose loss they deplore had lived 
 here in the continued exercise of all the moral and social duties of 
 the Woman and the Christian, so when her mortal frame was com- 
 mitted to its kindred dust, her Immortal Spirit, 
 
 ' pure, even as the best are pitre^^ 
 
 had already 'winged its way' to those .l/ansioKS in the Meaiens, 
 not made with hands, but prepared 'ere time was." for the abode 
 of the 'departed just made perfect,' there to reap the unfading, the 
 never failing joys of an endless eternity."— 5fr/«7«A/ Gazette. 6 
 Dec, 1S17. 
 
 (g) Near the time of Moore's departure the man- 
 of-war Li-aiii/tr touched at Bermuda. On board of 
 her was the famous traveller, Basil Hall, then, how- 
 ever, a lively " mid " of sixteen. In later life. Captain 
 
TOM MOORK IN BERMUDA. 
 
 IS 
 
 Hall paid a trlowing tribute to Moore's poetic descrip- 
 tions : 
 
 "The most pleasing and most exact description which I know 
 of Bermuda," he writes, "is to be found in Moore's "Odes and 
 Epistles' - , 'J'he reason why his account exceeds in Ix^auty 
 that of other men probably is, that the scenes described he so 
 much beyond the scope of ordinary observation in colder climates, 
 and the feelings which they excite in the l^eholder are so much 
 higher than those produced by the scenery we have been accus- 
 tomed to look at, that, unless the imagination be deeply drawn 
 upon and the diction sustained at a correspondent pitch, the 
 words alone strike the ear, while the listener's fancy remains 
 where it was. In Moore's account there is not only no exaggera- 
 tion, but. on the contrary, a wonderful degret- of temperance in 
 the midst of a feast wliich, to his rich fancy, nnist have been 
 peculiarly tempting." 
 
 (ro) During his stay in Paris, Moore learned from 
 a Mr. Goold, a naval officer returned from Bermuda, 
 that " his little friend, Mrs. \V, Tucker, was dead, and 
 that they showed her f,''Tave at St. George's as being 
 that of Nea." 
 
 ( 1 1 ) " W hen I left Bermuda 1 could not help regretting that 
 the hopes which took me thither could not be even half realized, 
 for I should love to live there, and you would Hke it too, dear 
 mother; and I think, if the situation would give me but a fourth 
 of what I was so deludingly taught to expect, you should all have 
 come to me ; and though set apart from the rest of the world, we 
 should have found in that quiet spot, and under that sweet sky, 
 quite enough to cou)iferbalance iv/iat the rest of the ivQrld could 
 give us."' — Moore to his viother, \i May. 1804. 
 

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