"I have now done with the subject, nor shall be easily tempted into a recurrence. Any mistakes or misstatements I may be proved to have made shall be corrected;--any new facts which it is in the power of others to produce will speak for themselves. To mere opinions I am not called upon to pay attention--and still less to insinuations or mysteries. I have here told what I myself know and think concerning my friend, and now leave his character, moral as well as literary, to the judgment of the world."
No sooner was the work on Byron completed than the prospect of another, no less lucrative, offered itself. A proposal was made, with Lady Canning's approbation, that Moore should write the Life of Canning. "The importance of the period, the abundance of the materials I should have to illustrate it, and my general coincidence with the principles of Canning's latter line of politics," as well as the money, all tempted Moore greatly, but he decided against it for a characteristic reason.
"An obstacle presented itself in the person of Lord Grey, of whose conduct, during the period in question, it would be necessary to speak with such a degree of freedom as both my high opinion of him, and my gratitude to him for much kindness, would render impossible. If left to myself, I might perhaps manage to do justice to all parties without offending any; but under the dictation of Lady Canning the thing would be impracticable."
The scruple was honourable, but it illustrates the growing difficulty of Moore's position. Bound by ties of long alliance to the Whigs, he was, in reality, less and less at one with either English party; and he claimed and exercised a perfect freedom of expression in so far as principles at least were concerned. But his regard for persons constantly hampered him, and, conscious of this personal loyalty, he did not cease to consider himself as one having claims on party rewards. Lord Lansdowne came into office under the coalition in 1827, and the Whig party were fully in power from 1830 onwards; yet Moore went unrewarded, and a trace of bitterness is clearly perceptible in his tone. Were it not that from 1829 onwards the Diary has been a good deal expurgated by its editor, we should probably hear more of this note. We have no direct expression of Moore's feelings either on the Act emancipating the Catholics or on the Reform Bill. It is sufficiently evident, however, from other passages, that Moore deprecated the tumultuary agitation by which the Duke of Wellington was persuaded to reverse the traditional policy of his party; it is probable that he considered the surrender as none the Less ignominious because he rejoiced to see it made. As to Reform, we have his mind plainly enough given in several later jeremiads. "We are now hastening to the brink with a rapidity which, croaker as I have always been, I certainly did not anticipate." That is again and again the burden of his song, and again and again he deplores that concessions were made in block, and not doled out by minimum doses. As Lord John Russell neatly observes, had Reform never passed, Moore would have lived and died a staunch Reformer. But the passing of Reform showed him for what he really was--an Irish politician of Grattan's school, hostile to every kind of Radicalism, but strong in defence of two things--the principle of religious toleration and the principle of nationality.