The Glimmer of Futurity, 1811–1815

Abstract

New Year’s Day, 1811: Thomas Moore, age thirty-one, had recently left his London lodgings after recovering from a cough and delighting in all of the invitations he was receiving from “booksellers, music-sellers, managers, &c., with offers for books, songs, plays, &c.”¹ The lures of metropolitan society, however, left Moore cold: he told his mother that he “often said I was careless about the attractions of gay society, but I think, for the first time, I begin to feel really so. I pass through the rows of fine carriages in Bond Street, without the slightest impatience to renew my acquaintance with those inside of them.”² Nevertheless, London exerted a fascination: in December he had reported that all the talk was that “there will be measures taken for a regency;”³ and, having left London before the New Year, he attempted to keep up with developments by asking Lady Donegal to “Tell me something, when you write, about the political secrets of London.”⁴