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332 JANE ELIZABETH MOORE (1738–1796–?) Jane Elizabeth Moore was of English extraction. She gives a vivid account, in her Genuine Memoirs of Jane Elizabeth Moore (1785), of her work as a clerk in her father’s business. She moved to Dublin where she apparently bored Thomas Moore by insisting on reading her poems to him. In addition to the poem that follows, her volume of Miscellaneous Poems (Dublin, 1796) contains a poetic celebration of the opening of Maynooth College, Co. Kildare. On the Discovery of the Gold Mine in the County of Wicklow1 Say why so long in dark oblivion lay This mystic metal, in it’s native clay? Which millions long in distant climes have sought, And from it’s torrid regions millions brought; The glitt’ring lore, thus grasp’d with ardent speed, Has harmless millions doom’d at times to bleed! And tho’ by Poets oft has been despis’d, By them possest, it’s pleasures have been priz’d; To Nature yielding in her state deprav’d, Perverted gifts, which they before had crav’d. 10 Prolific bounties, Wicklow, long thy boast, May with this golden gleam upon thy coast, Vie with all Europe, Asia rich defy, And barb’rous Spanish maxims e’er descry. No harass’d victims to the torture brought, To sully true benevolence of thought; ’Tis by true efforts of industry gain’d, That ne’er by ghastly av’rice was arraign’d! Replete with hope, shall commerce swell her sail, And deep the plough in culture fresh prevail; 20 The tatter’d peasant by such bounty clad, With joyful toil shall make his children glad! According to G. N. Wright (A Guide to the County of Wicklow, 2nd ed., Dublin, 1827, p. 1 97), a nugget of pure gold was found in a riverbed near Avoca by ‘an old school-master’ in about 1775. A subsequent find in 1796 led to a ‘gold rush’; from 1796 until it was destroyed in 1798, the Wicklow gold mining operation was run by the government. 333 Jane Elizabeth Moore What happy prospects will in course combine, Where arts and science in a country shine; Those well united in a nation’s cause, Shall yield protection to it’s pristine laws: Thus if dispos’d on Reason’s solid ground, Shall gold diffuse it’s use to all around! By Virtue’s clue in each department spread, Shall this pure metal2 raise each drooping head, 30 And deck Hibernia with a pleasing grace, That may allure to home each native face;3 Where precept and example may entwine To strew that blessing in kind Heav’n’s design, In gifts transcendent of superior kind. Thus draw the line, preponderate success, And this new blessing shall with blessings bless. 2 ...

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