Haydon's financial embarrassments were perhaps the least of his trials. As has been seen, he had fallen into the hands of the money-lenders in early youth, and he had never been able to extricate himself from their clutches. But so many of his friends and colleagues--Godwin, Leigh Hunt, and Sir Thomas Lawrence among others--were in the same position, that Haydon must have felt he was insolvent in excellent company. As long as he was able to keep himself out of prison and the bailiffs out of his house, he seems to have considered that his affairs were positively nourishing, and at their worst his financial difficulties alone would never have driven him to self-destruction. Mrs. Browning was surely right when she wrote:--'The more I think the more I am inclined to conclude that the money irritation was merely an additional irritation, and that the despair, leading to revolt against life, had its root in disappointed ambition. The world did not recognise his genius, and he punished the world by withdrawing the light... All the audacity and bravery and self-calculation, which drew on him so much ridicule, were an agony in disguise--he could not live without reputation, and he wrestled for it, struggled for it,kickedfor it, forgetting grace of attitude in the pang. When all was vain he went mad and died... Poor Haydon! Think what an agony life was to him, so constituted!--his own genius a clinging curse! the fire and the clay in him seething and quenching one another!--the man seeing maniacally in all men the assassins of his fame! and with the whole world against him, struggling for the thing that was his life, through day and night, in thoughts and in dreams ... struggling, stifling, breaking the hearts of the creatures dearest to him, in the conflict for which there was no victory, though he could not choose but fight it. Tell me if Laocoön's anguish was not as an infant's sleep compared to this.'
Haydon wrote his own epitaph, and this, which he, at least, believed to be an accurate summary of his misfortunes and their cause, may fitly close this brief outline of his troubled life:--
'HERE LIETH THE BODY
OF
BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON,
An English Historical Painter, who, in a struggle to make the People, the Legislature, the Nobility, and the Sovereign of England give due dignity and rank to the highest Art, which has ever languished, and, until the Government interferes, ever will languish in England, fell a Victim to his ardour and his love of country, an evidence that to seek the benefit of your country by telling the Truth to Power, is a crime that can only be expiated by the ruin and destruction of the Man who is so patriotic and so imprudent.
'He was born at Plymouth, 26th of January 1786, and died on the [22nd of June] 18[46], believing in Christ as the Mediator and Advocate of Mankind:--
'"What various ills the Painter's life assail, Pride, Envy, Want, the Patron and the Jail."'
LADY MORGAN(SYDNEY OWENSON)
Sydney Owenson, afterwards Lady Morgan, From a drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
PART I
'What,' asks Lady Morgan in her fragment of autobiography, 'what has a woman to do with dates? Cold, false, erroneous dates! Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in a woman's autobiography.' The matter-of-fact Saxon would hardly know how to set about calculating a poetical idiosyncrasy by epochs, but our Celtic heroine was equal to the task; at any rate, she abstained so carefully throughout her career from all unnecessary allusion to what she called 'vulgar eras,' that the date of her birth remained a secret, even from her bitterest enemies. Her untiring persecutor, John Wilson Croker, declared that Sydney Owenson was born in 1775, while theDictionary of National Biographymore gallantly gives the date as 1783, with a query. But as Sir Charles Morgan was born in the latter year, and as his wife owned to a few years' seniority, we shall probably be doing her no injustice if we place the important event between 1778 and 1780.
Lady Morgan's detestation for dates was accompanied by a vivid imagination, an inaccurate memory, and a constitutional inability to deal with hard facts. Hence, her biographers have found it no easy task to grapple with the details of her career, her own picturesque, high-coloured narrative being not invariably in accord with the prosaic records gathered from contemporary sources. For example, according to the plain, unvarnished statement of a Saxon chronicler, Lady Morgan's father was one Robert MacOwen, who was born in 1744, the son of poor parents in Connaught. He was educated at a hedge-school, and on coming to man's estate, obtained a situation as steward to a neighbouring landowner. But, having been inspired with an unquenchable passion for the theatre, he presently threw up his post, and through the influence of Goldsmith, a 'Connaught cousin,' he obtained a footing on the English stage.
The Celtic version of this story, as dictated by Lady Morgan in her old age, is immeasurably superior, and at any rate deserves to be true. Early in the eighteenth century, so runs the tale, a hurling-match was held in Connaught, which was attended by all the gentry of the neighbourhood. The Queen of Beauty, who gave away the prizes, was Sydney Crofton Bell, granddaughter of Sir Malby Crofton of Longford House. The victor of the hurling-match was Walter MacOwen, a gentleman according to the genealogy of Connaught, but a farmer by position. Young, strong, and handsome, MacOwen, like Orlando, overthrew more than his enemies, with the result that presently there was an elopement in the neighbourhood, and an unpardonablemésalliancein the Crofton family. The marriage does not appear to have been a very happy one, since MacOwen continued to frequent all the fairs and hurling-matches of the country-side, but his wife consoled herself for his neglect by cultivating her musical and poetical gifts. She composed Irish songs and melodies, and gained the title of Clasagh-na-Vallagh, or Harp of the Valley. Her only son Robert inherited his father's good looks and his mother's artistic talents, and was educated by the joint efforts of the Protestant clergyman and the Roman Catholic priest.
When the boy was about seventeen, a rich, eccentric stranger named Blake arrived to take possession of the Castle of Ardfry. The new-comer, who was a musical amateur, presently discovered that there was a young genius in the neighbourhood. Struck by the beauty of Robert MacOwen's voice, Mr. Blake offered to take the youth into his own household, and educate him for a liberal profession, an offer that was joyfully accepted by Clasagh-na-Vallagh. The patron soon tired of Connaught, and carried off hisprotégéto London, where he placed him under Dr. Worgan, the famous blind organist of Westminster Abbey. At home, young MacOwen's duties were to keep his employer's accounts, to carve at table, and to sing Irish melodies to his guests. He was taken up by his distant kinsman, Goldsmith, who introduced him to the world behind the scenes, and encouraged him in his aspirations after a theatrical career.
Among the young Irishman's new acquaintances was Madame Weichsel,prima donnaof His Majesty's Theatre, and mother of the more celebrated Mrs. Billington. The lady occasionally studied her roles under Dr. Worgan, when MacOwen played the part of stage-lover, and, being of an inflammable disposition, speedily developed into a real one. This love-affair was the cause of a sudden reverse of fortune. During Mr. Blake's absence from town, Robert accompanied Madame Weichsel to Vauxhall, where she was engaged to sing a duet. Her professional colleague failing to appear, young MacOwen was persuaded to undertake the tenor part, which he did with pronounced success. But unfortunately Mr. Blake, who had returned unexpectedly from Ireland, was among the audience, and was angered beyond all forgiveness by this prematuredébut. When Robert went home, he found his trunks ready packed, and a letter of dismissal from his patron awaiting him. A note for £300, which accompanied the letter, was returned, and the prodigal drove off to his cousin Goldsmith, who, with characteristic good-nature, took him in, and promised him his interest with the theatrical managers.
According to Lady Morgan's account, Robert Owenson, as he now called himself in deference to the prevailing prejudice against both the Irish and the Scotch, was at once introduced to Garrick, and allowed to make hisdébutin the part of Tamerlane. But, from contemporary evidence, it is clear that he had gained some experience in the provinces before he made his first appearance on the London boards, when his Tamerlane was a decided failure. Garrick refused to allow him a second chance, but after further provincial touring, he obtained another London engagement, and appeared with success in such parts as Captain Macheath, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and Major O'Flaherty.
Owenson had been on the stage some years when he fell in love with Miss Jane Hill, the daughter of a respectable burgess of Shrewsbury. The worthy Mr. Hill refused his consent to his daughter's marriage with an actor, but the dashingjeune premier, like his father before him, carried off his bride by night, and married her at Lichfield before her irate parent could overtake them. Miss Hill was a Methodist by persuasion, and hated the theatre, though she loved her player. She induced her husband to renounce his profession for a time, and to appear only at concerts and oratorios. But the stage-fever was in his blood, and after a short retirement, we find him, in 1771, investing a part of his wife's fortune in a share in the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin, where he made his first appearance with great success in his favourite part of Major O'Flaherty, one of the characters in Cumberland's comedy,The West Indian. He remained one of the pillars of this theatre until 1782, when Ryder, the patentee, became a bankrupt. Owenson was then engaged by Richard Daly to perform at the Smock Alley Theatre, and also to fill the post of assistant-manager.
By this time Sydney had made her appearance in the world, arriving on Christmas Day in some unspecified year. According to one authority she was born on ship-board during the passage from Holyhead to Dublin, but she tells us herself that she was born at her father's house in Dublin during a Christmas banquet, at which most of the leading wits and literary celebrities of the capital were present. The whole party was bidden to her christening a month later, and Edward Lysaght, equally famous as a lawyer and an improvisatore, undertook to make the necessary vows in her name. In spite of this brilliant send-off, Sydney was not destined to bring good fortune to her father's house. A few years after her birth Owenson, having quarrelled with Daly, invested his savings in a tumble-down building known as the Old Music Hall, which he restored, and re-named the National Theatre. The season opened with a grand national performance, and everything promised well, when, like a bomb-shell, came the announcement that the Government had granted to Richard Daly an exclusive patent for the performance of legitimate drama in Dublin. Mr. Owenson was thus obliged to close his theatre at the end of his first season, but he received some compensation for his losses, and was offered a re-engagement under Daly on favourable terms, an offer which he had the sense to accept.
A short period of comparative calm and freedom from embarrassment now set in for the Owenson family. Mrs. Owenson was a careful mother, and extremely anxious about the education of her two little girls, Sydney and Olivia. There is a touch of pathos in the picture of the prim, methodistical English lady, who hated the dirt and slovenliness of her husband's people, was shocked at their jovial ways and free talk, looked upon all Papists as connections of Antichrist, and hoped for the salvation of mankind through the form of religion patronised by Lady Huntington. She was accustomed to hold up as an example to her little girls the career of a certain model child, the daughter of a distant kinsman, Sir Rowland Hill of Shropshire. This appalling infant had read the Bible twice through before she was five, and knitted all the stockings worn by her father's coachman. The lively Sydney detested the memory of her virtuous young kinswoman, for she had great difficulty in mastering the art of reading, though she learned easily by heart, and could imitate almost anything she saw. At a very early age she could go through the whole elaborate process of hair-dressing, from the first papillote to the last puff of the powder-machine, and amused herself by arranging her father's old wigs in one of the windows, under the inscription, 'Sydney Owenson, System, Tête, and Peruke Maker.'
Mr. Owenson found his friends among all the wildest wits of Dublin, but his wife's society was strictly limited, both at the Old Music Hall, part of which had been utilised as a dwelling, and at the country villa that her husband had taken for her at Drumcondra. Yet she does not appear to have permitted her religious prejudices to interfere with her social relaxations, since her three chief intimates at this time were the Rev. Charles Macklin (nephew of the actor), a great performer on the Irish pipes, who had been dismissed from his curacy for playing out the congregation on his favourite instrument; a Methodist preacher who had come over on one of Lady Huntingdon's missions; and a Jesuit priest, who, his order being proscribed in Ireland, was living in concealment, and in want, it was believed, of the necessaries of life. These three regularly frequented the Old Music Hall, where points of faith were freely discussed, Mrs. Owenson holding the position of Protestant Pope in the little circle. In order that the discussions might not be unprofitable, the Catholic servants were sometimes permitted to stand at the door, and gather up the crumbs of theological wisdom.
Female visitors were few, one of the most regular being a younger sister of Oliver Goldsmith, who lived with a grocer brother in a little shop which was afterwards occupied by the father of Thomas Moore. Miss Goldsmith was a plain, little old lady, who always carried a long tin case, containing a rouleaux of Dr. Goldsmith's portraits, which she offered for sale. Sydney much preferred her father's friends, more especially his musical associates, such as Giordani the composer, and Fisher the violinist, who spent most of their time at his house during their visits to Dublin. The children used to hide under the table to hear them make music, and picked up many melodies by ear. When Mr. Owenson was asked why he did not cultivate his daughter's talent, he replied, 'If I were to cultivate their talent for music, it might induce them some day to go upon the stage, and I would rather buy them a sieve of black cockles to cry about the streets of Dublin than see them the firstprima donnasof Europe.'
The little Owensons possessed one remarkable playfellow in the shape of Thomas Dermody, the 'wonderful boy,' who was regarded in Dublin as a second Chatterton. A poor scholar, the son of a drunken country schoolmaster, who turned him adrift at fourteen, Dermody had wandered up to Dublin, paying his way by reciting poetry and telling stories to his humble entertainers, with a few tattered books, one shirt, and two shillings for all his worldly goods. He first found employment as 'librarian' at a cobbler's stall, on which a few cheap books were exposed for sale. Later, he got employment as assistant to the scene-painter at the Theatre Royal, and here he wrote a clever poem on the leading performers, which found its way into the green-room. Anxious to see the author, the company, Owenson amongst them, invaded the painting-room, where they found the boy-poet, clad in rags, his hair clotted with glue, his face smeared with paint, a pot of size in one hand and a brush in the other. The sympathy of the kind-hearted players was aroused, and it was decided that something must be done for youthful genius in distress. Owenson invited the boy to his house, and, by way of testing his powers, set him to write a poetical theme on the subject of Dublin University. In less than three-quarters of an hour the prodigy returned with a poem of fifty lines, which showed an intimate acquaintance with the history of the university from its foundation. A second test having been followed by equally satisfactory results, it was decided that a sum of money should be raised by subscriptions, and that Dermody should be assisted to enter the university. Owenson, with his wife's cordial consent, took the young poet into his house, and treated him like his own son. Unfortunately, Dermody's genius was weighted by the artistic temperament; he was lazy, irregular in his attendance at college, and not particularly grateful to his benefactors. By his own acts he fell out of favour, the subscriptions that had been collected were returned to the donors, and his career would have come to an abrupt conclusion, if it had not been that Owenson made interest for him with Lady Moira, a distinguished patron of literature, who placed him in the charge of Dr. Boyd, the translator of Dante. Dermody must have had his good points, for he was a favourite with Mrs. Owenson, and the dear friend of Sydney and Olivia, whom he succeeded in teaching to read and write, a task in which all other preceptors had failed.
In 1788 Mrs. Owenson died rather suddenly, and the home was broken up. Sydney and Olivia were at once placed at a famous Huguenot school, which had originally been established at Portarlington, but was now removed to Clontarf, near Dublin. For the next three years the children had the benefit of the best teaching that could then be obtained, and were subjected to a discipline which Lady Morgan always declared was the most admirable ever introduced into a 'female seminary' in any country. Sydney soon became popular among her fellows, thanks to her knowledge of Irish songs and dances, and it is evident that her schooldays were among the happiest and most healthful of her early life. The school was an expensive one, and poor Owenson, who, with all his faults, seems to have been a careful and affectionate father, found it no easy matter to pay for the many 'extras.'
'I remember once,' writes Lady Morgan,' our music-teacher complained to my father of our idleness as he sat beside us at the piano, and we stumbled through the overture toArtaxerxes. His answer to her complaint was simple and graphic--for, drawing up the sleeve of a handsome surtout, he showed the threadbare sleeve of the black coat beneath, and said, touching the whitened seams, "I should not be driven to the subterfuge of wearing a greatcoat this hot weather to conceal the poverty of my dress beneath, if it were not that I wish to give you the advantage of such instruction as you are now neglecting."' The shaft went home, and the music-mistress had no occasion to complain again. After three years the headmistress retired on her fortune, the school was given up, and the two girls were placed at what they considered a very inferior establishment in Dublin. Here, however, they had the delight of seeing their father every Sunday, when the widower, leaving the attractions of the city behind, took his little daughters out walking with him. To this time belong memories of early visits to the theatre, where Sydney saw Mrs. Siddons for the first and last time, and Miss Farren as Susan in theMarriage of Figaro, just before her own marriage to Lord Derby. During the summer seasons Mr. Owenson toured round the provinces, and generally took his daughters with him, who seem to have been made much of by the neighbouring county families.
In 1794 the too optimistic Owenson unfortunately took it into his head that it would be an excellent speculation to build a summer theatre at Kilkenny. Lord Ormond, who took an interest in the project, gave a piece of land opposite the castle gates, money was borrowed, the theatre quickly built, and performers brought at great expense from Dublin. During the summer the house was filled nightly by overflowing audiences, and everything promised well, when the attorney who held a mortgage on the building, foreclosed, and bills to an enormous amount were presented. Mr. Owenson suddenly departed for the south of Ireland, having been advised to keep out of the way until after the final meeting of his creditors. His two daughters were placed in Dublin lodgings under the care of their faithful old servant, Molly Atkins, until their school should reopen.
Sydney had been requested to write to her father every day, and as she was passionately fond, to quote her own words, of writing about anything to any one, she willingly obeyed, trusting to chance for franks. Some of these youthful epistles were preserved by old Molly, the packet being indorsed on the cover, 'Letters from Miss Sydney Owenson to her father, God pity her!' But the young lady evidently did not consider herself an object of pity, for she writes in the best of spirits about the books she is reading, the people she is meeting, and all the little gaieties and excitements of her life. Somebody lends her anEssay on the Human Understanding, by Mr. Locke, Gent., whose theories she has no difficulty in understanding; and somebody else talks to her about chemistry (a word she has never heard at school), and declares that her questions are sosuggestive(another new word) that she might become a second Pauline Lavosier. She puts her new knowledge to practical effect by writing with a piece of phosphorus on her bedroom wall, 'Molly, beware!' with the result that Molly is frightened out of her wits, the young experimenter burns her hand, and the house is nearly set on fire. The eccentric Dermody turns up again, now a smart young ensign, having temporarily forsaken letters, and obtained a commission through the interest of Lord Moira. He addresses a flattering poem to Sydney, and passes on to rejoin his regiment at Cork, whence he is to sail for Flanders.
Mr. Owenson's affairs did not improve. He tried his fortune in various provincial theatres, but the political ferment of the years immediately preceding the Union, the disturbed state of the country, and the persecution of the Catholics, all spelt ruin for theatrical enterprises. As soon as Sydney realised her true position she rose to the occasion, and the letter that she wrote to her father, proposing to relieve him of the burden of her maintenance, is full of affection and spirit. It will be observed that as yet she is contented to express herself simply and naturally, without the fine language, the incessant quotations, and the mangled French that disfigured so much of her published work. The girl, who must now have been seventeen or eighteen, had seen her father's name on the list of bankrupts, but it had been explained to her that, with time and economy, he would come out of his difficulties as much respected as ever. Having informed him of her determination not to return to school, but to support herself in future, she continues:--
'Now, dear papa, I have two novels nearly finished. The first isSt. Clair; I think I wrote it in imitation ofWerther, which I read last Christmas. The second is a French novel, suggested by my reading theMemoirs of the Duc de Sully, and falling in love with Henri IV. Now, if I had time and quiet to finish them, I am sure I could sell them; and observe, sir, Miss Burney got £3000 forCamilla, and brought outEvelinaunknown to her father; but all this takes time.' Sydney goes on to suggest that Olivia shall be placed at a school, where Molly could be taken as children's maid, and that she herself should seek a situation as governess or companion to young ladies.
Through the good offices of her old dancing-master, M. Fontaine, who had been appointed master of ceremonies at the castle, Sydney was introduced to Mrs. Featherstone, or Featherstonehaugh, of Bracklin Castle, who required a governess-companion to her young daughters, and apparently did not object to youth and inexperience. The girl'sdébutin her employer's family would scarcely have made a favourable impression in any country less genial and tolerant than the Ireland of that period. On the night of her departure M. Fontaine gave a littlebal d'adieuin her honour, and as the mail passed the end of his street at midnight, it was arranged that Sydney should take her travelling-dress with her to the ball, and change before starting on her journey. Of course she took no count of the time, and was gaily dancing to the tune of 'Money in Both Pockets,' with an agreeable partner, when the horn sounded at the end of the street. Like an Irish Cinderella, away flew Sydney in her muslin gown and pink shoes and stockings, followed by her admirers, laden with her portmanteau and bundle of clothes. There was just time for Molly to throw an old cloak over her charge, and then the coach door was banged-to, and the little governess travelled away through the winter's night. In the excitement of an adventure with an officeren route, she allowed her luggage to be carried on in the coach, and arrived at Bracklin, a shivering little object, in her muslin frock and pink satin shoes. Her stammered explanations were received with amusement and sympathy by her kind-hearted hosts, and she was carried off to her own rooms, 'the prettiest suite you ever saw,' she tells her father, 'a study, bedroom, and bath-room, a roaring turf fire in the rooms, an open piano, and lots of books scattered about. Betty, the old nurse, brought me a bowl of laughing potatoes, and gave me a hearty "Much good may it do you, miss"; and didn't I tip her a word of Irish, which delighted her.... Our dinner-party were mamma and the two young ladies, two itinerant preceptors, a writing and elocution master, and a dancing-master, and Father Murphy, the P.P.--such fun!--and the Rev. Mr. Beaufort, the curate of Castletown.'
Miss Sydney was quite at her ease with all these new acquaintances, and so brilliant were her sallies at dinner that, according to her own account, the men-servants were obliged to stuff their napkins down their throats till they were nearly suffocated. The priest proposed her health in a comic speech, and a piper having come up on purpose to 'play in Miss Owenson,' the evening wound up with the dancing of Irish jigs, and the singing of Irish songs. One is inclined to doubt whether Sydney's instructions were of much scientific value, but it is evident that she enjoyed her occupation, was the very good friend of both employers and pupils, and knew nothing of the snubs and neglect experienced by so many of our modern Jane Eyres.
The death of Mrs. Featherstone's mother, Lady Steele, who had been one of the belles of Lord Chesterfield's court, placed a fine old house in Dominic Street, Dublin, at the disposal of the family. At the head of the musical society of Dublin at that date was Sir John Stevenson, who is now chiefly remembered for his arrangement of the airs to Moore's Melodies. One day, while giving a lesson to the Miss Featherstones, Sir John sung a song by Moore, of whom Sydney had then never heard. Pleased at her evident appreciation, Stevenson asked if she would like to meet the poet, and promised to take her and Olivia to a little musical party at his mother's house. Moore had already made a success in London society, which he followed up in the less exclusive circles of Dublin, and it was only between a party at the Provost's and another at Lady Antrim's that he could dash into the paternal shop for a few minutes to sing a couple of songs for his mother's guests. But the effect of his performance upon the Owenson sisters was electrical. They went home in such a state of spiritual exaltation, that they forgot to undress before getting into bed, and awoke to plan, the one a new romance, the other a portrait of the poet.
Sydney had already finished her first novel,St. Clair, which she determined to take secretly to a publisher. We are given to understand that this was her first independent literary attempt, though she tells us that her father had printed a little volume of her poems, written between the ages of twelve and fourteen. This book seems to have been published, however, in 1801, when the author must have been at least one-and-twenty. It was dedicated to Lady Moira, through whose influence it found its way into the most fashionable boudoirs of Dublin. Be this as it may, Sydney gives a picturesque description of her early morning's ramble in search of a publisher. She eventually left her manuscript in the reluctant hands of a Mr. Brown, who promised to submit it to his reader, and returned to her employer's house before her absence had been remarked. The next day the family left Dublin for Bracklin, and as Sydney had forgotten to give her address to the publisher, it is not surprising that, for the time being, she heard no more of her bantling. Some months later, when she was in Dublin again, she picked up a novel in a friend's house, and found that it was her ownSt. Clair. On recalling herself to the publisher's memory, she received the handsome remuneration of--four copies of her own work! The book, a foolish, high-flown story, a long way afterWerther, had some success in Dublin, and brought its author--literary ladies being comparatively few at that period--a certain meed of social fame.
Mr. Owenson, who had left the stage in 1798, was settled at Coleraine at this time, and desired to have both his daughters with him. Accordingly, Sydney gave up her employment, and tried to make herself contented at home. But the dulness and discomfort of the life were too much for her, and after a few months she took another situation as governess, this time with a Mrs. Crawford at Fort William, where she seems to have been as much petted and admired as at Bracklin. There is no doubt that Sydney Owenson was a flirt, a sentimental flirt, who loved playing with fire, but it has been hinted that she was inclined to represent the polite attentions of her gallant countrymen as serious affairs of the heart. She left behind her a packet of love-letters (presented to her husband after her marriage), and some of these are quoted in herMemoirs. The majority, however, point to no very definite 'intentions' on the part of the writers, but are composed in the artificially romantic vein which Rousseau had brought into fashion. Among the letters are one or two from the unfortunate Dermody, who had retired on half-pay, and was now living in London, engaged in writing his Memoirs (he was in the early twenties) and preparing his poems for the press.
'Were you a Venus I should forget you,' he writes to Sydney, 'but you are a Laura, a Leonora, and an Eloisa, all in one delightful assemblage.' He is evidently a little piqued by Sydney's admiration of Moore, for in a letter to Mr. Owenson he asks, 'Who is the Mr. Moore Sydney mentions? He is nobody here, I assure you, of eminence.' A little later, however, he writes to Sydney: 'You are mistaken if you imagine I have not the highest respect for your friend Moore. I have written the review of his poems in a strain of panegyric to which I am not frequently accustomed. I am told he is a most worthy young man, and I am certain myself of his genius and erudition.' Dermody's own career was nearly at an end. He died of consumption in 1802, aged only twenty-five.
If Sydney scandalised even the easy-going society of the period by her audacious flirtations, she seems to have had the peculiarly Irish faculty of keeping her head in affairs of the heart, and dancing in perfect security on the edge of a gulf of sentiment. Her work helped to steady her, and the love-scenes in her novels served as a safety-valve for her ardent imagination. Her father, notoriously happy-go-lucky about his own affairs, was a careful guardian of his daughters' reputation, while old Molly was a dragon of propriety. Sydney, moreover, had acquired one or two women friends, much older than herself, such as the literary Lady Charleville, and Mrs. Lefanu, sister of Sheridan, who were always ready with advice and sympathy. With Mrs. Lefanu Sydney corresponded regularly for many years, and in her letters discusses the debatable points in her books, and enlarges upon her own character and temperament. Chief among her ambitions at this time was that of being 'every inch a woman,' and she was a firm believer in the fashionable theory that true womanliness was incompatible with learning. 'I dropped the study of chemistry,' she tells her friend, 'though urged to it by, a favourite preceptor, lest I should be less thewoman. Seduced by taste and a thousand arguments to Greek and Latin, I resisted, lest I should not be avery woman. And I have studied music as a sentiment rather than as a science, and drawing as an amusement rather than as an art, lest I should become a musical pedant, or a masculine artist.'
In 1803, the Crawfords having decided to leave Fort William and live entirely in the country, Sydney, who had a mortal dread of boredom, gave up her situation, and returned to her father, who was now settled near Strabane. Here she occupied her leisure in writing a second novel,The Novice of St. Dominic, in six volumes. When this was completed, Mrs. Lefanu advised her to take it to London herself, and arrange for its publication. Quite alone, and with very little money in her pocket, the girl travelled to London, and presented herself before Sir Richard Phillips, a well-known publisher, with whom she had already had some correspondence. If we may believe her own testimony, Sir Richard fell an easy victim to her fascinations, and there is no doubt that he was very kind to her, introduced her to his wife, and found her a lodging. Better still, he bought her book (we are not told the price), and paid her for it at once. The first purchases that she made with her own earnings were a small Irish harp, which accompanied her thereafter wherever she went, and a black 'mode cloak.' After her return to Ireland, Phillips corresponded with her, and gave her literary advice, which is interesting in so far as it shows what the reading public of that day wanted, or was supposed to want.
'The world is not informed about Ireland,' wrote the publisher, 'and I am in a condition to command the light to shine. I am sorry you have assumed the novel form. A series of letters addressed to a friend in London, taking for your model the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, would have secured you the most extensive reading. A matter-of-fact and didactic novel is neither one thing nor the other, and suits no class of readers. Certainly, however,Paul and Virginiawould suggest a local plan; and it will be possible by writing three or four times over in six or eight months to produce what wouldcommandattention.' Sir Richard concluded his advice with the assurance that his correspondent had it in her to write an immortal work, if she would only labour it sufficiently, and that herthirdcopy was certain to be a monument of Irish genius. Miss Owenson was the last person to act upon the above directions; her books read as if they were dashed off in a fine frenzy of composition. Perhaps she feared that her cherished womanliness would be endangered by too close an attention to accuracy and style.
TheNovice, which appeared in 1804, was better thanSt. Clair, but such success as it enjoyed must have been due to the prevailing scarcity of first-rate, or even second-rate novelists, rather than to its own intrinsic merits. The public taste in fiction was not fastidious, and could swallow long-winded discussions and sentimental rhodomontade with an appetite that now seems almost incredible. TheNoviceis said to have been a favourite with Pitt in his last illness, but if this be true, the fact points rather to the decay of the statesman's intellect than to the literary value of the book. Still the author was tasting all the sweets of fame. She was much in request as a literary celebrity, and somebody had actually written for permission to select the best passages from her two books for publication in a work calledThe Morality of English Novels.
In the same year, 1804, an anonymous attack upon the Irish stage in sixFamiliar Epistleswas published in Dublin. So cruel and venomous were these epistles that one actor, Edwin, is believed to have died of chagrin at the attack upon his reputation. An answer to the libel presently appeared, which was signed S. O., and has been generally attributed to Sydney Owenson. TheFamiliar Epistleswere believed to be the work of John Wilson Croker, then young and unknown, and it may be that the lifelong malignity with which that critic pursued Lady Morgan was due to this early crossing of swords. Sydney herself was fond of hinting that Croker, in his obscure days, had paid her attentions which she, as a successful author, had not cared to encourage, and that wounded vanity was at the bottom of his hatred.
The next book on which Miss Owenson engaged was, if not her best, the one by which she is best known, namely,The Wild Irish Girl. The greater part of this was written while she was staying with Sir Malby Crofton at Longford House, from whose family, as has been seen, she claimed to be descended. Miss Crofton sat for the portrait of the heroine, and much of the scenery was sketched in the wild romantic neighbourhood. About the same time she collected and translated a number of Irish songs which were published under the title ofThe Lay of the Irish Harp. She thus anticipated Moore, and other explorers in this field, for which fact Moore at least gives her credit in the preface to his own collection. She was not a poet, but she wrote one ballad, 'Kate Kearney,' which became a popular song, and is not yet forgotten.
The story ofThe Wild Irish Girlis said to have been founded upon an incident in the author's own life. A young man named Everard had fallen in love with her, but as he was wild, idle, and penniless, his father called upon her to beg her not to encourage him, but to use her influence to make him stick to his work. Sydney behaved so well in the matter that the elder Mr. Everard desired to marry her himself, and though his offer was not accepted, he remained her staunch friend and admirer. The 'local colour' in the book is carefully worked up; indeed, in the present day it would probably be thought that the story was overweighted by the account of local manners and customs. Phillips, alarmed at the liberal principles displayed in the work, which he thought would be distasteful to English patriots, refused at first to give the author her price. To his horror and indignation Miss Owenson, whom he regarded as his own particular property, instantly sent the manuscript to a rival bookseller, Johnson, who published for Miss Edgeworth. Johnson offered £300 for the book, while Phillips had only offered £200 down, and £50 on the publication of the second and third editions respectively. The latter, however, was unable to make up his mind to lose the treasure, and after much hesitation and many heart-burnings, he finally wrote to Miss Owenson:--
'DEAR BEWITCHING AND DELUDING SYKEN,--Not being able to part from you, I have promised your noble and magnanimous friend, Atkinson [who was conducting the negotiations], the £300.... It will be long before I forgive you! At least not till I have got back the £300 and another £100 along with it.' Then follows a passage which proves that the literary market, in those days at any rate, was not overstocked: 'If you know any poor bard--a real one, no pretender--I will give him a guinea a page for his rhymes in theMonthly Magazine. I will also give for prose communications at the rate of six guineas a sheet.'
The Wild Irish Girl, whose title was suggested by Peter Pindar, made a hit, more especially in Ireland, and the author woke to find herself famous. She became known to all her friends as 'Glorvina,' the name of the heroine, while the Glorvina ornament, a golden bodkin, and the Glorvina mantle became fashionable in Dublin. The book was bitterly attacked, probably by Croker, in theFreeman's Journal, but the best bit of criticism upon it is contained in a letter from Mr. Edgeworth to Miss Owenson. 'Maria,' he says, 'who reads as well as she writes, has entertained us with several passages fromThe Wild Irish Girl, which I thought superior to any parts of the book I had read. Upon looking over her shoulder, I found she had omitted some superfluous epithets. Dared she have done this if you had been by? I think she would; because your good sense and good taste would have been instantly her defenders.' It must be admitted that all Lady Morgan's works would have gained by the like treatment.
In an article called 'My First Rout,' which appeared inThe Book of the Boudoir(published in 1829), Lady Morgan describes a party at Lady Cork's, where she was lionised by her hostess, the other guests having been invited to meet the Wild Irish Girl. The celebrities present were brought up and introduced to Miss Owenson with a running comment from Lady Cork, which, though it must be taken with a grain of salt, is worth transcribing:--
'Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl you were so anxious to meet. I assure you she talks quite as well as she writes. Now, my dear, do tell Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories you told us at Lord Charleville's. Mrs. Abington says you would make a famous actress, she does indeed. This is the Duchess of St. Albans--she has yourWild Irish Girlby heart. Where is Sheridan? Oh, here he is; what, you know each other already?Tant mieux.Mr. Lewis, do come forward; this is Monk Lewis, of whom you have heard so much--but you must not read his works, they are very naughty.... You know Mr. Gell; he calls you the Irish Corinne. Your friend, Mr. Moore, will be here by-and-by. Do see, somebody, if Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Kemble are come yet. Now pray tell us the scene at the Irish baronet's in the Rebellion that you told to the ladies of Llangollen; and then give us your blue-stocking dinner at Sir Richard Phillips'; and describe the Irish priests.'
At supper Sydney was placed between Lord Erskine and Lord Carysfort, and was just beginning to feel at her ease when Mr. Kemble was announced. Mr. Kemble, it soon became apparent, had been dining, and had paid too much attention to the claret. Sitting down opposite Miss Owenson, he fixed her with an intense and glassy stare. Unfortunately, her hair, which she wore in the fashionable curly 'crop,' aroused his curiosity. Stretching unsteadily across the table, he suddenly, to quote her own words, 'struck his claws into my locks, and addressing me in his deepest tones, asked, "Little girl, where did you buy your wig?"' Lord Erskine hastily came to the rescue, but Kemble, rendered peevish by his interference, took a volume ofThe Wild Irish Girlout of his pocket, and after reading aloud one of the most high-flown passages, asked, 'Little girl, why did you write such nonsense, and where did you get all those hard words?' Sydney delighted the company by blurting out the truth: 'Sir, I wrote as well as I could, and I got the hard words out of Johnson's Dictionary.' That Kemble spoke the truth in his cups may be proved by the following sentence, which is a fair sample of the general style of the book: 'With a character tinctured with the brightest colouring of romantic eccentricity [a father is describing his son, the hero], but marked by indelible traces of innate rectitude, and ennobled by the purest principles of native generosity, the proudest sense of inviolable honour, I beheld him rush eagerly on life, enamoured of its seeming good, incredulous of its latent evils, till, fatally entangled in the spells of the latter, he fell an early victim to their successful allurements.'
The Wild Irish Girlwas followed byPatriotic Sketchesand a volume of poems, for which Sir Richard Phillips offered £100 before he read them. A little later, in 1807, an operetta calledThe First Attempt, or theWhim of the Moment, the libretto by Miss Owenson and the music by T. Cooke, was performed at the Dublin Theatre. The Duke of Bedford, then Lord-Lieutenant, attended in state, the Duchess wore a Glorvina bodkin, and the entertainment was also patronised by the officers of the garrison and all the liberal members of the Irish bar. The little piece, in which Mr. Owenson acted an Irish character, was played for several nights, and brought its author the handsome sum of £400. This, however, seems to have been Sydney's first and last attempt at dramatic composition.
The family fortunes had improved somewhat at this time, for Olivia, who had gone out as a governess, became engaged to Dr., afterwards Sir Arthur Clarke, a plain, elderly little gentleman, who, however, made her an excellent husband. Having a good house and a comfortable income, he was able to offer a home to Mr. Owenson and to the faithful Molly. For the present, Sydney, though always on excellent terms with her brother-in-law, preferred her independence. She established herself in lodgings in Dublin, and made the most of the position that her works had won for her. Her flirtations and indiscretions provided the town with plenty of occasion for scandal, and there is a tradition that one strictly proper old lady, on being asked to chaperon Miss Owenson to the Castle, replied that when Miss Owenson wore more petticoats and less paint she would be happy to do so. Yet another tradition has been handed down to the effect that Miss Owenson appeared at one of the Viceregal balls in a dress, the bodice of which was trimmed with the portraits of her rejected lovers!
Foremost among our heroine's admirers at this time was Sir Charles Ormsby, K.C., then member for Munster, He was a widower, deeply in debt, and a good deal older than Sydney, but if there was no actual engagement, there was certainly an 'understanding' between the pair. In May, 1808, Miss Owenson was on a visit to the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley at Penrhôs (one of the new friends her celebrity had gained for her), whence she wrote a sentimental epistle to Sir Charles Ormsby. The Sir John Stanley mentioned in the letter was the husband of Maria Josepha Holroyd, to whom he had been married in 1796.
'The figure and person of Lady Stanley are inimitable,' writes Sydney. 'Vandyck would have estimated her at millions. Though old, her manners, her mind, and her conversation are all of the best school.... Sir John Stanley is a mancomme il y en a peu. Something at first of English reserve; but when worn off, I never met a mind more daring, more independent in its reflections, more profound or more refined in its ideas. He said a thousand things like you; I am convinced he has loved as you love. We sat up till two this morning talking of Corinne.... I have been obliged to sing "Deep in Love" so often for my handsome host, and every time it isas for youI sing it.' The letter concludes with the words, 'Aimons toujours comme à l'ordinaire.' The pair may have loved, but they were continually quarrelling, and their intimacy was finally broken a year or two later. Lady Morgan preserved to the end of her days a packet of love-letters indorsed, 'Sir Charles Montague Ormsby, Bart., one of the most brilliant wits, determinedroués, agreeable persons, and ugliest men of his day.'
The summer of this year, 1808, Miss Owenson spent in a round of visits to country-houses, and in working, amid many distractions, at her Grecian novel,Ida of Athens. After the first volume had gone to press, Phillips took fright at some of the opinions therein expressed, and refused to proceed further with the work. It was then accepted by Longmans, who, however, were somewhat alarmed at what they considered the Deistical principles and the taint of French philosophy that ran through the book. Ida is a houri and a woman of genius, who dresses in a tissue of woven air, has a taste for philosophical discussions, and a talent for getting into perilous situations, from which her strong sense of propriety invariably delivers her. This book was the subject of adverse criticism in the first number of theQuarterly Review, the critic being, it is believed, Miss Owenson's old enemy, Croker. As a work of art, the novel was certainly a just object of ridicule, but the personalities by which the review is disfigured were unworthy of a responsible critic.
'The language,' observes the reviewer, 'is an inflated jargon, composed of terms picked up in all countries, and wholly irreducible to any ordinary rules of grammar and sense. The sentiments are mischievous in tendency, profligate in principle, licentious and irreverent in the highest degree.' The first part of this accusation was only too well founded, but the licentiousness of which Lady Morgan's works were invariably accused in theQuarterly Review, can only have existed in the mind of the reviewer. One cannot but smile to think how many persons with a taste for highly-spiced fiction must have been set searching through Lady Morgan's novels by these notices, and how bitterly they must have been disappointed. The review in question concludes with the remark that if the author would buy a spelling-book, a pocket-dictionary, exchange her raptures for common sense, and gather a few precepts of humility from the Bible, 'she might hope to prove, not indeed a good writer of novels, but a useful friend, a faithful wife, a tender mother, and a respectable and happy mistress of a family.' This impertinence is thoroughly characteristic of the days when theQuarterlywas regarded as an amusing but frivolous, not to say flippant, publication.
Ida of Athensreceived the honour of mention in a note toChilde Harold. 'I will request Miss Owenson,' writes Byron, 'when she next chooses an Athenian heroine for her four volumes, to have the goodness to marry her to somebody more of a gentleman than a "Disdar Aga" (who, by the way, is not an Aga), the most impolite of petty officers, the greatest patron of larceny Athens ever saw (except Lord E[lgin]), and the unworthy occupant of the Acropolis, on a handsome stipend of 150 piastres (£8 sterling), out of which he has to pay his garrison, the most ill-regulated corps in the ill-regulated Ottoman Empire. I speak it tenderly, seeing I was once the cause of the husband of Ida nearly suffering the bastinado; and because the said Disdar is a turbulent fellow who beats his wife, so that I exhort and beseech Miss Owenson to sue for a separate maintenance on behalf of Ida.'
In 1809 Lady Abercorn, the third wife of the first Marquis, having taken a sudden fancy to Miss Owenson, proposed that she should come to Stanmore Priory, and afterwards to Baron's Court, as a kind of permanent visitor. A fine lady of the old-fashioned, languid, idle, easily bored type, Lady Abercorn desired a lively, amusing companion, who would deliver her from the terrors of a solitudeà deux,make music in the evenings, and help to entertain her guests. It was represented to Sydney that such an invitation was not lightly to be refused, but as acceptance involved an almost total separation from her friends, she hesitated to enter into any actual engagement, and went to the Abercorns for two or three months as an ordinary visitor. Lord Abercorn, who was then between fifty and sixty, had been married three times, and divorced once. So fastidious a fine gentleman was he that the maids were not allowed to make his bed except in white kid gloves, and his groom of his chambers had orders to fumigate his rooms after liveried servants had been in them. He is described as handsome, witty, and blasé, arouéin principles and a Tory in politics. Nothing pleased Lady Morgan better in her old age, we are told, than to have it insinuated that there had been 'something wrong' between herself and Lord Abercorn.
In January, 1810, Sydney writes to Mrs. Lefanu from Stanmore Priory to the effect that she is the best-lodged, best-fed, dullest author in his Majesty's dominions, and that the sound of a commoner's name is refreshment to her ears. She is surrounded by ex-lord-lieutenants, unpopular princesses (including her of Wales) deposed potentates (including him of Sweden), half the nobility of England, and many of the best wits and writers. She had sat to Sir Thomas Lawrence for her portrait, and sold her Indian novel,The Missionary,for a famous price. Lord Castlereagh, while staying at Stanmore, heard portions of the work read aloud, and admired it so much that he offered to take the author to London, and give her a rendezvous with her publisher in his own study. Stockdale, the publisher, was so much impressed by his surroundings that he bid £400 for the book, and the agreement was signed and sealed under Lord Castlereagh's eye.The Missionarywas not so successful asThe Wild Irish Girl,and added nothing to the author's reputation.
It was not until the end of 1810 that Miss Owenson decided to become a permanent member of the Abercorn household. About this time, or a little later, she wrote a short description of her temperament and feelings, from which a sentence or two may be quoted. 'Inconsiderate and indiscreet, never saved by prudence, but often rescued by pride; often on the verge of error, but never passing the line. Committing myself in every wayexcept in my own esteem--without any command over my feelings, my words, or writings--yet full of self-possession as to action and conduct.' After describing her sufferings from nervous susceptibility and mental depression, she continues: 'But the hand that writes this has lost nothing of the contour of health or the symmetry of youth. I am in possession of all the fame I ever hoped or ambitioned. I wear not the appearance of twenty years; I am now, as I generally am, sad and miserable.'
In 1811 Dr. Morgan, a good-looking widower of about eight-and-twenty, accepted the post of private physician to Lord Abercorn. He was a Cambridge man, an intimate friend of Dr. Jenner's, and possessed a small fortune of his own. When he first arrived at Baron's Court, Miss Owenson was absent, and he heard so much of her praises that he conceived a violent prejudice against her. On her return she set to work systematically to fascinate him, and succeeded even better than she had hoped or desired. In Lady Abercorn he had a warm partisan, but it may be suspected that the ambitious Miss Owenson found it hard to renounce all hopes of a more brilliant match. The Abercorns having vowed that Dr. Morgan should be made Sir Charles, and that they would push his fortunes, Sydney yielded to their importunities so far as to write to her father, and ask his consent to her engagement.
'I dare say you will be amazingly astonished,' she observes, 'but not half so much as I am, for Lord and Lady Abercorn have hurried on the business in such a manner that I really don't know what I am about. They called me in last night, and, more like parents than friends, begged me to be guided by them--that it was their wish not to lose sight of me ... and that if I accepted Morgan, the man upon earth they most esteemed and approved, they would be friends to both for life--that we should reside with them one year after our marriage, so that we might lay up our income to begin the world. He is also to continue their physician. He has now £500 a year, independent of his practice. I don't myself see the thing quite in the light they do; but they think him a man of such great abilities, such great worth and honour, that I am the most fortunate person in the world.'
To her old friend, Mrs. Lefanu, she writes in much the same strain. 'The licence and ring have been in the house these ten days, and all the settlements made; yet I have been battling off from day to day, and have only ten minutes back procured a little breathing time. The struggle is almost too great for me. On one side engaged, beyond retrieval, to a man who has frequently declared to my friends that if I break off he will not survive it! On the other, the dreadful certainty of being parted for ever from a country and friends I love, and a family I adore.'
The 'breathing time' was to consist of a fortnight's visit to her sister, Lady Clarke, in Dublin, in order to be near her father, who was in failing health. The fortnight, however, proved an exceedingly elastic period. Mr. Owenson was not dangerously ill, the winter season was just beginning, and Miss Owenson was more popular than ever. Her unfortunate lover, as jealous as he was enamoured, being detained by his duties at Baron's Court, could only write long letters of complaint, reproach, and appeal to his hard-hearted lady. Sydney was thoroughly enjoying herself, and was determined to make the most of her last days of liberty. She admitted afterwards that she had behaved very badly at this time, and deserved to have lost the best husband woman ever had.
'I picture to myself,' writes poor Dr. Morgan, 'the thoughtless and heartless Glorvina trifling with her friend, jesting at his sufferings, and flirting with every man she meets.' He sends her some commissions, but declares that there is only one about which he is really anxious, 'and that is to love meexclusively; to prefer me to every other good; to think of me, speak of me, write to me, and look forward to our union as to the completion of every wish, as I do by you. Do this, and though you grow as ugly as Sycorax, you will never lose in me the fondest, most doating, affectionate of husbands. Glorvina, I was born for tenderness; my business in life isto love.... I read part ofThe Way to Keep Himthis morning, and I see now you take the widow for your model; but it won't do, for though I love you ineverymood, it is only when you are true to nature, passionate and tender, that I adore you. You are never less interesting to me than when youbrillezin a large party.'
The fortnight's leave of absence had been granted in September, and by the end of November Dr. Morgan is thoroughly displeased with his truantfiancée, and asks why she could not have told him when she went away, that she intended to stay till Christmas. 'I know, he writes, 'this is but a specimen of the roundabout policy of all your countrywomen. How strange it is that you, who are in generalgreatbeyond every woman I know, philosophical and magnanimous, shouldin detailbe so often ill-judging, wrong, and (shall I say) little?' In December Sydney writes to say that she will return directly after Christmas, and declares that the terrible struggle of feeling, which she had tried to forget in every species of mental dissipation, is now over; friends, relatives, country, all are resigned, and she is his for ever! A little later she shows signs of wavering again; she cannot make up her mind to part from her invalid father just yet; but this time Dr. Morgan puts his foot down, and issues his ultimatum in a stern and manly letter. He will be trifled with no longer. Sydney must either keep her promise and return at Christmas, or they had better part, never to meet again. 'The love I require,' he writes, 'is no ordinary affection. The woman who marries me must beidentifiedwith me. I must have a large bank of tenderness to draw upon. I must have frequent profession and frequent demonstration of it. Woman's love is all in all to me; it stands in place of honours and riches, and what is yet more, in place of tranquillity of mind.'
This letter, backed by one from Lady Abercorn, brought Sydney to her senses. In the first days of the new year (1812) she arrived at Baron's Court, a little shamefaced, and more than a little doubtful of her reception. The marquis was stiff, and the marchioness stately, but Sir Charles, who had just been knighted by the Lord Lieutenant, was too pleased to get his lady-love back, to harbour any resentment against her. A few days after her return, as she was sitting over the fire in a morning wrapper, Lady Abercorn came in and said:
'Glorvina, come upstairs directly and be married; there must be no more trifling.'
The bride was led into her ladyship's dressing-room, where the bridegroom was awaiting her in company with the chaplain, and the ceremony took place. The marriage was kept a secret from the other guests at the time, but a few nights later Lord Abercorn filled his glass after dinner, and drank to the health of 'Sir Charles and Lady Morgan.'
PART II
The marriage, unpromising as it appeared at the outset, proved an exceptionally happy one. Sir Charles was a straightforward, worthy, if somewhat dull gentleman, with no ambition, a nervous distaste for society, and a natural indolence of temperament. To his wife he gave the unstinted sympathy and admiration that her restless vanity craved, while she invariably maintained that he was the wisest, brightest, and handsomest of his sex. She seems to have given him no occasion for jealousy after marriage, though to the last she preserved her passion for society, and her ambition for social recognition and success. The first year of married life, which she described as a period of storm, interspersed with brilliant sunshine, was spent with the Abercorns at Baron's Court.
'Though living in a palace,' wrote Sydney to Mrs. Lefanu, early in 1812, 'we have all the comfort and independence of a home.... As to me, I amevery inch a wife, and so ends that brilliant thing that was Glorvina.N.B.--I intend to write a book to explode the vulgar idea of matrimony being the tomb of love. Matrimony is the real thing, and all before but leather and prunella.' In a letter to Lady Stanley she paints Sir Charles in the romantic colours appropriate to a novelist's husband. 'Inlovehe is Sheridan's Falkland, and in his view of things there is amélangeof cynicism and sentiment that will never suffer him to be as happy as the inferior million that move about him. Marriage has taken nothing from theromanceof his passion for me; and by bringing a sense ofpropertywith it, has rendered him more exigent and nervous about me than before.'
The luxury of Baron's Court was probably more than counterbalanced by the inevitable drawbacks of married life in a patron's household, where the husband, at least, was at that patron's beck and call. Before the end of the year, the Morgans were contemplating a modest establishment of their own, and Sydney had set to work upon a novel, the price of which was to furnish the new house. Mr. Owenson had died shortly after his daughter's marriage, and Lady Morgan persuaded her husband to settle in Dublin, in order that she might be near her sister and her many friends. A house was presently taken in Kildare Street, and Sir Charles, who had obtained the post of physician to the Marshalsea, set himself to establish a practice. Lady Morgan prided herself upon her housewifely talents, and in a letter dated May, 1813, she describes how she has made their old house clean and comfortable, all that their means would permit, 'except for one little bit of a room, four inches by three, which is fitted up in theGothic, and I have collected into it the best part of a very good cabinet of natural history of Sir Charles's, eight or nine hundred volumes of choice books in French, English, Italian, and German, some little curiosities, and a few scraps of old china, so that, with muslin draperies, etc., I have made no contemptible set-out.... With respect to authorship, I fear it is over; I have been making chair-covers instead of systems, and cheapening pots and pans instead of selling sentiment and philosophy.'
In the midst of all her domestic labours, however, Lady Morgan contrived to finish a novel,O'Donnel, which Colburn published in 1814, and for which she received £550. The book was ill-reviewed, but it was an even greater popular success thanThe Wild Irish Girl. The heroine, like most of Lady Morgan's heroines, is evidently meant for an idealised portrait of herself, and the great ladies by whom she is surrounded are sketched from Lady Abercorn and certain of the guests at Baron's Court. The Liberal, or as they would now be called, Radical principles inculcated in the book gave bitter offence to the author's old-fashioned friends, and increased the rancour of her Tory reviewers. ButO'Donnelfound numerous admirers, among them no less a person than Sir Walter Scott, who notes in his diary for March 14, 1826: 'I have amused myself occasionally very pleasantly during the last few days by reading over Lady Morgan's novel ofO'Donnel, which has some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description, and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being so pleased with it at first. There is a want of story, always fatal to a book on the first reading--and it is well if it gets the chance of a second.'
The following year, 1815, France being once again open to English travellers, the Morgans paid a visit to Paris, Lady Morgan having undertaken to write a book about what was then a strange people and a strange country. The pair went a good deal into society, and made many friends, among them Lafayette, Cuvier, the Comte de Ségur, Madame de Genlis, and Madame Jerome Bonaparte. Sydney, whose Celtic manners were probably more congenial to the French than Anglo-Saxon reserve, seems to have received a great deal of attention, and her not over-strong head was slightly turned in consequence.
'The French admire you more than any Englishwoman who has appeared here since the Battle of Waterloo,' wrote Madame Jerome Bonaparte to Lady Morgan, after the latter had returned to Ireland. 'France is the country you should reside in, because you are so much admired, and here no Englishwoman has received the same attentions since you. I am dying to see your last publication. Public expectation is as high as possible. How happy you must be at filling the world with your name as you do! Madame de Staël and Madame de Genlis are forgotten; and if the love of fame be of any weight with you, your excursion to Paris was attended with brilliant success.'
Madame de Genlis, in herMemoirs, gives a more soberly-worded account of the impression produced by Lady Morgan on Parisian society. The author ofFranceis described as 'not beautiful, but with something lively and agreeable in her whole person. She is very clever, and seems to have a good heart; it is a pity that for the sake of popularity she should have the mania of meddling in politics.... Her vivacity and rather springing carriage seemed very strange in Parisian circles. She soon learned that good taste of itself condemned that kind of demeanour; in fact, gesticulation and noisy manners have never been popular in France.' The spoilt little lady was by no means satisfied with this portrait, and Sir Charles, who was away from home at the time theMemoirsappeared, writes to console her. 'You must not mind that lying old witch Madame de Genlis' attack upon you,' says the admiring husband. 'I thought she would not let you off easily; you were not only a better and younger (andImay sayprettier) author than herself, but also a more popular one.'
Over the price to be paid forFrance, to which Sir Charles contributed some rather heavy chapters on medical science, political economy, and jurisprudence, there was the usual battle between the keen little woman and her publisher. Colburn, having done well withO'Donnel, felt justified in offering £750 for the new work, but Lady Morgan demanded £1000, and got it. The sum must have been a substantial compensation for the wounds that her vanity received at the hands of the reviewers.France, which made its appearance in 1817, in two volumes quarto, was eagerly read and loudly abused. Croker, in theQuarterly Review, attacked the book, or rather the author, in an article which has become almost historic for its virulence. Poor Lady Morgan was accused of bad taste, bombast and nonsense, blunders, ignorance of the French language and manners, general ignorance, Jacobinism, falsehood, licentiousness, and impiety! The first four or five charges might have been proved with little difficulty, if it were worth while to break a butterfly on a wheel, but it was necessary to distort the meaning and even the text of the original in order to give any colour to the graver accusations.
Croker had discovered, much to his delight, that the translator of the work (which was also published in Paris) had subjoined a note to some of Lady Morgan's scraps of French, in which he confessed that though the words were printed to look like French, he could not understand them. The critic observes,à proposof this fact, 'It is, we believe, peculiar to Lady Morgan's works, that her English readers require an English translation of her English, and her French readers a French translation of her French.' This was a fair hit, as also was the ridicule thrown upon such sentences as 'Cider is not held in any estimation by thevéritables Amphitryonsof ruralsavoir faire.' Croker professes to be shocked at Lady Morgan's mention ofLes Liaisons Dangereuses, having hitherto cherished the hope that 'no British female had ever seen this detestable book'; while his outburst of virtuous indignation at her mention of the 'superior effusions' of Parny, which some Frenchman had recommended to her, is really superb. 'Parny,' he exclaims, 'is the most beastly, the most detestably wicked and blasphemous of all the writers who have ever disgraced literature.Les Guerres des Dieuxis the most dreadful tissue of obscenity and depravity that the devil ever inspired to the depraved heart of man, and we tremble with horror at the guilt of having read unwittingly even so much of the work as enables us to pronounce this character of it.'
Croker concludes with the hope that he has given such an idea of this book as might prevent, in some degree, the circulation of trash which, under the name of a 'Ladyauthor,' might otherwise have found its way into the hands of young persons of both sexes, for whose perusal it was, on the score both of morals and politics, utterly unfit. Such a notice naturally defeated its own object, andFrancewent triumphantly through several editions. The review attracted almost as much attention as the book, and many protests were raised against it. 'What cruel work you make with Lady Morgan,' wrote Byron to Murray. 'You should recollect that she is a woman; though, to be sure, they are now and then very provoking, still as authoresses they can do no great harm; and I think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us Jacobin gentlemen for you to work upon.' The Regent himself, according to Lady Charleville's report, had said of Croker: 'D----d blackguard to abuse a woman; couldn't he let herFrancealone, if it be all lies, and read her novels, and thank her, by Jasus, for being a good Irishwoman?'
Lady Morgan, as presently appeared, was not only quite able to defend herself, but to give as good as she got. Peel, in a letter to Croker, says: 'Lady Morgan vows vengeance against you as the supposed author of the article in theQuarterly, in which her atheism, profanity, indecency, and ignorance are exposed. You are to be the hero of some novel of which she is about to be delivered. I hope she has not heard of your predilection for angling, and that she will not describe you as she describes one of her heroes, as "seated in hispiscatorycorner, intent on the destruction of the finny tribe."' 'Lady Morgan,' it seems, replies Croker, 'is resolved to make me read one of her novels. I hope I shall feel interested enough to learn the language. I wrote the first part of the article in question, but was called away to Ireland when it was in the press; and I am sorry to say that some blunders crept in accidentally, and one or two were premeditatedly added, which, however, I do not think Lady Morgan knows enough of either English, French, or Latin to find out. If she goes on, we shall have sport.'
Early in 1818 Colburn wrote to suggest that the Morgans should proceed to Italy with a view to collaborating in a book on that country, and offered them the handsome sum of £2000 for the copyright. By this time Sir Charles had lost most of his practice, owing to his publication of a scientific work,The Outlines of the Physiology of Life, which was considered objectionably heterodox by the Dublin public. There was no obstacle, therefore, to his leaving home for a lengthened period, and joining his wife in her literary labours. In May, the pair journeyed to Londonen routefor the South, Lady Morgan taking with her the nearly finished manuscript of a new novel,Florence Macarthy. With his first reading of this book Colburn was so charmed, that he presented the author with a fine parure of amethysts as a tribute of admiration.
According to the testimony of impartial witnesses, Lady Morgan made as decided a social success in Italy as she had done a couple of years earlier in France. Moore, who met the couple in Florence, notes in his diary for October 1819: 'Went to see Sir Charles and Lady Morgan; her success everywhere astonishing. Camac was last night at the Countess of Albany's (the Pretender's wife and Alfieri's), and saw Lady Morgan there in the seat of honour, quite the queen of the room.' In Rome the same appreciation awaited her. 'The Duchess of Devonshire,' writes her ladyship, 'is unceasing in her attentions. Cardinal Fesche (Bonaparte's uncle) is quite my beau.... Madame Mère (Napoleon's mother) sent to say she would be glad to see me; we were received quite in an imperial style. I never saw so fine an old lady--still quite handsome. The pictures of her sons hung round the room, all in royal robes, and her daughters and grandchildren, and at the head of them all,old Mr. Bonaparte. She is full of sense, feeling, and spirit, and not the least what I expected--vulgar.'
Florence Macarthywas published during its author's absence abroad. The heroine, Lady Clancare, a novelist and politician, a beauty and a wit, is obviously intended for Lady Morgan herself, while Lady Abercorn figures again under the title of Lady Dunore. But the most striking of all the character-portraits is Counsellor Con Crawley, who was sketched from Lady Morgan's old enemy, John Wilson Croker. According to Moore, Croker winced more under this caricature than under any of the direct attacks which were made upon him. Con Crawley, we are told, was of a bilious, saturnine constitution, even his talent being but the result of disease. These physical disadvantages, combined with an education 'whose object was pretension, and whose principle was arrogance, made him at once a thing fearful and pitiable, at war with its species and itself, ready to crush in manhood as to sting in the cradle, and leading his overweening ambition to pursue its object by ways dark and hidden--safe from the penalty of crime, and exposed only to the obloquy which he laughed to scorn. If ever there was a man formed alike by nature and education to betray the land which gave him birth, and to act openly as the pander of political corruption, or secretly as the agent of defamation; who would stoop to seek his fortune by effecting the fall of a frail woman, or would strive to advance it by stabbing the character of an honest one; who could crush aspiring merit behind the ambuscade of anonymous security, while he came forward openly in defence of the vileness which rank sanctified and influence protected--that man was Conway Crawley.'
The truth of the portraiture of the whole Crawley family--exaggerated as it may seem in modern eyes--was at once recognised by Lady Morgan's countrymen. Sir Jonah Barrington, an undisputed authority on Irish manners and character, writes: 'The Crawleys are superlative, and suffice to bring before my vision, in their full colouring, and almost without a variation, persons and incidents whom and which I have many a time encountered.' Again, Owen Maddyn, who was by no means prejudiced in Lady Morgan's favour, admits that her attack on Croker had much effect in its day, and was written on the model of the Irish school of invective furnished by Flood and Grattan. As a novelist, he held that she pointed the way to Lever, and adds: 'The rattling vivacity of the Irish character, its ebullient spirit, and its wrathful eloquence of sentiment and language, she well portrayed; one can smell the potheen and turf smoke even in her pictures of a boudoir.' In this sentence are summed up the leading characteristics, not only ofFlorence Macarthy, but of all Lady Morgan's national romances.