Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Sir Richard Phillips to Sydney Owenson, 12 May 1806
Bridge Street, May 12, 1806.
Dear, bewitching, and deluding Syren,
Not able to part from you, I have promised your noble
and magnanimous friend, Atkinson, the
three hundred pounds. His appeal was irresistible, and the Wild Irish Girl is
mine, to do with her as I please!
You were too rapid about the Novice. Had her sister
gone to Johnson he must have fathered
the Novice, also, and have
answered your drafts in her favour.
Write soon, and endeavour to make it up with me. It will
be long before I shall forgive you! at least not till I have got back the three
hundred pounds and another three hundred with it.
If you know any poor bard—a real one, no
pretender—I will give him a guinea a page for his rhymes in the Monthly
Magazine. I will also give for prose communications after the
rate of six guineas per sheet. Your attention to this will oblige me, and may
serve some worthy geniuses.
Believe me always yours,
Whether you are mine or not!
Joseph Atkinson (1743-1818)
Irish playwright educated at educated at Trinity College, Dublin; he was a friend of
Thomas Moore and Lady Morgan.
Joseph Johnson (1738-1809)
London bookseller at St. Paul's Churchyard; he published Erasmus Darwin, Mary
Wollstonecraft, Joseph Priestly, and William Wordsworth.
Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840)
London bookseller, vegetarian, and political reformer; he published
The
Monthly Magazine, originally edited by John Aikin (1747-1822). John Wolcot was a
friend and neighbor.
The Monthly Magazine. (1796-1843). The original editor of this liberal-leaning periodical was John Aikin (1747-1822); later
editors included Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840), the poet John Abraham Heraud
(1779-1887), and Benson Earle Hill (1795-45).
