Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Richard Lalor Sheil to Lady Morgan, July 1831
Tuesday, July, 1831.
My dear Lady Morgan,
Your letter to me is most gratifying; it is another and
a greener leaf in my parliamentary chapter, a thousand thanks to your good
heart. Believe me you mistake me much if you try me by my observance of the
rules of etiquette; I know how to value your faculties and your character.
There is no one whose friendship and praise I prize more than yours and
Sir Charles’s. I have received
a series of kindnesses from both, which I cannot readily forget.
There is no news here in the political circles to which
I can give implicit confidence. It is said that ![]()
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there are dissensions in the cabinet, and that the
king has had a fit of apoplexy. Party
runs so high that I can attach no credit to what I hear, even from the highest
quarters on both sides. I believe that there has been a great defection among
the Lords, but that it is quite possible that some of the ministers may
ultimately become terrified at their own reform. Lord
Melbourne was great. Charles
Grant did not speak with the cordiality of strong conviction.
Lady Cork was last night making special
inquiries about you; she asked me whether it was true that you were writing the
adventures and observations of her Macaw. It lately bit off the toe of a
countess, but on the calf of a minister it could make no impression.
I met Jeffery and
Macaulay here at dinner;
Jeffery has the most astounding volubility I ever
witnessed; he will not do in the house, I fear. I witnessed at Sir J. Mackintosh’s his introduction to
Wordsworth, for the first time. The latter grinned horribly, a ghastly
smile.
Remember me to Sir
Charles, and believe me,
Yours most truly,
Charles Grant, baron Glenelg (1778-1866)
Educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, he was a member of the
Speculative Society, MP, Irish chief secretary (1818), and colonial secretary (1835),
created Baron Glenelg in 1835.
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1780-1843)
English physician and philosophical essayist who married the novelist Sydney Owenson in
1812; he was the author of
Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals
(1822). He corresponded with Cyrus Redding.
Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851)
Irish barrister and playwright; author of
Adelaide, or the
Emigrants (1814),
The Apostle (1817), and other tragedies.
He was an Irish MP (1830-50).
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
