Dixon: LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIRS

When she was fairly engaged, Miss Owenson’s courage failed her. Dr. Morgan being very much in love, desired naturally that the marriage should take place with as little delay as possible. The Marchioness, to whom the drama and the dénouement were a pleasant excitement, had no idea that the ceremony in real life could be anything more than the last page in a novel, or the last words in a play, after the characters have grouped themselves. She sent for the marriage ring and licence, and would have proceeded to extremities, without consulting the wishes of one of the parties most interested.

Dr. Morgan was retained at Baron’s Court by his professional duty. Neither the Marquis nor the Marchioness would grant him leave of absence. He was extremely jealous, and knew his fair and slippery lady love to be surrounded by admirers. He was especially vexed by the attentions bestowed on her by Mr. Parkhurst, one of the gayest men about town in Dublin society; but he was unable to do more than write eloquent letters of complaint and appeal, to which the lady paid not the smallest attention. She always owned, afterwards, that she had behaved exceedingly ill, and that she deserved for ever to have lost the best husband that ever a woman had; but at the time, she only thought how she might prolong her absence, if, indeed, she did not meditate breaking loose altogether. The correspondence on both sides is characteristic, and as the subject of love and love-making, of woman’s constancy and man’s perfidy, is one of perennial interest, some of this correspondence may be given. The letters are printed as nearly according to

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their date as can be ascertained. Both the Marquis and Marchioness seem to have been kind throughout the whole period, and to have shewn great patience with their refractory protegée. In one of Morgan’s letters, under date Oct. 7, there is “a magic” which requires a word of explanation. When Miss Owenson had been particularly naughty, and wished to make her peace; she would leave in her next note a small blank space to represent a kiss. Morgan was at liberty to believe that her lips had touched the paper, and to act accordingly.

“And if I answered you ’I know not what,’

It shows the name of love.”

Give me, my dear philosopher, ten thousand more such letters, that I may have ten thousand more excuses for loving you still better than I do. I glory in my own inferiority when you give that exalted mind of yours fair play. I triumph in my conscious littleness; I say, “and this creature loves me.” Yes, dearest of all the dears, this is a proud consciousness. I think precisely with you, and argued on the same grounds; but not with the same eloquence that you have done. Davy (Sir Humphry), après tout, is a borné man. I dined with him on Saturday last, and he lectured, tolerably, till every one yawned; I said twenty times in the course of the evening, to Miss Butler, “how much better Morgan would have spoken;” and so you would, dearest. Nothing takes a woman like mind in man; before that, everything sinks. When you talk en philosophe to me (even the Philosophy of Love) I adore you. When you make bad puns, and are “put in mind,” I hate you. So, as you see, my love is a relative, not a positive, quality. You will know how to manage me, and I wish you every success, dear.

I shall not write much to you, to-day, because I am writing a long, long, letter to— to— the—Lord
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Mayor!!! Aye, and going to send it to the Freeman’s Journal!! Don’t look frightened to death, you quiz! I always have something to talk to the chief magistrate about, at this season of the year, and now it is about poor children; but I will send you the paper, and that will best inform you. Just before I sat down to write to you, yesterday, Livy and I had four naked little wretches at the fire warming and feeding, and, to tell the truth, their sufferings added to my nervousness; and you, joking and dissipation, had an equal share in the wretched spirits in which I addressed the dearest and the best. “Oh! Father Abraham, what these Irish be!” but so it is,—it is next to impossible to follow the quick transitions of our feelings. Just as I had got thus far, enter Professor Higgins—our Professor of Chemistry. He came to arrange a collection of mineralogy for Livy, which Clarke bought her with a cabinet, and now, here we are, in the midst of spars, quartz, ores, madrepores, and petrifactions. I know the whole thing now, at my fingers’ ends, and all in half-an-hour!!! The Professor says, I am a clever little soul! I have got a little collection, myself, which, with a harp, tripod, fifty volumes, and some music, constitutes all my household furniture—funny enough! Now, coûte qui coûte, no more dolorous letters; à quoi bon? if I were not to marry you, it would be because I loved you too well to involve you in difficulties and in distress. If I do marry you (and, like Solus, “I’m pretty sure I shall be married”) I will make you the dearest, best, and funniest little wife in the world.
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Meantime, I prefer you to your whole sex, and so, clearest of all philosophers,

Adio,

Glorvina.

PS.—I shall not write to you to-morrow, love, because I am going out about business for poor papa, who is very poorly; but still, if not better, he is not worse. Here is a trait of poor human nature. When his head was blistered, he would only suffer the sise of the blister to be shaved; but when the pain came to the front of his head, he was obliged to have it all shaven. Yesterday he said to me, “Tell Morgan, my dear, that I have made a great sacrifice to health; that I have lost the finest head of hair that ever man had, and that I prided myself on, because I should like to prepare him for seeing me in a wig!”

I wish you would accustom yourself to write a little every day in mere authorship. I mean we shall write a novel together. Your name shall go down to posterity with mine, you wretch. The snow very deep, and the cold insupportable.

Sydney O.

In the next note from Morgan to Miss Owenson, Mr. Parkhurst is again alluded to with bitterness. How far Miss Owenson went in her flirtations with this gentleman, it is hard to say; for when Lady Morgan, after her marriage, made a collection of the love letters of her old sweethearts, and presented it to Sir Charles, under the title of Youth, Love and Folly, she included

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none of Parkhurst’s, if indeed she had any to include. Parkhurst had excited Ormsby’s jealousy long before he disturbed Morgan’s peace of mind. But there was nothing serious between them; at least, they never quarrelled and made each other miserable, as people in love usually do.

As to “Livy,” alas! I thought better of her. I thought better of her. I “give her courage by a tender line!” why was not one more tender than she deserved in my very last to you? But I see too well, that your calumnies (as I thought them) against her, are truths; and that she beguiled only to deceive me. The jackal, too, has been sneaking into the forest where the lion only should have stalked. Alas! alas! what has she to say to me for herself? and when will she say it?

Baron’s Court,
December [14], 1811.

My yesterday’s letter will be a sufficient answer to yours of this morning. I can only repeat, that I will no more consent to delay and trifling, and that I consider your fulfilment of your sacred promise as the touchstone of your affection, and the only means of regaining my confidence, at present, I confess, somewhat in abeyance. I do not mean to accuse you of deceit, as you have so often said, but while your wishes extend in proportion to my facility in complying with them—while your love of pleasure (now no longer disguised) exceeds your love for me, and your regard for your own honour and pledged word—while your
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letters alternately breathe hot and cold as to marrying at all, you cannot wonder that I think you tired of your bargain, and I am anxious to reduce to certainty my hopes and fears on points so entirely involving my complete life. Professions of love are easily made; but if you really have that regard for me which I suppose, place cannot make so much difference. Your hatred of this place is an insult which any, less foolishly-fond than myself, would seriously resent. You complain of my irritable feelings; they are your own creation; from the very first hour of our intimacy, either from want of tact, or from disregard of it, you have kept them afloat, and when the cup is full you cannot wonder if a drop makes it run over.

[End wanting.]

T. C. Morgan to Miss Owenson.

Saturday, December 16th.

Ah, dearest, what have I done? positively nothing, but what I was always prepared to do, what I always felt bound to do—given up to yourself,—and considered you entirely your own mistress, to act as you pleased; free as air, unpromise-bound—to the very last moment of your approach to the altar; and yet, though our relative situation is not altered, I am fretful and uneasy, that you should deliberate. Perhaps I am mortified that deliberation should yet be necessary; whatever it be, I have not the courage to look the possibility of losing you in the face. Surely,
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surely, it has not been a presentiment of truth, that has uniformly haunted me with the idea that you would not ultimately be mine. Do not say I am meanly suspicious, or that I have any fixed notion of your intending me unfairly; it is but the restless anxiety of a mind, naturally too susceptible of painful impressions, acted upon by circumstances very peculiar, and which (when once we are married) can never recur. “Je ne doute pas de votre sincerité; votre amour même n’est plus un mystere pour moi, mais j’apprehende quelques révolutions; quelles, et d’ou peuvent elles venir? Je n’en sais rien—je crois que je puis dire; je crains parceque j’aime.” This is exactly my state; ah, my God! you deliberate!! and under what circumstances? surrounded by objects all acting forcibly on your senses and imagination, all opposed to my interests in you. Bored eternally by acquaintance who wish to retain you they know not why,—and no one by to take my part, to support my cause and plead with you for me. Alas! the paper can indeed carry my complaints, can show you the variety of my feelings, but it shows only the désagréments of the passion, but the inconvenience to which (perhaps an ill regulated) love appears to threaten you. Little can it express the warmth, the tenderness of the feeling, still less can it convey the kiss, the sigh, the tear, the look which speak at once to the heart, and “outstrip the pauser reason;” ah! les absents ant tort, en verité, in this case. It is vain that the cold line is traced, without the expression that should accompany its delivery, the rhetoric of the eye is dumb and the heart cannot submit to
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mere calculation and debate. Dearest, dearest girl, I have a friend, an eloquent friend in your bosom; call him often to council; he will tell you far, far more than words can express; he will remind you of moments, blissful as they were transitory, moments when the world was but as nothing, compared to the passion, the tender self-abandonment of your friend; he will whisper of instants when father, sister, all were forgotten, or remembered only as less capable of conferring happiness than he who now addresses you. You have had, I admit, but a bad specimen of my temper. Irritable feelings but too idly indulged; but consider the unusual situation in which I am placed. You had always assumed a volatile, inconsequent air, and before I could be assured of your love, you left me. Honestly and fervently, I believed you no trifling good, and the weight of the loss has always pressed on me more than the probability, that I should lose you. I was uneasy because I was not absolutely and entirely certain of you.

Do you understand this? If I at all know myself, and can judge by my three years of married life, I am above suspicion and jealousy. I do not know that I ever felt one uneasy moment on that head. But while fate can snatch you from me, while you are anything short of my married wife, I cannot help taking alarm—I know not why—and from circumstances that won’t bear analysis. Cannot you comprehend a sensation of uneasiness that crossed me (for instance) when I read your friends’ satirical account of this place. It appears as if every body were trying to de-
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tain you and to picture your prospects in as dark colours as possible. Such have, however, been the but of every anecdote you have written me of Dublin conversation. Ah, my own sweet love, you cannot think how much more than they ought, such trifles prey upon a bosom agitated like mine. I should, indeed, be ashamed to confess this, if I did not feel it was nature, and a necessary part of a devoted affection. Our weather, contrary to your supposition, is fine, and Baron’s Court in (my eyes) as lovely as ever. Were you out of the question, I could live here for ever. London and its gaieties would be forgotten.

Miss Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

December 18th, 1811.

My dear Friend,

Your letter to-day [of the 16th] came very opportunely. Your dreadful epistle yesterday [of the 14th] totally overthrew me,—it found me ill and low spirited, and left me in a high fever; in my life I never received such a shock—its severity, its cruelty, its suspicion. Oh, what a frightful futurity opened to my view! I went to bed almost immediately to hide my feelings from my family, but never closed my eyes all night; I am now languid and stupefied; my cold is very oppressive, it is an influenza going; my throat, however, is better.

From the style of your letter to-day, I suppose, I may stay to accompany my sister on the 2nd, that is, next Thursday, the day week on which you will receive this. Still I will go the moment your mandate ar-
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rives, whether I am better or not, and whether my life is at stake or no. It would be much better to die than to suffer what I did yesterday. I don’t care a fig about being popular or unpopular. I am sick of that stuff and intend to be more savagely independent than ever. I am so very unwell, particularly in my head and throat, that I cannot write much to you. I have been obliged to give up extracting.”

PS.—Write me word how my large trunk can be conveyed to Baron’s Court, as I would send it off directly. My dearest, do not think of coming to meet us—we both particularly intreat you will not. We shall be quite full inside the carriage and cannot admit you (maid inside), and what use your riding beside the carriage? I entreat most earnestly you will let our first meeting be in your own little room. I will fly there the moment I arrive—but no human being must be present. My cold is better. If Livy does not set off at daylight on Thursday morning, no human power shall prevent me setting off in the evening without. She will decidedly go, and on that day, and so, for once, have confidence and believe. Who could invent such a lie, that I did not mean to go to Baron’s Court till the middle of January? The idea never suggested itself to me; the 3rd was the most distant day I ever thought of. I suspect that wretched G., for reasons I have. God bless you, dearest and most beloved.

S. O.

I will write to-morrow if the post leaves this, but I fear it does not.

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Mr. Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

Dublin, December 23, 1811.

“Not know you? by the Lord I do, as well as he that made you, Hal;” why, I wouldn’t be acquainted with any man that I didn’t find out in speaking two sentences, or reading a couple of paragraphs of his letter. Well, then, although I know you these fifty years, I am at a loss whether to believe the whole, or the half of what I hear of you; to save you a blush (for I suppose you’ve learned to blush since you came to this immaculate country), I shall believe but half, and if you are but the tenth part of that half, by the Lord you are too good for a son-in-law of mine, who have been, however, half the while, little better than one of the wicked. Well, all’s one for that; heaven’s above all, and as we in the south say, “there’s worse in the north.” The cause of this saying arose from the hatred the southerns (especially the lower orders) had to the northerns, looking upon them as marauders and common robbers; and it was a common thing with nurses to frighten the children to sleep, by threatening them to call an Ulsterman. I remember this very well, myself. Now, if one man is speaking ill of another to a third person, that man will probably say, “Well, well, he is bad enough; but there’s worse in the north.”

“But hear, you yadward,” here’s a little bit of a thing here, that runs out in your praise as if you were
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“the god of her idolatry;” by-the-bye, you’ve had a good deal of patience with her lately; don’t let her ride the bald filly too much; and if she won’t go quietly in a snaffle, get a good bit and curb for her. But I have nothing to say to it; “among you be it, blind harpers.”

For myself, here I am, “a poor old man, more sinned against than sinning.” Instead of being the “fine, gay, bold-faced vil—” no, I’ll change the word to fellow, I was wont to be—the very head and front of every jollification—I am dwindled into the “slipper’d pantaloon, with my hose a world too large for my shrunk shanks.” I deny this, for my feet and legs swell so in the course of the day, that I can scarcely get hose large enough to fit me; but this swelling goes off in the night. “Can’st thou not minister to a leg diseased? if thou can’st not, throw physic to the dogs, I’ll none on’t;” time, however, is drawing near, when it will be “sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.” With me, however, although “I owe heaven a debt, I would not wish to pay it before it’s due;” therefore, if I could get these legs well, and the cursed teasing pain in my head somewhat banished, I should not fear lilting up one of Carolan’s planxtirs, in such a style as to be heard from this to the Monterlomy mountains with the wind full in my teeth; for the old trunk is as sound as a roast, and never once in the course of a ten months’ illness, was in the least affected, therefore, “who is afraid.”

Sir Arthur and I will be left all alone and moody in a few days, as our ladies mean to set off immediately
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to the hospitable mansion of Baron’s Court, where, as I am informed, the good things of this world are only to be had; so, commending you to God’s holy keeping, and wishing you neighbour’s share of plumpudding, this gormandizing season, I remain, then, in truth and in spirit.

Robert Owenson.

PS. You have worked a miracle—for eight months back, I never could take a pen in my hand! I really am astonished at myself now, bad as it is.

Sydney Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

December 24th.

I told you yesterday, dearest, that you should have a long letter to-day, and here comes one as short as myself. The reason is, that a good old Irishman has sent me 20,000 volumes of old Irish books to make extracts from, and I am to return them directly, and here I am in poor Dad’s room just after binding up his poor blistered head, and I am just going to work pell mell, looking like a little conjuror, with all my black-lettered books about me. I am extracting from Edmund Spenser, who loved Ireland tant soit peu; dearest, your letters are delicious, ’tis such a sweet feeling to create happiness for those we love; if we have but de quoi vivre in a nutshell house in London, I shall be satisfied, and you shall be made as happy as Irish love, Irish talent, and Irish fun can make a
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grave, cold, shy Englishman. Your song is divine. Here is Livy just come in and insists on saying so; but first I must tell you that poor, dear papa continues very ill and so low spirited, that it is heartbreaking to listen to him.

Sydney.

Postscript from Livy.

Dear Charles,

I like and thank you for your pretty song,—it is quite in the style of Italian composition, and is the very thing for my weak natural voice, and I shall sing it with the Spanish guitar to great advantage. I suppose I may thank Madam Glo.’s loving epistles for your little billet doux.

I am yours, en tout cas,

Olivia.

December 24.

Irish books are pouring in on all sides—anonymously, too, which is very singular, and mostly “Rebelly” books as you English would call them. Has Lady Abercorn Taaf’s Impartial History of Ireland? I hear it is beautifully written, and full of eloquence. I think, to-morrow, Livy will have talked over her journey with Clarke, and something will decidedly be settled. Till then, and now, ever and ever yours in every way,

Glorvina.

I write, as usual, in a hurry. There is a puff in
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the Irish papers to-day, so like Stockdale, that I could swear he sent it over for insertion. I’ll try and get it for you before I send this.

In the next letter it will be seen that Lady Abercorn speaks of her physician as Sir Charles. He was not yet knighted, but Lady Abercorn had always proposed that when the Wild Irish Girl married she should have a title, and His Grace of Richmond was ready to lay the sword on Morgan’s reluctant shoulders whenever her ladyship pleased.

Lady Abercorn to Miss Owenson.

December, 1811.

Dear Glorvina,

I own I think if you are not here by Christmas, you use Sir Charles very ill indeed; let me give you a piece of advice, which I know, from a long knowledge of the world, that it is very unwise for a woman, when she intends to marry a man, to let him for a moment suppose he is not her first object; for after marriage, people have more time to reflect, and sometimes it might so happen that a man might recollect that though he was accepted of for a husband, that past conduct proved it was more par convenance than from attachment; now I know you will say, that as Sir Charles is not a very great match, he cannot ever imagine you married him for aught but himself; but that will not be so considered, and I recommend you to play no longer with his feelings. I am sure Lady
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Clarke will be of my opinion; I leave her to decide, trusting that she has a wiser head than you have. Tell Lady Clarke I do hope she will be here before Christmas; I am sure she will not be the person to put off coming.

I should be sorry to offend Mr. Mason; I am very sensible of his great goodness to me, and if there was a chance of his taking it ill my not wanting the MS., pray have it done. My objection to it is, that it has been so long about, that Lady Charlotte Campbell will have forgotten all about it; if, however, the Schoolmaster is come up to do it, let it be done, and, above all, express to Mr. Mason my gratitude. I only want the bookseller to change the books for others—they are damaged, and I have a set of them here. He might let me have No. 62, which is about the same price.

What is the cabinet? tell me. What is become of Miss Butler? bid her write to me.

Yours, dear Glorvina, sincerely,

A. J. A.

Miss Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

December, 26, 1811.

Lady Cahir has just sent me a magnificent edition of the Pacata Hibernica, to be returned this evening, by Miss Butler, who drinks tea with me, and I am extracting till I am black in the face, and I have scarce a moment to say how do you do? I had made
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up my mind before Lady Abercorn’s letter, as you must have known by three letters you had previously received; but I thought it would please her to give her a little credit, &c., &c. I have written a very civil little billet to Mrs. Morgan, merely inclosing the address for Skinner, as it will save six days’ delay. Are you angry? God bless you, which is all I have time to say.

Ever your own,

Glorvina.

Miss Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

December, 27th, 1811.

“And the last note is shorter than the first.” I totally despair of ever writing you a legitimate letter again, and you have met with a more formidable rival in O’Donnel, of Tirconnel, than all your jealous brain ever fancied in Generals, Aides-de-Camp, and Dublin Lawyers. I have not yet got through the Pacata, and have obtained permission to keep it another day. I delight in my story, and my hero, and shall throw myself tête baissée this winter to the best of passions—Love and Fame. Heaven send the latter do not find its extinction in the former, and depend upon it, dear, had I asked your leave to stay in Dublin three months, you would have knocked me down. I will do all you desire on the subject of odious business, and I shall write to you (barring O’Donnel) to-morrow, fully on it, and if I do not, believe, as Sappho says, “the less my words, the more my love appears.”
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Dearest friend, protector, guardian, guide,—every day draws me closer to you by ties (I trust) which Death only can break. There was so much of force in the commencement of this business, that my heart was frightened back from the course it would naturally have taken. I have now had time to reflect myself into love for you—how much deeper and fonder than that mere engouement which first possessed me; do not fear me, my dear friend, once decided upon rational grounds, I am immoveable, and I am as much yours as if the Archbishop of Canterbury had given his blessing to the contract; by your wishing to get all business out of the way, I suppose I am to be met at the door by Mr. Bowen* with his prayer-book in one hand and you in the other, and “will you, Sydney, take this man,” &c., &c. Heavens, what a horror! but you really cannot mean to take me, shattered and shaken after a long, dislocating journey! Let me at least, like other innocent victims, be fed before I am offered.

Miss Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

December 28th.

Why, I’m coming you wretch! Do you think I can borrow Friar Bacon’s flying chair or Fortunatus’ wishing cap? Would I could; and at eight o’clock this evening in the old arm-chair in the angular room—ah, you rascal!—
“Have you no bowels
For my poor relations?”

* Lady Abercorn’s chaplain.

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No, you are merciless as a vulture, and I am worse off than
“the maiden all forlorn,
Who was tossed by the cow
With the crumplty horn.”

Well, no matter. I go on loving ad libitum—and without my “vanity and ambition,” literary and personal, I cannot get on. As to our plans of travelling, they can be determined on in an hour. I do not think Livy could set off before the 5th of January.

Now, Stupid the First, read the following paragraph to the best of all possible marchionesses:—

“The injured Glorvina can read and put together as well as other people, and with respect to No. 9, acted with her accustomed wisdom—she bought neither edition until she described both to the Marchioness. The difference lies in this—the dear one is dear because it is a rare one, done upon much larger paper than the cheap; the engravings much finer by the execution,—and the binding splendid morocco and gold; the cheap one would be deemed a very fine book if not seen beside the other. The engravings are coarser, but the work, in Glorvina’s opinion, equally good. The scarcity of the fine edition is its value. Mr. Mason is gone this day to look at both. I bought none till further orders.” S. O.

T. C. Morgan to Miss Owenson.

Saturday, 4 o’clock, p.m.,
December 28, 1811.

A thousand thousand blessings upon my soul’s best
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hope for her dear letters. Oh! how welcome was the stranger joy to my heart, yet it was a stranger, and its first approach, almost pain. I grew sick as I read, and trembled violently—tears flowed, welcome, heavenly drops; dear as the first showers in April, when the cold east wind has long parched the fields. My beloved Glorvina, you will come, then! you will be here at Christmas? and no longer leave me to pine at your absence, and doubt your love. Yet tell me so again; tell me your arrangements; as yet I dare not trust myself with this promise of better days. I have had a long and dreary dream, and fear has not yet quitted me. How weak, how inadequate are words to express all that I would say to you on this event! the ideas crowd upon my mind, and in vain seek for utterance. I would tell you of my love, my devotion, my gratitude. I would do homage to your virtues, to your tenderness, your affection, by heaven more welcome to me than fortune’s proudest gifts, her foremost places; but it must not be. Your imagination must befriend me; think me at your feet, my long frozen bozom thawed and melting into all that is tender, all that is affectionate. What an age of misery I have suffered!—the pain, the grief of heart to think hardly of you! Yet so it has been; you have suffered in my estimation more than I dare tell; and though I feel now that I wronged you, yet was I not unjust; but thank God, thank God, all is again peace, and I have nothing to regret, but the lingering flight of slow-winged time. My sweet love, why do you not take care of your health? Why do you suffer that odious cough to remain? be more thoughtful of your-
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self, for my sake; how much too happy should I be was it possible to bear your sorrows and your sickness for you—what a proud satisfaction in the endurance! The bell has just rung, and I must bid you a hasty farewell. Give my love to Livy, and tell her, if I can manage a billet doux for her to-morrow I will write.

Marino.

T. C. Morgan to Miss Owenson

Saturday, December 29th.

I could almost fancy, my dearest life, that there was something more than chance in your having inclosed the billet douceureux; that I, too, might have something pleasant to peruse to-day, and so sympathise with you in the delight with which you are now reading my letter of Thursday last. Ten thousand thanks for it! How little do you know my temper; that small note has a power over my mind beyond comparison greater than your grave, sententious epistles; you will never scold me into yielding a point; but coax me, out of whatever you will, though it be my heart’s blood. I cannot think of your stupid Irish post without vexation. Two whole days of torment added to your sufferings, and to my repentance. But I have sinned, and must bear your anger till the return of post on Monday relieves me. When I look back at my senseless irritability, I am more than ashamed. It was the excess of love; but I am sure
524 LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR.
un peu plus d’indifference, would have been more excusable. However, at last you have gained a triumph, and I bow submissive at your feet. Enjoy your victory with moderation, and as you are stout, be merciful. You may partly guess what the sacrifice has cost me. You have not only vanquished love, and ardent, passionate, yet tender anxiety to possess you; but you have overcome my fixed principles of conduct and compelled me (according to my ideas) to risk our happiness, by protracting courtship; the whims and caprices I mean are those little peculiarities of habit, which can only be known to us by the close contact of matrimony. All the courtship in the world will never teach them. What the conquest has cost you, you do not know. If love had a triumph over reason, reason has, in its turn, gained the advantage of love. I love you certainly less than I did. It is more T. C. M. and Miss O., and less Mortimer and Glorvina. Yet I hope I have stock enough on hand, to carry us through the vale of years. “Such as you are,” you are necessary to my happiness, so I must e’en marry you, your “sensible men” and all. I hope and trust all unpleasant discussion is over between us. Burn my “eloquence” that it may not rise in judgment against me, and if you can, forget the ungenerous reveries in which I have indulged. You must, I hope feel, that in spite of my nonsense, I am ready to sacrifice every feeling of self to your happiness. I do not wish me faire valoir, but you cannot conceive the convulsive throes of my mind, even now, at trusting my hopes into your possession. If you had asked Clarke,
BETWEEN CUP AND LIP. 525
he would have told you in what funds my little all lies. My long annuity stands in my own name; my wife’s settlement is vested in the Three per Cents., in the names (I think) of George Hammond, Anthony H. John Buckshaw and Francis Const, the trustees to the settlement. So ma’am you are accountable to no one on earth but me. Oh, that I could now kiss my thanks to you for the sweet avowal; prepare to find in me a rigid accountant, demanding the long arrear of love you owe me, and one who will not let you off “till you have paid the uttermost farthing.” Thank your sister for her note, she, too, shall love me; kiss her for me.

Miss Owenson to T. C. Morgan.

Great George’s Street, Dublin,
December, 29, 1811.

Packing to be off, you quiz! Don’t grumble at this scrap, but down on your knees and thank God you get a line. I am all hurry and confusion, and my spirits sad, sad, and sometimes hysterically high; how much I must love you to act as I am acting! I shall write to-morrow; but not after. Oh, Morgan! give me all your love, tenderness, comfort and support—in five short days I am yours for ever. My poor father—do write to him—flatter him beyond everything on the score of his little

S. O.

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Lady Charlotte Susan Maria Bury [née Campbell] (1775-1861) Scottish novelist, daughter of John Campbell, fifth duke of Argyll; in 1791 she married John Campbell of Shawfield and Islay (1796) and in 1818 Edward John Bury; she was lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline (1809) and published Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV (1838). Thomas Creevey described her as “a very handsome woman and somewhat loose.”

Emily Butler, countess of Glengall [née Jeffreyes] (d. 1836) The daughter of James St John Jeffreyes of Blarney Castle; in 1793 she married Richard Butler (1775-1819) eleventh baron Caher and first earl of Glengall. She was the original of Lady Singleton in Lady Morgan's novel O'Donnel.

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Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French journalist, wit, and friend of Mirabeau; he was alternately a courtier and a jacobin, and died a suicide.

Sir Arthur Clarke (1778-1857) Irish physician and fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons; in 1808 he married Olivia Owenson, sister of Lady Morgan.

Lady Olivia Clarke [née Owenson] (1785 c.-1845) The younger sister of Lady Morgan who married Dublin physician Sir Arthur Clarke (1778-1857) in 1808. She wrote songs and a play, and published in the Metropolitan Magazine and Athenaeum.

Sir Humphry Davy, baronet (1778-1829) English chemist and physicist, inventor of the safety lamp; in Bristol he knew Cottle, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey; he was president of the Royal Society (1820).

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Lady Sydney Morgan [née Owenson] (1778 c.-1859) Anglo-Irish novelist and socialite, author of The Wild Irish Girl (1806).

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.

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Robert Nugent Owenson (1744-1812) Originally MacOwen; Irish actor who performed in London (where he was a friend of Oliver Goldsmith) and founded theaters in Galway and London; he was the father of Lady Morgan.

Charles Parkhurst (1812 fl.) Assistant gentleman usher to the Duke of Richmond when he was Lord Lieutenant; one of Sydney Owenson's admirers.

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Edmund Spenser (1552 c.-1599) English poet, author of The Shepheards Calender (1579) and The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596).

Robert Stewart, viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822) British statesman who was foreign secretary (1812-1822). He fought a duel with George Canning in 1809 and died a suicide in 1822.

John Joseph Stockdale (1777-1847) London bookseller who operated a shop in Pall Mall between 1807 and 1822; in 1825 he achieved notoriety by publishing the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.

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Lady Jane Manners- Sutton [née Butler] (1779-1846) The daughter of James Butler, ninth Baron Cahir; in 1815 she married Thomas Manners Sutton at Baron's Court, the residence of the Marquis of Abercorn in County Tyrone.

The Freeman's Journal. (1763-1924). A Dublin daily newspaper edited by Philip Whitfield Harvey (1802-26) and Henry Grattan (1826-30).

Pacata Hibernia: Ireland appeased and Redvced. Or, An Historie of the Late Warres of Ireland, especially within the Province of Movnster, under the Government of Sir George Carew, Knight, then Lord President of that Province. (London: Milbourne, 1633). Attributed to George Carew Totnes or his secretary, Sir Thomas Stafford.

Lady Sydney Morgan [née Owenson] (1778 c.-1859) O'Donnel, a National Tale. 3 vols (London: H. Colburn, 1814).

Arthur Murphy (1727-1805) The Way to keep him. A Comedy in Three Acts. (London: P. Vaillant, 1760).

Denis Taaffe (1759-1813) An Impartial History of Ireland from the Period of the English Invasion to the Present Time. (Dublin: J. Christie, 1809-10). In two parts.

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Authors: Morgan, Lady (Sydney), 1783-1859; Jewsbury, Geraldine Endsor, 1812-1880; Dixon, William Hepworth, 1821-1879

Title: Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence. Second Edition, Revised 2 vols (London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1863).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed August 2010

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License