Sir John Stephenson was,
at that time, the Coryphœus of the Musical Society of Dublin. The music of Bach, Handel, and
Lord Mornington, which had charmed the preceding
generation of musical judges, was giving place to a new school, at the head of which was
Sir John Stephenson. The Irish people were not easy to convert
from their old favourites; when they took a fancy to a song or an air, they were constant
to it. Enamoured of Kelly and Crouch’s singing of the air, “Oh, thou wert born to please me,” they could not listen with
patience to the fine opening duo in Artaxerxes, “Fair Aurora, prithee
stay,” and one of the impatient audience cried out, with a loud yawn,
“Ah, then, will ye give us, ‘Oh, thou wert born to plaze me,’
instead!” But under the influence of Sir John Stephenson, even
“Carolan and the bardi tribe” were
forgotten. His school was vocal, not instrumental; and Dublin, at that time abounded in
fine voices, both professional and amateur. The composi-
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Sir John Stephenson knew my father well; and he was extremely kind to me on the occasions of his professional visits to the family, and often would remain, after his highly-paid hour had expired, to sing for me, or even with me, and always to my benefit and delight.
One day he happened to play a piece of music, just then come out, which he had brought for his pupils. I was charmed. He then said, “Oh, you shall hear it with Moore’s words,” and he then sang,
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|
“Friend of my soul this goblet sip,
’Twill chase away thy tear;
’Tis not so sweet as woman’s lip,
But oh, ’tis more sincere!”
|
I was enchanted; a new musical sensation seemed to be developed in me.
Sir John said, “Oh, what would you think of it, then, if you heard the author sing it!”
I had not then even heard of Moore, and if he had told me it was by Sir Thomas More, or “Zelucco” Moore, I should have taken it for granted.
Sir John, amused by my enthusiasm, said, “Would you like to hear him sing? He is too great a man to be brought here, for never was a man so run after in my days.”
He then proposed to bring me an invitation from Mr. Moore’s mother, who was giving a little musical party the following week; and as he was to take his own little girl with him, he offered to call and pick me up.
It was among the delights of my residence in Dominic street, that I was within half an hour’s drive of the village of Richmond, where my beloved sister still resided with Madame Dacier. Mrs. Featherstone’s kindness to her was beyond measure—she generally passed her holiday from Saturday till Monday with us—so I resolved she should share the pleasure of this proposed music party, which she, of all others, was calculated to appreciate.
Moore had just returned after his first or second
expedition to London, I forget which; he had come
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From royal palaces and noble mansions, he had returned to his family seat—a grocer’s shop at the corner of Little Longford Street, Augier Street. The Palace Borghese, at Rome, was called the “Cymballo,” from its resemblance to a harpsichord in shape, and, certainly, the tiny apartment over the shop where Mrs. Moore received us, might be described by the same epithet both for size and shape.
Moore’s sisters, Kate and Ellen, and their nice dodu mother—who looked like Moore himself in petticoats—received us with cordial kindness, and formed a strong contrast, with their dark heads and complexions, to the beautiful little Olivia Stephenson, whose loveliness is not yet effaced from the records of London fashion, as the beautiful Marchioness of Headfort, immortalized by the admiration of Lord Byron, and in after times one of the great ladies to whom Moore dedicated one of the books of his Irish Melodies.
The women present were few, but all pretty; and the men eminent for
their musical talent. I remember them all; Doctors Warren Ray,
Wesley Doyle, and Mr.
McCasky (the finest basso, except Lablache, I ever heard). At first it threatened to be the old story of the
Beggars’
Opera without Captain Macheath, for
alas, there was no Moore! But late in the evening
Moore came in from dining at the Provost house, with
Croker, and some other pets of the Provost’s lady, for she was the queen of the Blues, in Dublin, at
that
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Moore announced, at once, that he was on his way to a grand party, at Lady Antrim’s, but sat down to the piano as though to execute the sole purpose of his mother’s bidding. At Sir John’s request, he first sang “Friend of my Soul.” My sister and myself, two scrubby-headed and very ill-dressed little girls, stood niched in a corner close to the piano.
My sister’s tears dropped like dew—
“Not touched but rapt, not wakened but inspired.” |
Moore perceived our enthusiasm, and was, as he ever was, gratified by the musical sensibility of bis audience. His mother named us to him; he bowed, and sang again, “Will you come to the bower,” a very improper song, by-the-bye, for young ladies to hear—and then rising from the piano, rushed off to the bowers of the jolly, handsome, and very popular Countess of Antrim, a wealthy peeress in her own right, who “gave to love and song” what worldly honours “could never buy,” for she married an accomplished professional artiste of the Dublin orchestra, Mr. Phelps, who, with a nobility of nature beyond what mere birth or rank could bestow, was known and respected in London under the name of Mr. Macdonald; a name granted him by patent royal—it was the patronymic of the Antrim family.
Mrs. Featherstone sent the carnage and footman to
fetch us home, and we both went to bed in delirium, actually forgetting to undress
ourselves. We
| 184 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
My sister rose to draw Moore’s picture, which looked more like a young negro than a young poet, and I set down the first inspiration for my Novice of St. Dominic, in the description of the minstrel under the windows of the Lady Magdalen.
Moore vanished; and my vocation for authorship as a means to relieve my father from his embarrassments, became a fixed idea, originating in the one strong instinct of my nature—family devotion—a very Irish one, and not the one least creditable trait of Celtic idiosyncracy. I think it was quickened into development by the success of Moore, the grocer’s son, of Little Longford Street.
I had already completed my first novel, St. Clair, unanointed, unannealed, and unknown to everybody.
The Featherstone family were shortly to leave town, and I resolved on the desperate step of publishing my novel, though I did not know the difference between a bookseller and a publisher, and I intended to take my chance of finding one in the streets of Dublin.
I had observed that the Dominic Street cook, a relic of the Dowager Steele regime, was in the habit of hanging up her market-bonnet and cloak in the back hall. I slipped down quietly one morning early, put on the cloak and bonnet, and with the MS. tidily put up under my arm, passed through the open hall-door at which a milkman was standing, and started on my first literary adventure
I wandered down into Britain Street, past the noble
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As I ascended the steps, a dirty-faced boy was sweeping the shop, and, either purposely or accidentally, swept all the dust into my face; he then flung down the brush, and springing over the counter, leaned his elbows on the counter and his chubby face on his hands, and said:
“What do you plaize to want, Miss?”
I was stunned, but after a moment’s hesitation, I replied:
“The gentleman of the house.”
“Which of them, young or ould?”
Before I could make my selection, a glass door at the back of the shop
opened, and a flashy young yeoman, in full uniform, his musket on his shoulder, and
| 186 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
The impudent boy, winking his eye, said:
“Here’s a young Miss wants to see yez, Master James.”
Master James marched up to me, chucked me under the chin, “and filled me from the crown to the toe, top full of direst cruelty.” I could have murdered them both.
All that was dignified in girlhood and authorship beat at my heart, when a voice from the parlour, behind the shop, came to my rescue by exclaiming:
“What are ye doing there, Jim? Why ain’t you off, sir, for the Phaynix and the lawyer’s corps marched an hour ago.”
The next moment a good-humoured looking middle aged man, but in a great passion, with his face half-shaved, and a razor and shaving-cloth in his hand, came forth, and said:
“Off wid ye now, sir, like a sky-rocket.”
Jim accordingly shouldered his musket “like a skyrocket,” and Scrub, leaping over the counter, seized his broom and began to sweep diligently to make up for lost time.
The old gentleman gave me a good-humoured glance, and saying:
“Sit down, honey, and I will be with you in a
jiffey,” returned in a few minutes with the other half of his face shaved, and
wiping his hands with a towel, took his place behind the counter, saying: “Now,
honey, what can I do for you?” This was altogether
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I hesitated, and at last said:
“I want to sell a book, please.”
“To sell a book, dear? An ould one? for I sell new ones myself. And what is the name of it—and what is it about?”
I was now occupied in taking off the rose-coloured ribbon with which I had tied up my MS.
“What,” he said, “it is a manuscript, is it?”
“The name, sir,” I said, “‘St. Clair.’”
“Well, now, my dear, I have nothing to do with church books, neither sermons nor tracts, do you see. I take it for granted it is a Papist book, by the title.”
“No, sir, it is one of sentiment, after the manner of ‘Werter.’”
He passed his hand over his face, which left the humorous smile on his face unconcealed.
“Well, my dear, I never heard of ‘Werter;’ and, you see, I am not a publisher of novels at all.”
At this announcement—hot, hungry, flurried, and mortified, I began to tie up my MS. In spite of myself, the tears came into my eyes, and poor, good-natured Mr. Smith said:
“Don’t cry, dear,—don’t cry; there’s money bid for you yet! But you’re very young to turn author, and what’s yer name, dear?”
“Owenson, sir,” I said.
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“Owenson?” he repeated. “Are you anything to Mr. Owenson of the Theatre Royal?”
“Yes, sir, I am his daughter.”
“His daughter? You amaze me!” and, running round the counter with the greatest alacrity, he said, “Come into the parlour and have some breakfast, and we will talk it over. Why your father is the greatest friend I have in the world.”
“Oh, no, sir, impossible; I am expected to breakfast where I live—I must return.”
“Well, then, what can I do for you? Will I recommend you to a publisher?”
“Oh, sir, if you would be so good!”
“To be sure I would?” He then took a sheet of paper, wrote a few lines, rapidly tossed a wafer about in his mouth for some minutes, sealed his letter, and directed it to Mr. Brown, Bookseller and Publisher, Grafton Street. “Now, here, my dear; Mr. Brown is the great publisher of novels and poems. ’Twas he brought out Counsellor Curran’s poems, and Mr. O’Callaghan—a beautiful poet, but rather improper. Now, dear, don’t lose a minute, this is just the time for catching old Brown; and let me know your success, and what I can do for you.” And so with curtseys and blushes, and wiping away my tears, I started off for the other side of the water, and ran rather than walked, to Mr. Brown’s of Grafton Street.
A neat and rather elegant shop, and a door with a bell in it, admitted
me to the sanctorum of Mr. Brown the publisher: an
old gentleman in a full suit of brown
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“I am Mr. Brown.”
I presented him the letter, and while he read it I cast my eye into the interior of the shop-parlour, where sat an elderly lady making breakfast, and a gentleman reading beside her. My patron Smith’s note seemed to puzzle him, and to impatienter the old lady, who came forwards and said:
“Mr. Brown, your tea is as cold as ice!” She looked at me earnestly, and then drawing Smith’s note out of her husband’s hand, said, “What is it?”
“A young lady who wants me to publish her novel, which I can’t do—my hands are full.”
I put my handkerchief to my eyes, and the old lady said, in a compassionate voice:
“Wait a little, perhaps Mr. J—— will look it over and tell you what it is about,” (that was the gentleman in the back parlour). Turning to me, she said, “This gentleman, who is our reader, will give us his opinion of your book, my dear, and if you will call here in a few days, I am sure Mr. Brown will be happy to assist you if possible.”
I could just answer, “Thank you, madam,” and depositing my MS. on the counter, I went out of the shop, getting back to Dominic Street in time to hang up the bonnet and cloak in the cook’s hall undetected, and to wash my hands and face and make my appearance at the breakfast-table, my absence being only noticed by Mrs. Featherstone’s remark:
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“You have been taking your early walk, Miss Owenson. I am glad you did not call on the girls to go with you, for the heat is very great.”
The next day we departed for Bracklin, and I abjured, as I then thought, for ever, authorship, its anxieties and disappointments. I heard nothing of my book:—one reason, perhaps, was, that I had left no address, though I did not think of it then.
This was the last portion of her autobiography which Lady Morgan dictated.
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