When Miss Owenson quitted Fort William, she joined her father and sister at Inniskillen, and there finished her novel of the Novice of St. Dominic It was written in six volumes, for, as she said herself, “in those days one volume or six volumes was alike to me.”
Whilst engaged on this novel she paid a visit to a neighbouring family named Crossley, in which there were several young people. It was a visit which materially changed the destiny of one of the family, Francis Crossley furnishing Sydney Owenson with a diligent and patient slave, who did her the good service of copying into a beautifully distinct and legible hand, the pattes de mouche of her own writing.
The letters of Francis Crossley have not much literary merit, but they have such an honest simplicity, and speak of so loyal and genuine an attachment, that they interest the reader, as well as throw a pleasant light on the character of Sydney Owenson.
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His letters are thus endorsed in her own hand:
“Francis Crossley, aged eighteen, chose to fall in love with me, Sydney Owenson, aged eighteen. He was then intended for a merchant, but the Novice of St. Dominic (which he copied out as regularly as written, in six huge volumes), and its author turned his head. He fled from his counting-house, went to India and became a great man.”
Lady Morgan, when she endorsed these papers, had of course forgotten her own age. It is so sweet to be “eighteen.” Of honest zeal on the part of Crossley, there was plenty—of passion on the part of Sydney, none. Among her memoranda of 1822 and 1824, are two or three entries on the subject of Captain Crossley, which may be given in this place:—
“Francis Crossley, my fast friend of the other sex, met me at my sister’s house, at dinner, after an absence of eighteen years. It was a singular interview; what was most singular in it is that he remains unchanged. He insists upon it that in person so am I.
“August, 1824.—Received this day a letter from Captain Crossley, acquainting me with his intention of marrying. I have written him an answer à mourir de rire, and so ends our romance of so many years.
“August, 26.—Captain and Mrs. Crossley dined this day here, and I never saw such a triste looking couple. My poor Francis silent and sad!”
We may now go back to the beginning of this little romance.
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I am just sat down to tell you that I have been thinking
of you this hour past, according to my promise. Can you say you have fulfilled
yours as well? But why say this hour? There is not one in the day that is not
full of your idea, and devoted almost entirely to the recollection of the happy
hours I have spent in your society, and which are now fled, perhaps, for ever,
as you are no longer here who made Lisburn at all tolerable. We no longer hear
your voice, “pleasant as the gale of spring that sighs on the
hunter’s ear,” in our little circle, which was so often
delighted and enlightened by your bewitching prattle; and I now, for the first
time since my return from Belfast, begin to feel Lisburn insupportable. I
almost regret having ever known or formed a friendship for you; but I lie; it
is impossible any one could ever wish he had not known you, whom you honoured
with your esteem. What have you to answer for to me? By over-refining my taste
you have made the girls of this town insupportable: after having been blessed
with your society it is impossible to be ever on friendly terms with them; and
I am convinced I can never experience so sincere a friendship for one of my own
sex. I don’t know the reason, perhaps you can tell me; but I think those
subsisting in general between men are fickle and
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I believe I promised to tell you how we spent the day, on
the morning of which you left us, and you shall have it as well as I recollect.
You left us a little before eight o’clock; we followed your carriage out
of town and watched it till the last winding of the road concealed it from our
view; we then returned across the fields with no very enviable sensations, and
climbed every ditch we met with to endeavour to catch another glimpse of
you—we got just one, as you passed a grove on your left, nearly a mile
from town, and then lost you in the distance. I am almost ashamed to tell you I
could hardly suppress a tear at thinking it might probably be the last time I
should ever see those with whom I had passed away so many pleasant hours: but
to quit such nonsense and finish my journal:—George
was with us after breakfast, and told us he could very willingly sit down and
cry (you may guess the reason), but it would not be like a man. We were talking of you all day, and cursing the chaise-boy for
coming home so soon. Did you ever hear of such a set of selfish rascals? In the
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Did you think your friends would have disgraced your remembrance so much as to tell a devil of a lie the very day you left them?
You told me you did not think George possessed of much feeling, but, faith, he has more than you think. He told me on Friday morning he absolutely could not refrain from crying the night before, when alone. Wasn’t it good and friendly of him? And though unlike a man, d—e but I like him the better for it. “Certainly, Miss Owenson” I think him one of the best, good-natured lads I was ever acquainted with—one of George’s speeches!!
I was employed most of Friday in putting a little cabinet in order, and have it now filled with your wee notes and other dear little remembrances of you. I keep nothing else in it but Ossian, Werter, and your poems, as the only company worthy of them; and I hope you will soon add another to the number. I have brought into my room the chimney-board that was in Boyce’s house the night of our little hop. I would not suffer them to destroy the laurel that encircled it, but have it put up just as it was when you saw it.
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I have been reading Werter; don’t you think the sixty-eighth and the latter part of the seventy-first chapter very beautiful? As yet you have not marked it, and I will turn over to that which the hand of taste and judgment has approved. How kind in doing so! It gives me another remembrance of you in addition to all your dear little relics.
And yet I know not whether I should thank you for so particular a mark as you have left on this page; it seems to imply something I am not over-pleased at your thinking, if you can think so. You have marked this sentence strongly, “And yet if I was now to go, if I was to quit this circle, would they feel, how long would they feel that void in their life which the loss of me would leave? How long—yes. Such is the frailty of man that then where he most feels his own existence, where his presence makes a real and strong impression—even in the memory of those who are dear to him—there also he must perish and vanish away, and that so quickly.” Ah, don’t think it will be so with us; you do not, you cannot think so. The loss of you has left on us “a real and strong impression” indeed; but if you will think you will be forgot by us, you may at least allow that you will first drink of the waters of Lethe.
I have began, and read the first book of Robertson’s Charles the Fifth,
and it does justice to your recommendation. I have made a good many extracts
out of it, and hope I shall be improved by them. It is you I have to thank for
this mode of imbibing instruction; as, but for you, I should never have thought
of it,
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A very little of Francis Crossley will suffice. The reader will be glad to know that he went to India in due time, and was not heard of again for twenty years.
The following letter will explain itself:
Your charming letter, of no date, found me last Saturday
very much indisposed with a severe headache, attended with feverishness, to
which I am subject. My head is something better, but I am not well in other
respects, and in the midst of hurry and preparation for town, where we go the
day after to-morrow, to remain for the winter. I leave this quiet spot, liberty
and fresh air with regret. In town I am plagued with the bustle of the city
without being able to join in its amusements. The theatre I have long ceased to
attend: when there is any performance worth seeing I dare not encounter the
crowd, and what is mis-named private society, is become almost as formidable on
a similar account; and my own immediate little circle that I used to draw about
me, time and the chances in life have committed such depredations upon, that,
like
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I make no doubt that your work will succeed: going yourself to London is certainly the best security for justice being done you. The Bishop of Dromore’s advice is the best you can possibly be guided by, and his high literary reputation will give every weight to his recommendations and approbation of you.
Above twenty years absence from London (to which place I was never permitted to return), has broken or relaxed every tie I had there. To some my place has been supplied, others have pretended to suppose themselves neglected by me, to excuse their own neglect of me. And there are a few who, with more apparent reason, have thought themselves forgotten by me because I was not at liberty to explain why I did not pay them all the attention I wished.
When we meet we will converse fully on the subject of
your book, in the meantime rest assured that all I can do I will, for I have a
real wish to serve you;
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Miss Owenson, encouraged by this advice given to her by Mrs. Lefanu, as to her literary enterprises, wrote her first letter to a London publisher, Sir Richard Phillips. His answer is among her papers. A note upon it, in Lady Morgan’s later handwriting says:—
“Without one friend to recommend, when I wished to publish The Novice, I took in a newspaper for a bookseller’s name—I saw R. Phillips, and wrote to him. This was his answer:”—
I have read with peculiar pleasure your ingenious and ingenuous letter. It exactly portrays the ardour of mind and the frankness which always accompany true genius.
It concerns me that I am forced to
reduce to pounds, shillings, and pence, every proposition like yours—that
all the speculations of genius, when they lie in my counting house, become the
subject of arithmetical calculation—that if, when tried by this
unaccommodating standard, they do not promise to yield a certain rate per cent,
profit, I am led to treat them with cold-
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And still I am often (undeservedly) complimented as the most liberal of my trade! as the most enterprizing of all the midwives of the muses!
I am ashamed to say, that the cold-hearted calculations which constantly absorb all my faculties in my own interested concerns, have prevented me from seeing or reading the little work of yours, of whose merit I entertain no doubt, since it is demonstrated arithmetically by the number that has been sold.
I am, therefore, unable to write with precision, being in the practice, in all these matters, of judging for myself; and although I repeat that I have been charmed with the ingenuousness of your letter, yet my prudence gets the better of my politeness, and commands me to see and read before I engage for your new work, unless I had previously been concerned in the sale of the old one, and was well acquainted with its merit and character.
The Reviews I never read, nor would any person, were they acquainted with the corrupt views with which almost every one of them is conducted. If your work has received their praise without its being paid for, your merit must be great indeed, and I shall have reason to be proud of this intercourse.
You can send the MS. through any friendly medium, addressed to me, to the care of Mr. Archer, Dublin, and you can desire him to forward it to me, or bring it with him in his projected journey to London.
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I assure you I am not used to write such long letters, but this has been extorted from me by the respect with which I feel myself your obliged,
When the Novice was fairly copied out by Crossley, her young and patient adorer, Sydney Owenson determined to take it up to London herself.
In those days the journey was long, and somewhat hazardous for a young girl. There was the sea voyage, and the long coach journey afterwards, from Holyhead to London. She had to travel alone, and she had very little money to help her on her way.
She used to say to her nieces, in after life, that they—carefully-nurtured girls as they were—little knew the struggles and difficulties she had to encounter in her early days.
Her first journey to London was in curious contrast to the brilliant visits she subsequently made. When the coach drove into the yard of the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane, she had not a notion where to go or what to do next, and sat down upon her small trunk in the yard to wait until the bustle of arrival should have a little subsided. Overcome with fatigue and anxiety, she fell fast asleep. For some time no one remarked her—at last, a gentleman who had been her fellow-passenger in the coach, saw her sitting there, and he had the humanity to commend her himself to the care of the heads of the establishment, begging that they would take care of her, and see that she was properly attended to.
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The friend who thus unexpectedly interposed on her behalf, was the late Mr. Quentin Dick. It was the beginning of her acquaintance with him.
After a night’s rest, Sydney Owenson arose with unabated spirit, and proceeded to seek her publisher, taking her MS. with her.
Phillips seems to have been charmed with her, and to have been fascinated into a liberality almost beyond his judgment, though, it is only due to him to say, that he struggled hard against giving such a proof of his devotion.
He insisted on having the Novice cut down from six volumes to four; and she used to say, that she was convinced nothing but regard for her feelings prevented him from reducing it to three.
He was extremely kind to her whilst she remained in town—introduced her to his wife, and placed her in respectable lodgings. He paid her at once for her book; as soon as she received the money, she was anxious to take it herself to her father; but Phillips persuaded her to have the greatest portion properly remitted, as he had no faith in her power of taking care of it.
This first fruits of her success could do but little towards rescuing Robert Owenson from his embarrassments; but the fact that she could earn money by her pen, was more than relief to both father and daughter—it was hope and fortune.
The first purchase she made for herself out of her literary earnings were an Irish harp, from Egan, and a black mode cloak! The harp was her companion wherever she went.
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The following letter, from Mrs. Inchbald, addressed to Miss Owenson, at 30, Upper Eaton Street Pimlico, is the only record of any incident during this first visit to London:—
Mrs. Inchbald presents her compliments to Miss Owenson. She is highly flattered by the contents of the letter she has received from her, and most sincerely laments that the very same circumstances which a few years ago would have rendered a further acquaintance with Miss Owenson extremely desirable, at the present time precludes her from the possibility of any future introduction. Mrs. Inchbald has the highest esteem for Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock, and she is grieved to her heart that their remote place of abode should have prevented their knowledge of her resolution, formed after a short acquaintance (something like patronage) with a young authoress, never again to admit the visits of a lady of her own profession.
The young lady to whom she alludes, was a Miss Ann Plumtree, and no one can more accurately describe the loss and inconvenience sustained from her acquaintance than Mr. Phillips.
Miss Owenson, having settled with Sir R. Phillips, and bought her mode cloak and Irish harp, returned to Londonderry; Sir Richard sent after her no end of good advice as to her literary pursuits. The following is amusing.
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Your letter interested me as usual. I thank you for the regard which it expresses for my interests, and for the compliments (most unmerited) which it pays me. I hope to maintain your good opinion, and that we shall be as much in love with each other twenty years hence as we are now.
You are right in your conception relative to the work of Mr. Carr. It cannot interfere with your’s. Dr. Beaufort has been so many years beating about the subject, and making preparations and promises, that my patience is exhausted. The world is not informed about Ireland, and I am in the situation 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 Turkish letters of Lady M. W. Montagu, would have secured you the most extensive reading. A matter-of-fact and didactic novel is neither one thing nor another, and suits no class of readers. Certainly, however, Paul and Virginia would suggest a local plan, and it will be possible, by writing three or four times over, in six or eight months, to produce what would command attention.
I assure you that you have a power of writing, a fancy,
an imagination, and a degree of enthusiasm which will enable you to produce an
immortal work,
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I earnestly exhort you to subject yourself to this drudgery. It may be painful to endure for a few weeks, but you will reap a harvest, for years, of renown and fortune.
Every one speaks highly of the Novice of St. Dominic, but their praise is always qualified by the remark that it would have few equals in this line, if it were reduced one entire volume in length. Some copies of the novel have been sent for you to Archer, whom you ought to reprimand for not ordering any copies.
PS. A series of letters on the state of Ireland, the manners and characters of its inhabitants, &c., &c., would be well read in the Monthly Magazine, would be worth as much to me, and would afterwards sell separately.
Such as it was, the Novice of St. Dominic was published—and succeeded.
It is certainly a very amusing novel; there is an exuberance of fine words and ardent
descriptions of the sensibilities of the heroine,
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