Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Sydney Owenson to Alicia Le Fanu, 6 January 1806
January 6th, 1806.
My dear Madam,
I believe the surest mode of reviving your friendship for
an object that, God knows, has very unconsciously forfeited it, is to tell you
that you can be of some service to her. The foregoing page will tell you how I
am at present employed, having engaged with Phillips to have the work* finished by the ensuing month. I left England sooner than I
intended, merely to collect those materials and documents which were only to be
had in the interior parts of Ireland, especially Connaught, where I have been
among my own relations for some time. I have, however, now re-
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| A SUCCESSFUL AUTHORESS. | 259 |
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tired hither these two months back, “the world
forgetting,” though I hope not, “by the world forgot.” I see
no human being, write eight hours a day, sometimes more, and shall be ready for
another venture to London by the first week in February. The favour I have to
request of you is this: I am told you know Mr. Walker, and that he has written an
account of Irish music
and Irish bards. In my little work I have treated on both; but after the most
diligent research I cannot gain any certain information relative to the Irish
harp. I have read all that has been written on the subject by historians and
antiquaries; but nothing on that subject by a musician. I know its construction
and form; but what I want to know and what perhaps Mr.
Walker can tell you, is the musical system of the instrument; by
what rule it was tuned, how the change of keys was produced, and whether it was
susceptible of chromatics? This, my dear Madam, is giving you a great deal of
trouble, but as it affords you an opportunity of serving another, I am sure it
is also giving you some pleasure.
Have you seen my Novice of St. Dominic? I long much to
hear your opinion of it, that is if you shall think it worth one. Pratt, the author, has written to me, for
leave to select the best passages from that and St. Clair, and to
publish them in a work called The Morality of English
Novels. This is very flattering, and this you will say,
“is all the egotism of authorship,” and so it is; but before I
check the dear theme, I must tell you that my Irish melodies are doing wonders
in London, and that I have published a song ![]()
| 260 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. | |
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at
Holden’s, Parliament Street, dedicated to
Lady Charlotte Homan, which I wish
you much to see and hear.
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.
Samuel Jackson Pratt [Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
English miscellaneous writer who abandoned a clerical career to become an actor and
voluminous writer of sentimental literature; regarded as a charlatan by many who knew him,
Pratt acquired a degree of respectability in his latter years. He patronized the poetical
shoemaker-poet Joseph Blacket.
Joseph Cooper Walker (1761-1810)
Irish antiquary, educated in Dublin by Thomas Ball; he spent time in Italy and published
Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786).
