Although Lady Morgan lived through such stirring times there is very little said in her journals about politics. She and Sir Charles were much mixed up in the movement for Catholic Emancipation, and Lady Morgan’s drawing-room, in Kildare Street, was the foyer of liberalism; her influence over the young men who frequented her house was great, and all the leaders of the liberal party recognised her as a staunch and effective ally. Her salon was a rallying-point where people of all sects and shades of opinion met; she received alike dandies, women of fashion, political agitators, and members of the Government.
No two persons could have been more entirely opposed to each other in
their nature, taste, and character, than Lady Morgan and
Mrs. Hemans. With all her celebrity,
Mrs. Hemans shrank from publicity, to which Lady
Morgan had been inured, until it had become her second nature. They had no
point of personality in common, except that both of them
| 272 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
I beg to acknowledge, with sincere thanks, the very kind
interest expressed towards me in your letters, both of which, after
considerable delay, occasioned, I imagine, by my late change of residence, I
have just received. It is indeed, pleasant to be the object of feelings so
cordial, to hear of unknown friends so zealous; nor do I the less gratefully
own the services thus frankly offered, because it is not necessary that I
should avail myself of them. I have recently met with a very liberal publisher
in Mr. Blackwood, and he has just
brought out new editions of two volumes,
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 273 |
In February, 1829, Parliament having been invited, in the Speech from
the Throne, “to consider the condition of Ireland,” proceeded to introduce a
Bill for the summary suppression of political societies under whatever name they might
exist. The duration of the Bill was limited to twelve months; it was passed without
opposition, in order that the course might be cleared for the great impending struggle for
Catholic Emancipation. It was well known amongst the friends of emancipation, that one of
the Duke of Wellington’s great difficulties, was
the powerful body of the Catholic Association, as a word either of triumph or of threat
from that body, would have rendered the King entirely
intractable. This Association had been revived in 1827. It was a signal example of the
faculty of organisation, and of the all but omnipotence of Association as an engine to
carry any object it may have in view. The Catholics in Ireland had attained the perfection
of national organisation; they had almost reached the discipline of a regular army. Perhaps
| 274 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
The Catholic Association had done its work when the English Government
had been induced to consider the best mode of granting political justice to the Roman
Catholics. The friends of religious liberty felt that any sacrifice must be made to prevent
the least pretext for revoking the good intentions formed with so much difficulty.
Lord Anglesea, who had been won over to the cause
of emancipation, used all his influence to induce the leaders of the movement to suspend
their proceedings. But the members of the Association were somewhat reluctant to give up
their position. There were meetings of the leaders, and many hot discussions; the prospect
of public affairs was ominous and unsettled. It is mentioned in the Life of Sheil, by Torrens McCullagh, that at a party at Lady Morgan’s, a letter from Mr. Hyde Villiers, (brother of the present Earl of
Clarendon, then Commissioner of Customs to Dublin) was shown to one of the
leaders of the Association. This letter reiterated all the pleas put forth by
Lord Anglesey, for the suspension of the proceedings of the
Catholic Association. Coming, as it did, from one who was supposed to know the intentions
of the Government, it produced a great effect. Mr.
Woulfe, the member to whom the letter had been specially shown, requested
leave to show it to Sheil. A private meeting
assembled at Sheil’s house, where the important step was
resolved upon; and when they separated, Sheil
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 275 |
The motion was carried, after some debate, and the Confederacy, which had existed under various forms for six years, separated to meet no more.
February 12.—I am just returned from the meeting of the Catholic Association, and faithful to its fire; for so great was the heat, and crowd, and excitement, that I nearly died under harness. The great question—the dissolution of the Catholic Association, was the subject of debate; and every ardent mind came worked up to the contest. All the best feelings, cool judgment, and tact, was evidently for the prompt and voluntary extinction of this great engine of popular opinion.
February 13.—Yesterday was memorable for our great
meeting at the Rotunda of the friends of civil and religious liberty—the
first great thing of the kind since the great era of the northern volunteer
martyrs, recalling the public spirit of 1782; there were fourteen peers
present;
| 276 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
The élite of the élite dined with us the same day. Lords Miltown, Cloncurry, George Villiers, Henry Greville, Charles Brownlow, R. Sheil, John Power, Lord Clements; Lord W. Paget, and Lord Bective were invited, but were engaged, so they came in the evening with Wyse, and others of the notables. Since the Union, no such re-union has been in Dublin.
February 15. I was at a party last night of the debris of the ascendancy faction; but the Orange ladies all looked blue, and their husbands tried to look green.
Very shortly after this event, Lord Anglesea was recalled from his Viceroyalty, to the great regret of all the liberal and enlightened portion of the Irish public. Lady Morgan wrote to him the following letter.
While your Lordship is still occupied in receiving
testimonials of national gratitude and regrets, it is almost presumptuous in an
individual to make claims upon time so importantly devoted; still I cannot
resist the desire of soliciting your notice to the little sketch of vice-regal popularity in Ireland that accompanied this for
I am neither of a sex nor a country
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 277 |
I have the honour to be, with deep sentiments of respect,
This letter followed Lord Anglesea to England, whence he replied—
I have this moment received your flattering effusion of the 24th.
I never could bear to keep the ladies waiting, even for one moment, and therefore hasten to tell you, that as my hour of trust is so near its close, I issue no more proclamations.
| 278 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Why, the Percy might take me, and with his two pocket justices commit me summarily! Gare, then, your coteries. There may be treason in tea drinking. I advise you to look to it.
But, surely, you did not suspect me of inditing in rhyme? You must have found out that I am the most prosaic, perhaps the most prosy (I leave you two full months to decide this latter point) of all representations of royalty.
Be this as may, I will not shine in borrowed plumes any longer. No, my dear Madam, I am as incapable of making a rhyme as of effecting the quadrature of the circle, or of speech making, and this latter misery is daily inflicted upon me.
My dismay is great at finding this scrawl amongst my papers. I really thought that it had gone, and been long since committed to your flames.
I now send it as I found it, merely to show, that if I had forgotten my letter, I had not felt indifferent to yours.
Do not let all my good friends quite forget me, and I beg you to
Lord Anglesey was replaced by the Duke of Northumberland; hence the allusion to “the Percy.”
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 279 |
March 11.—Sunday, dressing room, 12 o’clock. What an age since I put anything into this book! Christmas festivities at Lord Miltown’s, Lord Cloncurry’s.
My article on “Irish Lord Lieutenants” was sent off yesterday at two o’clock for the New Monthly. For five days I had been working against time and scarcely drew breath. To-day I am a lady at large (if not a large lady), and now for my own amusement and edification. Feet on fender—fire blazing away—snow falling—nothing but discomfort without and comfort within! soon will come my darling children and their good little father and dear little mother; and oh, the merry day we shall have in spite of wind and weather! And so please God we begin the new year; for this is our first family réunion in 1829.
The letters which follow relate mainly to the Irish politics of the year.
My Lord has given the Roman Catholic
Committee two hundred feet on the side of the Grand Canal, for two schools and
a house, for the Sisters of Charity. As the population of Tullamore is about
six thousand, our school (on the Lancastrian principle) holds one thousand, and
is never half full, which does not suffice. To read, write, and cypher, and
work, is good, come as it may; I will not consider it as an attempt to ex-
| 280 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Farewell, and always believe how much I am
Pardon me for not having immediately answered your kind invitation. I intended to pay my respects to-day, and to say that I should wait on you. I saw Colonel Gosset, this morning, who says that Lord Anglesey goes on Monday. Lord Melville has refused the Government of Ireland. It is not known who will be appointed. Brougham omitted, from bad health, to attend two meetings of the Opposition. Lord Holland has written to Blake to say that the lukewarm are excited by Lord Anglesey’s recall. It is considered a most improper proceeding. Lord Holland has written a tract on Lord Bexley’s attack on the Catholic religion!
Present my compliments to Lady Morgan, and believe me,
March.—So the Quarterly has let loose
its dogs of war again on me, under the new groom of the kennel, Mr. Lockhart, of John Scott celebrity and Walter
Scott’s auspices. The Scotch reviews accuse my poor
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 281 |
Now I have a right, like other British subjects, to be judged by my peers, and I summon a jury of matrons, of the most intact reputation, mothers “who wear pockets, and don’t hold opera-boxes signs of inward grace,” to say if they detect in my pages one line that tends to make one honest man my foe. Why, then, if they do, I submit to be branded with that horrible stigma with which a modest woman and a moral writer is now impugned withal. But I have been tried already before that truly Grand Jury, the Public, from which there is no appeal, and acquitted; and I have before me a letter from Mr. Constable, offering me the same terms as Sir W. Scott.
I see in the papers, to-day, the death of Mr. Gifford—the direst, darkest enemy I ever had. We never saw each other; he hated me for my success and my principles.
Mort la bête, mort le venin, |
Gifford was, it is said, in the receipt
of a large income. During the time that he was editor of The Quarterly Review,
Mr. Murray paid him nine hundred
pounds a year. He received annually, as one of the comptrollers of the Lottery
Office, six hundred pounds. He had a salary of three hundred pounds as
paymaster of the band of Gentlemen Pensioners, two hundred a year as clerk of
the Estreats in the Court of Exchequer; and, in addition to all these sums, he
enjoyed a pen-
| 282 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
April 4.—Just dispatched to Colburn my preface to the Book of the Boudoir, which is to appear immediately. We are off to England, ourselves, and thence shortly to France.
April 6.—Adieu to care and home, to some whom I love, and to all whom I hate! I leave my trash bag behind me.
The Book of the Boudoir succeeded The O’Briens and the O’Flaherties. Her own account of it is given in the Preface, as follows:—
“Whilst the fourth volume of the O’Briens and the O’Flaherties was going through the press, Mr. Colburn was sufficiently pleased with the subscription (as it is termed in the trade) to desire a new work from the author. I was just setting off for Ireland—the horses literally putting-to—when Mr. Colburn arrived with his flattering proposition. Taking up a scrubby MS. volume, which the servant was about to thrust into the pocket of the carriage, he asked, what was that? I said it was one of my volumes of odds and ends, and read him my last entry, made the evening before. “This is the very thing,” said he.
It was as Lady Morgan says,
published in April, 1829. It contains short articles, essays, and observations, such as she
was in the habit of writing in her diary—a little enlarged and put into shape; but it
is the book that ex-
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 283 |
There is no journal of her visit to France, this year, nor of her stay in London. There is the following entry in her journal after her return to Dublin.
September 1.—After a most delightful and triumphant visit to France, and residence of three months in Paris; after a most prosperous journey through the Low Countries and Holland, an excellent and agreeable voyage from Ostend to London, and business-like and satisfactory residence in London, and a detestable passage across the Herring Pond, we arrived at our own dear but dirty little home, and a most joyous meeting with our family in Great George’s Street.
Lady Morgan, during her visit to London in 1829,
| 284 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Neither she nor Sir Charles knew any difference between a good carriage and a bad one—a carriage was a carriage to them. It never was known where this vehicle was bought, except that Lady Morgan always declared, “it came from the first carriage builder in London.”
In shape it was a grasshopper—as well as in colour. Very high and very springy, with enormous wheels, it was difficult to get in and dangerous to get out. Sir Charles, who never in his life before had mounted a coach-box, was persuaded by his wife “to drive his own carriage.”
He was extremely short sighted, and wore large green spectacles when out of doors. His costume was a coat, much trimmed with fur, and braided. James Grant, their “tall Irish footman,” in the brightest of red plush, sat beside him, his office being to jump down whenever anybody was knocked down or run over, for Sir Charles drove as it pleased God. The horse was mercifully a very quiet animal, and much too small for the carriage, or the mischief would have been more. Lady Morgan, in the large bonnet of the period, and a cloak lined with fur hanging over the back of the carriage, gave, as she conceived, the crowning grace to a neat and elegant turn out.
The only drawback, to her satisfaction, was the alarm caused by
Sir Charles’s driving; and she was
incessantly springing up to adjure him “to take care,”
| LETTERS AND DIARIES—1829. | 285 |
September 11.—This day sat alone clearing out the dust traps, refitting up from kitchen to garret, working myself like a galley slave, removed between two and three thousand volumes, cleaned and varnished thirty pictures, washed all my old china and knick-knacks, worked with my servants and the char-women for three days successively. Talked much to the two char-women—such misery!! Told them how to make a bouilli instead of eating salt bacon, when they did get meat. One of them, a half naked creature, was a sentimentalist. I heard her say, in her slang brogue, to her comrade, “Kitty, dear, did iver ye read Caroline and Lindor? its an illegant story!” This must be Caroline of Litchfield. One of the painters said “Did you get a sup of ‘By yer leave, Charley?’” (read whiskey!)
September 12.—Went to Portran (Mr. Evan’s) to get rid of the smell of the paint.
September 14.—Returned to town; house finished and beautiful. Received a splendid present from the Baron Gerard, of his picture of Henry the Fourth entering Paris, the Tomb of Bonaparte, and Cupid and Psyche, all framed and hung up along with my other presents from eminent artists.
September 25.—Received my first invitation from Duchess of Northumberland. Received a deputation of weavers in their misery; they presented me a petition to assist them. I wrote them an answer.
September 24.—Dinner party at home; little
soirée
| 286 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
September 30.—Begun my new work on France—out of materials in journals; don’t in the least know what I shall make of it; interrupted by a cours de toilette; an hour bien sonnée in my dressmaker’s hands. She is making up a fine tabinet dress for the Duchess of Northumberland’s party on Thursday.
The Duchess of Northumberland, it should be said in explanation of the above, was a great patroness of Irish manufactures; she made all the ladies of her court live in tabinet dresses. The Duke endeavoured to develope Irish resources, and Tory as he might be, he made himself beloved during his vice-royalty.
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