Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Lady Morgan to Thomas Moore, 2 January 1831
Kildare Street, Dublin,
January 2nd, 1831.
Dear Mr. Moore,
I am tempted to put your good
nature at rest, with respect to the refusal of the editorship. Your friend
Crampton (whom I met at dinner
yesterday) has offered to forward a note to you by his packet. So I am tempted
to write. My opinion is, that it would be for the
advantage of literature if periodical publications were
put down for ever. Mr. Crampton and I agreed last night
that we should be inclined to “put on the list of
friends those whom you say have
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| LAST YEARS IN DUBLIN—1831. | 319 |
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advised you not to publish your Life of Lord
Edward, at this most mal à
propos and inauspicious moment. Ireland is no more the
country you left three months ago than it is Cochin
China! To judge by the outline and aspect of things, a connoisseur in revolution (and I am pas mal in that species of virtú) all would say we were on the
eve of the worst and most perilous political commotions one coming from below, and such elements!
Imagine countless thousands of the lower classes pouring through the streets,
silent, concentrated, worked by a nod, a sign; and this, the day after a
proclamation from the government, forbidding all
meetings.(!) All other classes are paralysed; government
is without one organ to address to public opinion; not one newspaper in its service—terrorism the order of the day, and a parliament dispersed for six weeks at least, and the nation left to
the prayers of the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the black Pasto of
Mr. Percival. It is clear that they
know nothing about us in England; by this time, however, Lord Anglesey has probably given them a hint; his reception is a stain
upon the country, which can never be effaced; peace or war (civil war and extending woes) now lies in the influence of O’Connell over the passions of the
people; “to this complexion are we come at
last”
In haste,
Dear Mr. Moore,
Yours truly,
Sir Philip Crampton, first baronet (1777-1858)
He was surgeon-general to the forces in Ireland, elected to the Royal Society in 1812;
Lady Morgan described him as an accomplished dancer of the Irish Jig.
William Howley, archbishop of Canterbury (1766-1848)
Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, he was regius professor of Divinity
(1809-13), bishop of London (1813-28), and archbishop of Canterbury (1828-48).
Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847)
Irish politician, in 1823 he founded the Catholic Association to press for Catholic
emancipation.
Henry William Paget, first marquess of Anglesey (1768-1854)
Originally Bayly, educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford; he was MP
(1790-1810), commander of cavalry under Sir John Moore, lost a leg at Waterloo, and raised
to the peerage 1815; he was lord-lieutenant of Ireland (1828-29, 1830-33).
Spencer Perceval (1762-1812)
English statesman; chancellor of the exchequer (1807), succeeded the Duke of Portland as
prime minister (1809); he was assassinated in the House of Commons.
