Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Thomas Moore to Lady Morgan, 24 May 1832
May 24th, 1832.
My dear Lady Morgan,
At the time I received your letter, I was
not very well able to answer it, and, indeed, till within these two
days, have felt by no means well, or like myself. I am, however,
now much better. I have been in correspondence, during part of the
time, with your friend of the Metropolitan, Captain Marryatt, and if the most
cautious and flattering liberality, on his part, added to your kind
persuasions, could have made a contributor or editor of me, I
should have been one at this moment. But I hate to be tied; it is this, far more than what you
call my aristocratic (God help me) prejudices, which makes me
reject so often the golden ![]()
| FLYING VISIT TO ENGLAND—1832. | 341 |
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bait flung at me.
If I were to judge, indeed, of the state of literature from my own
experience, I should say it never was more prosperous, as I have
actually turned away from my door (as the
shop-keepers say) fifteen hundred guineas and a thousand pounds a
year within the last three months; all the time, too, wanting money
most pinchingly. From what you said in your letter I took for
granted that Campbell had
intimated some intention of abdicating the editorship; but this I
find not to be the case, and if I were ever so disposed to accept
of the chair, I should shrink from the slightest step, on my part,
that could be construed into a wish to supplant him. I lament to
hear of his present state, but he has been a
noble fellow. You will think it looks very-like contributorship
when you come to see some verses of mine announced for the next
number of the Metropolitan; but, besides my wish to show, by
some trifling mark, how much I felt the kindness both of
Captain Marryatt and Dr. Saunders, these verses were of
a kind that would not keep, being a good deal circulated, or, at
least, shown about by those who are interested in them, and,
therefore, likely to get into print. All I have told you about shop
business here is for your private self alone; for, though vain
enough, God knows, at being praised so much higher than I am worth,
I think it, in general, not right to proclaim the particulars of my
negociations with the bibliopolists.
Give my best regards to Morgan,
And believe me, very truly yours,
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
Frederick Marryat (1792-1848)
Sea-captain and novelist; he published
The Naval Officer, or, Scenes
and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay, 3 vols (1829) and edited the
Metropolitan Magazine (1832-35).
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (1780-1843)
English physician and philosophical essayist who married the novelist Sydney Owenson in
1812; he was the author of
Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals
(1822). He corresponded with Cyrus Redding.
Simon Saunders (1783-1861)
In partnership with Edward John Otley he purchased Henry Colburn's Conduit Street
circulating library in 1824, afterwards becoming publishers of novels and the
Metropolitan Magazine.
