Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Lady Morgan to Sir Malby Crofton, 5 March 1856
11, William Street,
Albert Gate, Belgravia,
March 5, 1856.
My dear Sir Malby,
Maclean, the publisher of a portrait of mine, showed me
lately a list of the subscribers names, among whom the one that most gratified
me, was yours! You, probably, scarcely remember a
girl with (what in Irish we call) a Cathath head, and a very nimble foot at
crossing a ford and dancing an Irish jig, or taking a game of romps out of
“little Malby;” but she can never forget days so happy and so careless, and which
furnished forth the details of the Wild Irish Girl—the progenitress
of her own little fame and fortune! Still living on amid all these pleasant
impressions, I cannot resist writing you a few lines, not only to recal myself
to your memory, but to set at rest all my traditional shanaos of the
Crofton family. I found my claim on your attention by
a fact of which perhaps you ![]()
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are not aware—that I
have the distinction of being the grand-daughter of one who had the honour to
be a daughter of the house of Crofton! Sydney Crofton Bell, in her time celebrated for
her poetical and musical talents, and bearing the Irish cognomen of
Clasagh na Valla—“the Harp of the
Valley”; from this gifted individual has been derived whatever talent has
distinguished her descendants for three generations. She threw her Irish mantle
over us, and though somewhat the worse for the wear (as Irish mantles generally
are!), it has stood us all in good stead. Your own amiable and distinguished
grandmother, my dear Lady Crofton, the
friend and protectress of my own early life, and one of the noblest creatures I
ever knew, always acknowledged the Irish cousinship, of which I am as proud as
I am of my relationship with Oliver
Goldsmith, though his illustrations were not of such
genealogical distinction as the descendants of the friend of the Earl of Essex, who founded your family. If you
admit the “propinquity of kin,” dear Sir Malby, I should be much gratified. Now, tell me, dear
Sir Malby, why, in Burke’s
Peerage, they date your baronetage only from 1838? Time immemorial your grandfather Malby was always titled. I had hoard there
was some forfeiture “in the time of the troubles!” Why, too, was
the ancient seat of the family called Longford? had it
not an Irish name? and what name? Is the old chapel
standing? or the original Crofton apple trees, that were
brought over to Ireland in the time of Queen
Elizabeth? Well, I will bother you no
more with my antiquarian questions, but in conclusion ![]()
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only say, that if you or any of your family should come to London, and will try
my “tap,” at the sign of the Irish Harp, you
will meet with “cead mille falthæ” from,
dear Sir Malby,
Yours very sincerely,
Sir Malby Crofton, baronet (1741-1808)
Of Longford House, County Sligo, son of Sir Oliver Crofton, baronet. He was of the Mote
baronetcy; his descendants were Longford-house baronets.
Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex (1565-1601)
The sometimes favourite of Queen Elizabeth who after an unsuccessful campaign in Ireland
initiated a rebellion and was executed for treason.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728 c.-1774)
Irish miscellaneous writer; his works include
The Vicar of
Wakefield (1766),
The Deserted Village (1770), and
She Stoops to Conquer (1773).
Sydney MacOwen [née Bell] (1750 fl.)
The wife of Walter MacOwen, mother of the actor Robert Owenson, and grandmother of Lady
Morgan; she was descended from the Croftons of Mote and was a distant cousin of Oliver
Goldsmith.
