“Any romance she had felt about Sir Charles was frightened out of her for the time being; and she said she would have given anything to be able to run away again. Neither was much delay accorded to her. On a cold morning in January she was sitting in the library by the fire in her morning wrapper, when Lady Abercorn opened the door and said, ‘Glorvina, come up-stairs directly and be married; there must be no more trifling.’ Her ladyship took Miss Owenson’s arm and led her up-stairs into her dressing-room, where a table was arranged for the ceremony; the family chaplain standing in full canonicals with his book open, and Sir Charles ready to receive her. There was no escape left—the ceremony proceeded, and the Wild Irish Girl was married past redemption.”
All this took place, it will be observed, in January 1812, possibly upon the third day of the month. On the 29th of the previous December, Miss Owenson, being in Dublin on some mysterious millinery business, wrote thus to the Doctor—“Oh, Morgan! give me all your love, tenderness, comfort, and support, for in five short days I am yours for ever.” Thus, whether by accident or through design, Miss Owenson, at the age of thirty-six, gave her hand to a man six or seven years her junior, on whom the noble Marquess had persuaded the Lord-Lieutenant to confer the honour of knighthood, for no other ostensible purpose than that he might have the satisfaction of filling his glass after dinner, and drinking to the health of Sir Charles and Lady Morgan.
Little more remains to be told of the personal history of our heroine—not much of her future efforts as an authoress and a politician. Sir Charles and Lady Morgan soon discovered that the stately restraint of Baronscourt and the Priory were too much for a newly-married couple. They parted from the Abercorns, therefore, apparently on decent terms, and took possession of a house of their own in Kildare Street. Sir Charles then endeavoured to get into practice as a physician, but failed. Nobody called him in, so the gifted couple devoted themselves conjointly and severally to literature. We say conjointly and severally, because the lady, with her usual prudence, had stipulated in the marriage-contract that her earnings should belong exclusively to herself; while the gentleman, who was a widower, settled his private patrimony on a daughter whom his first wife had brought him. Lady Morgan had by far the best of this bargain. Her novel of ‘O’Donnel,’ which Colburn brought out in 1813, she sold for £500; and as the book went through not fewer than three editions, we are of opinion that, looking at the matter in a mercantile point of view, she was not paid too much for it.
This was clearly Lady Morgan’s opinion likewise, and she determined that Mr Colburn should not for the future purchase her favours so cheaply. As to her husband, he had utterly failed. He put forth a volume, which he called ‘Outlines of the Physiology of Life,’ and his publisher never sold copies enough to cover the cost of the paper. No wonder. It was a dull, impudent, most unphilosophical piece of materialism, which disgusted even the believers in that wretched creed by the boldness with which it asserted as facts points which they had never ventured to treat except as open to speculative discussion. But the failure of Sir Charles in nowise daunted his wife. The battle of Waterloo having restored peace to Europe, and re-established, as was assumed, the throne of the Bourbons in France, Sir Charles and Lady Morgan went forth to spy the land; and after remaining, chiefly in Paris, about six weeks, came back and entered into negotiation with Mr Colburn for the publication of a volume of their travels. A very diplomatic correspondence ensued. Colburn offered £750 for the copyright, and spoke of the great things which he was in a condition to do, for what he called his books and his authors, through the instrumentality of his ‘New Monthly Magazine and Literary Gazette.’ Her ladyship stood out stiffly for £1000, and she carried her point. “To conclude at once,” wrote Colburn, “though at a really great risk, I will consent to undertake to pay the £1000, and, on my honour, if it succeed better than expected, I will consider myself accordingly your debtor, besides making up to you the other £50 on ‘O’Donnel,’ that you may no longer regret the third edition.”
Nobody reads Lady Morgan’s ‘France’ now any more than he reads ‘O’Donnel.’ It is full of the most ridiculous blunders, and abounds in misstatements which could have hardly been accidental at the time. Yet it sold well. The ‘Quarterly’ fell upon it mercilessly, doubtless promoting the sale by the virulence of its criticisms. This attack Lady Morgan ingeniously met by assuring her friends that Croker was one of her rejected lovers, and that he had taken this opportunity of avenging himself for the sufferings he had undergone! On the other hand, all who delighted in scandal were charmed with the book, and Mme. Paterson Buonaparte wrote from Paris to assure the authoress that her manner of detailing it was quite as agreeable to French people as to English.
“Public expectation is as high as possible,” she says, “and if you had kept it a little longer, they would have purchased it” (the book) “at your own price. How happy you must be at filling the world with your name as you do! Madame de Staël and Madame de Genlis are forgotten; and if the love of fame be of any weight with you, your excursion to Paris was attended with brilliant success. I assure you—and you know I am sincere—that you are more spoken of than any other person at the present day. Mr Moore seldom sees me; I did not take with him at all. He called to show me the article of your letter which mentions the report of the Duke of Wellington’s loves. I am not the Mrs —— the great man gives as a successor to Grassini. You would be surprised if you knew how great a fool she is, at the power she exercises over the Duke; but I believe that he has no taste pour les femmes d’esprit, which is, however, no reason for going into extremes, as in this case.”
The prince of puffers was Henry Colburn. He spent a fortune in advertising his own books, and succeeded, till the trick was found out, in cramming many a trashy production down the throat of a gullible public. It is certain, also, that he believed in his own power, and made a boast of it. He was so well pleased with the success of ‘France,’ that, besides purchasing ‘Florence Macarthy,’ with some dead weight, from Sir Charles for £1200, he suggested that the Morgans should visit Italy, and promised £2000 for the copyright of the book of travels to be written. The terms were accepted, and in due time appeared ‘Italy,’ by Lady Morgan. “Her ladyship’s criticisms on the public buildings and pictures,” observes Miss Jewsbury, “may be open to question, but the spirit of the book (being ultra-liberal) is noble, and its fascination undeniable.” Agreeing with the former clause of this sentence, we may let the latter pass unnoticed; for the bubble of Lady Morgan’s reputation was on the eve of bursting. She and Mr Colburn fell out. She never could believe but that the monarch of Marlborough Street was growing rich at her expense; so, having visited France a second time, and written a second book about it, she determined to bring him to reason. While the work was yet in progress, she wrote to Colburn, who did not immediately answer the letter. She wrote again, but no reply came; whereupon she opened a correspondence about terms with Messrs Saunders and Otley. Colburn no sooner heard of this, than he remonstrated against it in no very becoming terms. “I can now only say,” he wrote to Sir Charles, “that if Lady Morgan does not break off the negotiation, which is simply done on the plea of misunderstanding, it will be no less detrimental to her literary than to her pecuniary interest. As to myself, it is a very different feeling, and not merely pecuniary interest, that makes me urge this matter; as I can prove, if necessary, I have lost considerably by the last two or three works.” Could bibliopolic insolence go beyond this? He lost by her ladyship’s works! He threaten to injure her literary reputation! Let him do his worst. A bargain was concluded with Messrs Saunders and Otley, and under their auspices ‘France Revisited’ came out. The day after its appearance men read with astonishment in all the newspapers an advertisement headed in large letters, “Lady Morgan at half-price.” The base-born miscreant had the audacity to declare “That in consequence of the great losses which he had sustained by Lady Morgan’s former works, Mr Colburn had declined this present book on France, and that all the copies of her ladyship’s works might be had at half-price.” The cruel announcement had the desired effect. Messrs Saunders and Otley found themselves losers by a good deal more than the thousand pounds which they had given for the copyright, and Lady Morgan’s popularity as a writer collapsed.
We must not devote more of our space to the poor dead old lady. She had pretty well feathered her nest by this time, and though she could not sell her books as she had heretofore done, she did what was far better. She got the Government to settle upon her a pension of £300 a year, the very highest reward which Imperial generosity ever bestows in this rich country on literary eminence. This enabled her to keep house in William Street, and to maintain such social intercourse with the gay world as we have elsewhere indicated. She had always been a ready correspondent, and she continued the practice of letter-writing to the last. Generally speaking, that portion of her correspondence which has found its way into these volumes is harmless enough. It contains little else, when her ladyship writes, than descriptions of the fine people whom she meets, and the pleasant things which they say to her. When fine ladies and gentlemen address her, it is always in a strain of exaggerated flattery. But poor Lady Caroline Lamb might, we think, have been permitted to lie still in her grave. Not that her letters to Lady Morgan tell anything which we did not know already; for Lady Caroline never made a secret of her weaknesses, and was evidently incapable of understanding that other people might call them by a harsher name. But for the sake of Lady Morgan herself, and the reputation of good-heartedness, which was really not undeserved in her case, it is a pity that she should be made the means of recalling to the world’s recollection so pitiable a story. We suspect, however, that Miss Jewsbury and Mr Dixon had no choice in the matter. They must print all or nothing; and so, having spared very few of the old lady’s male friends, they could find no good reason for being more tender towards her friends of the other sex. In the name, however, of the women of society living under the reign of Victoria, we must protest against these volumes being accepted, either now or a hundred years hence, as illustrative of the sort of domestic life to which they are accustomed.