She next figures as a governess in the family of a Mrs. Featherstone of Bracklin Castle. There was a merry dance for adieu the night she was to leave, but, like Cinderella, she danced too long: the hour sounded, and Sydney was hurried into the coach in a white muslin dress, pink silk stockings and slippers of the same hue, while Molly, the faithful old servant, insisted on wrapping her darling in her own warm cloak and ungainly headgear. Being ushered in this plight into a handsome drawing-room, there was a general titter at her grotesque appearance, but she told her story in her own captivating way until they screamed with laughter—not at her now, but with her—and she was "carried off to an exquisite suite of rooms—a study, bedroom and bath-room, with a roaring turf fire, open piano and lots of books;" and after dinner, where she was toasted, she sang several songs, which had an immense effect, and the evening ended with a jig, her hosts regretting that they had no spectators besides the servants. This, her first jig out of the school-room, she contrasts with her last one in public, when invited by the duchess of Northumberland to dance with Lord George Hill. She accepted the challenge from the two best jig-dancers in the country, Lord George and Sir Philip Crampton, and had the triumph of flooring them both.
Her first novel, St. Clair, was now completed. She had kept the writing of it a profound secret, and one morning the young author, full of ambitious dreams, borrowed the cook's market-bonnet and cloak and sallied out to seek her fortune. Before going far she saw over a shop-door "T. Smith, Printer and Bookseller," and ventured in. It was some minutes before T. Smith made his appearance, and when he did so he had a razor in one hand, a towel in the other, and only one side of his face shaved. After hearing her errand he told her, good-naturedly, that he did not publish novels, and sent her to Brown. Brown wanted his breakfast, and was not anxious for a girl's manuscript; but his wife persuaded him to promise to look it over; and, elated with success, Sydney ran back, forgetting to leave any address, and never heard of her first venture till, taking up a book in a friend's parlor, it proved to be her own. It had a good sale, and was translated into German, with a biographical notice which stated that the young author had strangled herself with an embroidered handkerchief in an agony of despair and unrequited love. The Sorrows of Werther was her model, but with a deal of stuff and sentimentality there was the promise of better things. "In all her early works her characters indulge in wonderful digressions, historical, astronomical and metaphysical, in the midst of terrible emergencies where danger, despair and unspeakable catastrophes are imminent and impending. No matter what laceration of their finest feelings they may be suffering, they always have their learning at command, and never fail to make quotations from favorite authors appropriate to the occasion."
The Novice of St. Dominick was Miss Owenson's second novel, and she went alone to London to make arrangements for its publication. In those days a journey from Ireland to that great city was no small undertaking, and when the coach drove into the yard of the Swan with Two Necks the enterprising young lady was utterly exhausted, and, seating herself on her little trunk in the inn-yard, fell fast asleep. But, as usual, she found friends, and good luck was on her side. The novel was cut down from six volumes to four, and with her first literary earnings, after assisting her father, she bought an Irish harp and a black mode cloak, being always devoted to music and dress. At this time her strongest ambition was to be every inch a woman. She gave up serious studies, to which she had applied herself, and cultivated even music as a mere accomplishment, fearful lest she should be considered a pedant or an artiste.
Next came The Wild Irish Girl, her first national story, which gave her more than a national fame, and three hundred pounds from her fascinated publisher. It contains much curious information about the antiquities and social condition of Ireland, and a passionate pleading against the wrongs of its people. It made the piquant little governess all the rage in fashionable society, and until her marriage she was known by the name of her heroine, Glorvina. As a story the book is not worth reading at the present day.
In The Book of the Boudoir, a sort of literary ragbag, she gives, under the heading "My First Rout in London," a graphic picture of an evening at Lady Cork's: "A few days after my arrival in London, and while my little book, The Wild Irish Girl, was running rapidly through successive editions, I was presented to the countess-dowager of Cork, and invited to a rout at her fantastic and pretty mansion in New Burlington street. Oh, how her Irish historical name tingled in my ears and seized on my imagination, reminding me of her great ancestor, 'the father of chemistry and uncle to the earl of Cork'! I stepped into my job carriage at the hour of ten, and, all alone by myself, as the song says, 'to Eden took my solitary way.' What added to my fears and doubts and hopes and embarrassments was a note from my noble hostess received at the moment of departure: 'Everybody has been invited expressly to meet the Wild Irish Girl; so she must bring her Irish harp. M.C.O.' I arrived at New Burlington street without my harp and with a beating heart, and I heard the high-sounding titles of princes and ambassadors and dukes and duchesses announced long before my poor plebeian name puzzled the porter and was bandied from footman to footman. As I ascended the marble stairs with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions similar to those which drew from a frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! I wish some of my greatest enemies was kicking me down Dame street.' Lady Cork met me at the door: 'What! no harp, Glorvina?'—'Oh, Lady Cork!'—'Oh, Lady Fiddlestick! You are a fool, child: you don't know your own interests.—Here, James, William, Thomas! send one of the chairmen to Stanhope street for Miss Owenson's harp.'"
After a stand and a stare of some seconds at a strikingly sullen-looking, handsome creature who stood alone, and whom she heard addressed by a pretty sprite of fashion with a "How-do, Lord Byron?" she says: "I was pushed on, and on reaching the centre of the conservatory I found myself suddenly pounced upon a sort of rustic seat, a very uneasy pre-eminence, and there I sat, the lioness of the night, shown off like the hyena of Exeter 'Change, looking almost as wild and feeling quite as savage. Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd which an idle curiosity, easily excited and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us, she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium which seemed to amuse every one but its object: 'Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl whom you are so anxious to know. I assure you she talks quite as well as she writes.—Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories you told us the other evening. Fancy yourself among your own set, and take off the brogue. Mrs. Abingdon says you would make a famous actress: she does indeed. You must play the short-armed orator with her: she will be here by and by. This is the duchess of St. Albans: she has your novel by heart. Where is Sheridan?—Do, my dear Mr. T—— (This is Mr. T——, my dear: geniuses should know each other)—do, my dear Mr. T——, find me Mr. Sheridan. Oh! here he is!—What! you know each other already? So much the better.—This is Lord Carysford.—Mr. Lewis, do come forward.—That is Monk Lewis, my dear, of whom you have heard so much, but you must not read his works: they are very naughty.' Lewis, who stood staring at me through his eye-glasses, backed out after this remark, and disappeared. 'You know Mr. Gell,' her ladyship continued, 'so I need not introduce you: he calls you the Irish Corinne. Your friend Mr. Moore will be here by and by: I have collected all the talent for you.—Do see, somebody, if Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons are come yet, and find me Lady Hamilton.—Now, pray tell us the scene at the Irish baronet's in the rebellion.'
"Lord L—— volunteered his services. The circle now began to widen—wits, warriors, peers and ministers of state. The harp was brought forward, and I tried to sing, but my howl was funereal. I was ready to cry, but endeavored to laugh, and to cover my real timidity by an affected ease which was both awkward and impolitic. At last Mr. Kemble was announced. Lady Cork reproached him as the late Mr. Kemble, and then, looking significantly at me, told him who I was. Kemble acknowledged me by a kindly nod, but the stare which succeeded was not one of mere recognition: it was the glazed, fixed look so common to those who have been making libations to altars which rarely qualify them for ladies' society. Mr. Kemble was evidently much preoccupied and a little exalted. He was seated my vis-à-vis at supper, and repeatedly raised his arm and stretched it across the table for the purpose, as I supposed, of helping himself to some boar's head in jelly. Alas! no! The bore was that my head happened to be the object which fixed his tenacious attention, which, dark, cropped and curly, struck him as a particularly well-organized brutus, and better than any in his repertoire of theatrical perukes. Succeeding at last in his feline and fixed purpose, he actually stuck his claws in my locks, and, addressing me in the deepest sepulchral tones, asked, 'Little girl, where did you get your wig?' Lord Erskine came to the rescue and liberated my head, and all tried to retrieve the awkwardness of the scene. Meanwhile, Kemble, peevish, as half-tipsy people generally are, drew back muttering and fumbling in his pocket, evidently with some dire intent lowering in his eyes. To the amusement of all, and to my increased consternation, he drew forth a volume of the Wild Irish Girl, and reading with his deep, emphatic voice one of the most high-flown of its passages, he paused, and patting the page with his fore finger, with the look of Hamlet addressing Polonius, he said, 'Little girl, why did you write such nonsense? and where did you get all those damned hard words?' Thus taken by surprise, and smarting with my wounds of mortified authorship, I answered unwittingly and witlessly the truth: 'Sir, I wrote as well as I could, and I got the hard words from—Johnson's Dictionary.' He was soon carried off to prevent any more attacks on my head, inside or out."
Glorvina was now very much the fashion, visiting in the best Dublin society and making many friends, whom she had the tact to retain through life. When articles of dress or ornament are named for one, it is an unfailing sign that they have attained notoriety, if not fame, and the bodkin used for fastening the "back hair" was called "Glorvina" in her honor. Like many attractive women of decided character, she had her full share of faults and foibles. Superficial, conceited, sadly lacking in spirituality and refinement, a cruel enemy, a toady to titles, a blind partisan of the Liberal party,—that is her picture in shadow. Her style was open to severe criticism, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth suggests mildly that Maria, in reading her novel aloud in the family circle, was obliged to omit some superfluous epithets.
In this first flush of celebrity she never gave up work, holding fast to industry as her sheet-anchor. Soon appeared two volumes of patriotic tales. Ida of Athens was Novel No. 3, but written in confident haste, and not well received. The names of her books would make a list rivalling that of the loves of Don Giovanni (nearly seventy volumes), and any extended analysis or criticism would be impossible in this rapid sketch. "Every day in my life is a leaf in my book" was a motto literally carried out, and she tried almost every department of literature, succeeding best in describing the broad characteristics of her own nation. "Her lovers, like her books, were too numerous to mention," yet her own heart seemed untouched. She coquetted gayly, but her adorers were always the sufferers.
Sir Jonah Barrington wrote her at this time a complimentary and witty letter, in which he says of her heroine Glorvina, "I believe you stole a spark from heaven to give animation to your idol." He thought the inferiority of Ida was owing to its author's luxurious surroundings. "I cannot conceive why the brain should not get fat and unwieldy, as well as any other part of the human frame. Some of our best poets have written in paroxysms of hunger, and I really believe that Addison would have had more point if he had had less victuals; and if you do not restrict yourself to a sheep's trotter and spruce beer, your style will betray your luxury." But soon came an increase of the very thing feared for her fame, in the form of an invitation from Lady Abercorn and the marquis to pass the chief part of every year with them. This was accepted, and thus she met her fate. Lord Abercorn kept a physician in his house, Doctor Morgan, a handsome, accomplished widower, whom the marchioness was anxious to provide with a second wife. She had fixed upon Sydney as a suitable person, but the retiring and reticent doctor had heard so much of her wit, talents and general fascination that he disliked the idea of meeting her. He was sitting one morning with the marchioness when a servant threw open the door, announcing "Miss Owenson," who had just arrived. Doctor Morgan sprang to his feet, and, there being no other way of escape, leaped through the open window into the garden below. This was too fair a challenge for a girl of spirit to refuse, and she set to work to captivate him, succeeding more effectually than she desired, for she had dreamed of making a brilliant match. Soon a letter was written to her father asking his leave to marry the conquered doctor, yet she does not seem to have been one bit in love. He was too grave and good, though as devoted a lover as could be asked for. It was a queer match and a dangerous experiment, but after a while their mutual qualities adjusted themselves. He kept her steady, and she roused him from indolent repose. As a critic of that time says: "She was as bustling, restless, energetic and pushing as he was modest, retiring and unaffected." Lover gives this picture of them: "There was Lady Morgan, with her irrepressible vivacity, her humor that indulged in the most audacious illustrations, and her candor which had small respect for time or place in its expression, and who, by the side of her tranquil, steady, contemplative husband, suggested the notion of a Barbary colt harnessed to a patient English draught-horse."