Pity, then, kind reader, pity the lot of the unfortunate gentleman whom we have just introduced to your acquaintance. A further account of this dame may prove not unacceptable.
Her father was an honest actor, accustomed to afford great delight to those deities who inhabit the one shilling galleries of English and Irish theatres, and to receive, himself, vast gratification from worshipping at the shrine of Bacchus. The daughter having given early indications of quickness and pertness, came to be considered quite a genius by her family and friends, whose natural partiality soon induced her to entertain the same opinion. Determined, accordingly, not to hide her light under a bushel, she made her appearance before the world as an authoress, from which it may very reasonably be inferred that she had not yet attained the years of discretion. Her début, of course, was as a wanderer in the realms of imagination, alias, a novel-writer, and in this capacity she continued to make the public stare for a series of years. We say stare, for we can find no more appropriate word for expressing the feelings which her fictions are calculated to excite. With plots of almost incomprehensible absurdity, they combine a style more inflated than any balloon in which Madame Blanchard ever sailed through the regions of air—a language, or rather jargon, composed of the pickings of nearly every idiom that ever did live, or is at present in existence, and sentiments which would be often of a highly mischievous tendency, if they were not rendered ridiculous by the manner in which they are expressed. The singularity of these productions excited a good deal of sensation, and, if we believe her own words, she was placed by them "in a definite rank among authors, and in no undistinguished circle of society." In some of the principal journals, however, the lady was severely taken to task, at the same time that she was counselled to obtain for herself a partner in weal and wo, by which she might be brought down from her foolish vagaries, to the sober realities of domestic duty. Wonderful to relate, she followed the advice of those whom her vanity must have taught her to consider as her bitterest foes, namely critics,—and as
"Nought but a genius can a genius fit,
A wit herself, Amelia weds a wit."
This wit was a regular knight of the pestle and mortar—a physician, whose pills and draughts had acquired for him the enviable right of placing that dignified appellation, Sir, before his Christian name, by which our authoress became entitled to be addressed as "Your Ladyship," as much as if she had married an Earl or a Marquis. Oh! how delighted the ci-devant plain "Miss" must have been at hearing the servants say to her, "Yes, my lady,"—"No, my lady."—The year in which the ceremony was performed that gave her a lord and master, we cannot precisely ascertain; but as the happy pair favoured the capital of France with their presence in 1816, it may not be unreasonable to suppose, that they went there to spend the honeymoon. Miraculous as are the changes which matrimony sometimes operates, it was powerless in its influence upon her Ladyship's propensities, and, consequently, not very long after returning to her "maison bijou" in Dublin, she put forth a quarto! with the magnificent title of "France." There are phenomena in the physical world, in the moral world, in the intellectual world, but this book was a phenomenon that beat them all. It was absolutely wonderful how so much ignorance, nonsense, vanity, and folly, could be compressed within the compass even of a quarto. All the sense that could be discerned in it, was contained in four or five essays, upon Love, Law and Physic, and Politics, contributed by Sir the husband. Being anxious that "France" should have a companion, she subsequently made an expedition to the land of the Dilettanti, in company with the dear man who had made her, "she trusts, a respectable, and she is sure, a happy mistress of a family," and forthwith "Italy" appeared to sustain her well-earned reputation for qualities, which she has the singular felicity of possessing without exciting envy. But her "never ending, still beginning" pen, was not satisfied with two volumes as the fruits of her Italian campaigning, especially as there happened to be a goodly quantity of memoranda in the "diary" which had not yet been turned to any use. Some subject, therefore, was to be hit upon for another publication, in which they could be inserted, when beat out into a sizeable shape; and what could be better adapted for that purpose than the biography of a great Italian artist? The life of poor Salvator Rosa was, in consequence, attempted. Just think of making one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, a peg to hang notes upon! The next offspring of her Ladyship's brain, was, we believe, another novel, which was as like its predecessors as possible. In the period that elapsed between this birth, and the moment in which we have had the honour of introducing her to our readers, her literary family was increased by another child, with the delightful name of "The Book of the Boudoir."
We hope we have not been understood as meaning to insinuate, that because her Ladyship is the mother of a couple of dozen of volumes, she is on that account a précieuse ridicule. This was far, very far from our intention. None can take more pleasure than ourselves in rendering all homage to genuine female talent, employed for useful and honourable purposes, or be more willing to acknowledge the peculiar excellence by which its productions are frequently marked. Were it our pleasant duty at present to notice the works of an Edgeworth, a Hemans, a Mitford, a Sedgwick, or of any others of that fair and brilliant assemblage, who reflect so great a lustre upon the literature of this age, we should use language as eulogistic as their warmest admirers could desire. But we have to do now with a person of a very different description from those bright ornaments of their sex—with one in whose mind, whatever flowers Nature may originally have planted, have been almost completely choked by the rank weeds of ignorance, presumption, frivolity, and vanity beyond measurement—who, in a list of works as long, to use one of her own delicate illustrations, as "Leporello's catalogue of Don Juan's mistresses," has given little or no aid to the cause of virtue generally, or evinced the slightest anxiety to improve and benefit her sex, but has devoted all her faculties to the erection of an altar on which she might worship herself, and only herself—who has even afforded cause, by the frequently extreme levity of her expressions, for the charge of lending countenance to licentiousness and impiety—whose writings, in fine, are calculated to inflict serious injury upon the tastes, the understandings, and the hearts of her youthful female readers, by accustoming them to a vicious and ridiculous style, by filling their minds with false and perverted sentiments and wrong impressions upon some of the most important matters, and by setting before them the example of a woman who boasts of being a member of no undistinguished circle of society, and yet constantly violates those laws of delicacy and refinement, the full observance of which is indispensable for every female who aspires to the name and character of a lady.
Pale Aurora began now to appear, "Tiphoni croceum linquens cubile," in vulgar parlance, day began to break. Behold our couple setting forth on their Parisian expedition. Some months afterwards, the "maison bijou," in Kildare street, again was illumined by the presence of our fair traveller, whose pen was soon mended, dipped in ink, and busily employed. In due time its labours were brought to a termination, and two goodly volumes were ushered into the light of day, purporting to contain an account of "France in 1829-30." These are the identical volumes which it is our design in this article to notice.
"Facit indignatio versus," exclaimed the old Roman satirist, and "indignation makes us write," would we exclaim, in assigning our motives for devoting a number of our pages to "France in 1829-30," could we for a moment be persuaded that our readers would credit the assertion. It seems to us, that we already behold every one of them smiling in derision, and giving an incredulous shake of the head, at the bare idea of a cold-blooded reviewer being actuated by indignant feelings to place his critical lance in rest, and run a course against an unfortunate author. We must, nevertheless, be permitted to protest, that we do feel a considerable quantity of very honest and virtuous indignation against the trash last put forth by Miladi—quite as much, we are sure, as impelled Juvenal to the composition of his searing satires. We may be told, however, that we are waging battle with a lady, and that we should be upon our guard not to give fresh cause for the exclamation, that "the age of chivalry is gone." A lady, true; but, when in your boasted "age of chivalry," persons of her sex buckled on armour and rushed into the melée, were they spared by the courteous knights with whom they measured swords? Did not Clorinda receive her death wound from the hand of Tancred? And why should the Amazon who wields the pen, be more gently dealt with than she who meddles with cold iron? In literature, as in war, there is no distinction of sex. We hope, therefore, we shall not be accused of ungallant, or anti-chivalric bearing, on account of the blows we may inflict upon the literary person of a most daring Thalestris, especially as her vanity is a panoply of proof.
In her preface, Lady M. says, that a second work on France from her pen could only be justified by the novelty of its matter, or by the merit of its execution. Then do we pronounce this second work, this "France in 1829-30," to be the most unjustifiable imposition on the good nature of the reading community that ever was practised. Its matter is nothing more nor less than Miladi herself; and is she a novelty? Something less than half a century ago, her Ladyship undoubtedly was a novelty, and one too of an extraordinary kind. As to the "merit of its execution," it is quite sufficient to know that it is the work of Lady Morgan, to form an idea of that requisite for its "justification." Out of thine own mouth have we condemned thee. The fact is, that "France in 1829-30," is almost, the counterpart of "France in 1816," and the same remarks may be made concerning it which we have already applied to the latter. All the information we could discover we had obtained from it on finishing its perusal, was that its author had improved in neither wisdom, knowledge, nor modesty, since her first visit to the land after which both of these productions have been christened. France! and what right have they to that name? Would it not induce one to suppose, that their author had at least travelled through the greater portion of that beautiful country, and eked out a number of her pages from the notes, such as they might be, made during the tour? And yet her Ladyship, on both occasions, went to Paris by the high road of Calais, remained in the capital a few months, and then returned by another high road. Even "Paris in 1816," "Paris in 1829-30," would be titles with which these publications would possess scarcely more affinity, than that by which children, on whom the preposterous fondness of their parents has bestowed the high-sounding appellations of warriors and monarchs, are connected with those worthies. Their only appropriate names would be, "Lady Morgan in 1816," "Lady Morgan in 1829-30;" for what information do they give about France or Paris, and what information do they not give about Lady Morgan? they even let us into the secrets of her Ladyship's wardrobe. It was Paris that saw Lady Morgan, and not Lady Morgan that saw Paris, in the same way as, according to Dr. Franklin, it was Philadelphia that took Sir William Howe, and not Sir William Howe that took Philadelphia.
To collect materials for a book of travels, it is necessary to be all eyes and ears with regard to every thing but one's self. Her Ladyship, however, was just the reverse throughout the whole period of her absence from Kildare street,—it seems always to have been her object to attract, and not to bestow, attention. In the volumes before us, it is her perpetual endeavour to win admiration by making known the admiration she entertains for herself, as well as that which she supposes she excites in others. They are consequently, in great measure, filled with what was said to Lady Morgan, and what Lady Morgan did and said during her last visit to Paris. While discoursing about anything else than herself, she appears to be on thorns until she gets back to that all absorbing subject, and no matter what is the title of the chapter, she generally contrives, by hook or by crook, to bring herself into it as the main object of interest. The poor reader is thus often sadly disappointed in the expectations he may form of deriving pleasure or information from various parts of her work, in consequence of the promises held out by their "headings." He almost always eventually discovers, that however he may have been induced to anticipate a meeting with other persons or matters, it is still "Monsieur Tonson come again." We must confess, that it is rather too bad to be Morbleued in this way; though it is but fair to acknowledge, that her Ladyship is not an intentional tormentor, like the malicious wags by whom the unfortunate Frenchman was teased out of house and home. On the contrary, her design is one altogether consonant to the general benevolence of her character. It is to give pleasure; and as her greatest delight arises from the contemplation of herself, she has presumed, naturally enough if we may believe the philosophers, that the same cause will produce the same effect upon the rest of the world. All her pictures, therefore, like those of the painter who doated upon his mistress to such a degree as to introduce her face into every one of his works, contain the object of her idolatry, either prominently in the foreground, or so ingeniously placed in the background, as to be quite as well fitted to draw attention.—But it is time to follow her in some of her peregrinations.
On a certain day of the year 1829, which she has not had the goodness to designate, she arrived at Calais. She was accompanied by an Irish footman,—not, we presume, the "illiterate literatus," whom she has immortalized in her first "France,"—and by a person whom she once or twice alludes to in her volumes; first, by acknowledging her obligations to a "Sir C. M." for some articles which had been contributed by him to swell the dimensions of her work; and, secondly, by mentioning that somebody sent a "flask of genuine potteen," to her Ladyship's great delight, "with Mr. Somebody's compliments to Sir C. M." As there is an individual designated once or twice also as "my husband," we have shrewd suspicions that he and this Sir C. M. are one and the same being. The first thing that Miladi does at Calais, is to experience a "burst of agreeable sensations;" and the next, to feel a considerable degree of surprise at being delighted again with that renowned place—renowned for having been several times visited by Lady Morgan, besides other minor causes of celebrity, such as its sieges, and its having been the place where Yorick commenced his sentimental journey; but these have been completely forgotten since the year 1816. After her "little heart" had been fluttered by those agreeable and wonderful sensations, the nature of its palpitations was unfortunately changed by the indignation with which it was filled on her discovering "how English" every thing appeared. "English carpets, and English cleanliness; English delf and English damask," with various other Englishiana, gave such a John Bull aspect to the room of the hotel into which she was ushered, that she was on the point of swooning, when her ears were suddenly assailed by a loud sound—Gracious heavens! What noise is that? Her delicate little head is in a twinkling thrust out of the window, and she beholds,—oh horror of horrors—she beholds a mail-coach, built on the regular English plan, cantering into the yard, with all its concomitants completely à l'Anglaise—"horses curvetting, and not a hair turned—a whip that 'tips the silk' like a feather—'ribbons,' not ropes—a coachman, all capes and castor—a guard that cries 'all right,'" and who was at that moment puffing most manfully into a "reg'lar mail-coach horn." This was too much, and her Ladyship would inevitably have been driven distracted, or, at least, have gone into hysterics, had not a most delicious idea interposed its aid, and she exclaimed, "What luck to have written my France, while France was still so French!"—and what luck, say we, to have so commodious a safety-valve as vanity, by means of which to let off the superabundant steam of one's ire!