MORGAN, Sydney Owenson, Lady (1777 M859), novelist and miscellaneous describer and critic, was one of the most vivid and hotly-discussed literary personages of her generation. She was the daughter of an Irish actor, but it was one of her whims to keep the year of her birth a secret; “once upon a time” on Christmas day was her answer to inquiries. She began her literary career with a precocious volume of poems. Her second venture, St Clair (1804), a novel of ill-judged marriage, ill-starred love, and impassioned nature-worship, in which the influence of Goethe and Rousseau was apparent, at once attracted attention. Another novel, The Novice of St Dominick (1806), was also praised for its qualities of copious imagination and description, though the critics were inclined to nibble at the writer’s grammar. But the book which made her reputation and brought her name into warm controversy was The Wild Irish Girl, also published in 1806. In this she appeared as the ardent champion of her native country, a politician rather than a novelist, extolling the beauty of Irish scenery, the richness of the natural wealth of Ireland, the noble traditions of its early history, and sketching types of the various classes with direct reference to the misgovernment to which she traced their evil features. She followed this up with Patriotic Sketches and Metrical Fragments in 1807, fitting some Irish melodies with words (“Kate Kearney” among the number) in the same year in which Moore began a similar task. Miss 0wen-son’s politics and the favour shown her by the Whig aristocracy probably prompted the savage attack made upon her next novel, Ida, a Woman of Athens, in the first number of the Quarterly (1809). From first to last her style was open to the reproach of being made up too ...

MORGANATIC MARRIAGE. See Marriage.