"THE WILD IRISH GIRL."

Otago Witness, Issue 3384, 22 January 1919, Page 60

"THE WILD IRISH GIRL."

By Jessie Mackay.

"Who can sound the Sapphic Shell Like the Lesbian L.E.L.? Saucy sparrow! cease such jargon— Sappho's self is Lady Morgan. Fatal as the glance of Gorgon Is the eye of Lady Morgan. Liberty's impassioned organ Is the pen of Lady Morgan. Glory's most impulsive spell Is the song of L.E.L. Lafayette had ne'er to war gone But for note from Lady Morgan;— And so on for another twisty page of gentle satire in rhyme, penned by some unknown wifc 90 years ago, when these two ladies shared the bays in England. An amicable close to this classic' wrangle is reached in the last couplet: From British bardesses now bear the bell Learned Lady Morgan, Lore-bom L.EtL. Of L. E. L. a literary memory still lingers, owing its comparative freshness, possibly to the tragedy that brought the untimely end of a, life seemingly made for love" and sunshine. But who was Lady Morgan ? Who now remembers the Wild Irish Girl, who was a pet of London Society- before she became the leader of a London salon, and a romantic figure in the new literary world of France, after the deluge of revolution had swept away the old feudal marks. _ i The temperament and gifts of this onetime star of English letters were inherited in a measure ■ from her handsome Irishfather, a Dublin actor and singer named Macowen. This surname was prudently Anglified into Owenson when he crossed St. George's Channel to make his fortune in London. He found it not on the stage, but in eloping with a mature English heiress. The married life of the pair seems to have been happy; two little girls were born to them, Sydney, the eldest, inheriting her father's artistic powers, and her sister his good looks. Unconventionally the child's education was begun on the very threshold of the greenroom; but she reaped advantages from a self-mapped-out curriculum of history and languages that she could scarcely have secured in the nunnery primary boarding schools of George's Ill's time. The precocious child took early to writing, and was the author of a small volume of verse and two short novels probably before she was 20. Oddly enough, the date of her birth seems uncertain, being variously set down as 1777, 1780, and 1783. She was certainly in her twenties when she wrote the little lyric which alone remains in memory to-day, "Kate Kearney." The tripping measure and piquant air of "Kate Kearney" singled it out amid the little collection, published in 1805. This volume she dedicated to her father, who, it would appear, was more successful as a composer than as an actor, and who, like his daughter, felt a patriot's love of Irish song. "Kate Kearney" has become a classic in the cen-. tury following its first appearance in 1805: Oh, did yon not hear of Kate Kearney? She lives on the banks of Killamey. From the glance of her eye Shim danger and fly, Fox fatal's the smile of Kate Kearney. For that eye is so modestly beaming, You'd ne'er think of mischief she's dreaming; Yet, oh, I can tell How fatal's the spell That lurks in the eyes of Kate Kearney. Oh, should you e'er meet this Kate Kearney, Who lives on the banks of Killarney, Beware of hex smile, For many a wile Lies hid' in the smile of Kate Kearney. It was in 1801 that she won her first triumph in fiction—" The Wild Irish Girl," —and the young. girl floated at once into fame and fashionable society, first in Dublin and then in London. She was not what modern canons would define as beautiful ; it was her beloved sister, Lady Clarke, who inherited the full good looks of the Owensons, but Sydney's large blue eyes had a charm that lasted on even after their short-sight could be definitely noted behind the green fan which was at once a protection and a kind of harmless relic of old-time triumphs and coquetry. She dressed the part of the Wild Irish Girl with a grace that remained in keeping with her heart of youth when other women of her age had long put on the coif of autumnal years. Gentle and sprightly both, she early won her place as a queen of society, while her prolific pen was busy grounding a reputation which was a triumph of versatility at least. Romantic fiction and lyric poetry—happy Sydney could sing her own songs to her own tuneful harp—brought her fame first; but her maturer powers found play in novels of national life and manners, in political writing so far as the wrongs of Ireland roused her to a patriot's indignation, and finally in the very profitable form of contracts to write up the social and intellectual life of France and Italy. Doubtless this task was a reflection of Madame de Stael's monumental "L'Allemagne," but the result was fortunate in that it not only gave high pleasure to those who had to see the Continent through the observant eyes of some ready writer, but it gave her a wider entrance into those tinguished circles which shine not by reason of wealth or transient splendours of pageantly, but by the presence of men of action and women of intellectual power. Naturally it was Dublin that acclaimed her first, but she was' soon as familiar with the inner shrines of London. This was indeed a tribute to her pen and her personality, since she entered those charmed portals with two heavy disadvantages for- the time. Sydney was Irish to her finger-tips, and proud of it: she took her singing of Erin's mournful ballads with a verve and feeling far surpassing what has been described as Moore's "kid-glove sympathy" with his afflicted country. He read Irish poetry; Sydney steeped herself in the much less fashionable study of Irish history. Then, as might, jbe expected, the young authoress was heart and soul for Liberalism. In her girlhood and for long after England was politically electric in a crude partisan

way. The Whigs, dislodged from power by George 111, were regarded as the social infusions of the Court party and the leaders of fashion. Few readers of history hold a brief for Whiggery as it flourished under sleepy heads like Robert Walpole, but Sydney Owenson's quick perceptions could not fail to see that out of the Toryism that succeeded it no good thing could come, and that the supreme loss of America had already come of it. It may thus be seen that the Wild Irish Girl had the courage of her convictions and her race as well as the native charm that was hers in so marked a degree. (To be Concluded.)