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Ida of Athens received the honour of mention in a note to Childe Harold. I speak it tenderly, seeing I was once the cause of the husband of Ida nearly suffering the bastinado; and because the said Disdar is a turbulent fellow who beats his wife, so that I exhort and beseech Miss Owenson to sue for a separate maintenance on behalf of Ida.
'Were you a Venus I should forget you, he writes to Sydney, 'but you are a Laura, a Leonora, and an Eloisa, all in one delightful assemblage. He is evidently a little piqued by Sydney's admiration of Moore, for in a letter to Mr. Owenson he asks, 'Who is the Mr. Moore Sydney mentions?
By his own acts he fell out of favour, the subscriptions that had been collected were returned to the donors, and his career would have come to an abrupt conclusion, if it had not been that Owenson made interest for him with Lady Moira, a distinguished patron of literature, who placed him in the charge of Dr. Boyd, the translator of Dante.
Owenson invited the boy to his house, and, by way of testing his powers, set him to write a poetical theme on the subject of Dublin University. In less than three-quarters of an hour the prodigy returned with a poem of fifty lines, which showed an intimate acquaintance with the history of the university from its foundation.
He remained one of the pillars of this theatre until 1782, when Ryder, the patentee, became a bankrupt. Owenson was then engaged by Richard Daly to perform at the Smock Alley Theatre, and also to fill the post of assistant-manager. By this time Sydney had made her appearance in the world, arriving on Christmas Day in some unspecified year.
Yet another tradition has been handed down to the effect that Miss Owenson appeared at one of the Viceregal balls in a dress, the bodice of which was trimmed with the portraits of her rejected lovers!
Some of these youthful epistles were preserved by old Molly, the packet being indorsed on the cover, 'Letters from Miss Sydney Owenson to her father, God pity her! But the young lady evidently did not consider herself an object of pity, for she writes in the best of spirits about the books she is reading, the people she is meeting, and all the little gaieties and excitements of her life.
According to Lady Morgan's account, Robert Owenson, as he now called himself in deference to the prevailing prejudice against both the Irish and the Scotch, was at once introduced to Garrick, and allowed to make his debut in the part of Tamerlane.
The priest proposed her health in a comic speech, and a piper having come up on purpose to 'play in Miss Owenson, the evening wound up with the dancing of Irish jigs, and the singing of Irish songs.
The book, a foolish, high-flown story, a long way after Werther, had some success in Dublin, and brought its author literary ladies being comparatively few at that period a certain meed of social fame. Mr. Owenson, who had left the stage in 1798, was settled at Coleraine at this time, and desired to have both his daughters with him.
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