Albert Gate, London, and making a considerable social figure there ceased to write. 'Woman and her Master,' which is rather poor vapouring, appeared in 1840, but it had been written before she left Ireland. She assisted her husband in 'The Book without a Name' in 1841, but it was only a collection of fugitive magazine pieces. In 1843 he died. Lady Morgan continued to move assiduously in London society. Her early works were republished in popular form in 1846, and she wrote fresh prefaces to several of them. Her sight failed, but in 1851 she engaged in a pamphlet controversy with Cardinal Wiseman about the authenticity of St. Peter's chair. In 1859 her amanuensis, Miss Jewsbury, arranged for publication her 'Diary and Correspondence in France' from August 1818 to May 1819. She died 14 April 1859, and was buried in the old Brompton cemetery; a tomb by Westmacott was placed over her grave. She left between 15,000l. and 16,000l., and bequeathed her papers to W. Hepworth Dixon. She had no children.
There is a bust of her by D'Angers dated 1830, and a portrait by Berthen is in the Irish National Gallery. Her portrait was also painted by Lawrence; three others belong to Sir Charles W. Dilke, bart., including a painting by Sidney Morgan and a plaster model by David. H. F. Chorley's 'Authors of England,' 1838, and 'Fraser's Magazine,' xi. 529, contain engravings of her. In old age she is described as 'a little humpbacked old' woman, absurdly attired, rouged and wigged; vivacious and somewhat silly; vain, gossiping, and ostentatious: larding her talk with scraps of French, often questionable in their idiom, always dreadful in their accent, exhibiting her acquaintance with titled people so prodigally as to raise a smile.' Yet in her younger days she must have been highly attractive, very vivacious and off-handed, yet shrewd and hard at a bargain. Her writing, though slipshod and often inflated, contained much humorous observation, and when describing what she understood, the lower-class Irish, she was as good as Lever or Banin.
[W. J. Fitzpatrick's Lady Morgan, 1860; Memoirs of Lady Morgan by W. Hepworth Dixon, with engraving of her after Lawrence; Cyrus Bedding's Fifty Years' Recollections, iii. 215, and articles in New Monthly Magazine, cxvi. 206, cxxvii. 300; Cornhill Magazine, vii. 132; The Croker Papers, i. 109; Torrens's Memoirs of Lord Melbourne, i. 174; a sketch of her, probably by her husband, in the London and Dublin Mag. 1826.]
MORGAN, SYLVANUS (1620–1693), arms-painter and author, born in London in 1620, was brought up to and practised the profession of an arms-painter. In 1642 he wrote 'A Treatise of Honor and Honorable Men,' which remained in manuscript (see Brydges's Censura Literaria, viii. 236). In 1648 he printed a poem entitled 'London, King Charles his Augusta, or City Royal of the Founders;' and in 1652 'Horologiographia Optica, Dialling universal and particular.' In 1661 he published a work on heraldry, entitled 'The Sphere of Gentry, deduced from the Principles of Nature: an Historical and Genealogical Work of Arms and Blazon, in Four Books.' Morgan says that this book had taken him years to compile and had been originally intended for dedication to Charles I, and that he had neglected his trade as arms-painter, suffered much illness, and had had his house burnt down. It contains a title-page with a portrait of Morgan, etched by R. Gaywood. The work was pedantic, and was discredited by Sir William Dugdale [q. v.] and other heralds; and it was alleged that it was really the work of Edward Waterhouse [q. v.], the author of 'A Discourse and Defence of Arms and Armory,' 1660. As the book contains much information concerning the Waterhouse family, it may be assumed that Waterhouse assisted Morgan in its compilation. In 1666 Morgan published a supplement, entitled 'Armilogia, sive Ars Chromocritica: the Language of Arms by the Colours and Metals.' Morgan lived near the Royal Exchange in London, and died on 27 March 1693. He was buried in the church of St. Bartholomew, behind the Exchange. He left a large collection of manuscripts, which came by marriage to Josiah Jones, heraldic painter and painter to Drury Lane Theatre, by whom they were sold by auction in 1759.
[Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica Magnæ Britanniæ; Gent. Mag. 1796, pt. i. p. 366; Nichols's Anecdotes of Literature, ix. 801; Lowndes's Bibl. Man.; Wood's Fasti Oxon, ed. Bliss, ii. 164.]
MORGAN, Sir THOMAS (d. 1595), 'the warrior,' was the younger son of William Morgan of St. George's and Pencarn, Glamorganshire, and Anne, daughter of Robert Fortescue of Wood in the county of Devon. He was apparently about thirty years of age, and had probably seen active service in France or Scotland, when he was appointed in April 1572 captain of the first band of English volunteers that served in the Low Countries under William of Orange. He landed with his company, three hundred strong, at Flushing on 6 June, in time to take part in the defence of that town. His soldiers were chiefly raw recruits, and it was long before they learned to stand the enemy's fire
