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David Macbeth Moir as Morgan Odoherty
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Efforts to establish the identity of Morgan Odoherty, the Irish adjutant whose coruscating wit shone so brightly from the early pages of William Blackwood's Maga, have for years proved fascinating but frustrating scholarly exercises. Some years ago, in PMLA (lviii, Sept. 1943, 716–727), Ralph Wardle posed the question “Who Was Morgan Odoherty?” and then supplied an accurate but incomplete answer. After meticulously sifting a mass of contradictory evidence, Wardle came to the conclusion that Odoherty was not William Maginn, as generally assumed, but was rather “the embodiment of the Irishness in several men's minds—and most of them were dyed-in-the-wool Scots.” On the strength of a statement by David Macbeth Moir's biographer that Moir's contributions to Blackwood's Magazine included “familiar letters and rhyming epistles from Odoherty; mockheroic specimens of translations from Horace; Christmas carols by the fancy contributors, Mullion and the rest; ironical imitations of living poets; Cockney love-songs; puns and parodies,” Wardle knew that Moir “took his turn as Odoherty.” Exactly which contributions were Moir's, though, he could only conjecture.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1957
References
1 Thomas Aird, Memoir prefixed to The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir (Edinburgh, 1852), I, 15.
2 Photostatic copies of these letters were made available to me several years ago through the courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. During the winter of 1956, while on a fellowship from the Fund for the Advancement of Education, I was able to examine the letters themselves in Edinburgh.
3 See Aird's Memoir, pp. 11 and 28.
4 In the “Epistle from Odoherty” (Feb. 1821), Odoherty alludes to the “Luctus” as his last contribution. This led Wardle to feel that the same man, probably Hamilton, might have written both articles. “The Epistle from Odoherty,” as will be shown, was by Moir, but the “Luctus” must remain unassigned, for in a letter of 23 Aug. 1821, commenting on the Sept, number of the magazine, Moir wrote: “The King's Welcome to Ireland, and the Irish Song are capitally done, and I presume by the author of Luctus,” thereby renouncing his claim to the article. Cf. “Who Was Morgan Odoherty?” pp. 722–723.
5 Mackenzie edited the Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Dr. Maginn (New York, 1855) in 6 volumes, the first 2 of which were the Odoherty Papers. Kenealy's “Memoir of Maginn” appeared in the Dublin Univ. Mag., xxiii (Jan. 1844), 72–102. In the “Memoir” Kenealy attempts to establish Maginn's magazine authorship with the help of a letter from D. M. Moir. Complete evidence from these sources is cited in Wardle's article, and therefore will receive scant notice here.
6 “Biblical Sketches. No. IV. The Death of Absalom” appeared in Maga for May 1821, and contained stanzas of 6, 8, and 10 lines. The last poem in the “Epistle from Odoherty,” though, is comprised of 7-line stanzas like those in Cornwall's “The Girl of Provence.” The last stanza of the poem boasts:
You see I'm tainted with the metromanie,
And not a little proud of innovation;
I'll have original verse as well as any,
And not think there's any great occasion
To write like Frere and Byron;—when the nation
Talks of the seven line stanza, they shall cry,
Aye—that's the stanza of Odoherty!
7 Mackenzie omitted the “Letter from Odoherty” from the Odoherty Papers and Kenealy does not mention it. Wardle thinks it most likely “written by the unidentified author of the similar ‘Free and Easy Translation’.”