When Phillips heard that Johnson had outbidden him, he described the offer as 'monstrous,' and that it was 'inspired by a spirit of revenge.' He would not, he declared, increase his offer, but a little later he writes from Bridge Street to Sydney Owenson as his 'dear, bewitching, and deluding Syren,' and promises the L300.

A few months later he gave her a hundred pounds for a slight volume of poems, which certainly never paid for its publication, although Scott and Moore and many another were making much money out of poetry in those days.

In any case Phillips did not accept Miss Owenson's next story with alacrity, in spite of the undoubted success of _The Wild Irish Girl_.

She no doubt asked too much for _Ida of Athens_.

Phillips probably thought, after reading the first volume in type, that it was very inferior work, as indeed it was.