Chapter VI: Part 6

Our travellers have just left us, and my head is in great danger of bursting from the multifarious treasures that have been stowed and crammed into it in the course of one week. Mr. Davy is wonderfully improved since you saw him at Bristol: he has an amazing fund of knowledge upon all subjects, and a great deal of genius. Mr. Greenough has not, at first sight, a very intelligent countenance, yet he _is_ very intelligent, and has a good deal of literature and anecdote, foreign and domestic, and a taste for wit and humour. He has travelled a great deal, and relates well. Dr. Beddoes is much better, but my father does not think his health safe. I am very well, but shamefully idle: indeed, I have done nothing but hear; and if I had had a dozen pair extraordinary of ears, and as many heads, I do not think I could have heard or held all that was said.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 1807._

While Charlotte [Footnote: Charlotte Edgeworth, the idol and beauty of the family, died, after a long illness, 7th April 1807.] was pretty well we paid our long-promised visit to Coolure, and passed a few very pleasant days there. Admiral Pakenham is very entertaining, and appears very amiable in the midst of his children, who doat on him. He spoke very handsomely of your darling brother, and diverted us by the mode in which he congratulated Richard on his marriage: "I give you joy, my good friend, and I am impatient to see the woman who has made an honest man of you."

Colonel Edward Pakenham burned his instep by falling asleep before the fire, out of which a turf fell on his foot, and so he was, luckily for us, detained a few days longer and dined and breakfasted at Coolure. He is very agreeable, and unaffected, and modest, after all the flattery he has met with. [Footnote: Colonel, afterwards Sir Edward Pakenham, distinguished in the Peninsular War, fell in action at New Orleans, 8th January 1815.]

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 1807._

My beloved aunt and friend--friend to my least fancies as well as to my largest interests,--thank you for the six fine rose-trees, and thank you for the little darling double-flowering almond tree. Sneyd asked if there was nothing for him? so I very generously gave him the polyanthuses and planted them with my own hands at the corners of his garden pincushions.

Mr. Hammond may satisfy himself as to the union of commerce and literature by simply reading the history of the Medici, where commerce, literature, and the arts made one of the most splendid, useful, and powerful coalitions that ever were seen in modern times. Here is a fine sentence! Mr. Hammond once, when piqued by my raillery, declared that he never in his life saw, or could have conceived, till he saw me, that a _philosopher_ could laugh so much and so heartily.

Enclosed I send a copy of an epitaph written by Louis XVIII., on the Abbé Edgeworth; I am sure the intention does honour to H.M. heart, and the critics here say the Latin does honour to H.M. head. William Beaufort, who sent it to my father, says the epitaph was communicated to him by a physician at Cork, who being a Roman Catholic of learning and foreign education, maintains a considerable correspondence in foreign countries.

_To_ HENRY EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON.

PAKENHAM HALL,

_Christmas Day_, 1807.

A Merry Christmas to you, my dear Henry and Sneyd! I wish you were here at this instant, and you would be sure of one; for this is really the most agreeable family and the pleasantest and most comfortable castle I ever was in.

We came here yesterday--the _we_ being Mr. and Mrs. Edgeworth, Honora, and me. A few minutes after we came, arrived Hercules Pakenham--the first time he had met his family since his return from Copenhagen. My father has scarcely ever quitted his elbow since he came, and has been all ear and no tongue.

Lady Wellesley was prevented by engagements from joining this party at Pakenham Hall; both the Duke and Duchess of Richmond are so fond of her as no tongue can tell. The Duke must have a real friendship for Sir Arthur; for while he was at Copenhagen his Grace did all the business of his office for him.

_To_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1, 1808._

A Happy New Year to you, my dear Sneyd. It is so dark, I can hardly see to write, and it has been pouring such torrents of rain, hail, and snow, that I began to think, with John Langan, that the "old prophecies found in a bog" were all accomplishing, and that Slievegaulry was beginning to set out [Footnote: An old woman had, before Christmas, gone about the neighbourhood saying that, on New Year's Day, Slievegaulry, a little hill about five miles from Edgeworthstown, would come down with an earthquake, and settle on the village, destroying everything.] on its proposed journey. My mother has told you about these predictions, and the horror they have spread through the country _entirely._ The old woman who was the cause of the mischief is, I suppose, no bigger than a midge's wing, as she has never been found, though diligent search has been made for her. Almost all the people in this town sat up last night to _receive_ the earthquake.

We have had the same physiognomical or character-telling _fishes_ that you described to Honora. Captain Hercules Pakenham brought them from Denmark, where a Frenchman was selling them very cheap. Those we saw were pale green and bright purple. They are very curious: my father was struck with them as much, or more, than any of the children; for there are some wonders which strike in proportion to the knowledge, instead of the ignorance, of the beholders. Is it a leaf? Is it galvanic? What is it? I wish Henry would talk to Davy about it. The fish lay more quiet in my father's hand than could have been expected; only curled up their tails on my Aunt Mary's; tolerably quiet on my mother's; but they could not lie still one second on William's, and went up his sleeve, which I am told their German interpreters say is the worst sign they can give. My father suggested that the different degrees of dryness or moisture in the hands cause the emotions of these sensitive fish, but after _drying_ our best, no change was perceptible. I thought the pulse was the cause of their motion, but this does not hold, because my pulse is slow, and my father's very quick. It was ingenious to make them in the shape of fish, because their motions exactly resemble the breathing, and panting, and floundering, and tail-curling of fish; and I am sure I have tired you with them, and you will be sick of these fish. [Footnote: It was afterwards ascertained that these conjuring fish had been brought from Japan by the Dutch, and were made of horn cut extremely thin. Their movements were occasioned, as Mr. Edgeworth supposed, from the warm moisture of the hand, but depended upon the manner in which they were placed. If the middle of the fish was made to touch the warmest part of the hand, it contracted, and set the head and tail in motion.]

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 1808._

We have just had a charming letter from Mrs. Barbauld, in which she asks if we have read _Marmion_, Mr. Scott's new poem: we have not. I have read _Corinne_ with my father, and I like it better than he does. In one word, I am dazzled by the genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and critical judgment of Italian literature displayed through the whole work. But I will not I dilate upon it in a letter; I could talk of it for three hours to you and my aunt. I almost broke my foolish heart over the end of the third volume, and my father acknowledges he never read anything more pathetic.

Pray remember my garden when the Beauforts come to us. It adds very much to my happiness, especially as Honora and all the children have shares in it, and I assure you it is very cheerful to see the merry, scarlet-coated, busy little workwomen in their territories, sowing, and weeding, and transplanting hour after hour.

_June 4._

Lady Elizabeth Pakenham and Mrs. Stewart and her son Henry, a fine intelligent boy, and her daughter Kitty, who promises to be as gentle as her mother, have been here. I liked Mrs. Stewart's conversation much, and thought her very interesting.

_June 9._

My father and mother have gone to the Hills to settle a whole clan of tenants whose leases are out, and who _expect that because_ they have all lived under his Honour, they and theirs these hundred years, that his Honour shall and will contrive to divide the land that supported ten people amongst their sons and sons' sons, to the number of a hundred. And there is Cormac with the reverend locks, and Bryan with the flaxen wig, and Brady with the long brogue, and Paddy with the short, and Terry with the butcher's-blue coat, and Dennis with no coat at all, and Eneas Hosey's widow, and all the Devines, pleading and quarrelling about boundaries and bits of bog. I wish Lord Selkirk was in the midst of them, with his hands crossed before him; I should like to know if he could make them understand his _Essay on Emigration._

My father wrote to Sir Joseph Banks to apply through the French Institute for leave for Lovell to travel as a _literate_ in Germany, and I have frequently written about him to our French friends; and those passages in my letters were never answered. All their letters are now written, as Sir Joseph Banks observed, under evident constraint and fear.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth writes:

This summer of 1808 Mr. and Mrs. Ruxton and their two daughters passed some time with us. My father, mother, and sister came also, and Maria read out _Ennui_ in manuscript. We used to assemble in the middle of the day in the library, and everybody enjoyed it. One evening when we were at dinner with this large party, the butler came up to Mr. Edgeworth. "Mrs. Apreece, sir; she is getting out of her carriage." Mr. Edgeworth went to the hall door, but we all sat still laughing, for there had been so many jokes about Mrs. Apreece, who was then travelling in Ireland, that we thought it was only nonsense of Sneyd's, who we supposed had dressed up some one to personate her; and we were astonished when Mr. Edgeworth presented her as the real Mrs. Apreece. She stayed some days, and was very brilliant and agreeable. She continued, as Mrs. Apreece and as Lady Davy, to be a kind friend and correspondent of Maria's.

MARIA _to_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, AT EDINBURGH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 30, 1808._

How little we can tell from day to day what will happen to us or our friends. I promised you a merry frankful of nonsense this day, and instead of that we must send you the melancholy account of poor Dr. Beddoes' death. [Footnote: Dr. Beddoes, who had married Anna Edgeworth, was the author of almost innumerable books. His pupil, Sir Humphry Davy, says: "He had talents which would have exalted him to the pinnacle of philosophical eminence, if they had been applied with discretion."] I enclose Emmeline's letter, which will tell you all better than I can. Poor Anna! how it has been possible for her weak body to sustain her through such trials and such exertions, GOD only knows. My father and mother have written most warm and pressing invitations to her to come here immediately, and bring all her children. How fortunate it was that little Tom [Footnote: Thomas Lovell Beddoes, 1803-1849, author of _The Bride's Tragedy_, and of _Death's Jest-Book._] came here last summer, and how still more fortunate that the little fellow returned with Henry to see his poor father before he died.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1809._

On Friday we went to Pakenham Hall. We sat down thirty-two to dinner, and in the evening a party of twenty from Pakenham Hall went to a grand ball at Mrs. Pollard's. Mrs. Edgeworth and I went, papa and Aunt Mary stayed with Lady Elizabeth. Lord Longford acted his part of Earl Marshal in the great hall, sending off carriage after carriage, in due precedence, and with its proper complement of beaux and belles. I was much entertained: had Mrs. Tuite, and mamma, and Mrs. Pakenham, and the Admiral to talk and laugh with: saw abundance of comedy. There were three Miss ----s, from the County of Tipperary, three degrees of comparison--the positive, the comparative, and the superlative; excellent figures, with white feathers as long as my two arms joined together, stuck in the front of what were meant for Spanish hats. How they towered above their sex, divinely vulgar, with brogues of true Milesian race! Supper so crowded that Caroline Pakenham and I agreed to use one arm by turns, and thus with difficulty found means to reach our mouths. Caroline grows upon me every time I see her; she is as quick as lightning, understands with half a word literary allusions as well as humour, and follows and leads in conversation with that playfulness and good breeding which delight the more because they are so seldom found together. We stayed till between three and four in the morning. Lord Longford had, to save our horses which had come a journey, put a pair of his horses and one of his postillions to our coach: the postillion had, it seems, amused himself at a _club_ in Castle Pollard while we were at the ball, and he had amused himself so much that he did not know the ditch from the road: he was ambitious of passing Mr. Dease's carriage--passed it: attempted to pass Mr. Tuite's, ran the wheels on a drift of snow which overhung the ditch, and laid the coach fairly down on its side in the ditch. We were none of us hurt. The _us_ were my mother, Mr. Henry Pakenham, and myself. My mother fell undermost; I never fell at all, for I clung like a bat to the handstring at my side, determined that I would not fall upon my mother and break her arm. None of us were even bruised. Luckily Mrs. Tuite's carriage was within a few yards of us, and stopped, and the gentlemen hauled us out immediately. Admiral Pakenham lifted me up and carried me in his arms, as if I had been a little doll, and set me down actually on the step of Mrs. Tuite's carriage, so I never wet foot or shoe. And now, my dear aunt, I have established a character for courage in overturns for the rest of my life! The postillion was not the least hurt, nor the horses; if they had not been the quietest animals in the world we should have been undone: one was found with his feet level with the other's head. The coach could not be got out of the deep ditch that night, but Lord Longford sent a man to sleep in it, that nobody else might, and that no one might steal the glasses. It came out safe and sound in the morning, not a glass broken. Miss Fortescue, Caroline, and Mr. Henry Pakenham went up, just as we left Pakenham Hall, to town or to the Park to Lady Wellesley, who gives a parting ball, and then follows Sir Arthur to England.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 2, 1809. ._

This minute I hear a carman is going to Navan, and I hasten to send you the _Cottagers of Glenburnie_, [Footnote: By Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, with whom Miss Edgeworth had become intimate at Edinburgh in 1803.] which I hope you will like as well as we do. I think it will do a vast deal of good, and besides it is extremely interesting, which all _good_ books are not: it has great powers, both comic and tragic. I write in the midst of Fortescues and Pakenhams, with dear Miss Caroline P., whom I like every hour better and better, sitting on the sofa beside me, reading Mademoiselle Clairon's _Memoirs_, and talking so entertainingly, that I can scarcely tell what I have said, or am going to say.

I like Mrs. Fortescue's conversation, and will, as Sophy desires, converse as much as possible with obliging and ever-cheerful Miss Fortescue. But indeed it is very difficult to mind anything but Caroline.

_Feb. 5._

Three of the most agreeable days I ever spent we have enjoyed in the visit of our Pakenham Hall friends to us. How delightful it is to be with those who are sincerely kind and well-bred: I would not give many straws for good breeding without sincerity, and I would give at any time ten times as much for kindness _with_ politeness as for kindness without it. There is something quite captivating in Lady Longford's voice and manners, and the extreme vivacity of her countenance, and her quick change of feelings interested me particularly: I never saw a woman so little spoiled by the world. As for Caroline Pakenham, I love her. They were all very polite about the reading out of _Emilie de Coulanges_, and took it as a mark of kindness from me, and not as an exhibition. Try to get and read the _Life of Dudley, Lord North_, of which parts are highly interesting. I am come to the Ambition in _Marie de Menzikoff_, which I like much, but the love is mere brown sugar and water. The mother's blindness is beautifully described. My father says "Vivian" will stand next to "Mrs. Beaumont" and "Ennui"; I have ten days' more work at it, ten days' more purgatory at other corrections, and then, huzza! a heaven upon earth of idleness and reading, which is my idleness. Half of _Professional Education_ is printed.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 1809._

Indeed you are quite right in thinking that the expressions of affection from my uncle and you are more delightful to me than all the compliments or admiration in the world could be. It is no new thing for me to be happy at Black Castle, but I think I was particularly happy there this last time. You both made me feel that I added to the pleasures of your fireside, which after all, old-fashioned or not, are the best of all pleasures. How I did laugh! and how impossible it is not to laugh in some company, or to laugh in others. I have often wondered how my ideas flow or ebb without the influence of my will; sometimes when I am with those I love, flowing faster than tongue can utter, and sometimes ebbing, ebbing, till nought but sand and sludge are left.

We have been much entertained with _Le petit Carilloneur._ I would send it to you, only it is a society book; but I do send by a carman two volumes of Alfieri's _Life_ and Kirwan's _Essay on Happiness_, and the Drogheda edition of _Parent's Assistant_, which, with your leave, I present to your servant Richard.

The Grinding Organ [Footnote: Afterwards published in 1827 in a small volume, entitled _Little Plays._] went off on Friday night better than I could have expected, and seemed to please the spectators. Mrs. Pakenham brought four children, and Mr. and Mrs. Thompson two sons, Mr. and Mrs. Keating two daughters, which, with the Beauforts, Molly, George, and the rest of the servants, formed the whole audience. I am sure you would have enjoyed the pleasure the Bristows showed on seeing and hearing Mary Bristow perform her part, which she did with perfect propriety. Sophy and Fanny were excellent, but as they were doomed to be the _good_ children, they had not ample room and verge enough to display powers equal to the little termagant heroine of the night. William in his Old Man (to use the newspaper style) was correct and natural. Mr. Edgeworth as the English Farmer evinced much knowledge of true English character and humour. Miss Edgeworth as the Widow Ross, "a cursed scold," was quite at home. It is to be regretted that the Widow Ross has no voice, as a song in character was of course expected; the Farmer certainly gave "a fair challenge to a fair lady." His Daniel Cooper was given in an excellent style, and was loudly encored.

_April 28._

The Primate [Footnote: William Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh, fifth son of the third Earl of Bute.] was very agreeable during the two days he spent here. My father travelled with him from Dublin to Ardbraccan, and this reputed silent man never ceased talking and telling entertaining anecdotes till the carriage stopped at the steps at Ardbraccan. This I could hardly credit till I myself heard his Grace burst forth in conversation. The truth of his character gives such value to everything he says, even to his humorous stories. He has two things in his character which I think seldom meet--a strong taste for humour, and strong feelings of indignation. In his eye you may often see alternately the secret laughing expression of humour, and the sudden open flash of indignation. He is a man of the warmest feelings, with the coldest exterior I ever saw--a master mind. I could not but be charmed with him, because I saw that he thoroughly appreciated my father.

* * * * *

_Tales of Fashionable Life_ were published in June 1809, and greatly added to the celebrity of their authoress. "Almeria" is the best, and full of admirable pictures of character. In all, the object is to depict the vapid and useless existence of those who live only for society. Sometimes the moralising becomes tiresome. "Vraiment Miss Edgeworth est digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dans votre triste utilité," said Madame de Staël to M. Dumont when she had read the Tales. In that age of romantic fiction an attempt to depict life as it really was took the reading world by surprise.

"As a writer of tales and novels," wrote Lord Dudley in the _Quarterly Review_, "Miss Edgeworth has a very marked peculiarity. It is that of venturing to dispense common sense to her readers, and to bring them within the precincts of real life and natural feeling. She presents them with no incredible adventures or inconceivable sentiments, no hyperbolical representations of uncommon characters, or monstrous exhibitions of exaggerated passion. Without excluding love from her pages, she knows how to assign to it its just limits. She neither degrades the sentiment from its true dignity, nor lifts it to a burlesque elevation. It takes its proper place among the passions. Her heroes and heroines, if such they may be called, are never miraculously good, nor detestably wicked. They are such men and women as we see and converse with every day of our lives, with the same proportional mixture in them of what is right and what is wrong, of what is great and what is little."

Lord Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_, said: "The writings of Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular an union of sober sense and inexhaustible invention, so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune, and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment, and of the illusions by which they are so often obstructed, that we should separate her from the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and speak of her Tales as works of more serious importance than much of the true history and solemn philosophy that comes daily under our inspection.... It is impossible, I think, to read ten pages in any of her writings without feeling, not only that the whole, but that every part of them, was intended to do good."

* * * * *

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 1809._

A copy of _Tales of Fashionable Life_ [Footnote: The first set containing "Ennui," "Madame de Fleury," "Almeria," "The Dun," and "Manoeuvring," in three volumes.] reached us yesterday in a Foster frank: they looked well enough,--not very good paper, but better than _Popular Tales._ I am going to write a story called "To-day," [Footnote: Never written.] as a match for "To-morrow," in which I mean to show that Impatience is as bad as Procrastination, and the desire to do too much to-day, and to enjoy too much at present, is as bad as putting off everything till to-morrow. What do you think of this plan? Write next post, as, while my father is away, I am going to write a story for his birthday. My other plan was to write a story in which young men of all the different professions should act a part, like the "Contrast" in higher life, [Footnote: "Patronage."] or the "Freeman Family," only without princes, and without any possible allusion to our own family. I have another sub-plan of writing "Coelebina in search of a Husband," without my father's knowing it, and without reading _Coelebs_, that I may neither imitate nor abuse it.

I daresay you can borrow Powell's _Sermons_ from Ardbraccan or Dr. Beaufort; the Primate lent them to my father. There is a charge on the connection between merit and preferment, and one discourse on the influence of academical studies and a recluse life, which I particularly admire, and wish it had been quoted in _Professional Education._

Mr. Holland, a grand-nephew of Mr. Wedgwood's, and son to a surgeon at Knutsford, Cheshire, and intended for a physician, came here in the course of a pedestrian tour--spent two days--very well informed. Ask my mother when she goes to you to tell you all that Mr. Holland told us about Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Marcet, who is the author of _Conversations on Chemistry_--a charming woman, by his account.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Aug. 22, 1809._

I have just been reading Carleton's _Memoirs_, and am in love with the captain and with his general, Lord Peterborough; and I have also been reading one of the worst-written books in the language, but it has both instructed and entertained me--Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Johnson._ He has thrown a heap of rubbish of his own over poor Johnson, which would have smothered any less gigantic genius.

M. Dumont writes from Lord Henry Petty's: "Nous avons lu en société à Bounds, _Tales of Fashionable Life._ Toute société est un petit théâtre. 'Ennui' et 'Manoeuvring' ont eu un succès marqué, il a été très vif. Nous avons trouvé un grand nombre des dialogues du meilleur comique, c'est à dire ceux où les personnages se developpent sans le vouloir, et sont plaisants sans songer à l'être. Il y a des scènes charmantes dans 'Madame de Fleury.' Ne craignez pas les difficultés, c'est là où vous brillez."

_To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

_Nov 30._

We have had a bevy of wits here--Mr. Chenevix, Mr. Henry Hamilton, Leslie Foster, and his particular friend Mr. Fitzgerald. Somebody asked if Miss White [Footnote: The then well-known Miss Lydia White, for many years a central figure in London literary society.] was a bluestocking. "Oh yes, she is; I can't tell you how blue. What is bluer than blue?"--"_Morbleu_," exclaimed Lord Norbury. Miss White herself comes next week.

_Dec. 11._

Among other things Miss White entertained my father with was a method of drawing the human figure, and putting it into any attitude you please: she had just learned it from Lady Charleville--or rather not learned it. A whole day was spent in drawing circles all over the human figure, and I saw various skeletons in chains, and I was told the intersections of these were to show where the centres of gravity were to be; but my gravity could not stand the sight of these ineffectual conjuring tricks, and my father was out of patience himself. He seized a sheet of paper and wrote to Lady Charleville, and she answered in one of the most polite letters I ever read, inviting him to go to Charleville Forest, and he will go and see these magical incantations performed by the enchantress herself.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

_December 1809._

I have spent five delightful days at Sonna and Pakenham Hall. Mrs. Tuite's kindness and Mr. Chenevix's various anecdotes, French and Spanish, delighted us at Sonna; and you know the various charms both for the head and heart at Pakenham Hall.

I have just been reading, for the fourth time, I believe, _The Simple Story_, which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I was totally incapable of thinking of Mrs. Inchbald or anything but Miss Milner and Doriforth, who appeared to me real persons whom I saw and heard, and who had such power to interest me, that I cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end of the story: I think it the most pathetic and the most powerfully interesting tale I ever read. I was obliged to go from it to correct _Belinda_ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces: and really, I have not the heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman said, "Mend _you!_ better make a new one."

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1810._

I have had a very flattering and grateful letter from Lydia White; she has sent me a comedy of Kelly's--_A Word to the Wise._ She says the _Heiress_ is taken from it. Just about the same time I had a letter from Mrs. Apreece: [Footnote: Afterwards Lady Davy.] she is at Edinburgh, and seems charmed with all the wits there; and, as I hear from Mr. Holland, [Footnote: Afterwards Sir Henry Holland.] the young physician who was here last summer, she is much admired by them. Mrs. Hamilton and she like one another particularly; they can never cross, for no two human beings are, body and mind, form and substance, more unlike. We thought Mr. Holland, when he was here, a young man of abilities--his letter has fully justified this opinion: it has excited my father's enthusiastic admiration. He says Walter Scott is going to publish a new poem; I do not augur well of the title, _The Lady of the Lake._ I hope this lady will not disgrace him. Mr. Stewart has not recovered, nor ever will recover, the loss of his son: Mr. Holland says the conclusion of his lectures this season was most pathetic and impressive--"placing before the view of his auditors a series of eight-and-thirty years, in which he had zealously devoted himself to the duties of his office; and giving the impression that this year would be the period of his public life."

I have had a most agreeable letter from my darling old Mrs. Clifford; she sent me a curiosity--a worked muslin cap, which cost sixpence, done in tambour stitch, by a steam-engine. Mrs. Clifford tells me that Mrs. Hannah More was lately at Dawlish, and excited more curiosity there, and engrossed more attention, than any of the distinguished personages who were there, not excepting the Prince of Orange. The gentleman from whom she drew _Cælebs_ was there, but most of those who saw him did him the justice to declare that he was a much more agreeable man than Cælebs. If you have any curiosity to know his name, I can tell you that--young Mr. Harford, of Blaise Castle.

_Feb. 1810._

My father has just had a letter from your good friend Sir Rupert George, who desires to be affectionately remembered to you and my uncle. His letter is in answer to one my father wrote to him about his clear and honourable evidence on this Walcheren business. Sir Rupert says: "I must confess I feel vain in receiving commendations from such a quarter. The situation in which I was placed was perfectly new to me, and I had no rule for the government of my conduct but the one which has, I trust, governed all my actions through life--to speak the truth, and fear not. Allow me on this occasion to repeat to you an expression of the late Mrs. Delany's to me a few years before she died: 'The Georges, I knew, would always prosper, from their integrity of conduct. Don't call this flattery: I am too old to flatter any one, particularly a grand-nephew; and to convince you of my sincerity, I will add--for which, perhaps, you will not thank me--that there is not an ounce of wit in the whole family.'"

"Oh how my sister would like to see this letter of Sir Rupert's!" said my father; and straightway he told, very much to Sophy and Lucy's edification, the history of his dividing with sister Peg the first peach he ever had in his life.

_March 2._

Have you any commands to Iceland? My young friend Mr. Holland proposes going there from Edinburgh in April. Sir George Mackenzie is the chief mover of the expedition.

This epigram or epitaph was written by Lord I-don't-know-who, upon _Doctor_ Addington--Pitt's Addington--in old French:

Cy dessous reposant
Le sieur Addington git:
Politique soi-disant,
Médecin malgré lui.

_March 19._

The other day we had a visit from a Mrs. Coffy--no relation, she says, to your Mrs. Coffy. She looked exactly like one of the pictures of the old London Cries. She came to tell us that she had been at Verdun, and had seen Lovell. From her description of the place and of him, we had no doubt she had actually seen him. She came over to Ireland to prove that some man who is a prisoner at Verdun, and who is a life in a lease, is not dead, but "all alive, ho!" and my father certified for her that he believed she had been there. She knew nothing of Lovell but that he was well, and fat, and a very merry gentleman two years ago. She had been taken by a French privateer as she was going to see her sons in Jersey, and left Verdun at a quarter of an hour's notice, as the women were allowed to come home, and she had not time to tell this to Lovell, or get a letter from him to his friends. She was, as Kitty said, "a comical body," but very entertaining, and acted a woman chopping bread and selling _un liv'--deux liv'--trois liv'--Ah, bon, bon_, as well as Molly Coffy [Footnote: Mrs. Molly Coffy, for fifty years Mrs. Ruxton's housekeeper.] herself acted the elephant. She was children's maid to Mr. Estwick, and Mr. Estwick is, my father says, son to a Mr. Estwick who used to be your partner and admirer at Bath in former times!!

_To_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 1810._

I do not like Lord Byron's _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, though, as my father says, the lines are very strong, and worthy of Pope and _The Dunciad._ But I was so much prejudiced against the whole by the first lines I opened upon about the "paralytic muse" of the man who had been his guardian, and is his relation, and to whom he had dedicated his first poems, that I could not relish his wit. He may have great talents, but I am sure he has neither a great nor good mind; and I feel dislike and disgust for his Lordship.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 1810._

Now I have to announce the safe arrival of my aunts and Honora in good looks and good spirits. My father went to Dublin to meet them. I am sorry he did not see the Count de Salis, [Footnote: The Count de Salis, just then going to be married to Miss Foster, daughter of Mr. Edgeworth's old friend and schoolfellow, the Bishop of Clogher.] but he was much pleased with Harriet Foster, which I am glad of; for I love her.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 21, 1810._

When shall we two meet again? This is a question which occurs to me much oftener than even you think, and it always comes into my mind when I am in any society I peculiarly like, or when I am reading any book particularly suited to my taste and feelings; and now it comes _á propos_ to the Bishop of Meath and Mrs. O'Beirne and _The Lady of the Lake._ By great good fortune, and by the good-nature of Lady Charlotte Rawdon, we had _The Lady of the Lake_ to read just when the O'Beirnes were with us. A most delightful reading we had; my father, the Bishop, and Mr. Jephson reading it aloud alternately. It is a charming poem: a most interesting story, generous, finely-drawn characters, and in many parts the finest poetry. But for an old prepossession--an unconquerable prepossession--in favour of the old minstrel, I think I should prefer this to either the _Lay_ or _Marmion._ Our pleasure in reading it was increased by the sympathy and enthusiasm of the guests.

Have you read, or tried to read, Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse's three volumes of Letters? and have you read Madame du Deffand? [Footnote: The blind friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole.] Some of the letters in her collection are very entertaining; those of the Duchesse de Choiseul, the Comte de Broglie, Sir James Macdonald, and a few of Madame du Deffand's: the others are full of _fade_ compliments and tiresome trifling, but altogether curious as a picture of that profligate, heartless, brilliant, and _ennuyed_ society. There is in these letters, I think, a stronger picture of _ennui_ than in Alfieri's _Life._ Was his passion for the Countess of Albany, or for horses, or for pure Tuscan, the strongest? or did not he love NOTORIETY better than all three?

_Sept._ 1810.

Sir Thomas and Lady Ackland spent a day here: he is nephew to my friend Mrs. Charles Hoare. He says he is twenty-three, but he looks like eighteen.

To MISS RUXTON.

_Oct. 1810._

We have had a visit from Captain Pakenham, the Admiral's son, this week: I like him. I was particularly pleased with his respectful manner to my father. He has some of his father's quickness of repartee, but with his _own_ manner--no affectation of his father's style. We were talking of a Mrs. ----. "What," said I, "is she alive still? The last time I saw her she seemed as if she had lived that one day longer by particular desire."--"I am sure, then," said Captain Pakenham, in a slow, gentle voice,--"I am sure, then, I cannot tell at _whose desire._"

I have been hard at work at Mrs. Leadbeater: I fear my notes are rubbish.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth writes:

Mrs. Leadbeater, the Quaker lady who lived at Ballitore, whose father had been tutor to Edmund Burke, and whose Letters have been published, wrote to Maria this year, asking her advice about a book she had written, _Cottage Dialogues_, and sent the MS. to her. Mr. Edgeworth was so much pleased with it, that Maria offered, at Mr. Edgeworth's suggestion, to add a few notes to give her name to the book; and it was published by Johnson's successor with great success.

Mr. Edgeworth, Maria, and I went this autumn to Kilkenny to see the amateur theatricals, with which we were much delighted. Mr. Edgeworth, who remembered Garrick, said he never saw such tragic acting as Mr. Rothe, in _Othello_: how true to nature it was, appeared from the observation of our servant, Pat Newman, who had never seen a play before, when Mr. Edgeworth asked him if he did not pity the poor woman smothered in bed: "It was a pity of her, but I declare I pitied the man the most." The town was full to overflowing, but we were most hospitably received, though our friends the O'Beirnes were their guests, by Doctor and Mrs. Butler. He had been a friend of Mr. Edgeworth's when he lived in the county of Longford, and she had been, when Miss Rothwell, a Dublin acquaintance of mine. This visit to Kilkenny was rich in recollections for Maria: the incomparable acting, the number of celebrated people there assembled, the supper in the great gallery of old grand Kilkenny Castle, the superb hospitality, the number of beautiful women and witty men, the gaiety, the spirit, and the brilliancy of the whole, could have been seen nowhere else.

MISS EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 1810._

We are to set out for Dublin on the 13th, to hear Davy's Lectures. Lord Fingal was so kind as to come here yesterday with Lady Teresa Dease, and he told me that my uncle is gone to Dublin. Tell me everything about it clearly. Honora, Fanny, and William go with us.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth interpolates:

We spent a few weeks in Dublin. Davy's Lectures not only opened a new world of knowledge to ourselves and to our young people, but were especially gratifying to Mr. Edgeworth and Maria, confirming, by the eloquence, ingenuity, and philosophy which they displayed, the high idea they had so early formed of Mr. Davy's powers.

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 1811._

I think Hardy's _Life of Lord Charlemont_ interesting, and many parts written in a beautiful style; but I don't think he gives a clear, well-proportioned history of the times. There is a want of _keeping_ and perspective in it. The pipe of the man smoking out of the window is as high as the house. Mr. Hardy is more a portrait than a history painter.

If you have any curiosity to know the names of the writers of some of the articles in the _Edinburgh Review_, I can tell you, having had to-day, from my literary intelligencer, Mr. Holland, two huge sheets, very entertaining and sensible. Jeffrey wrote the article on Parliamentary Reform and that on the Curse of Kehama, Sydney Smith that on Toleration, and Malthus that on Bullion; and if you have any curiosity, I can also tell you those in the _Quarterly_, among whom Canning is one. Thank my aunt for her information about Walter Scott; my father will write immediately to ask him here. I wish we lived in an old castle, and had millions of old legends for him. Have you seen Campbell's poem of _O'Connor's Child_? it is beautiful. In many parts I think it is superior to Scott.

_May-day._

This being May-day, one of the wettest I have ever seen, I have been regaled, not with garlands of May flowers, but with the _legal_ pleasures of the season; I have heard of nothing but _giving notices to quit, taking possession, ejectments, flittings_, etc. What do you think of a tenant who took one of the nice new houses in this town, and left it with every lock torn off the doors, and with a large stone, such as John Langan could not lift, driven actually through the boarded floor of the parlour? The brute, however, is rich, and if he does not die of whisky before the law can get its hand into his pocket, he will pay for this waste.

I have had another [Footnote: No less than five letters were received by Miss Edgeworth at different times, from different young people, asking for a description of the dresses in the "Contrast."] odd letter signed by three young ladies--Clarissa Craven, Rachel Biddle, and Eliza Finch, who, after sundry compliments in very pretty language, and with all the appearance of seriousness, beg that I will do them the favour to satisfy the curiosity they feel about the wedding dresses of the Frankland family in the "Contrast." I have answered in a way that will stand for either jest or earnest; I have said that, at a sale of Admiral Tipsey's smuggled goods, Mrs. Hungerford bought French cambric muslin wedding gowns for the brides, the collars trimmed in the most becoming manner, as a Monmouth milliner assured me, with Valenciennes lace, from Admiral Tipsey's spoils. I have given all the particulars of the bridegrooms' accoutrements, and signed myself the young ladies' "obedient servant and perhaps _dupe._"

I am going on with "Patronage," and wish I could show it to you. _Do_ get _O'Connor's Child_, Campbell's beautiful poem.

Last Saturday there was the most violent storm of thunder and lightning I ever saw in Ireland, and once I thought I felt the ground shake under me, for which thought I was at the time laughed to scorn; but I find that at the same time the shock of an earthquake was felt _in the country, which shook Lissard House to its foundations._ I tell it to you in the very words in which it was told to me by Sneyd, who had it from Councillor Cummin. A man was certainly killed by the lightning near Finac, _for_ the said councillor was knocked up at six o'clock in the morning, _to know_ if there was to be a coroner's inquest.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Aug. 30, 1811._

I have written a little play for our present large juvenile audience, [Footnote: Mrs. Beddoes and her three children were now at Edgeworthstown.] not for them to act, but to hear; I read it out last night, and it was liked. The scene is in Ireland, and the title "The Absentee." When will you let me read it to you? I would rather read it to you up in a garret than to the most brilliant audience in Christendom.

Anna's children are very affectionate. Henry is beautiful, and the most graceful creature I ever saw. The eight children are as happy together as the day is long, and give no sort of trouble.

What book do you think Buonaparte was reading at the siege of Acre?--_Madame de Staël sur l'influence des Passions_! His opinion of her and of her works has wonderfully changed since then. He does not follow Mazarin's wise maxim, "Let them _talk_ provided they let me _act._" He may yet find the recoil of that press, with which he meddles so incautiously, more dangerous than those cannon of which he well knows the management.

_Note Physical and Economical_

I am informed from high authority, that if you give Glauber's salts to hens, they will lay eggs as fast as you please!

* * * * *

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _October 1811._

Davy spent a day here last week, and was as usual full of entertainment and information of various kinds. He is gone to Connemara, I believe, to fish, for he is a little mad about fishing; and very ungrateful it is of me to say so, for he sent to us from Boyle the finest trout! and a trout of Davy's catching is, I presume, worth ten trouts caught by vulgar mortals. Sneyd went with him to Boyle, saw Lord Lorton's fine place, and spent a pleasant day. Two of Mr. Davy's fishing friends have since called upon us: Mr. Solly, a great mineralogist, and Mr. Children, a man of Kent.

I am working away at "Patronage," but cannot at all come up to my idea of what it should be.

_To_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.

ARDBRACCAN HOUSE, _Nov. 1811._

Nothing worthy of note occurred on our journey to Pakenham Hall, where we found to our surprise dear Lady Longford and Lord Longford, who had come an hour before on one of his flying visits, and a whole tribe of merry laughing children, Stewarts and Hamiltons. Lady Longford showed us a picture of Lady Wellington and her children; they are beautiful, and she says very like--Lady Wellington is not like: it is absurd to attempt to draw Lady Wellington's face; she has no _face_, it is all countenance. My father and Lady Elizabeth played at cribbage, and I was looking on: they counted so quickly fifteen two, fifteen four, that I was never able to keep up with them, and made a sorry figure. Worse again at some genealogies and intermarriages, which Lady Elizabeth undertook to explain to me, till at last she threw her arms flat down on each side in indignant despair, and exclaimed, "Well! you are the stupidest creature alive!"

When Lord Longford came in I escaped from cribbage and heard many entertaining things: one was of his meeting a man in the mail coach, who looked as if he was gouty, and seemed as if he could not stir without great difficulty, and never without the assistance of a companion, who never moved an inch from him. At last Lord Longford discovered that this _gentleman's_ gouty overalls covered _fetters_; that he was a malefactor in irons, and his companion a Bow Street officer, who treated his prisoner with the greatest politeness. "Give me leave, sir--excuse me--one on your arm and one on mine, and then we are sure we can't leave one another."

A worse travelling companion this than the bear, whom Lord Longford found one morning in the coach when day dawned, opposite to him--the gentleman in the fur cloak, as he had all night supposed him to be!

* * * * *

A second series of _Tales of Fashionable Life_ appeared in 1812. Of these "The Absentee" was a masterpiece, and contains one scene which Macaulay declared to be the best thing written of its kind since the opening of the twenty-second book of the _Odyssey._ Yet Mrs. Edgeworth tells that the greater part of "The Absentee" was "written under the torture of the toothache; it was only by keeping her mouth full of some strong lotion that Maria could allay the pain, and yet, though in this state of suffering, she never wrote with more spirit and rapidity." Mr. Edgeworth advised the conclusion to be a Letter from Larry, the postillion: he wrote one, and she wrote another; he much preferred hers, which is the admirable finale to "The Absentee."

* * * * *

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS MARGARET RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _July 20, 1812._

I am heartily obliged to my dear Sophy--never mind, you need not turn to the direction, it _is_ to Margaret, my dear, though it begins with thanks to Sophy--for being in such haste to relieve my mind from the agony it was in that _Fashionable Tales_ should reach my aunt. I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are none of you angry with me, and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they have read of "The Absentee." I long to hear whether their favour continues to the end and extends to the catastrophe, that dangerous rock upon which poor authors, even after a prosperous voyage, are wrecked, sometimes while their friends are actually hailing them from the shore. I have the _Rosamond_ vase [Footnote: A glass vase which Miss Edgeworth painted for Mrs. Ruxton, in brown, from Flaxman's designs for the _Odyssey._] madness so strong upon me, that I am out of my dear bed regularly at half-past seven in the morning, and never find it more than half an hour till breakfast time, so happy am I daubing. On one side I have Ulysses longing to taste Circe's cakes, but saying, "No, thank you," like a very good boy: and on the other side I have him just come home, and the old nurse washing his feet, and his queen fast asleep in her chair by a lamp, which I hope will not set her on fire, though it is, in spite of my best endeavours, so much out of the perpendicular that nothing but a miracle can keep it from falling on Penelope's crown.

Little Pakenham is going on bravely (not two months old), and I am just _beginning_ to write again, and am _in_ "Patronage," and have corrected all the faults you pointed out to me; and Susan, who was a fool, is now Rosamond and a wit.

I suppose you have heard various _jeux d'esprit_ on the marriage of Sir Humphry Davy and Mrs. Apreece? I scarcely think any of them worth copying: the best _idea_ is stolen from the _bon mot_ on Sir John Carr, "The Traveller be_k_nighted."

"When Mr. Davy concluded his last Lecture by saying that we were but in the _Dawn_ of Science, he probably did not expect to be so soon be_k_nighted."

I forget the lines: the following I recollect better:--

To the famed widow vainly bow
Church, Army, Bar, and Navy;
Says she, I dare not take a vow,
But I will take my Davy.

Another my father thinks is better:

Too many men have often seen
Their talents underrated;
But Davy owns that his have been
Duly _Appreec_iated.

_Aug 22._