Chapter VII: Part 7

From metaphysics to physics, we finished with a noble slice of the roast beef of Old England, "fed, ma'am," said Mr. Gwatkin, "by his present Majesty, GOD bless him."

Arrived at No. 1 in good time, and dined yesterday at Lady Davy's. Rogers, Gally Knight, Lord Mahon, and Lord Ashburner, who was very agreeable. He has been eleven years roaming the world, and is not foreign-fangled. Mrs. Marcet, who came in the evening, was the happiness of it to me.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_April 1831_.

Such a day as yesterday! sun shining--neither too hot nor too cold. This was just the time of year, I think, that you saw Knowle, and I never did see a place and house which pleased me more; exceedingly entertained with the portraits, endless to particularise. Several of Grammont's beauties, not so good in colours as in black and white. Sir Walter's black and white portrait of James I. made the full length of his unkingly Majesty a hundred times more interesting to me than it could otherwise have been,--mean, odd, strange-looking mortal. And then the silver room, as it is called, how it was gilt to me by the genius of romance, all Heriot's masterpieces there, would have been but cups and boxes ranged on toilette table and India cabinet but for the master magician touch. But we had to leave Knowle as we had engaged the day before at Brandfold to go to Mr. Jones (on the Distribution of Wealth) at Brasted. Such crowds of ideas as he poured forth, uttering so rapidly as to keep one quite on the stretch not to miss any of the good things. Half of them, I am sure, I have forgotten, but note for futurity; specially a fair-haired heiress now living, shut up in an old place called the Moate, old as King John's time. Mr. Jones had invited Dr. and Mrs. Felton, and had a luncheon _comme il y en a peu_ and wines of every degree: hock from Bremen, brought over by our mutual friend Mr. Jacob, and far too valuable for an ignoramus like me to swallow.

Chevening? You are afraid we shall not have time to see Chantrey's monument. "O! but you must see it," said Mr. Jones, and so he and Dr. Felton ordered gig and pony carriage to let our horses rest, and follow and meet us, and away we went. Mr. Jones driving me in his gig to a beautiful parky place where Dr. Felton flourishes for the summer, and saw his children, who had wished to see the mother of Frank and Rosamond. Then through Mr. Manning's beautiful place--never travelling a high road or a by-road all the way to Chevening churchyard. The white marble monument of Lady Frederica Stanhope is in the church; plain though she was in life, she is beautiful in death, something of exquisite tenderness in the expression of her countenance, maternal tenderness, and repose, matronly repose, and yet the freshness of youth in the rounded arm and delicate hand that lightly, affectionately presses the infant--she dies, if dying it can be called, so placid, so happy; the head half-turned sinks into the pillow, which, without touching, one can hardly believe to be marble. I am sure Harriet recollects Lady Frederica at Paris, just before she was married.

We left Chevening, and can never forget it, and drove through the wealds and the charts, called, as Mr. Jones tells me, from the charters, and see a chapel built by Porteus to civilise some of the wicked ones of the wealds or wilds, and Ireton's house, [Footnote: Groombridge Place.] where some say Cromwell lived, now belonging to Perkins the brewer. Then "see to the right that rich green field, where King Henry VIII. used to stop and wind his horn, that people might gather and drag himself and suite through the slough," and it was near eight before we got to town, and Lestock waiting dinner with the patience of Job. He, Lestock, not Job, is a delightful person to live with, never annoyed about hours or trifles of that kind.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_April 30, 1831_.

On Monday last I drove to Apsley House, without the slightest suspicion that the Duchess had been worse than when I had last seen her. When I saw the gate only just opened enough to let out the porter's head, and saw Smith parleying with him, nothing occurred to me but that the man doubted whether I was a person who ought to be admitted; so I put out my card, when Smith, returning, said, "Ma'am, the _Duchess of Wellington died on Saturday morning!_"

The good-natured porter, seeing that I was "really a friend," as he said, went into the house at my request, to ask if I could see her maid; and after a few minutes the gates opened softly, and I went into that melancholy house, into that great, silent hall: window-shutters closed: not a creature to be seen or heard.

At last a man-servant appeared, and as I moved towards the side of the house where I had formerly been--"Not that way, ma'am; walk in here, if you please."

Then came, in black, that maid, of whose attachment the Duchess had, the last time I saw her, spoken so highly and truly, as I now saw by the first look and words. "Too true, ma'am--_she_ is gone from us! her Grace died on Saturday."

"Was the Duke in town?"

"Yes, ma'am, BESIDE HER."

Not a word more, but I was glad to have that certain. Lord Charles had arrived in time; not Lord Douro. The Duchess had remained much as I last saw her on the sofa for a fortnight; then confined to her bed some days, but then seemed much better; had been up again, and out in that room and on that sofa, as when we heard her conversing so charmingly. They had no apprehension of her danger, nor had she herself till Friday, when she was seized with violent pain, and died on Saturday morning, "calm and resigned."

The poor maid could hardly speak. She went in and brought me a lock of her mistress's hair, silver gray, all but a few light brown, that just recalled the beautiful Kitty Pakenham!

So ended that sweet, innocent--shall we say happy, or unhappy life? Happy, I should think, _through all_; happy in her good feelings and good conscience, and warm affections, still LOVING on! Happy in her faith, her hope, and her charity!

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

LONDON, _May 6, 1831_.

One of our farewell visits yesterday was to Mrs. Lushington; and when we had talked our fill about our brother Pakenham, we went to politics, of which every head in London is fuller than it can hold. Lord Suffield described the scene in the House of Lords [Footnote: On the opening of Parliament, when the King was to propose the bringing in of the Reform Bill.] as more extraordinary than could have been imagined or believed. One lord held down by force, and one bawling at the top of his voice, even when the door opened, and the King appeared as his lordship pronounced the word "RUIN!"

Ruin did not seize the King, however, nor was he in the least affected by the uproar. He walked calmly on.

"I kept my eye upon him," Lord Suffield said; "I looked at his knees, they did not tremble in the least. I am sure I could not have walked so firmly; I do not believe another man present could have been so calm."

The King quietly took out his paper, felt for his spectacles, put them on composedly, and read with a firm voice. They say nothing was ever like the confusion and violence since the time of Charles I. and Cromwell.

The day before yesterday we did a prodigious deal. Mr. Drummond came at ten o'clock, by appointment, to take us to the Mint, to see the double printing press; and we saw everything, from the casting the types to the drying the sheet; and then to the India House. There was some little stop while Pakenham's card, with a pencil message to Dr. Wilkins, was sent up. While this was doing, a superb mock-majesty man, in scarlet cloak and cocked hat, bedizened with gold, motioned us away. "Coachman, drive on; no carriage can stand before the India House--that's the rule."

Dr. Wilkins came out of his comfortable den to receive us, laid down his book and spectacles, and showed us everything. The strangest thing we saw was a toy of Tippoo Sahib's, worthy of a despot--an English soldier, as large as life, in his uniform, hat, and everything, painted and varnished, lying at full length, and a furious tiger over him; a handle, invisible at a distance, in his ribs, which, when turned by the slave, produced sounds like the growling of the tiger and the groans of the man!

We had a very pleasant day at Epping. Mrs. Napier went with us; I inside with her, Fanny on the barouche-seat with Pakenham, and Lestock behind with Sneyd. The place is so much improved! I saw Fanny's horse Baronet: very pretty.

_2 o'clock, Luncheon._

Pakenham is eating his last bit of gooseberry pie: enter Sneyd: boxes--hammering--dreadful notes of preparation. Pakenham yesterday wore the trefoil pin with his aunt's hair, and the sleeve-buttons with his mother's and sister's hair; and I have added a locket to hang to his watch-chain, with a bit, very scarce, of my own hair. The wind is fair: we shall hear from him from Deal.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_May 7, 1831_.

I wrote to Harriet yesterday all about Pakenham to the moment he left this house with Sneyd to join Lestock in the City, and go on to Gravesend.

Half an hour after we had parted from Pakenham, and before we had recovered sense, came a great rap at the door. "Will you see anybody, ma'am?" I was going to say, "No, nobody," but I bid Smith ask the name, when behind him, as I spoke, enter Mrs. Lushington. "I have forced my way up--forgive me, it is for Pakenham; I hope I am not too late; I've brought him _good_ letters from Mrs. Charles Lushington."

Comprehending instantly the value of the letters, and our carriage being most luckily at the door, into it Fanny and I got, and drove as hard as we could down to the dock, to the very place where they were to take the Gravesend boat. You may imagine the anxiety we were in to be in time, boat waiting for no one; and then the stoppages of odious carts and hackney coaches in the City: I do not believe we spoke three words to each other all that long way. At last, when within a few minutes of the end of our time, we were encompassed with carts, drays, and omnibuses, in an impenetrable line seemingly before us. Fanny sent Smith on foot with the letters and a pencil note. We got on wonderfully, our coachman being really an angel. We reached the wharf. "Is the Gravesend boat gone?" "No, ma'am, not this half-hour; half after four, instead of four, to-day."

We took breath, but were still anxious, watching each with head out on our own side; for Smith had not appeared, and Lestock, Sneyd, and Pakenham had not arrived: great fear of missing them and the letters in the hurly-burly of packages, and packers, and passengers, and sailors, and _orderers_, and hackney coaches, and coachmen, and boatmen, men, women, and children swarming and bawling.

But at last Smith and Lestock appeared together, and the letters got into Pakenham's hand: he and Sneyd had gone into the boat, so we saw no more of them; but Lestock sent us off on a new hurry-skurry for pistols, ordered but not brought. To the Minerva counting-house we drove, to send the pistols by some boatswain there: got to counting-house: "Boatswain gone?" "No, ma'am, not yet," said the dear, smiling clerk. So all was right, and Pakenham had his pistols.

SALDEN HOUSE, MRS. CARR'S,

_June 6, 1831_.

My last days in London crowned the whole in all that was entertaining, curious, gratifying, and delightful to head and heart. I am writing while Isabella Carr is reading out _Destiny_, and very well she reads the Scotch; so you may think I cannot enter into details of the past at present, but I must just note--

Lady Elizabeth Whitbread and four Lady Harleys.

Opera with Lady Guilford and two daughters: _Medea_, Pasta: thrilling shiver, gliding sideways to her children, and sudden retreat.

French play: Leontine Fay in _Une Faute_--the most admirable actress I ever saw, and in the most touching piece. Three young men--Mr. Whitbread, Major Keppel, and Lord Mahon--separately told me the impression made on them by this actress was such that they could not sleep afterwards! I had no trial how this would be with me, because we went off from the playhouse to Sir James South's, to see the occultation of Jupiter's satellites: that was indeed a sublime reality, and no wonder we were broad awake till three o'clock.

Next morning St. Paul's: moral sublime. I sat next Rammohun Roy, and heard all he said. One curious inquiry he made; "Why are the boys set _above_ the girls?" Sermon by the Bishop of Nova Scotia: Judge Haliburton sat between Fanny and me. Luncheon at the Bishop of Llandaff's: forty people. Came home: packed up. Mr. Creed at dinner, and this last day delightful.

_To_ CAPTAIN BASIL HALL.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _August 14, 1831_.

My last visit to universal London confirms to my own feelings your eulogium. I never was so happy there in my life, because I had besides all the external pleasures, the solid satisfaction of a home there, and domestic pleasures, without which I should soon grow a-weary of the world, and wish the business of the town were done. I should be very sorry if I were told this minute that I was never to see London again, and yet I am wondrous contented and happy at home. I hope you will come and see some time whether I am only making believe or telling true.

You say I must never say a discouraging word to you, because you are so easily discouraged: for shame! What is that but saying, "Flatter me"? Now flattery can never do good; twice cursed in the giving and the receiving, it ought to be. Instead of flattering I will give you this wholesome caution: in your new volumes do not weaken the effect by giving too much of a good thing; do not be lengthy; cut well before you go to press, and then the rest will live all the better. With your facility, this cannot cost you much.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

ROSTREVOR, [Footnote: Where the Miss Ruxtons were now living.]

_Oct. 2, 1831_.

Lestock was gratified by my joining him at Armagh. Mr. Allott was most hospitable. We walked to the cathedral, and saw views of great extent and beauty, and heard learned disquisitions about architecture, and a curious anecdote in support of a favourite theory of his, that small stones _grouted_ together, with lime and water put in hot, defies old Time. Great alarm was excited some time ago at Winchester Cathedral: the principal pillars seemed to be giving way, out of the perpendicular, and _bulged_. They fell to work _shoring_ and propping; but, in spite of all, the pillars still seemed to be giving way more and more, and they feared the whole would come down. Rennie was sent for, but Rennie was ill, and died. At last an architect looked at the pillars, picked at them, took off a facing of stone, and found, what he had suspected, that it was only this facing that had given way and bulged, and that the inside was a solid pillar of masonry,--small stones grouted together so firmly that the cement was as hard as the stone.

Dr. and Mrs. Robinson came in the evening: his conversation is admirable; such an affluence of ideas, so full of genius and master thoughts. He gave me an excellent disquisition on the effect which transcendental mathematics produces on the mind, and traced up the history of mathematics from Euclid, appealing to diagrams and resting on images, to that higher sort where they are put out of the question, where we reason by symbols as in algebra, and work on in the dark till they get to the light, or till the light comes out of the dark--sure that it will come out. He went over Newton, and on through the history of modern times--Brinkley, Lagrange, Hamilton--just giving to me, ignorant, a notion of what each had done.

Mrs. O'Beirne--dear, kind soul!--would accompany me on the jaunting-car all the way from Newry to Rostrevor, and I am very glad she did; and as the day was fine and the tide in, I thought it would be pleasant on that beautiful road; and so it would have been, but for the droves of cows--Oh, those weary cows with the longest horns!--and if ever I laughed at you for being afraid of cows, you may have your revenge now. Every quarter of a mile, at least, came a tangled mass of these brutes, and their fright made them more terrible, for they knew no more what they were doing than I did myself; and there I was sitting at their mercy, and the horn of one or t'other continually within an inch of my eye, my mouth, or my breast, and no retreat; and they might any moment stick me on the top of one of these horns, and toss me with one jerk into the sea! Mrs. O'Beirne kept telling me she was used to it, and that nothing ever happened; but by the time I reached Rostrevor I was as poor a worn-out rag as ever you saw.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 22, 1831._

Francis was married on the 19th to Rosa Florentina Eroles; Sneyd, Fanny, and Lestock were present. The bride was dressed in a plain white muslin, with a mantilla lace veil of her own work on her head, without any hat, after the fashion of her own country, with a small wreath of silver flowers in her dark hair. Her sister was dressed English fashion, in a bonnet. Both Sneyd and Fanny say that nothing could appear more gentlemanlike, gentle, amiable, and happy than the bridegroom.

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 20, 1832_.

Can you conceive yourself to be an old lamp at the point of extinction, and dreading the smell you would make at going out, and the execrations which in your dying flickerings you might hear? And then you can conceive the sudden starting up again of the flame, when fresh oil is poured into the lamp. And can you conceive what that poor lamp would feel returning to light and life? So felt I when I had read your letter on reading what I sent to you of _Helen_. You have given me new life and spirit to go on with her. I would have gone on from principle, and the desire to do what my father advised--to finish whatever I began; but now I feel all the difference between working for a dead or a live horse.

My auriculas are superb, and my peony tree has eighteen full-swelled buds: it will be in glory by the time Sophy and Mag arrive.

_To_ HER SISTER HARRIET--MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN. _Aug. 1, 1832_.

It is impossible to tell you how much I miss you. Never, except at my Aunt Ruxton's, did I ever pass my time away from home so entirely to my own enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured the cheerful sky.

We are reading _Eugene Aram_; and almost all I have heard I think affected as to language, and not natural as to character. I am sure the real story and trial are much more interesting.

_Aug. 21_.

Perhaps you think I am at Lady Hartland's at this moment, poor ignorants, as you are! You must know that I was so unwell on Friday, the morning of the day we were to have gone there, that my poor mother was obliged to send James in the rain (poor James!) to put off till Monday; so Lord and Lady Hartland were very sorry and very glad, and sent us divine peaches.

Sir James Calendar Campbell's _Memoirs_ are ill-written--all higgledy-piggledy, facts and anecdotes, some without heads, and some without tails; great cry and little wool, still, some of the wool is good; and curious facts thrown out, of which he does not know the value, and other things he values that have no value in nature.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

PAKENHAM HALL, _Sept. 19, 1832_.

We came here yesterday to meet Caroline Hamilton--dear Caroline Hamilton, and her sensible, agreeable husband. She is always the same, and the sight of her affectionate, open, lively countenance does one's heart good. Lord Longford quite well, and Lord Longford for ever: the children beautiful.

FIVE P.M.

We have been walking and driving all morning, and seeing all that Lady Longford has done in beautifying the place and employing the people. I never saw, in England or Ireland, such beautiful gardens--the most beautiful American garden my eyes ever beheld. She took advantage of a group of superb old chestnut-trees, with oak and ash for a background, which had never been noticed in that _terra incognita_; now it is a fairy land, embowered round with evergreens.

To-morrow Hercules and Mrs. Pakenham come, with all their children--a party of thirteen!

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Oct. 9, 1832_.

I send you one dozen out of two dozen ranunculus roots, which good, kind, dying Lady Pakenham sent to me, with a note as fresh in feeling as youth could dictate.

_To_ MR. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 12, 1832_.

The death of Sir Walter Scott has filled us all, as his private friends and admirers, with sorrow. I do not mean that we could have wished the prolongation of his life such as it had been for the last months; quite the contrary: but we feel poignant anguish from the thought that such a life as his was prematurely shortened--that such faculties, such a genius, such as is granted but once in an age, once in many ages, should have been extinguished of its light, of its power to enlighten and vivify the world, long before its natural term for setting! Whatever the errors may have been, oh, what have been the unremitted, generous, alas! overstrained exertions of that noble nature!

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 15, 1832_.

Thank you, I am quite well. My only _complaint_ is that I never can do any day as much as I intended, and am always as much hurried by the dressing-bell as I am at this instant.

Lord Longford and Lord Silchester called here to-day on their way back from Longford and Castle Forbes; they sat till late; very agreeable. When I congratulated Lord Longford on having done so much at Pakenham Hall, and upon having still something to do, he answered, "Oh yes, I never was intended for a finished gentleman!"

_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 28, 1832_.

I send Mr. Lockhart's letter on the subscription for Abbotsford; it does him honour. I combated, however, his feelings with all the feelings and reasons I have on the opposite side--that it is a national tribute, honourable, not degrading. I refused to give him Scott's letters for publication, and very painful it was to me to refuse him, at present, anything he asked; but principle and consistency, painful or not, required it, besides my own feelings. I could not bear to publish Sir Walter's praises of myself, and affectionate expressions and private sentiments. I did send one letter to Mr. Lockhart, exemplifying what I mean--the beautiful letter on his changing fortunes. As to the subscription, all depends on whether the quantity of good produced will balance the pain to the family. It would gratify me to give the £100 I set apart for the purpose, but then comes the question, with or without my name? If with, there is staring me in the face OSTENTATION. If without--set down as from an "Unknown Friend"--AFFECTATION.

Crampton said my name would be useful, and so I suppose I should do what would best serve the cause, and put out of the question all consideration of what may be thought of myself.

* * * * *

Miss Edge worth's novel of _Helen_, begun in 1830, was finished in the summer of 1833, and read for family criticism, before being sent to the press.

* * * * *

C.S. EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. C.S. EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 27, 1833_.

After breakfast yesterday I had a stroll with Mrs. Edgeworth through Maria's flower-garden. I wish you could see her peony tree: it is in the very perfection of bloom, as indeed everything is here. After luncheon dinner, the pony-carriage came round, but was refused by all: however, as I was putting in execution my long-formed project of getting a ladder and making the ladies go up into the sycamore-tree with me, we drove that far. I fixed the ladder: I went up, and Fanny, Harriet, and Honora, with a little hesitation, followed. They were all delighted with this airy parlour, lined with the softest, thickest moss; natural seats with backs, a delightful peep of the house, gay parterres and groves. It was amusing, Mrs. Edgeworth's and Maria's surprise when called to from above, as they passed in the carriage. Then we drove round Francis's new walk through the Horse Park fields: beautiful. Then the ladies flocked to their flower-beds, and I was accompanied by one or two in my rambles, speaking to old workmen, and bribing new to banish the sparrows. After tea much talking, and a little reading; Harriet read out a new story by Mr. Brittain, who wrote _Hyacinth O'Gara_, and whom I knew at college.

This morning was everything that was exquisite, and I have since breakfast had the gardener and heaps of workmen, and have been sawing beech-branches, to my great satisfaction and the approval of others; and in criticism I have found all agree with me, for _Helen_ is begun, and at eleven we meet in the library; and Harriet has read aloud four chapters. It is altogether in Maria's best style; and I think the public will like it as hers, the return to an old friend.

_31st_.

I am sure you would like the cheerful fusion of this home party: each star is worthy of separate observation for its serenity, brilliancy, or magnitude; but it is as a constellation they claim most regard, linked together by strong attachment, and moving in harmony through their useful course. The herons sail about and multiply, the rookery is banished, the reign of tulips now almost o'er, and peonies of many bells are taking their place.

I am a stranger to any book but _Helen_, scarcely looking at the newspaper, which Mr. Butler devours. Harriet has gone in the pony-carriage for Molly, and she is to be driven by Francis's walk and Maria's garden.

_June 1_.

Aunt Mary's [Footnote: Mrs. Mary Sneyd.] interest in _Helen_ is delightful. Never did the whole family appear to more advantage; the accordance of opinion, yet cheerfulness of discussion, is charming.

When the evening reading of _Helen_ was finished, Harriet and I walked round the lawn; the owls shrieking and flitting by in pursuit of bats: clouds in endless varieties in the unsettled heavens. The library, as we looked in at it through the windows, with all its walls and pictures lighted up by the lamps, looked beautiful. I thought how my father would have been touched to look in as we did on his assembled family.

MARIA _to_ M. PAKENHAM EDGEWORTH, ESQ.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN,

_Valentine's Day, 1834_.

The herons this day (according to their custom as Sophy tells me) sat all in a row in the horse park in solemn deliberation upon their own affairs: the opening of their budget I suppose. They have much upon their hands this session, and there must be a battle soon, on which the fate of the empire must depend; magpies and scarecrows abound, and such clouds of starlings darkened the air for many minutes opposite the library window, settling at last upon the three great beech trees, that Sophy and I would have given a crown imperial you had been by, dear Pakenham, to see them.

You ended your Journal and the announcement of your appointment to Amballa with exulting in the new kingdoms of flowers you would have to subdue, and with the hope that your mother would write to Lady Pakenham for her delightful letter to her son. You will have heard long before this reaches you, my dear, that Lady Pakenham is no more; she died last autumn. I wish that this news could have reached that kind heart of hers. Honora and I went the very day we received your journal to Coolure, to thank Admiral Pakenham; he met us on the steps in a tapestry nightcap. He has grown very old, and has had several strokes of palsy, but none have touched his heart. When Honora read to him the whole passage out of your journal and your own warm expressions of pleasure and gratitude, life and joy lighted in his dear old eyes. Honora only changed the words, "dear Lady Pakenham" into the "dear Pakenhams of Coolure." He asked, "Who wrote?" and looked very earnestly in my eyes. I was afraid to say Lady Pakenham, and I answered, "You know," and pressed his hand. He did know, passed his hand over his eyes and said, "Like her: she was a good woman."

_February 19_.

I yesterday found in my writing-desk a copy I had made of the letter Lord Carrington wrote to me in answer to mine announcing your former Futtehgur appointment; and now that it can go free I enclose it. I like an expression of Lord Mahon's about him in a note I lately received from him. "My grandfather is in excellent health, and I cannot offer you a better wish than that you may at eighty-one possess the same activity, the same quickness of intellect, the same gushing, warm-hearted benevolence which distinguishes him." Gushing benevolence: I like that expression.

Sophy despatched a letter for you last week, in which I am sure she told you all domestic occurrences. Barry has bought Annaghmore in the King's County: an excellent house; and Sophy and Barry and all the children are to stay with us till Sophy's health--very delicate--is strengthened, and till they have furnished what rooms they mean to inhabit at Annamore; this looks better than with the _gh_, but Sophy stickles for the old Irish spelling.

Molly and Hetty, and Crofton and child, are all flourishing; poor old George is declining as gently and comfortably as can be. When we go to see him, his eyes light up and his mouth crinkles into smiles, and he, as well as Molly, never fails to ask for Master Pakenham. Though _Helen_ cannot reach you for a year, Fanny has desired Bentley to send you a copy before it is published. I should tell you beforehand that there is no humour in it, and no Irish character. It is impossible to draw Ireland as she now is in a book of fiction--realities are too strong, party passions too violent to bear to see, or care to look at their faces in the looking-glass. The people would only break the glass, and curse the fool who held the mirror up to nature--distorted nature, in a fever. We are in too perilous a case to laugh, humour would be out of season, worse than bad taste. Whenever the danger is past, as the man in the sonnet says,

We may look back on the hardest part and laugh.

Then I shall be ready to join in the laugh. Sir Walter Scott once said to me, "Do explain to the public why Pat, who gets forward so well in other countries, is so miserable in his own." A very difficult question: I fear above my power. But I shall think of it continually, and listen, and look, and read.

Thank you, my dear brother, for your excellent and to me particularly interesting last letter, in which you copied for me the good observations on the state of your part of India, and the collection of the revenue, rents, etc. Many of the observations on India apply to Ireland; similarity of certain general causes operating on human nature even in countries most different and with many other circumstances dissimilar, produce a remarkable resemblance in human character and conduct. I admire your generous indignation against oppression and wringing by "any indirection from the poor peasant his vile trash." Some of the disputes that you have to settle at Cucherry, and some of the viewings that you record of boundaries, etc., about which there are quarrels, put me in mind of what I am called upon to do here continually in a little way. I hope Honora and Sophy have given you satisfaction about the exact place of the new walks; as I cannot draw I can do nothing in that way, but I can tell you that I have been planting rhododendrons and arbutus in front of the euonymus tree. I hope you will have a good garden in your new residence, and that you will not be too hot in it. How you could find that your having more to do, made you more able to endure the horrid heat you describe, passes my comprehension. Heat always makes me so indolent, imbecile, and irritable. I remember all this in the only heat _to call heat_, that I was ever exposed to in Paris and Switzerland; I could not even speak, much less write. If I had been under your 107 degrees I should have melted away to the very bone, and never, never, never could have penned that _dropping_ letter as you did to Honora, and with that _puddle_ ink too. Well! we are very, very, very much obliged to you, dear Pakenham, for all the labour you go through for us, and we hope that under the shade of the Himalaya mountains you will be able to write, at your ease and without all manner of _stodge_ in your ink.

_21st_.

This morning brought through Harriet, Margaret Craig's joy at your promotion, and--Honora says I must go out this delightful sunshine morning, and look at all the full-blown crocuses, violets, heath, and pyrus japonica. I have a standard pyrus now--vulgar things compared with your _Indian Prides_.

Oh! my dear Pakenham, I am sure you are shocked at the death of Sir John Malcolm! both he and Sir James Macintosh, the two whose genius you so admired, and whose conversation you so enjoyed just before you left England--both gone!

_March 8_.

Ever since I finished my last to you I have had my head so immersed in accounts that I have never been able till this moment to fulfil my intention of giving you my travels in Connemara.

I travelled with Sir Culling and Lady Smith (Isabella Carr). Sir Culling, of old family, large fortune and great philanthropy, extending to poor little Ireland and her bogs, and her Connemara, and her penultimate barony of Erris and her ultimate Giants' Causeway, and her beautiful lake of Killarney. And all these things he determined to see. Infant and nurse, and lady's-maid, and gentleman's gentleman, and Sir Culling and the fair Isabella all came over to Ireland last September, just as Fanny had left us, and she meeting them in Dublin, and conceiving that nurse and baby would not do for Connemara, wrote confidentially to beg us to invite them to stay at Edgeworthstown, while father and mother, and maid, and man, were to proceed on their travels. They spent a pleasant week, I hope, at Edgeworthstown. I am sure Honora did everything that was possible to make it pleasant to them, and we regretted a million of times that your mother was not at home. Sir Culling expected to have had all manner of information as to roads, distances, and time, but Mrs. Edgeworth not being at home, and Miss Edgeworth's local knowledge being such as you know, you may guess how he was disappointed. Mr. Shaw and the Dean of Ardagh, who dined with him here, gave him directions as far as Ballinasloe and a letter to the clergyman there. The fair of Ballinasloe was just beginning, and Sir Culling was determined to see that, and from thence, after studying the map of Ireland and roadbooks one evening, he thought he should get easily to Connemara, Westport, and the Barony of Erris, see all that in a week, and come back to Edgeworthstown, take up Bambino and proceed on a northern or a southern tour.

You will be surprised that I should--seeing they knew so little what they were about--have chosen to travel with them; and I confess it was imprudent and very unlike my usual dislike to leave home without any of my own people with me. But upon this occasion I fancied I should see all I wanted to see of the wonderful ways of going on and manners of the natives better for not being with any of my own family, and especially for its not being suspected that I was an authoress and might put them in a book. In short, I thought it was the best opportunity I could ever have of seeing a part of Ireland which, from time immemorial, I had been curious to see. My curiosity had been raised even when I first came to Ireland fifty years ago, by hearing my father talk of the King of Connemara, and his immense territory, and his ways of ruling over his people with almost absolute power, with laws of his own, and setting all other laws at defiance. Smugglers and caves, and murders and mermaids, and duels, and banshees, and fairies, were all mingled together in my early associations with Connemara and Dick Martin,--"Hair-trigger Dick," who cared so little for his own life or the life of man, and so much for the life of animals, who fought more duels than any man of even his "Blue-blaze-devil" day, and who brought the bill into Parliament for preventing cruelty to animals; thenceforward changing his cognomen from "Hair-trigger Dick" to "Humanity Martin." He was my father's contemporary, and he knew a number of anecdotes of him. _Too besides_, I once saw him, and remember that my blood crept slow and my breath was held when he first came into the room, a pale, little insignificant- looking mortal he was, but he still kept hold of my imagination, and his land of Connemara was always a land I longed to visit. Long afterwards, a book which I believe you read, _Letters from the Irish Highlands_, written by the family of Blakes of Renvyle, raised my curiosity still further, and wakened it for new reasons, in a new direction. Further and further and higher, Nimmo and William deepened my interest in that country, and, in short, and at length all these motives worked together. Add to them a book called _Wild Sports of the West_, of which Harriet read to me all the readable parts till I rolled with laughing. Add also that I had lately heard Mr. Rothwell give a most entertaining account of a tour he had taken in Erris, and to the house of a certain Major Bingham who must be the most diverting and extraordinary original upon earth--and shall I die without seeing him? thought I--now or never.

At the first suggestion I uttered that I should like to see him and Erris, and the wonders of Connemara, Lady Culling Smith and Sir Culling burst into delight at the thought of having me as their travelling companion, so it was all settled in a moment. Honora approved, Aunt Mary hoped it would all turn out to my satisfaction, and off we set with four horses mighty grand in their travelling carriage, which was a summer friend, open or half-open. A half head stuck up immovable with a window at each ear, an apron of wood, varnished to look like japanned leather hinged at bottom, and having at top where it shuts a sort of fairy-board window which lets down in desperately bad weather.

Our first day was all prosperous and sunshine, and what Captain Beaufort would call plain sailing. To Ballymahon the first stage. Do you remember Ballymahon, and the first sight of the gossamer in the hedges sparkling with dew, going there packed into the chaise with your four sisters and me to see the museum of a Mr. Smith, who had a Cellini cup and a Raphael plate, and miniatures of Madame de Maintenon, and wonders innumerable--but Sophy at this moment tells me that I am insisting upon your remembering things that happened before you were born, and that even Francis was only one year old at the time of this breakfast, and it was she herself who was so delighted with that first view of the gossamer in the glittering sunshine.

But I shall never get on to Athlone, much less to Connemara. Of Athlone I have nothing to say but what you may learn from the _Gazetteer_, except that, while we were waiting in the antiquated inn there, while horses were changing, I espied a print hanging smoked over the chimney-piece, which to my _connoisseur_ eyes seemed marvellously good, and upon my own judgment I proposed for it to the landlady, and bought it for five shillings (frame excepted); and when I had it out of the frame, and turned it round, I found my taste and judgment gloriously justified. It was from a picture of Vandyke's--the death of Belisarius; and here it is now hanging up in the library, framed in satin wood, the admiration of all beholders, Barry Fox above all.

But to proceed. It was no easy matter to get out of Athlone, for at the entrance to the old-fashioned, narrowest of narrow bridges we found ourselves wedged and blocked by drays and sheep, reaching at least a mile; men cursing and swearing in Irish and English; sheep baaing, and so terrified, that the shepherds were in transports of fear brandishing their crooks at our postillions, and the postillions in turn brandishing their whips on the impassive backs of the sheep. The cocked gold-edged hat of an officer appeared on horseback in the midst, and there was silence from all but the baaing sheep. He bowed to us ladies, or to our carriage and four, and assured us that he would see us safe out, but that it would be a work of time. While this work of time was going on, one pushed his way from behind, between sheep and the wheel on my side of the carriage, and putting in his head called out to me, "Miss Edgeworth, if you are in it, my master's in town, and will be with you directly almost, with his best compliments. He learned from the landlady your name. He was in the inn that minute, receiving rents he is, if you will be kind enough to wait a minute, and not stir _out of that_."

Kind enough I was, for I could not help myself, if I had been ever so unkindly disposed towards my unknown friend. Up came, breathless, a well-known friend, Mr. Strickland. Introduced amidst the baaing of the sheep to my travelling companions, and, as well as I could make myself heard in the din, I made him understand where we were going next, and found, to my great satisfaction, that he would overtake us next day at Ballinasloe, if we could stay there next day; and we could and must, for it was Sunday. I cannot tell you--and if I could you would think I exaggerated--how many hours we were in getting through the next ten miles; the road being continually covered with sheep, thick as wool could pack, all _coming from_ the sheep-fair of Ballinasloe, which, to Sir Culling's infinite mortification, we now found had taken place the previous day. I am sure we could not have had a better opportunity and more leisure to form a sublime and just notion of the thousands and tens of thousands which must have been on the field of sale. This retreat of the ten thousand never could have been effected without the generalship of these wonderfully skilled shepherds, who, in case of any disorder among their troops, know how dexterously to take the offender by the left leg or the right leg with their crooks, pulling them back without ever breaking a limb, and keeping them continually in their ranks on the weary, long march.

We did not reach Ballinasloe till it was almost dark. There goes a story, you know, that no woman must ever appear at Ballinasloe Fair; that she would be in imminent peril of her life from the mob. The daughters of Lord Clancarty, it was said, "had tried it once, and scarce were saved by fate." Be this as it may, we were suffered to drive very quietly through the town; and we went quite through it to the outskirts of scattered houses, and stopped at the door of the Vicarage. And well for us that we had a letter from the Dean of Ardagh to the Rev. Mr. Pounden, else we might have spent the night in the streets, or have paid guineas apiece for our beds, all five of us, for three nights. Mr. and Mrs. Pounden were the most hospitable of people, and they were put to a great trial--dinner just over, and that day had arrived unexpectedly one family of relations, and expectedly another, with children without end. And how they did stow them and us, to this hour I cannot conceive: they had, to be sure, one bed-chamber in a house next door, which, luckily, Lord and Lady Somebody had not arrived to occupy. Be it how it might, here we stayed till Monday; and on Sunday there was to be a charity sermon for the benefit of the schools, under the patronage of Lord and Lady Clancarty, and the sermon was preached by Archdeacon Pakenham; and after the sermon--an excellent sermon on the appropriate text of the good Samaritan--an immense crowd before the windows filled the fair green, and we went out to see. The crowd of good, very good-natured Irishmen, gentle and simple mixed, opened to let the ladies and English stranger in to see: and fine horses and fine leaping we saw, over a loose wall built up for the purpose in the middle of the fair green; and such shouting, and such laughing, and such hurraing for those that cleared and for those that missed. As for the rest of the cattle-fair, we _lift_ on Monday morning before the thick of it came on.

I forgot to tell you that on Sunday arrived Mr. Strickland, and he with maps and road-books explained to Sir Culling where he should go, and how he was to accomplish his objects. It was settled that we were to go to Loughrea, and to see certain ruins by going a few miles out of our way; and this we accomplished, and actually did see, by an uncommonly fine sunset, the beautiful ruins of Clonmacnoise; and we slept this night at Loughrea, where we had been assured there was a capital inn, and may be it was, but the rats or the mice ran about my room so, and made such a noise in the holes of the floor, that I could not sleep, but was thankful they did not get on or into my bed.

Next day to Galway, and still it was fine weather, and bright for the open carriage, and we thought it would always be so. Galway, wet or dry, and it was dry when I saw it, is the dirtiest town I ever saw, and the most desolate and idle-looking. As I had heard much from Captain Beaufort and Louisa of the curious Spanish buildings in Galway, I was determined not to go through the town without seeing these; so, as soon as we got to the inn, I summoned landlord and landlady, and begged to know the names of the principal families in the town. I thought I might chance to light upon somebody who could help us. In an old history of Galway which Mr. Strickland picked up from a stall at Ballinasloe, I found prints of some of the old buildings and names of the old families; and the landlord having presented me with a list as long as an alderman's bill of fare of the names of the gentlemen and ladies of Galway, I pitched upon the name of a physician, a Dr. Veitch, of whom I had found a fine character in my book. He had been very good to the poor during a year of famine and fever. To him I wrote, and just as I had finished reading his panegyric to Lady Smith, in he walked; and he proved to be an old acquaintance. He was formerly a surgeon in the army, and was quartered at Longford at the time of the rebellion: remembered our all taking shelter there, how near my father was being killed by the mob, and how courageously he behaved. Dr. Veitch had received some kindness from him, and now he seemed anxious, thirty-five years afterwards, to return that kindness to me and my companions. He walked with us all over Galway, and showed us all that was worth seeing, from the new quay _projecting_, and the new green Connemara marble-cutters' workshop, to the old Spanish houses with projecting roofs and piazza walks beneath; and, wading through seas of yellow mud thick as stirabout, we went to see archways that had stood centuries, and above all to the old mayoralty house of that mayor of Galway who hung his own son; and we had the satisfaction of seeing the very window from which the father with his own hands hung his own son, and the black marble marrowbones and death's head, and inscription and date, 1493. I daresay you know the story; it formed the groundwork very lately of a tragedy. The son had--from jealousy as the tragedy has it, from avarice according to the vulgar version--killed a Spanish friend; and the father, a modern Brutus, condemns him, and then goes to comfort him. I really thought it worth while to wade through mud to see these awful old relics of other times and other manners. But, coming back again, at every turn it was rather disagreeable to have "fish" bawled into one's ears, and "fine flat fish" flapped in one's face. The fish-market was fresh supplied, and Galway is famous for _John Dorees_. "A John Doree, ma'am, for eighteen-pence--a shilling--sixpence!" A John Doree could not be had for guineas in London. Quin, the famous actor, wished he was all throat when he was eating a John Doree. But still it was not pleasant, at every turn and every crossing, to have ever so fine John Dorees flapped in one's face. Sir Culling bought one for sixpence, and it was put into the carriage; and we took leave of Dr. Veitch, and left Galway.

From Galway Sir Culling was obliged to take job horses, as he was warned that we were entering a country where post horses were not to be found, and were never even heard of. Dr. Veitch bid us not think of entering Connemara this night. "You will have to send after me soon, if you don't take care. You have no idea of the places you are going into, and that you may have to sleep in."

The next place we were to go to, and where Dr. Veitch advised us to sleep, was Outerard, a small town or village, where he told us was an inn, or an hotel, as even in these out-of-the-world regions it is now called. It was but fifteen miles, and this with four horses was not two hours' drive; and Sir Culling thought it would be sad waste of daylight to sleep at Outerard, for still he measured his expected rate of travelling by his Bath Road standard. Though we left Galway at three, we were not at Outerard till past seven, with our fine, fresh horses; and excellent horses they really were, and well harnessed too, with well-accoutred postillions in dark blue jackets and good hats and boots, all proper, and an ugly little dog running joyously along with the horses. Outerard, as well as we could see it, was a pretty mountain-scattered village, with a pond and trees, and a sort of terrace-road, with houses and gardens on one side, and a lower road with pond and houses on the other. There is a spa at Outerard to which bettermost sort of people come in the season; but this was not the season, and the place had that kind of desolate look, mixed with _pretensions_ too, which a watering-place out of season always has.