The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1
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Maria Edgeworth >> The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1
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BLACK CASTLE, _Jan. 1805._
I have thought of you often when I heard things that would entertain
you, and thought I had collected a great store, but when I rummage in my
head, for want of having had, or taken time to keep the drawers of my
cabinet of memory tidy, I cannot find one single thing that I want,
except that it is said that plants raised from cuttings do not bear such
fine flowers as those raised from seeds.--That a lady, whose parrot had
lost all its feathers, made him a flannel jacket. . . . I will bring a
specimen of the silk spun by the _Processionaires_, of whom my aunt gave
you the history. There is a cock here who is as great a tyrant in his
own way as Buonaparte, and a poor Barbary cock who has no claws, has the
misfortune to live in the same yard with him; he will not suffer this
poor defenceless fellow to touch a morsel or grain of all the good
things Margaret throws to them till he and all his protegees are
satisfied.
_To_ MISS RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 26, 1805._
I have been reading _a power_ of good books: _Montesquieu sur la
Grandeur et Decadence des Romains_, which I recommend to you as a book
you will admire, because it furnishes so much food for thought, it shows
how history may be studied for the advantage of mankind, not for the
mere purpose of remembering facts and repeating them.
Sneyd [Footnote: Second son of Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth.] has come home
to spend a week of vacation with us. He is now full of logic, and we
perpetually hear the words _syllogisms_, and _predicates, majors_ and
_minors, universals_ and _particulars, affirmatives_ and _negatives_,
and BAROK and BARBARA, not Barbara Allen or any of her relations: and we
have learnt by logic that a stone is not an animal, and conversely that
an animal is not a stone. I really think a man talking logic on the
stage might be made as diverting as the character of the _Apprentice_
who is arithmetically mad; pray read it: my father read it to us a few
nights ago, and though I had a most violent headache, so that I was
forced to hold my head on both sides whilst I laughed, yet I could not
refrain. Much I attribute to my father's reading, but something must be
left to Murphy. I have some idea of writing in the intervals of my
_severer studies_ for _Professional Education_, a comedy for my father's
birthday, but I shall do it up in my own room, and shall not produce it
till it is finished. I found the first hint of it in the strangest place
that anybody could invent, for it was in Dallas's _History of the
Maroons_, and you may read the book to find it out, and ten to one you
miss it. At all events pray read the book, for it is extremely
interesting and entertaining: it presents a new world with new manners
to the imagination, and the whole bears the stamp of truth. It is not
well written in general, but there are particular parts admirable from
truth of description and force of feeling.
Your little goddaughter Sophy is one of the most engaging little
creatures I ever saw, and knows almost all the birds and beasts in
Bewick from the tom-tit to the hip-po-pot-a-mus, and names them in a
sweet little droll voice.
_To_ HENRY EDGEWORTH, AT EDINBURGH.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 1805._
It gives me the most sincere pleasure to see your letters to my father
written just as if you were talking to a favourite friend of your own
age, and with that manly simplicity characteristic of your mind and
manner from the time you were able to speak. There is something in this
perfect openness and in the courage of daring to be always yourself,
which attaches more than I can express, more than all the
Chesterfieldian arts and graces that ever were practised.
The worked sleeves are for Mrs. Stewart, and you are to offer them to
her,--nobody can say I do not know how to choose my ambassadors well! If
Mrs. Stewart should begin to say, "O! it is a pity Miss Edgeworth should
spend her time at such work!" please to interrupt her speech, though
that is very rude, and tell her that I like work very much, and that I
have only done this at odd times, after breakfast you know, when my
father reads out Pope's _Homer_, or when there are long sittings, when
it is much more agreeable to move one's fingers than to have to sit with
hands crossed or clasped immovably. I by no means accede to the doctrine
that ladies cannot attend to anything else when they are working:
besides, it is contrary, is not it, to all the theories of _Zoonomia_?
Does not Dr. Darwin show that certain habitual motions go on without
interrupting trains of thought? And do not common sense and experience,
whom I respect even above Dr. Darwin, show the same thing?
_To_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 25, 1805._
To-morrow we all, viz. Mr. Edgeworth, two Miss Sneyds, and Miss Harriet
Beaufort, and Miss Fanny Brown, and Miss Maria, and Miss Charlotte, and
Miss Honora, and Mr. William Edgeworth, go in one coach and one chaise
to Castle Forbes, to see a play acted by the Ladies Elizabeth and
Adelaide Forbes, Miss Parkins, Lord Rancliffe, Lord Forbes, and I don't
know how many grandees with tufts on their heads, for every grandee man
must now you know have a tuft or ridge of hair upon the middle of his
pate. Have you read Kotzebue's _Paris_? Some parts entertaining, mostly
stuff. We have heard from Lovell, still a prisoner at Verdun, but in
hopes of peace, poor fellow.
_To_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, AT TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 4, 1805._
We are all very happy and tolerably merry with the assistance of William
and the young tribe, who are always at his heels and in full chorus with
him. Charlotte _cordials_ me twice a day with _Cecilia_, which she reads
charmingly, and which entertains me as much at the third reading as it
did at the first.
We are a little, but very little afraid of being swallowed up by the
French: they have so much to swallow and digest before they come to us!
They did come once very near to be sure, but they got nothing by it.
_To_ MISS S. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 1, 1805._
My father's birthday was kept yesterday, much more agreeably than last
year, for then we had company in the house. Yesterday Sneyd, now at home
for his vacation, who is ever the promoter of gaiety, contrived a pretty
little _fete champetre_, which surprised us all most agreeably. After
dinner he persuaded me that it was indispensably necessary for my health
that I should take an airing; accordingly the chaise came to the door,
and Anne Nangle, and my mother, with little Lucy in her arms, and Maria
were rolled off, and after them on horseback came rosy Charlotte, all
smiles, and Henry, with eyes brilliant with pleasure--riding again with
Charlotte after eight months' absence. It was a delightful evening, and
we thought we were pleasing ourselves sufficiently by the airing, so we
came home _thinking of nothing at all_, when, as we drove round, our
ears were suddenly struck with the sound of music, and as if by
enchantment, a fairy festival appeared upon the green. In the midst of
an amphitheatre of verdant festoons suspended from white staffs, on
which the scarlet streamers of the yeomen were flying, appeared a
company of youths and maidens in white, their heads adorned with
flowers, dancing; while their mothers and their little children were
seated on benches round the amphitheatre. John Langan sat on the pier of
the dining-room steps, with Harriet on one knee and Sophy on the other,
and Fanny standing beside him. In the course of the evening William
danced a reel with Fanny and Harriet, to the great delight of the
spectators. Cakes and syllabubs served in great abundance by good Kitty,
formed no inconsiderable part of the pleasures of the evening. William,
who is at present in the height of electrical enthusiasm, proposed to
the dancers a few electrical sparks, to complete the joys of the day.
All--men, women, and children--flocked into the study after him to be
_shocked_, and their various gestures and expressions of surprise and
terror mixed with laughter, were really diverting to my mother, Anne
Nangle, and me, who had judiciously posted ourselves in the gallery.
Charlotte and Sneyd, as soon as it was dark, came to summon us, and we
found the little amphitheatre on the grass-plat illuminated, the lights
mixed with the green boughs and flowers were beautiful, and boys with
flambeaux waving about had an excellent effect. I do wish you could have
seen the honest, happy face of George, as he held his flambeau bolt
upright at his station, looking at his own pretty daughter Mary. O my
dear aunt, how much our pleasure would have been increased if you had
been sitting beside us at the dining-room window.
_To_ MISS MARGARET RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 21, 1805._
I had a most pleasant long letter from my father to-day. He has become
acquainted with Mrs. Crewe--"Buff and blue and Mrs. Crewe"--and gives an
account of a _dejeuner_ at which he _assisted_ at her house at Hampstead
as quite delightful. Miss Crewe charmed him by praising "To-morrow," and
he claimed, he says, remuneration on the spot--a song, which it is not
easy to obtain: she sang, and he thought her singing worthy of its
celebrity. He was charmed with old Dr. Burney, who at eighty-two was the
most lively, well-bred, agreeable man in the room. Lord Stanhope begged
to be presented to him, and he thought him the most wonderful man he
ever met.
Tell my aunt _Leonora_ is in the press.
_To_ MRS. RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept 6, 1805._
Thank you, thank you. Unless you could jump into that skin out of which
I was ready to jump when your letter was read, you could not tell how
very much I am obliged by your so kindly consenting to come.
I have been at Pakenham Hall and Castle Forbes: at Pakenham Hall I was
delighted with "that sweetest music," the praises of a friend, from a
person of judgment and taste. I do not know when I have felt so much
pleasure as in hearing sweet Kitty Pakenham speak of your Sophy; I never
saw her look more animated or more pretty than when she was speaking of
her.
Lady Elizabeth Pakenham has sent to me a little pony, as quiet and
almost as small as a dog, on which I go trit-trot, trit-trot; but I
hope it will never take it into its head to add
When we come to the stile,
Skip we go over.
_To_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 7, 1806._
I am ashamed to tell you I have been so idle that I have not yet
finished _Madame de Fleury._ You will allow that we have gadded about
enough lately: Sonna, Pakenham Hall, Farnham, and Castle Forbes. I don't
think I told you that I grew quite fond of Lady Judith Maxwell, and I
flatter myself she did not dislike me, because she did not keep me in
the ante-chamber of her mind, but let me into the boudoir at once.
So Lord Henry Petty is Chancellor of the Exchequer--at twenty-four on
the pinnacle of glory!
Sneyd and Charlotte have begun _Sir Charles Grandison_: I almost envy
them the pleasure of reading Clementina's history for the first time. It
is one of those pleasures which is never repeated in life.
_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.
ROSSTREVOR, _March 21, 1806._
I have spent a very happy week at Collon; [Footnote: Dr. Beaufort,
father of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth, was Vicar of Collon.] I never saw
your mother in such excellent spirits. She and Dr. Beaufort were so good
as to bring me to Dundalk, where my aunt had appointed to meet me; but
her courage failed her about going over the Mountain road, and she sent
Mr. Corry's chaise with hired horses. I foresaw we should have a battle
about those horses, and so we had--only a skirmish, in which I came off
victorious! Your father, who, next to mine, is, I think, the best and
most agreeable traveller in the world, walked us about Dundalk and to
the Quay, etc., whilst the horses were resting, and we ate black
cherries and were very merry. They pitied me for the ten-mile stage I
was to go alone, but I did not pity myself, for I had Sir William
Jones's and Sir William Chambers's _Asiatic Miscellany._ The
metaphysical poetry of India, however, is not to my taste; and though
the Indian Cupid, with his bow of sugar-cane and string of bees and five
arrows for the five senses, is a very pretty and very ingenious little
fellow, I have a preference in favour of our own Cupid, and of the two
would rather leave orders with "my porter" to admit the "well-known
boy." [Footnote: From an Address to Cupid, by the Duc de Nivernois,
translated by Mr. Edgeworth.]
Besides the company of Sir William Jones, I had the pleasure of meeting
on the road Mr. Parkinson Ruxton and Sir Chichester Fortescue, who had
been commissioned by my aunt to hail me; they accordingly did so, and
after a mutual broadside of compliments, they sheered off. The road to
Newry is like Wales--Ravensdale, three miles of wood, glen, and
mountain.
My aunt and Sophy were on the steps of the inn at Newry to receive me.
The road from Newry to Rosstrevor is both sublime and beautiful. The inn
at Rosstrevor is like the best sort of English breakfasting inn. But to
proceed with my journey, for I must go two miles and a half from
Rosstrevor to my aunt's house. Sublime mountains and sea--road, a flat
gravelled walk, walled on the precipice side. You see a slated English
or Welsh-looking farmhouse amongst some stunted trees, apparently in the
sea; you turn down a long avenue of firs, only three feet high, but
old-looking, six rows deep on each side. The two former proprietors of
this mansion had opposite tastes--one all for straight, and the other
all for serpentine lines; and there was a war between snug and
picturesque, of which the traces appear every step you proceed. You seem
driving down into the sea, to which this avenue leads; but you suddenly
turn and go back from the shore, through stunted trees of various sorts
scattered over a wild common, then a dwarf mixture of shrubbery and
orchard, and you are at the end of the house, which is pretty. The front
is ugly, but from it you look upon the bay of Carlingford--Carlingford
Head opposite to you--vessels under sail, near and distant--little
islands, sea-birds, and landmarks standing in the sea. Behind the house
the mountains of Morne. I saw all this with admiration, tired as I was,
for it was seven o'clock. In the parlour is a surprising chimney-piece,
as gigantic as that at Grandsire's at Calais, with wonderful wooden
ornaments and a tablet representing Alexander's progress through India,
he looking very pert, driving four lions.
After dinner I was so tired, that in spite of all my desire to see and
hear, I was obliged to lie down and refit. After resting, but not
sleeping, I groped my way down the broad old staircase, _felt_ my road,
passed _two_ clock-cases on the landing-place, and arrived in the
parlour, where I was glad to see candles and tea, and my dear aunt, and
Sophy, and Margaret's illumined, affectionate faces. Tea. "Come, now,"
says my aunt, "let us show Maria the wonderful passage; it looks best by
candlelight." I followed my guide through a place that looks like Mrs.
Radcliffe in lower life--passage after passage, very low-roofed, and
full of strange lumber; came to a den of a bed-chamber, then another,
and a study, all like the hold of a ship, and fusty; but in this study
were mahogany bookcases, glass doors, and well-bound, excellent books.
All kinds of tables, broken and stowed on top of each other, and parts
of looking-glasses, looking as if they had been there a hundred years,
and jelly glasses on a glass stand, as if somebody had supped there the
night before. Turn from the study and you see a staircase, more like a
step-ladder, very narrow, but one could squeeze up at a time, by which
we went into a place like that you may remember at the post-house in the
Low Countries--two chambers, if chambers they could be called, quite
remote from the rest of the house, low ceilings, strange scraps of
many-coloured paper on the walls, an old camp bed, a feather bed with
half the feathers out; one window, low, but wide.
"Out of that window," said my aunt, "as Isabella told us, the corpse was
carried."
"Who is Isabella?" cried I; but before my aunt could answer I was struck
with new wonder at the sight of two French looking-glasses, in gilt
frames, side by side, reaching from the ceiling to the floor, and placed
exactly opposite the bed! [Footnote: This mysterious apartment had
belonged to a poor crazed lady who died there, and who had, as Isabella,
the gardener's wife, related, a passion for fine papers, different
patterns of which were put on the walls to please her, and also the
French mirrors, on which she delighted to look from her bed. And when
she died her coffin was, to avoid the crooked passages, taken out of the
window.]
I was now so tired that I could neither see, hear, nor understand,
imagine, or wonder any longer. Sophy somehow managed to get my clothes
off, and literally put me into bed. The images of all these people and
things flitted before my eyes for a few seconds, and then I was fast
asleep.
Mrs. and Miss Fortescue came in the morning, and among other things
mentioned the fancy ball in Dublin. Mrs. Sheridan [Footnote: Mrs. Tom
Sheridan.] was the handsomest woman there. The Duchess of Bedford was
dressed as Mary Queen of Scots, and danced with Lord Darnley. At supper
the Duchess _motioned_ to Lady Darnley to come to her table; but Lady
Darnley refused, as she had a party of young ladies. The Duchess
reproached her rather angrily. "Oh," said Lady Darnley, "when the Queen
of Scots was talking to Darnley, it would not have done for me to have
been too near them."
MRS. EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _April 3, 1806._
We were at Gaybrook when your letter came, and when the good news of
Miss Pakenham's happiness arrived: [Footnote: Catherine, second daughter
of the second Lord Longford, married, 10th April 1806, Sir Arthur
Wellesley, afterwards the first and great Duke of Wellington. He had, at
this time, just returned from India, after a stay of eleven years.] it
was announced there in a very pleasant, sprightly letter from your
friend Miss Fortescue. Your account of the whole affair is really
admirable, and is one of those tales of real life in which the romance
is far superior to the generality of fictions. I hope the imaginations
of this hero and heroine have not been too much exalted, and that they
may not find the enjoyment of a happiness so long wished for inferior to
what they expected. Pray tell dear good Lady Elizabeth we are so
delighted with the news, and so engrossed by it, that, waking or
sleeping, the image of Miss Pakenham swims before our eyes. To make the
romance perfect we want two material documents--a description of the
person of Sir Arthur, and a knowledge of the time when the interview
after his return took place.
MARIA _to_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.
ALLENSTOWN, _May-day, 1806._
Dr. Beaufort, tell Charlotte, saw Sir Arthur Wellesley at the Castle:
handsome, very brown, quite bald, and a hooked nose. He could not travel
with Lady Wellesley; he went by the mail. He had overstayed his leave a
day. She travelled under the care of his brother, the clergyman.
_To_ MISS MARGARET RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 23, 1806._
I have been laughed at most unmercifully by some of the phlegmatic
personages round the library table for my impatience to send you _The
Mine._ "Do you think Margaret cannot live five minutes longer without
it? Saddle the mare, and ride to Dublin, and thence to Black Castle or
Chantony with it, my dear!"
I bear all with my accustomed passiveness, and am rewarded by my
father's having bought it for me; and it is now at Archer's for you.
Observe, I think the poem, as a drama, tiresome in the extreme, and
absurd, but I wish you to see that the very letters from the man in the
quick-silver mine which you recommended to me have been seized upon by a
poet of no inferior genius. Some of the strophes of the fairies are most
beautifully poetic.
Lady Elizabeth Pakenham told us that when Lady Wellesley was presented
to the Queen, Her Majesty said, "I am happy to see you at my court, so
bright an example of constancy. If anybody in this world deserves to be
happy, you do." Then Her Majesty inquired, "But did you really never
write _one_ letter to Sir Arthur Wellesley during his long
absence?"--"No, never, madam."--"And did you never think of him?
"--"Yes, madam, very often."
I am glad constancy is approved of at courts, and hope "the bright
example" may be followed.
_To_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _July 12, 1806._
This is the third sheet of paper in the smallest hand I could write I
have had the honour within these three days to spoil in your service,
stuffed full of geological and chemical facts, which we learned from our
two philosophical travellers, Davy and Greenough; but when finished I
persuaded myself they were not worth sending. Many of the facts I find
you have in Thomson and Nicholson, which, "owing to my ignorance," as
poor Sir Hugh Tyrold would say, "I did not rightly know."
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
Abbe 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.
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