Richard Lovell Edgeworth Part 6

'On the subject of the Union he had not yet been able, in parliamentary phrase, to make up his mind: and he went to the House in that state in which so many profess to find themselves, and so few ever really are--anxious to hear the arguments on both sides, and open to be decided by whoever could show him that which was best for his country.

'The debate on the first proposal of the Union was protracted to an unusual length, and when he rose to speak, it was late at night, or rather it was early in the morning--two o'clock--the House had been so wearied that many of the members were asleep. It was an inauspicious moment. No person present, not even the Speaker, who was his intimate friend, could tell on which side he would vote.

Curiosity was excited: some of the outstretched members were roused by their neighbours, whose anxiety to know on which side he would vote prompted them to encourage him to proceed. This curiosity was kept alive as he went on; and when people perceived that it was not a set speech, they became interested. He stated his doubts, just as they had really occurred, balancing the arguments as he threw them by turns into each scale, as they had balanced one another in his judgment; so that the doubtful beam nodded from side to side, while all watched to see when its vibrations would settle. All the time he kept both parties in good humour, because each expected to have him their own at last. After stating many arguments in favour of what appeared to him to be the advantages of the Union, he gave his vote against it, because, he said, he had been convinced by what he had heard in that House this night, that the Union was at this time decidedly against the wishes of the great majority of men of sense and property in the nation. He added that if he should be convinced that the opinion of the country changed at the final discussion of the question, his vote would be in its favour.

'One of the anti-Unionists, who happened not to know my father personally, imagined from his accent, style, and manner of speaking, that he was an Englishman, and accused the Government of having brought a new member over from England, to impose him upon the House, as an impartial country gentleman, who was to make a pretence of liberality by giving a vote against the Union, while, by arguing in its favour, he was to make converts for the measure. Many on the Ministerial bench, who had still hopes that, on a future occasion, Mr. Edgeworth might be convinced and brought to vote with them, complimented him highly, declaring that they were completely surprised when they learned how he voted; for that undoubtedly the best arguments on their side of the question had been produced in his speech. Lord Castlereagh found the measure so much against the sense of the House that he pressed it no further at that time.

'This session my father had the satisfaction of turning the attention of the House to a subject which he considered to be of greater and more permanent importance than the Union, or than any merely political measure could prove to his country, the education of the people. By his exertions a select committee was appointed, and they adopted the resolutions drawn up by him. When the report of this committee was brought up to the House, my father spoke at large upon the subject.

'In his speech he said: It was impossible, when moral principles are instilled into the human mind, when people are regularly taught their duty to G.o.d and man, that abominable tenets can prevail to the subversion of subordination and society. He would venture to a.s.sert, though the power of the sword was great, that the force of education was greater. It was notorious that the writings of one man, Mr.

Burke, had changed the opinions of the whole people of England against the French Revolution. ... If proper books were circulated through the country, and if the public mind was prepared for the reception of their doctrines, it would be impossible to make the ignorance of the people an instrument of national ruin.

'There is, he contended, a fund of goodness in the Irish as well as in the English nature. Did G.o.d give different minds to different countries? No, the difference of mind arose from education. It therefore became the duty of Parliament to improve as much as possible the public understanding--for the misfortunes of Ireland were owing not to the heart, but the head: the defect was not from nature, but from want of culture.

'During this session my father spoke again two or three times, on some questions of revenue regulations and excise laws: of little consequence separately considered, but of importance in one respect, in their effect on the morality of the people. He pointed out that nothing could with more certainty tend to increase the crime of perjury than the multiplying custom-house oaths, and what are termed oaths of office. ... In Ireland the habits of the common people are already too lax with regard to truth. The difference of religion, and the facilities of absolution, present difficulties so formidable to their moral improvement as to require all the counteracting powers of education, example, public opinion, and law. . . .

Multiplying oaths injures the revenue, by increasing incalculably the means of evading the very laws and penalties by which it is attempted to bind the subject. Experience proves that this is a danger of no small account to the revenue; though trifling when compared with the importance of the general effect on national morality, and on the safety and tranquillity of the State, all which must ultimately rest, at all times and in all countries, upon religious sanctions. "It was not," my father observed, "by increasing pains and penalties, or by any severity of punishment, that the observance of laws can be secured; on the contrary, small but certain punishments, and few but punctually executed laws, are most likely to secure obedience, and to effect public prosperity."'

He writes to Darwin in March 1800: 'The fatigue of the session was enormous. I am a Unionist, but I vote and speak against the union now proposed to us--as to my reasons, are they not published in the reports of our debates? It is intended to force this measure down the throats of the Irish, though five-sixths of the nation are against it. Now, though I think such union as would identify the nations, so as that Ireland should be as Yorkshire to Great Britain, would be an excellent thing: yet I also think that the good people of Ireland ought to be persuaded of this truth, and not be dragooned into the submission.

'The Minister avows that seventy-two boroughs are to be compensated --i.e. bought by the people of Ireland with one million and a half of their own money; and he makes this legal by a very small majority, made up chiefly by these very borough members. When thirty-eight country members out of sixty-four are against the measure, and twenty-eight counties out of thirty-two have pet.i.tioned against it, this is such abominable corruption that it makes our parliamentary sanction worse than ridiculous.

'I had the honour of offering, for myself, and for a large number of other gentlemen, that, if a minister could by any means win the nation to the measure, and show us even a small preponderance in his favour, we would vote with him.

'So far for politics. I had a charming opportunity of advancing myself and my family, but I did not think it wise to quarrel with myself, and lose my good opinion at my time of life. What did lie in my way for a vote I will not say, but I stated in my place in the House, that I had been offered three thousand guineas for my seat during the few remaining weeks of the session.'

In 1817 he writes:--'The influence of the Crown was never so strongly exerted as upon this occasion. It is but justice, however, to Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh to give it as my opinion, that they began this measure with sanguine hopes that they could convince the reasonable part of the community that a cordial union between the two countries would essentially advance the interests of both. When, however, the ministry found themselves in a minority, and that a spirit of general opposition was rising in the country, a member of the House, who had been long practised in parliamentary intrigues, had the audacity to tell Lord Castlereagh from his place, that "if he did not employ the usual means of persuasion on the members of the House, he would fail in his attempt, and that the sooner he set about it the better."

'This advice was followed; and it is well known what benches were filled with the proselytes that had been made by the convincing arguments which had obtained a majority.

'He went in the spring of 1799 to England, and visited his old friends, Mr. Keir, Mr. Watt, Dr. Darwin, and Mr. William Strutt of Derby. In pa.s.sing through different parts of the country he saw, and delighted in showing us, everything curious and interesting in art and nature. Travelling, he used to say, was from time to time necessary, to change the course of ideas, and to prevent the growth of local prejudices.

'He went to London, and paid his respects to his friend Sir Joseph Banks, attended the meetings of the Royal Society, and met various old acquaintances whom he had formerly known abroad.'

Maria writes:--'In his own account of his earlier life he has never failed to mark the time and manner of the commencement of valuable friendships with the same care and vividness of recollection With which some men mark the date of their obtaining promotion, places, or t.i.tles. I follow the example he has set me.

'My father's and Mrs. Edgeworth's families were both numerous, and among such numbers, even granting the dispositions to be excellent and the understandings cultivated, the chances were against their suiting; but, happily, all the individuals of the two families, though of various talents, ages, and characters, did, from their first acquaintance, coalesce. . . . After he had lost such a friend as Mr. Day . . . who could have dared to hope that he should ever have found another equally deserving to possess his whole confidence and affection? Yet such a one it pleased G.o.d to give him--and to give him in the brother of his wife. And never man felt more strongly grateful for the double blessing. To Captain Beaufort he became as much attached as he had ever been to Lord Longford or to Mr. Day.

'His father-in-law, Dr. Beaufort, was also particularly agreeable to him as a companion, and helpful as a friend.'

Consumption again carried off one of Edgeworth's family: his daughter Elizabeth died at Clifton in August 1800.

The Continent, which had been practically closed for some years to travellers, was open in 1802 at the time of the short peace, and Edgeworth gladly availed himself of the opportunity of mixing in the literary and scientific society in Paris, and of showing his wife the treasures of the Louvre--treasures increased by the spoil of other countries. The tour was arranged for the autumn, and Edgeworth was looking forward to visiting Dr. Darwin on the way, when he received a letter begun by the doctor, describing his move from Derby to the Priory, a few miles out of the town, and sending a playful message to Maria: 'Pray tell the auth.o.r.ess that the water nymphs of our valley will be happy to a.s.sist her next novel.'

A few lines after, the pen had stopped; another hand added the sad news that Dr. Darwin had been taken suddenly ill with fainting fits: he revived and spoke, but died that morning. The sudden death of such an old and valued friend was a great shock to Edgeworth.

Some months later, his daughter mentions that, 'in pa.s.sing through England, we went to Derby, and to the Priory, to which we had been so kindly invited by him who was now no more. The Priory was all stillness, melancholy, and mourning. It was a painful visit, yet not without satisfaction; for my father's affectionate manner seemed to soothe the widow and daughters of his friend, who Were deeply sensible of the respect and zealous regard he showed for Dr.

Darwin's memory.'

CHAPTER 10

Mr. and Mrs. Edgeworth, with their daughters Maria and Charlotte, travelled through the Low Countries--'a delightful tour,' Maria writes--and at length reached Paris, where they spent the winter 1802-3. They soon got introductions, through the Abbe Morellet, into that best circle of society, 'which was composed of all that remained of the ancient men of letters, and of the most valuable of the n.o.bility; not of those who had accepted of places from Buonaparte, nor yet of those emigrants who have been wittily and too justly described as returning to France after the Revolution, sans avoir rien appris, ou rien oublie.' . . . 'We felt,' Maria writes, 'the characteristic charms of Parisian conversation, the polish and ease which in its best days distinguished it from that of any other capital.

'During my father's former residence in France, at the time when he was engaged in directing the works of the Rhone and Saone at Lyons, as he mentions in his Memoirs, he wrote a treatise on the construction of mills. He wished that D'Alembert should read it, to verify the mathematical calculations, and for this purpose he had put it into the hands of Morellet. D'Alembert approved of the essay; and my father became advantageously known to Morellet as a man of science, and as one who had gratuitously and honourably conducted a useful work in France. His predominating taste thus continued, as in former times, its influence, was still a connecting link between him and old and new friends. On this and many other occasions he proved the truth of what has been a.s.serted, that no effort is ever lost: his exertions at Lyons in 1772, after an interval of thirty years, now becoming of unexpected advantage to him and to his family at Paris. . . .

'In Paris there is an inst.i.tution resembling our London Society of Arts, La Societe d'Encouragement pour VIndustrie Nationale: of this my father was made a member, and he presented to it the model of a lock of his invention. In getting this executed, he became acquainted with some of the working mechanics in Paris, and had an opportunity of observing how differently work of this kind is carried on there and in Birmingham. Instead of the a.s.semblage of artificers in manufactories, such as we see in Birmingham, each artisan in Paris, working out his own purposes in his own domicile, must in his time "play many parts," and among these many to which he is incompetent, either from want of skill or want of practice: so that, in fact, even supposing French artisans to be of equal ability and industry with English compet.i.tors, they are at least a century behind, by thus being precluded from all the miraculous advantages of the division of labour. . . . 'My father had left England with a strong desire to see Buonaparte, and had procured a letter from the Lord Chamberlain (Lord Ess.e.x), and had applied to Lord Whitworth, our Amba.s.sador at Paris, who was to present him. But soon after our arrival at Paris, he learned that Buonaparte was preparing the way for becoming Emperor, contrary to the wishes and judgment of the most enlightened part of the French nation. . . .

'My father could no longer consider Buonaparte as a great man, abiding by his principles, and content with the true glory of being the first citizen of a free people; but as one meditating usurpation, and on the point of overturning, for the selfish love of dominion, the liberty of France. With this impression, my father declared that he would not go to the court of a usurper. He never went to his levees, nor would he be presented to him.

'My father had not the presumption to imagine that in a cursory view, during a slight tour, and a residence of four or five months at Paris, he could become thoroughly acquainted with France.

Besides, his living chiefly with the select society which I have described precluded the possibility of seeing much of what were called les nouveaux riches.

'The few general observations he made on French society at this time I shall mention. He observed that, among the families of the old n.o.bility, domestic happiness and virtue had much increased since the Revolution, in consequence of the marriages which, after they lost their wealth and rank, had been formed, not according to the usual fashion of old French alliances, but from disinterested motives, from the perception of the real suitability of tempers and characters. The women of this cla.s.s in general, withdrawn from politics and political intrigue, were more domestic and amiable. . . .

'With regard to literature^he observed that it had considerably degenerated. For the good taste, wit, and polished style which had characterised French literature before the Revolution there was no longer any demand, and but few competent judges remained. The talents of the nation had been forced by circ.u.mstances into different directions. At one time, the hurry and necessity of the pa.s.sing moment had produced political pamphlets and slight works of amus.e.m.e.nt, formed to catch the public revolutionary taste. At another period, the contending parties, and the real want of freedom in the country, had repressed literary efforts. Science, which flourished independently of politics, and which was often useful and essential to the rulers, had meanwhile been encouraged, and had prospered. The discoveries and inventions of men of science showed that the same positive quant.i.ty of talent existed in France as in former times, though appearing in a new form.'

The charms of Paris and its society were rudely broken by Edgeworth receiving one morning a visit from a police officer requiring him immediately to attend at the Palais de Justice. Edgeworth was in bed with a cold when this summons came. He writes to Miss Charlotte Sneyd:--'My being ill was not a sufficient excuse; I got up and dressed myself slowly, to gain time for thinking--drank one dish of chocolate, ordered my carriage, and went with my exempt to the Palais de Justice. There I was shown into a parlour, or rather a guard-room, where a man like an under-officer was sitting at a desk.

In a few minutes I was desired to walk upstairs into a long narrow room, in different parts of which ten or twelve clerks were sitting at different tables. To one of these I was directed--he asked my name, wrote it on a printed card, and demanding half a crown, presented the card to me, telling me it was a pa.s.sport. I told him I did not want a pa.s.sport; but he pressed it upon me, a.s.suring me that I had urgent necessity for it, as I must quit Paris immediately.

Then he pointed out to me another table, where another clerk was pleased to place me in the most advantageous point of view for taking my portrait, and he took my written portrait with great solemnity, and this he copied into my pa.s.sport. I begged to know who was the princ.i.p.al person in the room, and to him I applied to learn the cause of the whole proceeding. He coolly answered that if I wanted to know I must apply to the Grand Juge. To the Grand Juge I drove, and having waited till the number ninety-three was called, the number of the ticket which had been given to me at the door, I was admitted, and the Grand Juge most formally a.s.sured me that he knew nothing of the affair, but that all I had to do was to obey. I returned home, and, on examining my pa.s.sport, found that I was ordered to quit Paris in twenty-four hours. I went directly to our Amba.s.sador, Lord Whitworth, who lived at the extremity of the town: he was ill--with difficulty I got at his secretary, Mr. Talbot, to whom I pointed out that I applied to my Amba.s.sador from a sense of duty and politeness, before I would make any application to private friends, though I believed that I had many in Paris who were willing and able to a.s.sist me. The secretary went to the Amba.s.sador, and in half an hour wrote an official note to Talleyrand, to ask the why and the wherefore. He advised me in the meantime to quit Paris, and to go to some village near it--Pa.s.sy or Versailles. Pa.s.sy seemed preferable, because it is the nearest to Paris--only a mile and a half distant. Before I quitted Paris I made another attempt to obtain some explanation from the Grand Juge. I could not see him, or even his secretary, for a considerable time; and when at length the secretary appeared, it was only to tell me that I could not see the Grand Juge. "Cannot I write," said I, "to your Grand Juge?" He answered hesitatingly, "Yes." A huissier took in my note, and another excellent one from the friend who was with me, F. D. The huissier returned presently, holding my papers out to me at arm's length--"The Grand Juge knows nothing of this matter."

'I returned home, dined, ordered a carriage to be ready to take me to Pa.s.sy, wrote a letter to Buonaparte, stating my entire ignorance of the cause of my deportation, and a.s.serting that I was unconnected with any political party. F. D. engaged that the letter should be delivered; and Mrs. E. and Charlotte remaining to settle our affairs at Paris, I set off for Pa.s.sy with Maria, where my friend F. D. had taken the best lodging he could find for me in the village. Madame G. had offered me her country house at Pa.s.sy; but though she pressed that offer most kindly we would not accept of it, lest we should compromise our friends. Another friend, Mons. de P, offered his country house, but, for the same reason, this offer was declined. We arrived at Pa.s.sy about ten o'clock at night, and though a deporte, I slept tolerably well. Before I was up, my friend Mons. de P. was with me--breakfasted with us in our little oven of a parlour --conversed two hours most agreeably. Our other friend, F. D, came also before we had breakfasted, and just as I had mounted on a table to paste some paper over certain deficiencies in the window, enter M. P. and Le B h.

'"Mon ami, ce n'est pas la peine!" cried they both at once, their faces rayonnant de joie. "You need not give yourself so much trouble; you will not stay here long. We have seen the Grand Juge, and your detention arises from a mistake. It was supposed that you are brother to the Abbe Edgeworth--we are to deliver a pet.i.tion from you, stating what your relationship to the Abbe really is. This shall be backed by an address signed by all your friends at Paris, and you will be then at liberty to return."

'I objected to writing any pet.i.tion, and at all events I determined to consult my Amba.s.sador, who had conducted himself well towards me.

I wrote to Lord Whitworth, stating the facts, and declaring that nothing could ever make me deny the honour of being related to the Abbe Edgeworth. Lord Whitworfh advised me, however, to state the fact that I was not the Abbe's brother. . . .

'No direct answer was received from the First Consul; but perhaps the revocation of the order of the Grand Juge came from him. We were a.s.sured that my father's letter had been read by him, and that he declared he knew nothing of the affair; and so far from objecting to any man for being related to the Abbe Edgeworth, he declared that he considered him as a most respectable, faithful subject, and that he wished that he had many such.'

Before this unpleasant occurrence Edgeworth had thought of taking a house in Paris for two years and sending for his other children; but he now, in spite of the entreaties of his French friends, altered his plans and resolved to return home. Maria writes:--'He was prudent and decided--had he been otherwise, we might all have been among the number of our countrymen who were, contrary to the law of nations, and to justice and reason, made prisoners in France at the breaking out of the war. We were fortunate in getting safe to free and happy England a short time before war was declared, and before the detention of the English took place.

'My eldest brother had the misfortune to be among those who were detained. His exile was rendered as tolerable as circ.u.mstances would permit by the indefatigable kindness of our friends the D' s. But it was an exile of eleven years--from 1803 to 1814--six years of that time spent at Verdun!'

CHAPTER 11

Instead of returning at once to Ireland, the Edgeworths went to Edinburgh to visit Henry Edgeworth, whose declining health caused his father much anxiety. Maria writes:--'He mended rapidly while we were at Edinburgh; and this improvement in his health added to the pleasure his father felt in seeing the interest his son had excited among the friends he had made for himself in Edinburgh--men of the first abilities and highest characters, both in literature and science--whom we knew by their works, as did all the world; with some of whom my father had had the honour of corresponding, but to whom he was personally unknown. Imagine the pleasure he felt at being introduced to them by his son, and in hearing Gregory, Alison, Playfair, Dugald Stewart, speak of Henry as if he actually belonged to themselves, and with the most affectionate regard. . . .

'On our journey homewards, in pa.s.sing through Scotland, we met with much hospitality and kindness, and much that was interesting in the country and in its inhabitants But the circ.u.mstance that remains the most fixed in my recollection, and that which afterwards influenced my father's life the most, happened to be the books we read during our last day's journey. These were the lives of Robertson the historian, and of Reid, which had been just given to us by Mr.

Stewart. In the life of Reid there are some pa.s.sages which struck my father particularly. I recollect at the moment when I was reading to him, his stretching eagerly across from his side of the carriage to mine, and marking the book with his pencil with strong and reiterated marks of approbation. The pa.s.sages relate to the means which Dr. Reid employed to prevent the decay of his faculties as he advanced in years; to remedy the errors and deficiencies of one failing sense by the increased activity of another, and by the resources of reasoning and ingenuity to resist, as far as possible, or to render supportable, the infirmities of age . . . My father never forgot this pa.s.sage, and acted on it years afterwards.'

It was not Henry who was taken first, but Charlotte, who was 'fresh as a rose' on her first tour abroad. In April 1807 she died of the same disease as her sisters, and about two years after her brother Henry followed her to the grave.

It needed a brave heart to bear up under such sorrows, but Edgeworth, though he felt them keenly, would not sink into the lethargy of grief, but roused himself to work for the public good.

He was on the board appointed to inquire into the education of the people of Ireland, and two of his papers on the subject were printed in the reports of the Commissioners; he also drew up the plan of a school for Edgeworth Town, which was afterwards carried into execution by his son, Lovell; and at this time he was writing his Memoirs, a task which was interrupted by a severe illness in 1809.

He had hardly recovered from this before he was engaged in the Government survey of bogs, and Maria writes:--'It was late in the year, and the weather unfavourable. In laying out and verifying the work of the surveyors employed, he was usually out from daybreak to sunset, often fifteen hours without food, traversing on foot, with great bodily exertion, wastes and deserts of bog, so wet and dangerous as to be scarcely pa.s.sable at that season, even by the common Irish best used to them. In these bogs there frequently occur great holes, filled with water of the same colour as the bog, or sometimes covered over with a slight surface of the peat heath or gra.s.s, called by the common people a shakingscraw. 'In traversing these bogs a man must pick his way carefully, sometimes wading, sometimes leaping from one landing place to another, choosing these cautiously, lest they should not sustain his weight: avoiding certain treacherous green spots on which the unwary might be tempted to set foot, and would sink, never to rise again.'