The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume I Part 11

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 c.o.c.k here who is as great a tyrant in his own way as Buonaparte, and a poor Barbary c.o.c.k 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 G.o.ddaughter 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-t.i.t 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,--n.o.body can say I do not know how to choose my amba.s.sadors 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 f.a.n.n.y 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 a.s.sistance 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 f.a.n.n.y standing beside him. In the course of the evening William danced a reel with f.a.n.n.y 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 gra.s.s-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 _a.s.sisted_ 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 sh.o.r.e, 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, pa.s.sed _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 pa.s.sage; it looks best by candlelight." I followed my guide through a place that looks like Mrs.

Radcliffe in lower life--pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage, 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, gla.s.s doors, and well-bound, excellent books.