The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume II Part 2

BOWOOD, _Dec. 20, 1820_.

I write to you sitting in the bow (or beau, or bay) window of the room with yellow furniture with black stars, into which we were shown by Lady Lansdowne. Oh, my dear Honora, how everything here reminds me of you!

Lady Lansdowne's reception of us was most cordial. She had been out walking, and came to us only half dressed, with a shawl thrown over her.

Lord Lansdowne is at Bath, at an agricultural meeting. Mr. and Mrs. Ord and their son, an Eton youth, are here; Lady Elizabeth and Captain Fielding--he is very gentlemanlike and agreeable; Mr. Hallam; the two Mr. Smiths, whom you remember, and Mr. Fazakerley--very clever; and best of all, Miss Vernon and Miss Fox: she introduced to f.a.n.n.y and Harriet her niece, Miss Fox, very handsome and agreeable--not come out.

EASTON GREY, _Dec. 26_.

I intended this frank for my mother, but Mr. Ricardo turned it into Miss instead of Mrs.; and why I asked for a frank at all I cannot tell, except for the honour and glory of having one from David Ricardo. He has been here one whole day, and is exceedingly agreeable. This house is delightful, in a beautiful situation, fine trees, fine valleys, and soft verdure, even at this season: the library-drawing-room with low sofas, plenty of movable tables, open bookcases, and all that speaks the habits and affords the means of agreeable occupation. Easton Grey might be a happy model of what an English country gentleman's house should be; and Mrs. Smith's kind, well-bred manners, and Mr. Smith's literary and sensible conversation, make this house one of the most agreeable I ever saw.

At Bowood there was a happy mixture of sense and nonsense. Lord Lansdowne was talking to me on the nice little sofa by the fire very seriously of Windham's life and death, and of a journal which he wrote to cure himself of indecision of character. Enter suddenly, with a great burst of noise from the breakfast-room, a tribe of gentlemen neighing like horses. You never saw a man look more surprised than Lord Lansdowne.

Re-enter the same performers on all-fours, grunting like pigs.

Then a company of ladies and gentlemen in dumb-show, doing a country visit, ending with asking for a frank, curtseying, bowing, and exit.--"_Neighbour_."

Then enter all the gentlemen, some with their fingers on their eyes, some delighted with themselves.--"_I_."

Then re-enter Lord Lansdowne, the two Mr. Smiths, Mr. Hallam, and Mr.

Fazakerley, each with little dolls made of their pocket handkerchiefs, nursing and playing with them.--"_Doll_."

Exit, and re-enter, carrying, and surrounding, and worshipping Mrs. Ord in an arm-chair.--"_Idol_."

This does not do for sober reading, but it produced much laughter.

_27th_

We have been at Badminton: magnificent: library delightful. Here, as at Trentham, a gallery opens into the chapel, also the village church, and here is a great curiosity--Raphael's first chalk sketch of the Transfiguration; that is, of all the figures in the lower part: wonderfully fine, the woman kneeling, and the boy possessed, and the man holding him--admirable. Some fine pictures, too, though not a professed collection. Saw in the park a fine herd of red deer, the finest, it is said, in England. How shall I find room to tell you of the Roman pavements and Roman town found near this place, much better worth than all I have been penning! For nonsense I always have time and s.p.a.ce.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 21_.

The Archbishop of Tuam breakfasted here this morning and sat with Lucy in her room: he said he thought he should be the better all his life for having seen such an example of patience and resignation in so young a person. He says he was amused during the Queen's trial by the sight of the processions in honour of Her Majesty: the gla.s.s manufacturers with their brilliant wares, ladies in landaus with feathers, the most extraordinary figures; and the Queen complains that her garden has been destroyed and all her furniture broken by her polite visitors.

_March 29_.

_So_ you like to hear of all our little doings, _so_ I will tell you that, about eight o'clock, f.a.n.n.y being by that time up and dressed, and at her little table, Harriet comes and reads to me Madame de Sevigne's letters, of which I never tire; and I almost envy f.a.n.n.y and Harriet the pleasure of reading them for the first time. After breakfast I take my little table into Lucy's room, and write there for an hour; she likes to have me in her room, though she only hears the scribble, scribble: she is generally reading at that hour, or doing Margaret's delight--algebra.

I am doing the _Sequel to Frank_. Walking, reading, and talking fill the rest of the day. I do not read much, it tires my eyes, and I have not yet finished the _Life of Wesley_: I think it a most curious, entertaining, and instructive book. A _Life of Pitt_ by the Bishop of Winchester is coming out: he wrote to Murray about it, who asked his friends, "Who is George Winton, who writes to me about publishing Pitt's _Life_?"

_April 21._

Enclosed is a letter from our friend the American Jewess, [Footnote: Miss Mordecai of Richmond, on Maria's _Life_ of her father.] written in a spirit of Christian charity and kindness which it were to be wished that all Christians possessed. It has given me exquisite pleasure; and you know I never feel great pleasure without instantly wishing that you should share it. Lovell has asked this good Jewess and her _futur_ to come here, if she should visit Europe. He is at home now, and kind as ever to every creature within reach of his benevolence.

We have been reading Fleury's _Memoirs of Napoleon_. Get it in French: it is very interesting, or we never could have got through it in the wretched translation to which we were doomed.

Tell Sophy that Peggy Tuite, who turned into Peggy Mulheeran, has had a dead child. When my mother said to her brother, "Do not let people crowd in and heat her room," "Oh, ma'am, sure I am standing at the door since three in the morning, sentinel, to keep them out," the tears dropping from his eyes fast on the ground as he spoke. And all the time the old _ould_ mother Tuite (who doats on Mrs. Ruxton-dear) was sitting rocking herself to and fro, and "crying under the big laurel, that Peggy might not hear her."

You may all praise erysipelas as much as you please, but I never desire to see or feel it again. Our boy, Mick Duffy, has been ill with it these ten days. Honora said to his father, Brian, "How can you be so fond of Michael; now that he lives with us, you hardly ever see him!" "Oh, how could I but be fond of him, the crater that sends me every guinea he gets!"

_July 8_.

So Buonaparte is dead! and no change will be made in any country by the death of a man who once made such a figure in the world! He who commanded empires and sovereigns, a prisoner in an obscure island, disputing for a bottle of wine, subject to the petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe! I regret that England permitted that trampling upon the fallen. What an excellent dialogue of the dead might be written between Buonaparte and Themistocles!

Ages ago I sent _Bracebridge Hall_ to Merrion Street for you: have you got it? Next week another book will be there for you--an American novel Mrs. Griffith sent to me, _The Spy_; quite new scenes and characters, humour and pathos, a picture of America in Washington's time; a surgeon worthy of Smollett or Moore, and quite different from any of their various surgeons; and an Irishwoman, Betty Flanagan, incomparable.

_August 3._

What do you think is my employment out of doors, and what it has been this week past? My garden? no such elegant thing; but making a gutter! a sewer and a pathway in the street of Edgeworthstown; and I do declare I am as much interested about it as I ever was in writing anything in my life. We have never here yet found it necessary to have recourse to public contribution for the poor, but it is necessary to give some a.s.sistance to the labouring cla.s.s; and I find that making the said gutter and pathway will employ twenty men for three weeks.

Did you ever hear these two excellent _Tory_ lines made by a celebrated _Whig?_

As bees alighting upon flowerets cease to hum, So, settling upon places, Whigs grow dumb.

_August 8._

We are all in the joy of Francis' [Footnote: From Charterhouse; eldest son of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth.] arrival: Pakenham at the tea-table has been standing beside him feeding him with red currants well sugared, and between every currant he told us, as well as he could, the history of his journey. "Talbot," Lord Talbot's son, who is his schoolfellow at the Charterhouse, was so kind as to go outside, that Francis might have an inside place at night. He met with so much good-nature from first to last in his journey, he wonders how people can be so good-natured.

Many of Maria Edgeworth's friends in England having invited her to visit them, she determined to spend the winter there, and set out in October with her former travelling companions, f.a.n.n.y and Harriet, the two eldest daughters of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth.

MARIA _to_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

KENIOGE, _Oct. 23, 1821_.

We have had a most delightful day, after sleeping well at Gwindu: we were in the carriage and off before the clock had finished striking six.

In an interval of showers in a bright gleam of sunshine we pa.s.sed Bangor Ferry: breakfasted n.o.bly. Mr. Jackson, the old, old man, who some years ago was all pear-shaped stomach, and stupid, has wonderfully shrunk and revived, and is walking, alert and civil; and his fishy eyes brightened with pleasure on hearing of his friend, Mr. Lovell. Fine old waiter, a match in age and civility for the master; and a fine old dog, Twig, a match for both, and as saucy as Foster; for Mrs. Twig would not eat toast, unless b.u.t.tered, forsooth!

Then on to Mrs. Worthington: excellent, motherly woman, the Mrs.

Brinkley of the slate quarries. Her first question about you and William won my heart: she seemed so to have seen into you with that penetration of the heart, which is full as quick as that of the head, if there be any difference. She furnished us each with a pair of Devonshire clogs, that fitted each as if made for us; and as young Mr. Worthington was disappointed by a sore throat of the pleasure of accompanying us, he gave us a note to Mr. Williams at the Quarries; and good, dear Mrs.

Williams, in her white gown and worked borders, trampoozed with us through the splish splash to all the yards, and with her master of the works showed us the saw-mills, and the mill for grinding flint, and for the china works.

Waiving the description of all this, I will not tell you of the quarries and the glaciers of slates, because I wish Harriet to write her own fresh account of her first impressions. I feel that she was even more pleased than I expected; and I rejoice that this first sight, which I had promised myself the pleasure of showing her, is secure.

This day's drive through Wales has been charming: a few showers, but always at the best time for us. I have at different times of my life seen Wales at all seasons of the year, and after all I prefer the autumn view of it. The withering red brown fern is a great addition of beauty on the white and gray rocks, and often so resembles the tint of autumn on beech trees, that you cannot at a distance tell ferns on the mountains from young plantations, touched by autumn colour.

We have just dined at this delightful inn, where you and f.a.n.n.y slept in 1818, kept as I am sure you remember by two sisters with sweet, good-humoured countenances: most active, obliging people. I think the most discontented of travellers--old growling Smollett himself, if he could come from the grave in a fit of the gout--could not be discontented at this inn. f.a.n.n.y, Harriet, and I have just determined that, if ever we are reduced to earn our bread, we will keep an inn like this.