The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume I Part 25

Mr. Hope is altered, and he has in his whole appearance the marks of having suffered much. The contrast between his and Mrs. Hope's depression of spirits and the magnificence of everything about them speaks volumes of moral philosophy.

They were even more kind than I expected in their manner of receiving us. One large drawing-room Mr. Hope gave us for the reception of our friends. Mrs. Hope had not since her coming to town had a dinner party, but she a.s.sembled all the people she thought we might like to see. One day Miss Fanshawe; another day the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, Lord Palmerston, Lord and Lady Darnley, and Mr. Ellis; Lady Darnley was very kind, just what she was when I saw her before. Lady Jersey is particularly agreeable, and was particularly obliging to us, and gave us tickets for the French play, now one of the London objects of curiosity.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford talked much to me, and very agreeably of her travels.

Mrs. Hope was so exhausted by the effort of seeing all these people that she could not sleep, and looked wretchedly the next day, when n.o.body was at dinner but her own sister and Captain Beaufort. Next day, Lady Tankerville and her daughter, Lady Mary Bennet, came and sat half an hour.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

KENSINGTON GORE, _April 28, 1819._

We spent ten days delightfully with the kind Hopes at Deepdene, and a most beautiful place it is. The valley of Dorking is so beautiful that even Ra.s.selas would not have desired to escape from that happy valley.

f.a.n.n.y was well enough to enjoy everything, especially some rides on a stumbling pony with Henry Hope, a fine boy of eleven, well informed, and very good-natured. We went to see Norbury Park, Mr. Locke's place, and Wotton, Mr. Evelyn's, and a beautiful cottage of Mrs. Hibbert's, of all which I shall have much to say to you on my own little stool at your feet.

We were received on our return here with affectionate kindness by Lady Elizabeth Whitbread.

Remember that I don't forget to tell you of Lady Bredalbane's having been left in her carriage fast asleep, and rolled into the coach-house of an hotel at Florence and n.o.body missing her for some time, and how they went to look for her, and how ever so many carriages had been rolled in after hers, and how she wakened, and--I must sign and seal.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _July 7, 1819._

At Longford last Sunday we heard an excellent sermon by a Mr. M'Lelland, the first he ever preached; a terrible brogue, but full of sense and spirit. Some odd faults--quoting the _Quarterly Review_--citing "Hogarth's Idle Apprentice"--"the Roman poet tells us," etc.; but it was altogether new and striking, and contained such a fine address to the soldiers present on the virtues of peace, after the triumphs of war, as touched every heart. The soldiers all with one accord looked up to the preacher at the best pa.s.sages.

_To_ MRS. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, AT PARIS.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 15, 1819._

I rejoice that you and Sneyd are well enough to enjoy the pleasures of Paris. I do not know what Sneyd can have done to make Madame Recamier laugh; in my time she never went beyond the smile prescribed by Lord Chesterfield as graceful in beauty.

This last week we have had the pleasure of having our kind friends Mrs.

and Miss Carr. Except the first day, which was Irish rainy, every day has been suns.h.i.+ny, and my mother has taken advantage of the shrievalty four horses and two yellow jackets to drive about. They went to Baronston, where there is a link of connection with the Carrs through an English friend, Mrs. Benyon. Lady Sunderlin and Miss Catherine Malone did the joint honours of their house most amiably, and gave as fine a collation of grapes, nectarines, and peaches as France could supply.

Another morning we took a tour of the tenants. Hugh Kelly's house and parlour and gates and garden, and all that should accompany a farm-house, as nice as any England could afford. James Allen, though grown very old, and in a forlorn black s.h.a.g wig, looked like a respectable yeoman, "the country's pride," and at my instance brought out as fine a group of grandchildren as ever graced a cottage lawn.

In driving home at the cross-roads by Corbey we had the good fortune to come in for an Irish dance, the audience or spectators seated on each side of the road on opposite benches; all picturesque in the suns.h.i.+ne of youth and age, with every variety of att.i.tude and expression of enjoyment. The dancers, in all the vivacity and graces of an Irish jig, delighted our English friends; and we stood up in the landau for nearly twenty minutes looking at them.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

_Oct. 14._

We have been much interested in the life and letters of that most excellent, amiable, and unpretending Lady Russell. [Footnote: Lady Rachel Wriothesley, second daughter of Thomas Earl of Southampton, who married (1) Francis Lord Vaughan; (2) William Lord Russell, the patriot, beheaded July 21, 1683.] There are touches in these letters which paint domestic happiness, and the character of a mother and a wife with beautiful simplicity. I even like Miss Berry much the better for the manner in which she has edited this book.

_Nov 5._

Have you the fourth number of _Modern Voyages and Travels_ which contains Chateauvieux's travels in Italy? I have been so much delighted with it, and feel so sure of its _transporting_ my aunt, that I had hardly read the last words before I was going to pack it off post-haste to Black Castle, but Prudence, in the shape of Honora, in a lilac tabinet gown, whispered, "Better wait till you hear whether they have read it."

Have I mentioned to you Ba.s.sompierre's _Memoirs_? a new edition, with notes by Croker, which make the pegs on which they hang gay and valuable. What an extraordinary collection of strange facts and strange thoughts are dragged together in the _Quarterly Review_ of the Cemeteries and Catacombs of Paris; the Jewish _House of the Living_; the excommunicated skeletons coming into the church to parley with the Bishop; and the Parisian sentimentalist in the country who sent for barrels of ink from Paris to put his trees in mourning for the death of his mother; and the fountain, called the _weeping eye_, for the death of his wife, by the Dane. I hope, my dear friends, that you have been reading these things, and that they have struck you as they did me; there are few things pleasanter than these "jumping thoughts."

Now that I have a little time, and eyes to read again, I find it delightful, and I have a voracious appet.i.te, and a relish for food, good, bad, and indifferent, I am afraid, like a half-famished, s.h.i.+pwrecked wretch.

_28th._

Such a scene of lying and counter-lying as we have had with the cook and her accuser, the kitchen-maid! The cook was dismissed on the spot. One expression of Peggy Tuite's I must tell you--with her indignant figure of truth defending herself against falsehood--when Rose, the vile public accuser, said, in part of her speech, recollecting from Peggy Tuite's dress, who came clean from chapel, that it was Sunday, "And it's two ma.s.ses I have lost by you already!" to which Peggy replied, "Oh, Rose, the ma.s.s is in the heart, not in the chapel! only speak the truth."

Miss Edgeworth's steadiness in resting her eyes, neither reading nor writing for nearly two years, was rewarded by their complete recovery; and she was able to read, write, and work with ease and comfort all the rest of her life.

This autumn of 1819 she was made happy by the return of the two Miss Sneyds [Footnote: Sisters of her two former stepmothers, the second and third wives of Mr. R. L. Edgeworth.] from England to Edgeworthstown, where with short intervals, they continued to reside as long as they lived.

MARIA _to_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1, 1820._

Have you seen a life of Madame de Stael by that Madame Neckar de Saussure, of whom Madame de Stael said, when some one asked, "What sort of woman is she?" "Elle a tous les talents qu'on me suppose, et toutes les vertus qui me manquent." Is not that touching and beautiful?

_Jan. 14._

Poor Kitty Billamore breathed her last this morning at one o'clock. A more faithful, warm-hearted, excellent creature never existed. How many successions of children of this family she has nursed, and how many she has attended in illness and death, regardless of her own health! I am glad that sweet, dear little feeling Francis, her darling, was spared being here at her death. Harriet, who, next to him, [Footnote: Francis and Harriet, children of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth.] had always been a great favourite, was with her to the last. All the poor people loved her, and will long feel her loss. Lovell [Footnote: Lovell, only surviving child of the second Mrs. Edgeworth (Honora Sneyd), who had succeeded to the property.] intends that she should be buried in the family vault, as she deserves, for she was more a friend than a servant, and he will attend her funeral himself.

Having finished the memoirs of her father's life, and settled that they should be published at Easter, Maria determined to indulge herself in what she had long projected--a visit to Paris with two of her young sisters, f.a.n.n.y and Harriet. They set out on the 3rd of April.

MARIA _to_ MISS LUCY EDGEWORTH.

DUBLIN, _April 10, 1820._

In my letter to my mother of the 8th I forgot--no, I had not time to say that we had a restive mare at Dunshaughlin, who paid me for all I ever wrote about Irish posting, and put me in the most horrible and reasonable apprehension that she would have broken my aunt's carriage to pieces against the corner of a wall. The crowd of people that a.s.sembled, the shouts, the "never fears," the scolding of the landlord and postillions, and the group surveying the scene, was beyond anything I could or can paint. The stage coach drove to the door in the midst of it, and ladies and bandboxes stopped, and all stood to gaze.

There was also a professional fool in his a.s.s cart with two dogs, one a white little curly dog, who sat upon the a.s.s's head behind his ears, and another a black s.h.a.ggy mongrel, with longish ears, who sat up in a begging att.i.tude on the hinder part of the a.s.s, and whom the fool-knave had been tutoring with a broken crutch, as he sat in his covered cart.

f.a.n.n.y made a drawing of him, and he and his dogs _sat_ for a fivepenny, which I honestly gave him for his and his dogs' tricks.

Steamboats had only begun to ply between Dublin and Holyhead in 1819, and Maria Edgeworth's first experience of a steamboat was in crossing now to Holyhead. She disliked the _jigging_ motion, which she said was like the shake felt in a carriage when a pig is scratching himself against the hind wheel while waiting at an Irish inn door.

MARIA _to_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.