Chapter VI: Part 6

I really cannot express to you how much you have gratified me by the proof of confidence you have given me. No degree of praise or admiration could flatter me so much: confidence implies something much higher--real esteem for the character. I thank you; you shall not find your confidence misplaced. I trust you will not think I have gone beyond your permission in considering my own family now with me--viz. Mrs. Edgeworth, my sisters, and my brother--as myself. The _Journal_ was read aloud in our library: not a line or a word of it has been copied; and though some passages have, I know, sunk indelibly into the memories of those present, you may rest perfectly secure that they will never _go out_ beyond ourselves. No vanity will ever tempt any one of us to boast of what we have been allowed to read; we shall strictly adhere to your terms, and never mention or allude to the book. It is delightful, most interesting, and entertaining. You may, perhaps, imagine, by conceiving yourself in my place, remote in the middle of Ireland, _how_ entertaining and interesting it must be to be thus suddenly transported into the midst of the best company in London, scientific, political, and fashionable; and not merely into the midst of them, but behind the scenes with you, and after seeing and hearing and knowing your private opinion of all. Considering all this, and further, that numbers of the persons you mention in your _Journal_ we were well acquainted with when we were in London, you may, perhaps, comprehend how much pleasure, of various kinds, we enjoyed while we read on.

The first page I opened upon was the character of Captain Beaufort. Do not shrink at the notion of his most intimate friend, or his sister Mrs. Edgeworth, or his nieces Fanny and Sophy, having seen this character. You need not: we all agree that it does him perfect justice.

Your manner of mentioning Lydia White was quite touching, as well as just. She was all you say of her, and her house and society were the most agreeable of the sort in London, since the time of Lady Crewe. Lydia White, besides being our kind friend, was a near connection of ours by the marriage of her nephew to a cousin of ours; and we have had means of knowing her solid good qualities, as well as those brilliant talents which charmed in society. You may guess, then, how much we were pleased by all you said of her. Of all the people who ever sold themselves to the world, I never knew one who was so well paid as Lydia White, or any one but herself who did not, sooner or later, repent the bargain; but she had strength of mind never to expect more than the world can give, and the world in return behaved to the last remarkably well to her.

All you say of the ill-managed dinner of wits and scientific men I have often felt. There must be a mixture of nonsense with sense, or it will not amalgamate: all wits and no fools, all actors and no audience, make dinners dull things. The same men in their boots, as you say, are quite other people. "Two or three ladies, too"--we were delighted with your finding them useful as well as agreeable on such occasions.

Your account of Sidney Smith's conversation is excellent, and the manner in which you took his criticism showed how well you deserved it. He will be your friend in all the future, and I do not know any man whom I should wish more to make my friend: supereminent talents and an excellent heart, which in my opinion almost always go together. His remarks on the views you should take of America, to work out your own purpose in softening national animosities, are excellent; also all he says of American egotism and nationality. But I should be as ready to forgive vanity in a nation as in an individual, and to make it turn to good account. I have always remarked that little and envious minds are the most acute in detecting vanity in others, and the most intolerant of it. Having nothing to be proud or vain of, they cannot endure that others should enjoy a self-complacency they cannot have.

There is a sentence in one of Burke's letters, which, as far as England is concerned, might do for a motto for your intended travels: "America and we are no longer under the same crown; but if we are united by mutual goodwill and reciprocal good offices, perhaps it may do almost as well."

Will you, my dear sir, trust me with more of your _Journals_? I think you must see, by the freedom of this letter, that you have truly pleased and obliged me: I have no other plea to offer. It is a common one in this country of mine--common, perhaps, to human nature in all places as well as Ireland--to expect that, when you have done much, you will do more; and you will, won't you? If I could get your little Eliza to say this in a coaxing voice for us, we should be sure of your compliance.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 10, 1827_.

I get up every morning at seven o'clock, and walk out, and find that this does me a vast deal of good. After three-quarters of an hour's walk, [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth continued her early walks for many years. A lady who lodged in the village used to be roused by her maid in the morning with "Miss Edgeworth's walking, ma'am; it's eight o'clock."] I come in to the delight of hearing Fanny read the oddest book I ever heard--a Chinese novel translated into French; a sort of Chinese _Truckleborough Hall_; politicians and courtiers, with mixture of love and flowers, and court intrigue, and challenging each other to make verses upon all occasions.

My garden is beautiful, and my mother is weeding it for me at this moment. A seedswoman of Philadelphia, to whom Mr. Ralston applied to purchase some seeds for me, as soon as she heard the name, refused to take any payment for a parcel of forty different kinds of seeds. She said she knew my father, as she came from Longford: her name was Hughes.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 26_.

The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by telling who, among literary and scientific people, we should wish to come here next day. Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschel. Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my morning walk at half-past eight, I saw a bonnet-less maid on the walk, with letter in hand, in search of me. When I opened the letter, I found it was from Mr. Herschel! and that he was waiting for an answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably surprised; and now that he has spent twenty-four hours here, and that he is gone, I am confirmed in my opinion; and if the fairy were to ask me the question again, I should more eagerly say, "Mr. Herschel, ma'am, if you please." It was really very kind of him to travel all night in the mail, as he did, to spend a few hours here. He is not only a man of the first scientific genius, but his conversation is full of information on all subjects, and he has a taste for humour and playful nonsense, though with a melancholy exterior.

His companion, Mr. Babbage, and he, saw the Giant's Causeway on a stormy day, when the foamy waves beat high against the rocks, and added to the sublimity of the scene. Then he went from the great sublime of Nature to the sublime of Art. He arrived at the place where Colonel Colby is measuring the base line, just at the time when they had completed the repetition of the operation; and he saw, by the instrument, which had not been raised from the spot, that the accuracy of the repetition was within half a dot--the twelve-thousandth part of an inch.

Mr. Herschel has travelled on the Continent. He was particularly pleased with the character of the Tyrolese--their national virtue founded on national piety. One morning, wakening in a cottage inn, he rose, and called in vain in kitchen and parlour: not a body was to be seen, not a creature in yard or stable. At last he heard a distant sound: listening more attentively, and following the sound, he came to a room remote from that in which he had slept, where he found all the inhabitants joining in a hymn, with beautiful voices.

You may remember having seen in the newspapers an account of a philosopher in Germany who made caterpillars manufacture for him a veil of cobweb. The caterpillars were enclosed in a glass case, and, by properly-disposed conveniences and impediments, were induced to work their web up the sides of the glass case. When completed it weighed four-fifths of a grain. Herschel saw it lying on a table, looking like the film of a bubble. When it collapsed a little, and was in that state wafted up into the air, it wreathed like fine smoke. Chantrey, who was present, after looking at it in silent admiration, exclaimed, "What a fool Bernini was to attempt transparent draperies in stone!"

Have you heard of the live camelopard, "twelve foot high, if he is an inch, ma'am?" Herschel is well acquainted with him, and was so fortunate as to see the first interview between him and a kangaroo: it stood and gazed for one instant, and the next leaped at once over the camelopard's head, and he and his great friend became hand and glove.

_To_ MR. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 14, 1827_.

I send the letter you wished for--not to Clery, who is dead, but to Louis Bousset, who was the Abbé Edgeworth's servant, and after his death was taken into Louis XVIII.'s household, accompanied the Royal family to Hartwell, returned with them to France, and now lives on a pension from the French Government and his wife's income; she was widow to the King's saddler. They showed much respect, my brother Sneyd says, to our pious cousin the Abbé Edgeworth's memory, and he was much edified by their manner of living together, Bousset and his wife--he a Catholic, and she a German Protestant, "perfect Christian happiness thoroughly existing between two persons of different Churches, but of the same faith."

Though I admire the instance and exception to general rules, I should not wish a similar experiment to be often repeated, being very much of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that there are so many causes naturally of disagreement between people yoked together, that there is no occasion to add another unnecessarily.

_To_ MR. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Dec. 4, 1827_.

I am very glad to hear that the author of _Cyril Thornton_ is Mrs. Bannatyne's _nephew_. I have just finished reading it, and had made up my opinion of it, and so had all my family, before we knew that the author was any way connected with you. I am not weary of repeating that I think, and that we all think it the most interesting novel we have read for years; indeed, we could not believe it to be fiction. We read it with all the intense interest which the complete belief in reality commands. Officers of our acquaintance all speak to the reality and truth of the scenes described. Military men and gentlemen are delighted with _Cyril Thornton_, because he is a gentleman, ay, every inch a gentleman; and with the cut in his face, and all the hashing and mashing he met with in the wars, we are firmly and unanimously of opinion that he must be very engaging. We hope that the author is like his hero in all saving these scars and the loss of his arm; but were the likeness exact even in these, he would be sure of interesting at Edgeworthstown; and we hope that, if ever he comes to Ireland, you and Mrs. Bannatyne will do us the favour to persuade him to come to see us, and to bring his charming wife. We hear she is charming; and, from the good taste and good feeling of his writings, we can readily take it for granted that his choice must be charming, in the best sense of that hackneyed, but still comprehensive word. There is a peculiar delicacy in this book, which delights from being accompanied, as it is, with the strongest evidence of deep sensibility.

* * * * *

Mrs. Mary Sneyd, sister of the second and third Mrs. Edgeworths, who had partially lived with her brother in Staffordshire after the death of her sister Charlotte, returned in 1828 to spend the rest of her life at Edgeworthstown. Here the beautiful and venerable old lady was a central figure in the family home, where all the family vied in loving attentions to her. Mrs. Farrar [Footnote: Author of _The Children's Robinson Crusoe_, etc.] describes her there:--

"It was a great pleasure to me to see the sister of two of Mr. Edgeworth's wives,--one belonging to the same period, and dressed in the same style as the lovely Honora. She did not appear till lunch-time, when we found her seated at the table in a wheel-chair, on account of her lameness. She reminded me of the pictures of the court beauties of Louis XIV. Her dress was very elaborate. Her white hair had the effect of powder, and the structure on it defies description. A very white throat was set off to advantage by a narrow black velvet ribbon, fastened by a jewel. The finest lace ruffles about her neck and elbows, with a long-waisted silk dress of rich texture and colour, produced an effect that was quite bewitching. She was wonderfully well preserved for a lady over eighty years of age, and it was pleasant to see the great attention paid her by all the family. She was rather deaf, so I was seated by her side and requested to address my conversation to her. When lunch was over she was wheeled into the library, and occupied herself in making a cotton net to put over the wall-fruit to keep it from the birds. It was worth a journey to Edgeworthstown to see this beautiful specimen of old age."

* * * * *

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 13, 1828_.

We had a serious alarm this morning, and serious danger, but it is perfectly over now, and no damage done but what a few days' work of plasterer and carpenter can repair. At seven o'clock this morning a roaring was heard in the servants' hall, and Mulvanny, [Footnote: Mulvanny, the knife boy.] who had put on the blower, found the chimney on fire, and Anne [Footnote: Anne, ladies'-maid.] saw dreadful smoke breaking out in the passage going from the anteroom of my aunt's dressing-room. Barney Woods, [Footnote: The steward.] perceiving that it was no common affair of a chimney on fire, had the sense to ring the workman's bell. I was dressed, heard it, and Anne met me coming from my room to inquire what was the matter, and told me--indeed her face told me! Lovell was up and ready--most active and judicious. Thirty men were assembled; water in abundance. Frank Langan indefatigable and most courageous. The long ladder was put up against the house near the pump; up the men went, and bucket after bucket poured down, Mulvanny standing on the top of the chimney. Meantime the great press, next the maid's room, was torn down by men working for life and death, for the smoke was bursting through, and the whole wall horribly hot. The water poured into the chimney would not, for half an hour, go down to the bottom; something stopped it. A terrible smell of burning wood. The water ran through all manner of flues and places and flooded the whole ceiling of the hall. Holes were made to let it through, or the whole ceiling would have come down _en masse_; the water poured through in floods on the floor; Margaret [Footnote: The housemaid.] and boys sweeping it out of the hall door continually. While the men were at work under Lovell's excellent orders, Honora and I were having all papers and valuables carried out, for we knew that if the flames reached the garrets nothing could save the house. All the title-deed boxes, and lease presses, and all Lovell's, and all your papers, and my grandfather's books, and my father's picture, were safe on the grass in less than one hour. It took three hours before the fire was extinguished, or, I should say, got under. The pump was pumped dry, but Lovell had sent long before a cart with barrels for water to the river--tons of water were used, pouring, pouring incessantly, and this alone could have saved us.

By eleven o'clock all the boxes and papers, and pictures, were in their places, and we sent for the chimney-sweepers, not the old ones, who, as we rightly guessed, were the cause of the mischief. The chimney has been broken open, and a boy has been working incessantly tearing down an incrustation of soot--immense pieces of black _tufo_,--in fact, the chimney became a volcano--fire, water, and steam all operating together. The fire was found still burning inside at five this evening, but is all out now, the boy has been up at the top.

The zeal, the sense, the generosity, the courage of the people, is beyond anything I can describe, I can only feel it. But what astonished me was their steadiness and silence, no advising or pushing in each other's way--all working and obeying. Lovell had lines of boys from the ladder to the cow's pool handing the buckets passed up by the men on the ladder to the frightful top. Thank GOD not a creature was hurt.

* * * * *

Honora Edgeworth adds:

* * * * *

I need add nothing to what Maria has said about others, but I must say about herself, that nobody who has seen her in small alarms, such as the turning of a carriage, or such things, could believe the composure, presence of mind, and courage she showed in our great alarm to-day. I hope she has not suffered; as yet she does not appear the worse for her exertions.

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 16. 1828_.

Thank you, thank you for the roses; the yellow Scotch and Knight's dark red, and the ever-blowing, came quite fresh, and just at the moment I wanted them, when I had taken to my garden, after finishing my gutters. Lady Hartland told me that the common people call the _rose des quatre saisons_, the quarter session rose.

Have you read the _Recollections of Hyacinth O'Gara_? It is a little sixpenny book; I venture to say you would like it; I wish I was reading it to you. I am much pleased with Napier's _History of the Peninsular War_. The Spanish character and all that influenced it, accidentally and permanently, is admirably drawn. There is the evidence of truth in the work. Heber is charming, but I haven't read him! People often say "charming" of books they have not read; but I have read extracts in two reviews, and have the pleasure of the book on the table before me.

I have not a scrap of news for you, except that an ass and a calf walked over my flower-beds, and that I did not kill either of them. If the ass had not provoked me to this degree, I was in imminent danger of growing too fond of him, as I never could meet him drawing loads without stopping to pat him, till clouds of dust rose from his thick hide. But now, I will take no more notice of him--for a week!

_To_ MISS RUXTON

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1, 1829_.

Fanny Edgeworth is now Fanny Wilson; [Footnote: Frances Maria, eldest daughter of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth, married Lestock P. Wilson, Esq., of London.] I can hardly believe it! She is gone! I feel it, and long must feel it, with anguish, selfish anguish. But she will be happy--of that I have the most firm, delightful conviction; and therefore all that I cannot help now feeling is, I know, only _surface_ feeling, and will soon pass away. The more I have seen and known of Lestock, the more I like him and love him, and am convinced I shall always love him, whose every word and look bears the stamp and value of sincerity.

Both their voices pronounced the words of the marriage vow with perfect clearness and decision. Mr. Butler performed the ceremony with great feeling and simplicity. I will tell my dearest aunt and you all the little circumstances; at present they are all in confusion, great and small, near and distant, and I am sick at heart in the midst of it all with the shameful, weak, selfish, uppermost sorrow of parting with this darling child.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

BLOOMFIELD, _Jan. 19, 1829_.

An immense concourse of people, cavalcade and carriages innumerable, passed by here to-day. We saw it, and you will see it all in the newspapers. Banners with _Constitutional Agitation_ printed in black, _M_obility and Nobility in black, crape hatbands, etc. Lord Anglesea's two little sons riding between two officers, in the midst of the hurricane mob, struck me most. One of the boys, a little midge, seemed to stick on the horse by accident, or by mere dint of fearlessness: the officer put his arm round him once, and set him up, the boy's head looking another way, and the horse keeping on his way, through such noise, and struggling, and waves multitudinous of mob.

There is an entertaining article in the _Quarterly Review_ on _The Subaltern_. I do not like that on Madame de Genlis--coarse, and over-doing the object by prejudice and virulence. The review of Scott's Prefaces is ungrounded and confused--how different from his own writing! But there is an article worth all the rest put together, on Scientific Institutions, written in such a mild, really philosophical spirit, such a pure, GREAT MAN'S desire to do good; I cannot but wish and hope it might prove to be Captain Beaufort's. If you have not read it, never rest till you do.

_To_ CAPTAIN BASIL HALL.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 12, 1829_.

... If I could, as you say, flatter myself that Sir Walter Scott was in any degree influenced to write and publish his novels from seeing my sketches of Irish character, I should indeed triumph in the "thought of having been the proximate cause of such happiness to millions."

In what admirable taste Sir Walter Scott's introduction [Footnote: To the new edition of _Waverley_.] is written! No man ever contrived to speak so delightfully of himself, so as to gratify public curiosity, and yet to avoid all appearance of egotism,--to let the public into his mind, into all that is most interesting and most useful to posterity to know of his history, and yet to avoid all improper, all impertinent, all superfluous disclosures.

Children's questions are often simply _sublime_: the question your three-years-old asked was of these--"Who sanded the seashore?"

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _May 29, 1829_.

I cannot forbear writing specially to you, as I know you will feel so much about Captain Beaufort's appointment to the Hydrographership; I wish poor William had been permitted the pleasure of hearing of it. [Footnote: William Edgeworth had died of consumption on 7th May after a two months' illness.] It would have given him pleasure even on his dying bed, noble, generous creature as he was; he would have rejoiced for his friend, and have felt that merit is sometimes rewarded in this world. This appointment is, in every respect, all that Captain Beaufort wished for himself, and all that his friends can desire for him. As one of the first people in the Admiralty said, "Beaufort is the only man in England fit for the place."

Very touching letters have come to us from people whom we scarcely knew, whom William had attached so much; and many whom he had employed speak of him as the kindest of masters, and as a benefactor whose memory will be ever revered.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Sept. 27, 1829_.

I am now able, with the consent of all my dear guardians, to write with my own hand to assure you that I am quite well.

I enjoyed the snatches I was able to have of Wordsworth's conversation, and I think I had quite as much as was good for me. He has a good philosophical bust, a long, thin, gaunt face, much wrinkled and weatherbeaten: of the Curwen style of figure and face, but with a more cheerful and benevolent expression.

While confined to my sofa and forbidden my pen, I have been reading a good deal: 1st, _Cinq Mars_, a French novel, with which I think you would be charmed, because I am; 2nd, _The Collegians_, in which there is much genius and strong drawing of human nature, but not elegant: terrible pictures of the passions, and horrible, breathless interest, especially in the third volume, which never flags till the last huddled twenty pages. My guardians turn their eyes reproachfully upon me. Mr. William Hamilton has been with us since the day before Wordsworth came, and we continue to like him.

_May 3, 1830_.

It is very happy for your little niece that you have so much the habit of expressing to her your kind feelings; I really think that if my thoughts and feelings were shut up completely within me, I should burst in a week, like a steam-engine without a snifting-clack, now called by the grander name of a safety-valve.

You want to know what I am doing and thinking of: of ditches, drains, and sewers; of dragging quicks from one hedge and sticking them down into another, at the imminent peril of their green lives; of two houses to let, one tenant promised from the Isle of Man, and another from the Irish Survey; of two bull-finches, each in his cage on the table--one who would sing if he could, and the other who could sing, I am told, if he would. Then I am thinking for three hours a day of _Helen_, to what purpose I dare not say. At night we read Dr. Madden's _Travels to Constantinople_ and elsewhere, in which there are most curious facts: admirable letter about the plague; a new mode of treatment, curing seventy-five in a hundred; and a family living in a mummy vault, and selling mummies. You must read it.

My peony tree is the most beautiful thing on earth. Poor dear Lord Oriel gave it me. His own is dead, and he is dead; but love for him lives in me still.

Sir Stamford Raffles is one of the finest characters I ever read of, and _did_ more than is almost credible. I have been amused with _The Armenians_, [Footnote: A novel by Macfarlane.]--amused with its pictures of Greek, Armenian, and Turkish life, and interested in its very romantic story.

_July 19_.

If there should not be any insuperable objection to it on your part, I will do myself the pleasure of being in your arms the first week in August, that I may be some time with you before I take my departure for England for the winter.

The people about us are now in great distress, having neither work nor food; and we are going to buy meal to distribute at half-price. Meal was twenty-three shillings a hundred, and potatoes sevenpence a stone, last market-day at Granard. Three weeks longer must the people be supported till new food comes from the earth.

* * * * *

This is the last letter Maria Edgeworth addressed to her aunt. She paid her intended visit to her in August, but had left her before her last illness began. Mrs. Ruxton died on the 1st of November, while Maria was in London with her sister Fanny--Mrs. Lestock Wilson. The loss of her aunt was the greatest Miss Edgeworth had sustained since the death of her father. She had ever been the object of exceeding love, one with whom every thought and feeling was shared, one of her greatest sources of happiness.

* * * * *

MARIA _to_ MISS RUXTON.

69 WELBECK STREET, LONDON.

_Dec. 8, 1830_.

All my friends have been kind in writing to me accounts of you, my dear Sophy. You and Margaret are quite right to spend the winter at Black Castle; and the pain you must endure in breaking through all the old associations and deep remembrances will, I trust, be repaid, both in the sense of doing right and in the affection of numbers attached to you.

I spent a fortnight with Sneyd very happily, in spite of mobs and incendiaries. Brandfold is a very pretty place, and to me a very pleasant house. The library, the principal room, has a trellis along the whole front, with 'spagnolette windows opening into it, and a pretty conservatory at the end, with another glass door opening into it. The views seen between the arches of the trellis beautiful; flower-knots in the grass, with stocks, hydrangeas, and crimson and pale China roses in profuse blow. Sneyd enjoys everything about him so much, it is quite delightful to see him in his home. You have heard from Honora of the sense and steadiness with which he resisted the mob at Goudhurst.

I spent a morning and an evening very pleasantly at Lansdowne House. They had begged me to come and drink tea with them in private, and to come early: I went at nine: I had been expected at eight. All Lady Lansdowne's own family, and as she politely said, "All my old friends at Bowood" now living: Miss Fox, Lord John Russell, Lord Auckland, the young Romillys, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Wishaw, Mr. Turner,--whom I must do myself the justice to say I recollected immediately, who showed us the Bank seventeen years ago,--and Conversation Sharpe.

They say that Charles X. is quite at his ease, amusing himself, and not troubling himself about the fate of Polignac, or any of his ministers: there is great danger for them, but still I hope the French will not disgrace this revolution by spilling their blood. Lord Lansdowne mentioned an instance of the present King Louis Philippe's _présence d'esprit_: a mob in Paris surrounded him--"Que desirez-vous, messieurs?" "Nous désirons Napoléon." "Eh bien, allez donc le trouver." The mob laughed, cheered, and dispersed.

I have seen dear good Joanna Baillie several times, and the Carrs. It has been a great pleasure to me to feel myself so kindly received by those I liked best in London years ago. It is always gratifying to find old friends the same after long absence, but it has been particularly so to me now, when not only the leaves of the pleasures of life fall naturally in its winter, but when the great branches on whom happiness depended are gone.

Dr. Holland's children are very fine, happy-looking children, and he does seem so to enjoy them. His little boy, in reply to the commonplace, aggravating question of

"Who loves you? Nobody in this world loves you!"

"Yes, there is somebody: papa loves me, I know--I am sure!" and throwing himself on his back on his Aunt Mary's lap, he looked up at his father with such a sweet, confident smile. The father was standing between Sir Edward Alderson and Southey, the one sure he had him by the ear, and the other by the imagination; but the child had him by the heart. He smiled and nodded at his boy, and with an emphasis in which the whole soul spoke low, but strong, said, "Yes, I _do_ love you." Neither the lawyer nor the poet heard him.

All my friends understand that I keep out of all fine company and great parties, and see only my friends.

Here the carriage came to the door, and we have been to see Mrs. Calcott, who was Mrs. Graham, who was very glad to see me, and entertaining; and Lady Elizabeth Whitbread as kind and affectionate as ever. She is struggling between her natural pride on her brother's ministerial appointment, and her natural affection which fears for his health.

Joanna Baillie tells me that Lord Dudley wrote to Sir Walter, offering to take upon himself the whole debt, and be paid by instalments. Sir Walter wrote a charming note of refusal.

_Thursday_.

I saw Talleyrand at Lansdowne House--like a corpse, with his hair dressed "_aîles de pigeon" bien poudré_. As Lord Lansdowne drolly said, "How much those _aîles de pigeon_ have gone through unchanged! How many revolutions have they seen! how many changes of their master's mind!" Talleyrand has less countenance than any man of talents I ever saw. He seems to think not only that _la parole était donné à l'homme pour déguiser sa pensée_, but that expression of countenance was given to him as a curse, to betray his emotions: therefore he has exerted all his abilities to conquer all expression, and to throw into his face that "no meaning" which puzzles more than wit; but I heard none. His niece, the Duchesse de Dino, was there: little, and ugly--plain, I should say--nobody is ugly now but myself.

_To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_Jan. 8, 1831_.

Now I will tell you of my delightful young Christmas party at Mrs. Lockhart's. After dinner she arranged a round table in the corner of the room, on which stood a magnificent iced plum cake. There were to be twelve children: impossible to have room for chairs all round the table: it was settled that the king and queen alone should be invited to the honours of the sitting; but Mr. Lockhart, in a low voice, said, "Johnny! there must, my dear Sophia, you know, be a chair for Johnny here--all's right now."

Enter first, Miss Binning, a young lady of fifteen, Johnny's particular friend, who had been invited to make crowns for the king and queen--a very nice elegant-looking girl with a slight figure.

Then came from the top of the stairs peals of merry laughter, and in came the revel rout; the king and queen with their gilt paper admirable crowns on their heads, and little coronation robes; the queen was Mrs. Lockhart's youngest child, like a dear little fairy; and the king to match. All the others in various ways pleasing and prettily simply dressed in muslins of a variety of colours; plenty of ringlets of glossy hair, fair or brown, none black, with laughing blue eyes. And now they look at the tickets they have drawn for their twelfth-night characters, and read them out. After eating as much as well could be compassed, the revel rout ran upstairs again to the drawing-room, where open space and verge enough had been made for hunt the slipper; and down they all popped in the circle, of which you may see the likeness in the _Pleasures of Memory_. Then came dancing; and as the little and large dancers were all Scotch, I need not say how good it was. Mrs. Lockhart is really a delightful creature, the more lovable the closer one comes to her and in _London_. How very, very kind of her to invite me to this quite family party; if she had invented for ever, she could not have found what would please me more.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

LONDON, _January 20_.

I write this "certificate of existence," and moreover, an affidavit of my being a-foot [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth had twisted her foot a few nights before in getting out of the carriage, and was unable to use it for some days.] again, and can go downstairs with one foot foremost like a child, and wore a black satin shoe like another last night at Mrs. Elliot's.

Now sign, seal, and deliver for the bare life--of Mrs. Hope and the Duchess of Wellington in my next.

_January 22_.

I left off at the Duchess of Wellington. I heard she was ill and determined to write and ask if she wished to see me; a hundred of the little London _remoras_ delayed and stopped me and fortunately--I almost always find cause to rejoice instead of deploring when I have delayed to execute an intention, so that I must conclude that my fault is precipitation not procrastination. The very day I had my pen in my hand to write to her and was called away to write some other letter, much to my annoyance; much to my delight a few hours afterwards came a little pencil note, begging me to come to Apsley House if I wished to please an early friend who could never forget the kindness she had received at Edgeworthstown. I had not been able to put my foot to the ground, but I found it easy with motive to trample on impossibilities, and there is no going upstairs at Apsley House, for the Duke has had apartments on the ground floor, a whole suite, appropriated to the Duchess now that she is so ill, and I had only to go leaning on Fanny's arm, through a long passage to a magnificent room--not magnificent from its size, height, length, or breadth, but from its contents: the presents of Cities, Kingdoms, and Sovereigns. In the midst, on a high, narrow, mattressed sofa like Lucy's, all white and paler than ever Lucy was, paler than marble, lay as if laid out a corpse, the Duchess of Wellington. Always little and delicate-looking, she now looked a miniature figure of herself in wax-work. As I entered I heard her voice before I saw her, before I could distinguish her features among the borders of her cap; only saw the place where her head lay on the huge raised pillow; the head moved, the head only, and the sweet voice of Kitty Pakenham exclaimed, "O! Miss Edgeworth, you are the truest of the true--the kindest of the kind." And a little, delicate, death-like white hand stretched itself out to me before I could reach the couch, and when I got there I could not speak--not a syllable, but she, with most perfect composure, more than composure, cheerfulness of tone, went on speaking; as she spoke, all the Kitty Pakenham expression appeared in that little shrunk face, and the very faint colour rose, and the smile of former times. She raised herself more and more, and spoke with more and more animation in charming language and with all her peculiar grace and elegance of kindness recollected so much of past times and of my father particularly, whose affection she convinced me had touched her deeply.

Opposite her couch hung the gold shield in imitation of the shield of Achilles with all the Duke's victories embossed on the margin, the Duke and his staff in the centre, surrounded with blazing rays, given by the city of London. On either side the great candelabras belonging to the massive plateau given by Portugal, which cannot be lifted without machinery. At either end, in deep and tall glass cases, from top to bottom ranged the services of Dresden and German china, presented by the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia. While I looked at these, the Duchess raising herself quite up, exclaimed with weak-voiced, strong-souled enthusiasm, "All tributes to merit! there's the value, all pure, no corruption ever suspected even. Even of the Duke of Marlborough that could not be said so truly."

The fresh, untired enthusiasm she feels for his character, for her own still youthful imagination of her hero, after all she has gone through, is most touching. There she is, fading away, still feeding when she can feed on nothing else, on his glories, on the perfume of his incense. She had heard of my being in London from Lord Downes, who had seen me at the Countess de Salis's, where we met him and Lady Downes; when I met her again two days after we had been at Apsley House she said the Duchess was not so ill as I supposed, that her physicians do not allow that they despair. But notwithstanding what friends and physicians say, my own impression is, that she cannot be much longer for this world.

_To_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_Feb. 10, 1831_.

I am just come home from breakfasting with Sir James Macintosh. Fanny was with me, double, double pleasure, but we both feel as we suppose dramdrinkers do after their "mornings." My hand and my mind are both unsteadied and unfitted for business after this intoxicating draught. O what it is to "come within the radiance of genius," [Footnote: Quoted from a letter of her sister Anna after the death of Dr. Beddoes.] not only every object appears so radiant, but I feel myself so much increased in powers, in range of mind, a _vue d'oiseau_ of all things raised above the dun dim fog of commonplace life. How can any one like to live with their inferiors and prefer it to the delight of being raised up by a superior to the bright regions of genius? The inward sense of having even this perception of excellence is a pleasure far beyond what flattery _can_ give. Flattery is like a bad perfume, nauseous and overpowering after the first waft, and hurtful as well as nauseous. But as luncheon is coming and we must go directly to the Admiralty to see Captain Beaufort, and then to the Carrs'--no more rhodomontading to-day.

_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET, _Feb. 11, 1831_.

You must have seen in the papers the death of Mr. Hope, and I am sure it shocked you. But it was scarcely possible that it could strike you so much as it did me. I, who had seen him but a few days before, and who had been rallying him upon his being hypochondriac. I, who had been laughing at him along with Mrs. Hope, for being, I thought, merely in the cold fit after having been in the hot fit of enthusiasm while finishing his book. He knew too well, poor man, what we did not know. I believe that I never had time to describe to you the impression that visit to him made upon me. I had actually forced Mrs. Hope to go up and say he must see me; that such an old friend, and one who had such a regard for him, and for whom I knew he had a sincere regard, must be admitted to see him even in his bed-chamber. He sent me word that if I could bear to see a poor sick man in his night-cap, I might come up.

So I did, and followed Mrs. Hope through all the magnificent apartments, and then up to the attics, and through and through room after room till we came to his retreat, and then a feeble voice from an arm-chair--

"O! my dear Miss Edgeworth, my kind friend to the last."

And I saw a figure sunk in his chair like La Harpe, in figured silk _robe de chambre_ and night-cap; death in his paled, sunk, shrunk face; a gleam of affectionate pleasure lighted it up for an instant, and straight it sunk again. He asked most kindly for my two sisters--"tell them I am glad they are happy."

The half-finished picture of his second son was in the corner, beside his arm-chair, as if to cheer his eyes.

"By an Irish artist," he politely said to me, "of great talent."

When I rallied him at parting on his low spirits, and said, "How much younger you are than I am!"

"No, no; not in mind, not in the powers of life. GOD bless you; good-bye."

I told him I would only say _au revoir_, and that never came; it was only the next day but one after this that Fanny read to me his death in the paper. It was dreadfully sudden to us; what must it have been to Mrs. Hope? I am sure she had no idea of its coming so soon. I forgot to say that as I got up to go away, I told him laughing, that he was only ill of a plethora of happiness, that he had everything this world could give, and only wanted a little adversity.

"Yes," said he, "I am happy, blessed with such a wife and such a son!"

He looked with most touching gratitude up to her, and she drew back without speaking.

Oh! I cannot tell you the impression the whole scene left on my mind.

_March 14_.

I hope your mother is better, and now inhaling spring life. Tell her, with my love, that I have exhibited her work [Footnote: A scarf embroidered with flowers, worked for Miss Edgeworth by Mrs. Beaufort, when she was ninety-two.] at various places to the admiration and almost incredulity of all beholders--such beautiful flowers at ninety-two!

At last we were fortunately at home when Lady Wellesley and Miss Caton called, and, thanks to my impudence in having written to him the moment he landed, and thanks to his good nature, Sir John Malcolm came at the same moment, and Lady Wellesley and he talked most agreeably over former times in India and later times in Ireland. Lady Wellesley is not nearly so tall or magnificent a person as I expected. Her face beautiful, her manner rather too diplomatically studied. People say "she has a remarkably good manner;" perfectly good manners are never "remarkable," felt, not seen. Sir John is as entertaining and delightful as his Persian sketches, and as instructive as his _Central India_.

_To_ HER SISTER HARRIET--MRS. R. BUTLER.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET,

_March 16, 1831_.

The days are hardly long enough to read all men's speeches in Parliament. I get the result into me from Fanny, and read only the notables. Mr. North's speech was, as you say, the best and plainest he ever made, and was so esteemed. Macaulay's reads better than it was spoken, quite marred in the delivery, and he does not look the orator; but no matter, in spite of his outside, his inside will get him on: he has far more power in him than Mr. North.

Get the eleventh volume of the new edition of Sir Walter's poems, containing a new Introduction and Essay on Ballads and ballad writing, all entertaining, and a model for egotists which very few will be able to follow, though many will strive and be laughed at for their pains.

_March 29_.

Old as I am and imaginative as I am thought to be, I have really always found that the pleasures I have expected would be great have actually been greater in the enjoyment than in the anticipation. This is written in my sixty-fourth year. The pleasure of being with Fanny [Footnote: Lestock Wilson.] has been far, far greater than I had expected. The pleasures here altogether, including the kindness of old friends and the civilities of acquaintances, are still more enhanced than I had calculated upon by the home and the quiet library, and easy-chair morning retreat I enjoy. Our long-expected visit to Herschel above all has far surpassed my expectations, raised as they were and warm from the fresh enthusiasm kindled by his last work.

Mrs. Herschel, who by the bye is very pretty, which does no harm, is such a delightful person, with so much simplicity and so much sense, so fit to sympathise with him in all things intellectual and moral, and making all her guests comfortable and happy without any apparent effort; she was extremely kind to Fanny, and Mr. Herschel to Lestock.

Thursday I went down to Slough alone in Fanny's carriage, as Lestock was not well, and she would not leave him. There was no company, and the evening was delightfully spent in hearing and talking. I had made various pencil notes in my copy of his book to ask for explanations, and so patient and kind and clear they were.

On Saturday I began to grow very anxious about six o'clock, and Mrs. Herschel good-naturedly sympathised with me, and we stood at the window that looks out on a distant turn of the London road, and at last I saw a carriage glass flash and then an outline of a well-known coachman's form, and then the green chaise, and all right.

There were at dinner the Provost of Eton in his wig, a large fine presence of a Provost--Dr. Goodall; Mrs. Hervey, very pretty, and gave me a gardenia like a Cape jessamine, white, sweet smelling--much talking of it and smelling and handing it about; Mrs. Gwatkin, one of Sir Joshua Reynold's nieces, has been very pretty, and though deaf is very agreeable--enthusiastically and affectionately fond of her uncle--indignant at the idea of his not having himself written the _Discourses_; "Burke or Johnson indeed! no such thing--he wrote them himself. I am evidence, he used to employ me as his secretary: often I have been in the room when he has been composing, walking up and down the room, stopping sometimes to write a sentence," etc.

On Sunday to Windsor Chapel; saw the King and the Queen, and little Prince George of Cambridge, seen each through the separate compartments of their bay window up aloft. The service lasted three hours, and then we went, by particular desire, to Eton College, to see the Provost and Mrs. Goodall, and the pictures of all the celebrated men. Some of these portraits taken when very young are interesting; some from being like, some from being quite unlike what one would expect from their after characters. We saw the books of themes and poems that had been judged worth preserving. Canning's and Lord Wellesley's much esteemed. Drawers full of prints; many rare books; the original unique copy of _Reynard the Fox_--the table of contents of which is so exceedingly diverting I would fain have copied it on the spot, but the Provost told me a copy could be had at every stall for one penny.

Got home to Herschel's while the sun yet shone, and I having the day before begged the favour of him to repeat for Fanny and Lestock the experiments and explanations on polarised light and periodical colours, he had everything ready, and very kindly went over it all again, and afterwards said to Mrs. Herschel, "It is delightful to explain these things to Mrs. Wilson; she can understand anything with the least possible explanation."

It was a fine moonlight night, and he took us out to see Saturn and his rings, and the Moon and her volcanoes. Saturn, I thought, looked very much as he used to do; but the Moon did surprise and charm me--very different from anything I had seen or imagined of the moon. A large portion of a seemingly immense globe of something like rough ice, resplendent with light and all over protuberances like those on the outside of an oyster shell, supposing it immensely magnified in a Brobdingnag microscope, a lustrous-mica look all over the protuberances, and a distinctly marked mountain-in-a-map in the middle shaded delicately off.

I must remark to you that all the time we were seeing we were eighteen feet aloft, on a little stage about eight feet by three, with a slight iron rod rail on three sides, but quite open to fall in front, and Lestock repeatedly warned me not to forget and step forwards.

Monday, our visit, alas! was to come to an end. Mr. Herschel offered to take Lestock to town in his gig, which he accepted with pleasure, and Fanny and I went with Mrs. Herschel to see Sir Joshua's pictures at Mrs. Gwatkin's. There is one of Charles Fox done when he was eighteen: the face so faded that it looks like an unfinished sketch, not the least like any other picture I have ever seen of the jolly, moon-faced Charles Fox, but some resemblance to the boy of thirteen in the print I begged from Lord Buchan. The original "Girl with a muff" is here; the original also of "Simplicity," who has now flowers in her lap in consequence of the observation of a foolish woman who, looking at the picture as it was originally painted, with the child's hands interlaced, with the backs of the hands turned up, "How beautiful! How natural the dish of prawns the dear little thing has in her lap!"

Sir Joshua threw the flowers over the prawns.

There appeared in this collection many sad results of Sir Joshua's experiments on colours; a very fine copy of his from Rembrandt's picture of himself, all but the face so black as to be unintelligible. There was the first Sir Joshua ever drew of himself--and his last; this invaluable last is going--black cracks and masses of bladdery paint. He painted Mrs. Gwatkin seven times. "But don't be vain, my dear, I only use your head as I would that of any beggar--as a good practice."

Her husband is a true Roast Beef of Old England King and Constitution man, who most good-naturedly hunted out from his archives a letter of Hannah More's, which happened to be particularly interesting to me, on Garrick in the character of Hamlet; it was good, giving a decided view of what Garrick at least thought the unity of the character.