Dec. 11.

Among other things Miss White entertained my father with was a method of drawing the human figure, and putting it into any attitude you please: she had just learned it from Lady Charleville—or rather not learned it. A whole day was spent in drawing circles all over the human figure, and I saw various skeletons in chains, and I was told the intersections of these were to show where the centres of gravity were to be; but my gravity could not stand the sight of these ineffectual conjuring tricks, and my father was out of patience himself. He seized a sheet of paper and wrote to Lady Charleville, and she answered in one of the most polite letters I ever read, inviting him to go to Charleville Forest, and he will go and see these magical incantations performed by the enchantress herself.

To MISS RUXTON.

December 1809.

I have spent five delightful days at Sonna and Pakenham Hall. Mrs. Tuite's kindness and Mr. Chenevix's various anecdotes, French and Spanish, delighted us at Sonna; and you know the various charms both for the head and heart at Pakenham Hall.

I have just been reading, for the fourth time, I believe, The Simple Story, which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I was totally incapable of thinking of Mrs. Inchbald or anything but Miss Milner and Doriforth, who appeared to me real persons whom I saw and heard, and who had such power to interest me, that I cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end of the story: I think it the most pathetic and the most powerfully interesting tale I ever read. I was obliged to go from it to correct Belinda for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces: and really, I have not the heart or the patience to correct her. As the hackney coachman said, "Mend you! better make a new one."

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Jan. 1810.

I have had a very flattering and grateful letter from Lydia White; she has sent me a comedy of Kelly's—A Word to the Wise. She says the Heiress is taken from it. Just about the same time I had a letter from Mrs. Apreece: [Footnote: Afterwards Lady Davy.] she is at Edinburgh, and seems charmed with all the wits there; and, as I hear from Mr. Holland, [Footnote: Afterwards Sir Henry Holland.] the young physician who was here last summer, she is much admired by them. Mrs. Hamilton and she like one another particularly; they can never cross, for no two human beings are, body and mind, form and substance, more unlike. We thought Mr. Holland, when he was here, a young man of abilities—his letter has fully justified this opinion: it has excited my father's enthusiastic admiration. He says Walter Scott is going to publish a new poem; I do not augur well of the title, The Lady of the Lake. I hope this lady will not disgrace him. Mr. Stewart has not recovered, nor ever will recover, the loss of his son: Mr. Holland says the conclusion of his lectures this season was most pathetic and impressive—"placing before the view of his auditors a series of eight-and-thirty years, in which he had zealously devoted himself to the duties of his office; and giving the impression that this year would be the period of his public life."

I have had a most agreeable letter from my darling old Mrs. Clifford; she sent me a curiosity—a worked muslin cap, which cost sixpence, done in tambour stitch, by a steam-engine. Mrs. Clifford tells me that Mrs. Hannah More was lately at Dawlish, and excited more curiosity there, and engrossed more attention, than any of the distinguished personages who were there, not excepting the Prince of Orange. The gentleman from whom she drew Caelebs was there, but most of those who saw him did him the justice to declare that he was a much more agreeable man than Caelebs. If you have any curiosity to know his name, I can tell you that—young Mr. Harford, of Blaise Castle.

Feb. 1810.

My father has just had a letter from your good friend Sir Rupert George, who desires to be affectionately remembered to you and my uncle. His letter is in answer to one my father wrote to him about his clear and honourable evidence on this Walcheren business. Sir Rupert says: "I must confess I feel vain in receiving commendations from such a quarter. The situation in which I was placed was perfectly new to me, and I had no rule for the government of my conduct but the one which has, I trust, governed all my actions through life—to speak the truth, and fear not. Allow me on this occasion to repeat to you an expression of the late Mrs. Delany's to me a few years before she died: 'The Georges, I knew, would always prosper, from their integrity of conduct. Don't call this flattery: I am too old to flatter any one, particularly a grand-nephew; and to convince you of my sincerity, I will add—for which, perhaps, you will not thank me—that there is not an ounce of wit in the whole family.'"

"Oh how my sister would like to see this letter of Sir Rupert's!" said my father; and straightway he told, very much to Sophy and Lucy's edification, the history of his dividing with sister Peg the first peach he ever had in his life.

March 2.

Have you any commands to Iceland? My young friend Mr. Holland proposes going there from Edinburgh in April. Sir George Mackenzie is the chief mover of the expedition.

This epigram or epitaph was written by Lord I-don't-know-who, upon Doctor Addington—Pitt's Addington—in old French:

Cy dessous reposant Le sieur Addington git: Politique soi-disant, Medecin malgre lui.

March 19.

The other day we had a visit from a Mrs. Coffy—no relation, she says, to your Mrs. Coffy. She looked exactly like one of the pictures of the old London Cries. She came to tell us that she had been at Verdun, and had seen Lovell. From her description of the place and of him, we had no doubt she had actually seen him. She came over to Ireland to prove that some man who is a prisoner at Verdun, and who is a life in a lease, is not dead, but "all alive, ho!" and my father certified for her that he believed she had been there. She knew nothing of Lovell but that he was well, and fat, and a very merry gentleman two years ago. She had been taken by a French privateer as she was going to see her sons in Jersey, and left Verdun at a quarter of an hour's notice, as the women were allowed to come home, and she had not time to tell this to Lovell, or get a letter from him to his friends. She was, as Kitty said, "a comical body," but very entertaining, and acted a woman chopping bread and selling un liv'—deux liv'—trois liv'—Ah, bon, bon, as well as Molly Coffy [Footnote: Mrs. Molly Coffy, for fifty years Mrs. Ruxton's housekeeper.] herself acted the elephant. She was children's maid to Mr. Estwick, and Mr. Estwick is, my father says, son to a Mr. Estwick who used to be your partner and admirer at Bath in former times!!

To C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, April 1810.

I do not like Lord Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, though, as my father says, the lines are very strong, and worthy of Pope and The Dunciad. But I was so much prejudiced against the whole by the first lines I opened upon about the "paralytic muse" of the man who had been his guardian, and is his relation, and to whom he had dedicated his first poems, that I could not relish his wit. He may have great talents, but I am sure he has neither a great nor good mind; and I feel dislike and disgust for his Lordship.

To MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, May 1810.

Now I have to announce the safe arrival of my aunts and Honora in good looks and good spirits. My father went to Dublin to meet them. I am sorry he did not see the Count de Salis, [Footnote: The Count de Salis, just then going to be married to Miss Foster, daughter of Mr. Edgeworth's old friend and schoolfellow, the Bishop of Clogher.] but he was much pleased with Harriet Foster, which I am glad of; for I love her.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, June 21, 1810.

When shall we two meet again? This is a question which occurs to me much oftener than even you think, and it always comes into my mind when I am in any society I peculiarly like, or when I am reading any book particularly suited to my taste and feelings; and now it comes a propos to the Bishop of Meath and Mrs. O'Beirne and The Lady of the Lake. By great good fortune, and by the good-nature of Lady Charlotte Rawdon, we had The Lady of the Lake to read just when the O'Beirnes were with us. A most delightful reading we had; my father, the Bishop, and Mr. Jephson reading it aloud alternately. It is a charming poem: a most interesting story, generous, finely-drawn characters, and in many parts the finest poetry. But for an old prepossession—an unconquerable prepossession—in favour of the old minstrel, I think I should prefer this to either the Lay or Marmion. Our pleasure in reading it was increased by the sympathy and enthusiasm of the guests.

Have you read, or tried to read, Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse's three volumes of Letters? and have you read Madame du Deffand? [Footnote: The blind friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole.] Some of the letters in her collection are very entertaining; those of the Duchesse de Choiseul, the Comte de Broglie, Sir James Macdonald, and a few of Madame du Deffand's: the others are full of fade compliments and tiresome trifling, but altogether curious as a picture of that profligate, heartless, brilliant, and ennuyed society. There is in these letters, I think, a stronger picture of ennui than in Alfieri's Life. Was his passion for the Countess of Albany, or for horses, or for pure Tuscan, the strongest? or did not he love NOTORIETY better than all three?

Sept. 1810.

Sir Thomas and Lady Ackland spent a day here: he is nephew to my friend Mrs. Charles Hoare. He says he is twenty-three, but he looks like eighteen.

To MISS RUXTON.

Oct. 1810.

We have had a visit from Captain Pakenham, the Admiral's son, this week: I like him. I was particularly pleased with his respectful manner to my father. He has some of his father's quickness of repartee, but with his own manner—no affectation of his father's style. We were talking of a Mrs. ——. "What," said I, "is she alive still? The last time I saw her she seemed as if she had lived that one day longer by particular desire."—"I am sure, then," said Captain Pakenham, in a slow, gentle voice,—"I am sure, then, I cannot tell at whose desire."

I have been hard at work at Mrs. Leadbeater: I fear my notes are rubbish.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth writes:

Mrs. Leadbeater, the Quaker lady who lived at Ballitore, whose father had been tutor to Edmund Burke, and whose Letters have been published, wrote to Maria this year, asking her advice about a book she had written, Cottage Dialogues, and sent the MS. to her. Mr. Edgeworth was so much pleased with it, that Maria offered, at Mr. Edgeworth's suggestion, to add a few notes to give her name to the book; and it was published by Johnson's successor with great success.

Mr. Edgeworth, Maria, and I went this autumn to Kilkenny to see the amateur theatricals, with which we were much delighted. Mr. Edgeworth, who remembered Garrick, said he never saw such tragic acting as Mr. Rothe, in Othello: how true to nature it was, appeared from the observation of our servant, Pat Newman, who had never seen a play before, when Mr. Edgeworth asked him if he did not pity the poor woman smothered in bed: "It was a pity of her, but I declare I pitied the man the most." The town was full to overflowing, but we were most hospitably received, though our friends the O'Beirnes were their guests, by Doctor and Mrs. Butler. He had been a friend of Mr. Edgeworth's when he lived in the county of Longford, and she had been, when Miss Rothwell, a Dublin acquaintance of mine. This visit to Kilkenny was rich in recollections for Maria: the incomparable acting, the number of celebrated people there assembled, the supper in the great gallery of old grand Kilkenny Castle, the superb hospitality, the number of beautiful women and witty men, the gaiety, the spirit, and the brilliancy of the whole, could have been seen nowhere else.

MISS EDGEWORTH to MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Nov. 1810.

We are to set out for Dublin on the 13th, to hear Davy's Lectures. Lord Fingal was so kind as to come here yesterday with Lady Teresa Dease, and he told me that my uncle is gone to Dublin. Tell me everything about it clearly. Honora, Fanny, and William go with us.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth interpolates:

We spent a few weeks in Dublin. Davy's Lectures not only opened a new world of knowledge to ourselves and to our young people, but were especially gratifying to Mr. Edgeworth and Maria, confirming, by the eloquence, ingenuity, and philosophy which they displayed, the high idea they had so early formed of Mr. Davy's powers.

MARIA EDGEWORTH to MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, April 1811.

I think Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont interesting, and many parts written in a beautiful style; but I don't think he gives a clear, well-proportioned history of the times. There is a want of keeping and perspective in it. The pipe of the man smoking out of the window is as high as the house. Mr. Hardy is more a portrait than a history painter.

If you have any curiosity to know the names of the writers of some of the articles in the Edinburgh Review, I can tell you, having had to-day, from my literary intelligencer, Mr. Holland, two huge sheets, very entertaining and sensible. Jeffrey wrote the article on Parliamentary Reform and that on the Curse of Kehama, Sydney Smith that on Toleration, and Malthus that on Bullion; and if you have any curiosity, I can also tell you those in the Quarterly, among whom Canning is one. Thank my aunt for her information about Walter Scott; my father will write immediately to ask him here. I wish we lived in an old castle, and had millions of old legends for him. Have you seen Campbell's poem of O'Connor's Child? it is beautiful. In many parts I think it is superior to Scott.

May-day.

This being May-day, one of the wettest I have ever seen, I have been regaled, not with garlands of May flowers, but with the legal pleasures of the season; I have heard of nothing but giving notices to quit, taking possession, ejectments, flittings, etc. What do you think of a tenant who took one of the nice new houses in this town, and left it with every lock torn off the doors, and with a large stone, such as John Langan could not lift, driven actually through the boarded floor of the parlour? The brute, however, is rich, and if he does not die of whisky before the law can get its hand into his pocket, he will pay for this waste.

I have had another [Footnote: No less than five letters were received by Miss Edgeworth at different times, from different young people, asking for a description of the dresses in the "Contrast."] odd letter signed by three young ladies—Clarissa Craven, Rachel Biddle, and Eliza Finch, who, after sundry compliments in very pretty language, and with all the appearance of seriousness, beg that I will do them the favour to satisfy the curiosity they feel about the wedding dresses of the Frankland family in the "Contrast." I have answered in a way that will stand for either jest or earnest; I have said that, at a sale of Admiral Tipsey's smuggled goods, Mrs. Hungerford bought French cambric muslin wedding gowns for the brides, the collars trimmed in the most becoming manner, as a Monmouth milliner assured me, with Valenciennes lace, from Admiral Tipsey's spoils. I have given all the particulars of the bridegrooms' accoutrements, and signed myself the young ladies' "obedient servant and perhaps dupe."

I am going on with "Patronage," and wish I could show it to you. Do get O'Connor's Child, Campbell's beautiful poem.

Last Saturday there was the most violent storm of thunder and lightning I ever saw in Ireland, and once I thought I felt the ground shake under me, for which thought I was at the time laughed to scorn; but I find that at the same time the shock of an earthquake was felt in the country, which shook Lissard House to its foundations. I tell it to you in the very words in which it was told to me by Sneyd, who had it from Councillor Cummin. A man was certainly killed by the lightning near Finac, for the said councillor was knocked up at six o'clock in the morning, to know if there was to be a coroner's inquest.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Aug. 30, 1811.

I have written a little play for our present large juvenile audience, [Footnote: Mrs. Beddoes and her three children were now at Edgeworthstown.] not for them to act, but to hear; I read it out last night, and it was liked. The scene is in Ireland, and the title "The Absentee." When will you let me read it to you? I would rather read it to you up in a garret than to the most brilliant audience in Christendom.

Anna's children are very affectionate. Henry is beautiful, and the most graceful creature I ever saw. The eight children are as happy together as the day is long, and give no sort of trouble.

What book do you think Buonaparte was reading at the siege of Acre?—Madame de Stael sur l'influence des Passions! His opinion of her and of her works has wonderfully changed since then. He does not follow Mazarin's wise maxim, "Let them talk provided they let me act." He may yet find the recoil of that press, with which he meddles so incautiously, more dangerous than those cannon of which he well knows the management.

Note Physical and Economical

I am informed from high authority, that if you give Glauber's salts to hens, they will lay eggs as fast as you please!

* * * * *

To MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, October 1811.

Davy spent a day here last week, and was as usual full of entertainment and information of various kinds. He is gone to Connemara, I believe, to fish, for he is a little mad about fishing; and very ungrateful it is of me to say so, for he sent to us from Boyle the finest trout! and a trout of Davy's catching is, I presume, worth ten trouts caught by vulgar mortals. Sneyd went with him to Boyle, saw Lord Lorton's fine place, and spent a pleasant day. Two of Mr. Davy's fishing friends have since called upon us: Mr. Solly, a great mineralogist, and Mr. Children, a man of Kent.

I am working away at "Patronage," but cannot at all come up to my idea of what it should be.

To MRS. MARY SNEYD.

ARDBRACCAN HOUSE, Nov. 1811.

Nothing worthy of note occurred on our journey to Pakenham Hall, where we found to our surprise dear Lady Longford and Lord Longford, who had come an hour before on one of his flying visits, and a whole tribe of merry laughing children, Stewarts and Hamiltons. Lady Longford showed us a picture of Lady Wellington and her children; they are beautiful, and she says very like—Lady Wellington is not like: it is absurd to attempt to draw Lady Wellington's face; she has no face, it is all countenance. My father and Lady Elizabeth played at cribbage, and I was looking on: they counted so quickly fifteen two, fifteen four, that I was never able to keep up with them, and made a sorry figure. Worse again at some genealogies and intermarriages, which Lady Elizabeth undertook to explain to me, till at last she threw her arms flat down on each side in indignant despair, and exclaimed, "Well! you are the stupidest creature alive!"

When Lord Longford came in I escaped from cribbage and heard many entertaining things: one was of his meeting a man in the mail coach, who looked as if he was gouty, and seemed as if he could not stir without great difficulty, and never without the assistance of a companion, who never moved an inch from him. At last Lord Longford discovered that this gentleman's gouty overalls covered fetters; that he was a malefactor in irons, and his companion a Bow Street officer, who treated his prisoner with the greatest politeness. "Give me leave, sir—excuse me—one on your arm and one on mine, and then we are sure we can't leave one another."

A worse travelling companion this than the bear, whom Lord Longford found one morning in the coach when day dawned, opposite to him—the gentleman in the fur cloak, as he had all night supposed him to be!

* * * * *

A second series of Tales of Fashionable Life appeared in 1812. Of these "The Absentee" was a masterpiece, and contains one scene which Macaulay declared to be the best thing written of its kind since the opening of the twenty-second book of the Odyssey. Yet Mrs. Edgeworth tells that the greater part of "The Absentee" was "written under the torture of the toothache; it was only by keeping her mouth full of some strong lotion that Maria could allay the pain, and yet, though in this state of suffering, she never wrote with more spirit and rapidity." Mr. Edgeworth advised the conclusion to be a Letter from Larry, the postillion: he wrote one, and she wrote another; he much preferred hers, which is the admirable finale to "The Absentee."

* * * * *

MARIA EDGEWORTH to MISS MARGARET RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 20, 1812.

I am heartily obliged to my dear Sophy—never mind, you need not turn to the direction, it is to Margaret, my dear, though it begins with thanks to Sophy—for being in such haste to relieve my mind from the agony it was in that Fashionable Tales should reach my aunt. I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are none of you angry with me, and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they have read of "The Absentee." I long to hear whether their favour continues to the end and extends to the catastrophe, that dangerous rock upon which poor authors, even after a prosperous voyage, are wrecked, sometimes while their friends are actually hailing them from the shore. I have the Rosamond vase [Footnote: A glass vase which Miss Edgeworth painted for Mrs. Ruxton, in brown, from Flaxman's designs for the Odyssey.] madness so strong upon me, that I am out of my dear bed regularly at half-past seven in the morning, and never find it more than half an hour till breakfast time, so happy am I daubing. On one side I have Ulysses longing to taste Circe's cakes, but saying, "No, thank you," like a very good boy: and on the other side I have him just come home, and the old nurse washing his feet, and his queen fast asleep in her chair by a lamp, which I hope will not set her on fire, though it is, in spite of my best endeavours, so much out of the perpendicular that nothing but a miracle can keep it from falling on Penelope's crown.

Little Pakenham is going on bravely (not two months old), and I am just beginning to write again, and am in "Patronage," and have corrected all the faults you pointed out to me; and Susan, who was a fool, is now Rosamond and a wit.

I suppose you have heard various jeux d'esprit on the marriage of Sir Humphry Davy and Mrs. Apreece? I scarcely think any of them worth copying: the best idea is stolen from the bon mot on Sir John Carr, "The Traveller beknighted."

"When Mr. Davy concluded his last Lecture by saying that we were but in the Dawn of Science, he probably did not expect to be so soon beknighted."

I forget the lines: the following I recollect better:—

To the famed widow vainly bow Church, Army, Bar, and Navy; Says she, I dare not take a vow, But I will take my Davy.

Another my father thinks is better:

Too many men have often seen Their talents underrated; But Davy owns that his have been Duly Appreeciated.

Aug 22.

I enclose a copy of Lovell's letter, which will give my dear aunt exquisite pleasure. His request to my father to pass him over, a prisoner and of precarious health, and make his next brother his heir, shows that if he has suffered he has at least had an opportunity of showing what he is. We shall do all we can to get at Talleyrand or some friend for his exchange. How happy Lady Wellington must be at this glorious victory. Had you in your paper an account of her running as fast as she could to Lord Bury at Lord Bathurst's when he alighted, to learn the first news of her husband! Vive l'enthousiasme! Without it characters may be very snug and comfortable in the world, but there is a degree of happiness which they will never taste, and of which they have no more idea than an oyster can have.

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.

BLACK CASTLE, Oct. 1812.

After a most delightful journey with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hamilton, laughing, singing, and talking, we dined with them. [Footnote: Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were paying a visit at Edgeworthstown, when the papers announced Mr. Sadler's intention of crossing the Channel in a balloon from Dublin. Mr. Edgeworth proposed to Mr. Hamilton that they should go to Dublin together to see the ascent, and he and Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, Maria, Sneyd, William, and two little sisters formed the party.] Dear old Mr. Sackville Hamilton dined with us, fresh from London: intellectual and corporeal dainties in abundance. The first morning was spent in cursing Mr. Sadler for not going up, and in seeing the Dublin Society House. A charming picture of Mr. Foster, by Beachey, with plans in his hand, looking full of thought and starting into life and action. Spent an hour looking over the books of prints in the library—Fanny particularly pleased with a Houbracken: Harriet with Daniel's Indian Antiquities: my father with Sir Christopher Wren's and Inigo Jones's designs. After dinner Richard Ruxton came in, and said my aunt and uncle had thoughts of coming up to see the balloon. In the evening at Astley's. The second day to see the elephant: how I pitied this noble animal, cooped up under the command of a scarcely human creature, who had not half as much reason as himself. Went on to see the Panorama of Edinburgh: I never saw a sight that pleased me more; Edinburgh was before me—Princes Street and George Street—the Castle—the bridge over dry land where the woman met us and said, "Poor little things they be." At first a mistiness, like what there is in nature over a city before the sun breaks out; then the sun shining on the buildings, trees, and mountains.

Thursday morning, to our inexpressible joy, was fine, and the flag, the signal that Sadler would ascend, was, to the joy of thousands, flying from the top of Nelson's Pillar. Dressed quickly—breakfasted I don't know how—job coach punctual: crowds in motion even at nine o'clock in the streets: tide flowing all one way to Belvidere Gardens, lent by the proprietor for the occasion: called at Sneyd's lodgings in Anne Street: he and William gone: drove on; when we came near Belvidere such strings of carriages, such crowds of people on the road and on the raised footpath, there was no stirring: troops lined the road at each side: guard with officers at each entrance to prevent mischief; but unfortunately there were only two entrances, not nearly enough for such a confluence of people. Most imprudently we and several others got out of our carriages upon the raised footpath, in hopes of getting immediately at the garden door, which was within two yards of us, but nothing I ever felt was equal to the pressure of the crowd: they closed over our little heads, I thought we must have been flattened, and the breath squeezed out of our bodies. My father held Harriet fast, I behind him held Fanny with such a grasp! and dragged her on with a force I did not know I possessed. I really thought your children would never see you again with all their bones whole, and I cannot tell you what I suffered for ten minutes. My father, quite pale, calling with a stentor voice to the sentinels. A fat woman nearly separated me from Fanny. My father fairly kicked off the terrace a man who was intent upon nothing but an odious bag of cakes which he held close to his breast, swearing and pushing. Before us were Mrs. Smyley and Mr. Smyley, with a lady he was protecting. Unable to protect anybody, he looked more frightened than if he had lost a hundred causes: the lady continually saying, "Let me back! let me back! if I could once get to my carriage!"

The tide carried us on to the door. An admirable Scotch officer, who was mounting guard with a drawn sword, his face dropping perspiration, exclaimed at the sight of Harriet, "Oh the child! take care of that child! she will be crushed to death!" He made a soldier put his musket across the doorway, so as to force a place for her to creep under: quick as lightning in she darted, and Fanny and I and my father after her. All was serene, uncrowded, and fresh within the park.

We instantly met Sneyd and William, and the two Mr. Foxes. Music and the most festive scene in the gardens: the balloon, the beautiful many-coloured balloon, chiefly maroon colour, with painted eagles, and garlands, and arms of Ireland, hung under the trees, and was filling fast from pipes and an apparatus which I leave for William's scientific description: terrace before Belvidere House—well-dressed groups parading on it: groups all over the gardens, mantles, scarves, and feathers floating: all the commonalty outside in fields at half-price. We soon espied Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, and joined company, and were extremely happy, and wished for you and dear Honora. Sun shining, no wind. Presently we met the Solicitor-General: he started back, and made me such a bow as made me feel my own littleness; then shook my hands most cordially, and in a few moments told me more than most men could tell in an hour: just returned from Edinburgh—Mrs. Bushe and daughters too much fatigued to come and see the balloon.

The Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and Sir Charles Vernon, and Sir Charles Saxton. The Miss Gunns seated themselves in a happily conspicuous place, with some gentlemen, on the roof of Belvidere House, where, with veils flying and telescopes and opera-glasses continually veering about, they attracted sufficient attention.

Walking on, Sneyd exclaimed, "My Uncle Ruxton!" I darted to him: "Is my aunt here?"—"Yes, and Sophy, and Margaret, but I have lost them; I'm looking for them."—"Oh, come with me and we'll find them." Soon we made our way behind the heels of the troopers' horses, who guarded a sacred circle round the balloon: found my aunt, and Sophy, and Mag—surprise and joy on both sides: got seats on the pedestal of some old statue, and talked and enjoyed ourselves: the balloon filling gradually. Now it was that my uncle proposed our returning by Black Castle.

The drum beats! the flag flies! balloon full! It is moved from under the trees over the heads of the crowd: the car very light and slight—Mr. Sadler's son, a young lad, in the car. How the horses stood the motion of this vast body close to them I can't imagine, but they did. The boy got out. Mr. Sadler, quite composed, this being his twenty-sixth aerial ascent, got into his car: a lady, the Duchess of Richmond, I believe, presented to him a pretty flag: the balloon gave two majestic nods from side to side as the cords were cut. Whether the music continued at this moment to play or not, nobody can tell. No one spoke while the balloon successfully rose, rapidly cleared the trees, and floated above our heads: loud shouts and huzzas, one man close to us exclaiming, as he clasped his hands, "Ah, musha, musha, GOD bless you! GOD be wid you!" Mr. Sadler, waving his flag and his hat, and bowing to the world below, soon pierced a white cloud, and disappeared; then emerging, the balloon looked like a moon, black on one side, silver on the other; then like a dark bubble; then less and less, and now only a speck is seen; and now the fleeting rack obscures it. Never did I feel the full merit of Darwin's description till then.

Next day, at eight in the morning, my father and William (who proceed to the Bishop of Derry's) and Fanny went to Collon. Sneyd, Harriet, and I came here.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Oct. 26, 1812.

Elections have been the order of the day with us as well as with you. I am glad to tell you that Lord Longford's troubles are over; he is now here, and has just been telling us that his victory for Colonel Hercules was as complete as his heart could wish. There would have been a duel but for Admiral Pakenham. One gentleman in his speech said that another had made the drummer of his corps play "Protestant Boys." The other said, "That's a lie;" and both were proceeding to high words, when the Admiral stepped between them, and said, very gravely, "Gentlemen, I did not know this meeting was a music meeting, but since you appeal to us electors to decide your cause by your musical merits, let the past be past; and now for the present give us each of you a song, and here's the sheriff,"—who has no more ear than a post—"shall be judge between you." Everybody laughed, and the two angry gentlemen had to laugh off their quarrel.

Another gentleman said to the Admiral, after the election was over, "Do you know, I had a mind to have stood myself; if I had, what would you have said?"—"That it was all a game of brag, and that, as you had the shuffling of the pack, there was no knowing what knave might turn up."

Lord Longford told us of Colonel Hercules Pakenham, at the siege of Badajos, walking with an engineer. A bomb whizzed over their heads and fell among the soldiers, as they were carrying off the wounded. When the Colonel expressed some regret, the engineer said, "I wonder you have not steeled your mind to these things. These men are carried to the hospital, and others come in their place. Let us go to the depot." Here the engineer had his wheelbarrows all laid out in nice order, and his pickaxes arranged in stars and various shapes; but, just as they were leaving the depot, a bomb burst in the midst of them. "Oh, heavenly powers, my picks!" cried the engineer, with clasped hands, in despair.

To C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, IN DUBLIN.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Feb. 10, 1813.

Rokeby is, in my opinion—and let every soul speak for themselves—most beautiful poetry: the four first cantos and half the fifth are all I have yet read. I think it a higher and better, because less Scotch, more universal style of poetry than any Walter Scott has yet produced, though not altogether perfect of its kind. It has more discrimination of character, more knowledge of human nature, more generalised reflection, much more moral aim.

* * * * *

In March, Miss Edgeworth accompanied her father and stepmother to England.

* * * * *

MARIA to MRS. MARY SNEYD.

BANGOR FERRY, March 31, 1813.

"I will go and write a few lines of a letter to my dear Aunt Mary."

"Oh! why should you write now, my dear? You have nothing new to tell her."

"Nothing new, but I love her, and wish to write to her; if I did not love her, I should be worse than Caliban."

"Well, write only a few lines."

"That is just what I mean to do, and go on with my letter at any odd place where we stop the night."

You have heard of all we saw at Howth, so I go on from Holyhead. Breakfasted in company with Mr. Grainger: he has lived in very good company abroad, and told us a variety of entertaining anecdotes: Caulaincourt, now Due de Vincennes, was brought up in the family of the Prince de Conde, l'enfant de la Maison, the playfellow of the Due d'Enghien. Buonaparte employed Caulaincourt to seize the Due d'Enghien; the wretch did so, and has been repaid by a dukedom.

We asked how the present Empress was liked in France. "Not at all by the Parisians; she is too haughty, has the Austrian scornful lip, and sits back in her carriage when she goes through the streets." The same complaint was made against Marie Antoinette. On what small things the popularity of the high and mighty depends!

Josephine is living very happily, amusing herself with her gardens and her shrubberies. This ci-devant Empress and Kennedy and Co., the seedsmen, are, as Mr. Grainger says, in partnership; she has a licence to send to him what shrubs and seeds she chooses from France, and he has licence to send cargoes in return to her. Mr. Grainger will carry over my box to Madame Recamier.

At the inn door at Bangor Ferry we saw a most curiously packed curricle, with all manner of portmanteaus and hat-boxes slung in various ingenious ways, and behind the springs two baskets, the size and shape of Lady Elizabeth Pakenham's basket. A huge bunch of white feathers was sticking out from one end of one of these baskets; and as we approached to examine it, out came the live head of a white peacock—a Japan peacock and peahen. The gentleman to whom the carriage belonged appeared next, carrying on a perch a fine large macaw. This perch was made to fasten behind the carriage. The servant who was harnessing the horses would not tell to whom the carriage belonged. He replied to all inquiries, "It belongs to that there gentleman."

We have enjoyed this fine day: had a delightful walk before dinner in a hanging wood by the water-side—pretty sheep-paths, wood anemonies in abundance, with their white flowers in full blow. Two ploughs going in the field below the wood: very cheerful the sound of the Welshmen's voices talking to their horses. The ploughing, giving the idea of culture and civilisation, contrasted agreeably with the wildness of the wood and mountains. Good-night.

Thursday.

This morning we set out for the slate quarries; we took our time, full time to see everything at leisure. The railways are above six miles long; they are very narrow. I had formed an idea of their being much more magnificent, but in this country canals and railways are made as useful and as little splendid as possible. I was surprised to see these railways winding round the rocks, and going over heaps of rubbish where you would think no wheelbarrow even could go.

From the slate-cutting we went to the slate quarries. We had been admiring the beauty of the landscape. My father did not say anything to raise my expectations, but when we arrived near the place, he took me by the hand, and led me over a heap of rubbish, on the top of which there was a railway. We walked on until we came between two slate mountains, and found ourselves in the midst of the quarries. It was the most sublime sight of all the works of man I ever beheld. The men looked like pigmies. There is a curious cone of grayish-coloured slate standing alone, which the workmen say is good for nothing; but it is good for its picturesque appearance. A heavy shower of hail came on, which, falling between the rifts of the rocks, and blown by the high wind, added to the sublimity of the scene: we were comfortably sheltered in one of the sheds.

Finding that Mr. Worthington was at Liverpool, my father determined to go there, and we have come on to Conway. During a storm of wind, thunder, and lightning last night it snowed just enough to cover the tops of the mountains with white, to increase the beauty of the prospect for us: they appeared more majestic from the strong contrast of bright lights and broad shades: the leaves of the honeysuckles all green in the hedges, fine hollies, primroses in abundance: it was literally spring in the lap of winter. Penmanmawr has, my father says, considerably altered its appearance, since he knew it first, from the falling of masses of rock, and the crumbling away of the mighty substance. Cultivation has crept up its sides to a prodigious height. A little cottage nestled just under the mountain's huge stone cap. The fragments of rock that have rolled down, some of them across the road, are ten times the size of the rock in Mr. Keating's lawn, [Footnote: A curious isolated stone, about ten feet by four, which stood in the Vicarage lawn at Edgeworthstown, said to have been aimed at the church by a Pagan giant from the Hill of Ardagh. It is now destroyed.] and in contrast with this idea of danger are sheep and lambs feeding quietly; the lambs looking not larger than little Francis's deceased kittens Muff and Tippet.

We reached Conway at six o'clock. The landlady of the Harp Inn knew my father, and recollected Lovell and my Aunt Ruxton. The boy to whom Lovell used to be so good, and who stopped my father on Penmanmawr to tell him that Lovell had given him Lazy Lawrence, was drowned with many others crossing the Ferry in a storm. The old harper who used to be the delight of travellers is now in a state of dotage. There was no harper at Bangor: the waiter told us "they were no profit to master, and was always in the way in the passage; so master never lets them come now."

In the midst of all the sublime and beautiful I had a happy mixture of the comic, for we had a Welsh postillion who entertained us much by his contracted vocabulary, and still more contracted sphere of ideas. He and my father could never understand one another, because my father said "quarry," and the Welshman said "querry"; and the burthen of all he said was continually asking if we would not like to be "driven to Caernarvon."

Friday morning, seven o'clock, dressed, and ready to go on with my scribbling. I assure you, my dear kind Aunt Mary, it is a great pleasure to me to write this letter at odd minutes while the horses are changing, or after breakfast or dinner for a quarter of an hour at a time, so that it is impossible that it should tire me. I owe all my present conveniencies for writing to various Sneyds: I use Emma Sneyd's pocket-inkstand; my ivory-cutter penknife was the gift of my Aunt Charlotte, and my little Sappho seal a present of Aunt Mary's.

For miles we have had beautiful hollies in the hedges; I wish my Aunt Charlotte would be so kind as to have a few small hollies out of Wilkinson's garden planted in the new ditch between Wood's and Duffy's; also some cuttings of honeysuckles and pyracanthus—enough can be had from my garden. I must finish abruptly.

To MRS. RUXTON.

LIVERPOOL, April 6, 1813.

Many times—a hundred times within this week—have I wished, my dearest aunt, to talk over with you the things and people I have seen. I am very well, very happy, and much entertained and interested.

Liverpool is very fine and very grand, and my father soon found out Mr. Roscoe; he was so good as to come to see us, and invited us to his house, Allerton Hall, about seven miles from Liverpool. He is a benevolent, cheerful, gentlemanlike old man; tall, neither thin nor fat, thick gray hair. He is very like the prints you have seen of him; his bow courteous, not courtly; his manner frank and prepossessing, without pretension of any kind. He enters into conversation readily, and immediately tells something entertaining or interesting, seeming to follow the natural course of his own thoughts, or of yours, without effort. Mrs. Roscoe seems to adore her husband, and to be so fond of her children, and has such a good understanding and such a warm heart, it is impossible not to like her. Mr. Roscoe gave himself up to us the whole day. Allerton Hall is a spacious house, in a beautiful situation: fine library, every room filled with pictures, many of them presents from persons in Italy who admired his Leo the Tenth. One of Tasso has a sort of mad vigilance in the eyes, as if he that instant saw the genius that haunted him. Mr. Roscoe has arranged his collection admirably, so as to show, in chronological order, in edifying gradation, the progress of painting. The picture which he prized the most was by one of Raphael's masters, not in the least valuable in itself, but for a frieze below it by Michael Angelo, representing the destruction of the Oracles; it is of a gray colour. Mr. Roscoe thinks it one of Michael Angelo's earliest performances, and says it is conceded to be the only original Michael Angelo in England. Of this I know nothing, but I know that it struck me as full of genius, and I longed for you and Margaret when we looked at a portfolio full of Michael Angelo's sketches, drawings, and studies. It is admirable to see the pains that a really great man takes to improve a first idea. Turning from these drawings to a room full of Fuseli's horribly distorted figures, I could not help feeling astonishment, not only at the bad taste, but at the infinite conceit and presumption of Fuseli. How could this man make himself a name! I believe he gave these pictures to Mr. Roscoe, else I suppose they would not be here sprawling their fantastic lengths, like misshapen dreams. Instead of le beau, they exhibit le laid ideal.

At dinner Darwin's poetry was mentioned, and Mr. Roscoe neither ran him down nor cried him up. He said exactly the truth, that he was misled by a false theory of poetry—that everything should be picture—and that therefore he has not taken the means to touch the feelings; and Mr. Roscoe made what seemed to me a new and just observation, that writers of secondary powers, when they are to represent either objects of nature or feelings of the human mind, always begin by a simile: they tell you what it is like, not what it is.

April 9.

I finish this at Mr. Holland's, at Knutsford. We spent a delightful day at Manchester, where we owed our chief pleasure to Dr. Ferrier and his daughter.

* * * * *

To MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

DERBY, April 25, 1813.

We have been now five days at Mr. Strutt's. We have been treated with so much hospitality and kindness by him, and he showed such a high esteem, and I may say affection for my father, that even if he had not the superior understanding he possesses, it would be impossible for me not to like him. From the moment we entered his house he gave up his whole time to us, his servants, his carriage; everything and everybody in his family were devoted to us, and all was done with such simplicity of generosity, that we felt at ease even while we were loaded with favours. This house is indeed, as Sneyd and William described it, a palace; and it is plain that the convenience of the inhabitants has everywhere been consulted: the ostentation of wealth nowhere appears.

Seven hours of one day Mr. Strutt and his nephew Jedediah gave up to showing us the cotton mills, and another whole morning he gave up to showing to us the infirmary; he built it—a noble building; hot air from below conveyed by a cockle all over the house. The whole institution a most noble and touching sight; such a GREAT thing, planned and carried into successful execution in so few years by one man!

We dined at Mr. Joseph Strutt's, and were in the evening at Mr. George Strutt's; and I will name some of the people we met, for Sneyd and William will like to know whom we saw:—Dr. Forrester, Mr. French, Miss French, who has good taste, as she proved by her various compliments to Sneyd; Miss Broadhurst, not my heiress, though she says that, after the publication of the Absentee, people used to turn their heads when she was announced, and ask if that was Miss Edgeworth's Miss Broadhurst! She met Sneyd in Dublin; has been lately at Kilkenny, and admired Mr. Rothe's acting of Othello. We saw a good deal of Mr. Sylvester, [Footnote: The inventor of the Cockle or Sylvester stove.] who is, I think, a man of surprising abilities, of a calm and fearless mind: an original and interesting character. Edward Strutt is indeed all that Sneyd and William described—a boy of great abilities, affectionate, and with a frank countenance and manner which win at once. One of our greatest pleasures has been the hearing everybody, from Edward upwards, speak of Sneyd and William with such affection, and with such knowledge of their characters. We all like Miss Lawrence.

We have been at the Priory: Mrs. Darwin at first much out of spirits. Besides the death of her son, she had lost a grandchild, and her daughter Harriet, Mrs. Maling, had just sailed with her husband for the Mediterranean. The Priory is a beautiful place, and Emma Darwin very beautiful.

We breakfasted at Markeaton with Mr. Mundy: he is a charming old gentleman, lively, polite, and playful as if he was twenty. He was delighted to see my father, and they talked over their school days with great zest. My father was, you know, at school, Mr. Mundy's horse, "Little Driver."

CAMBRIDGE, Wednesday.

My mother will tell you the history of our night travels over the bad road between Leicester and Kettering; my father holding the lantern stuck up against one window, and my mother against the other the bit of wax candle Kitty gave me. I don't think we could have got on without it. Pray tell her, for she laughed when I put it in my box and said it might be of vast use to us at some odd place.

Mr. Smedley has just called: tell Sneyd we think him very pleasing. I enclose the "Butterfly's Ball" for Sophy, and a letter to the King written by Dr. Holland when six years old: his father found him going with it to the post. Give it to Aunt Mary.

* * * * *

This letter was an offer from Master Holland to raise a regiment. He and some of his little comrades had got a drum and a flag, and used to go through the manual exercise. It was a pity the letter did not reach the King: he would have been delighted at it.

* * * * *

To C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH.

LONDON, May 1, 1813.

Please to take this in small doses, but not fasting.

Let us go back, if you please, to Cambridge. Thursday morning we went to breakfast with Mr. Smedley. It had been a dreadful rainy night, but luckily the rain ceased in the morning, and the streets were dried by the wind on purpose for us. In Sidney College we found your friend in neat, cheerful rooms, with orange-fringed curtains, pretty drawings, and prints: breakfast-table as plentifully prepared as you could have had it—tea, coffee, tongue, cold beef, exquisite bread, and many inches of butter. I suppose you know, but no one else at home can guess, why I say inches of butter. All the butter in Cambridge must be stretched into rolls a yard in length and an inch in diameter, and these are sold by inches, and measured out by compasses, in a truly mathematical manner, worthy of a university.

Mr. Smedley made us feel at home at once: my mother made tea, I coffee; he called you "Sneyd," and my father seemed quite pleased. After having admired the drawings and pictures, and Fanny's kettle-holder, we sallied forth with our friendly guide. It was quite fine and sunshiny, and the gardens and academic shades really beautiful. We went to the University Hall—the election of a new Professor to the Chemical Professorship was going on. Farish was one of the candidates: the man of whom Leslie Foster used to talk in such raptures when he first came from Cambridge; the man who lectured on arches, and whose paradox of the one-toothed wheel William will recollect. My father was introduced to him, and invited him to dine with us: Mr. Farish accepted the invitation. We sat on a bench with a few ladies. A number of Fellows, with black tiles on their heads, walked up and down the hall, whispering to one another; and in five minutes Mr. Smedley said, "The election is over: I must go and congratulate Mr. Professor Farish."

We next proceeded to the University Library, not nearly so fine as the Dublin College Library. Saw Edward the Sixth's famous little MS. exercise book: hand good, and ink admirable; shame to the modern chemists, who cannot make half as good ink now! Saw Faustus' first printed book and a Persian letter to Lord Wellesley, and an Indian idol, said to be made of rice, looking like, and when I lifted it feeling as heavy as, marble. Mr. Smedley smiled at my being so taken with an idol, and I told him that I was curious about this rice-marble, because we had lately seen at Derby a vase of similar substance, about which there had been great debates. Mr. Smedley then explained to me that the same word in Persian expresses rice and the composition of which these idols are made.

We saw the MS. written on papyrus leaves: I had seen the papyrus at the Liverpool Botanic Garden, and had wondered how the stiff bark could be rolled up; and here I saw that it is not rolled up, but cut in strips and fastened with strings at each end.

In this library were three casts, taken after death—how or why they came there I don't know, but they were very striking—one of Charles XII., with the hole in the forehead where the bullet entered at the siege of Fredericks-hall; that of Pitt, very like his statue from the life, and all the prints of him; and that of Fox, shocking! no character of greatness or ability—nothing but pain, weakness, and imbecility. It is said to be so unlike what he was in health, that none would know it. One looks at casts taken after death with curiosity and interest, and yet it is not probable that they should show the real natural or habitual character of the person: they can often only mark the degree of bodily pain or ease felt in the moment of death. I think these casts made me pause to reflect more than anything else I saw this day.

Went next to Trinity College Library: beautiful! I liked the glass doors opening to the gardens at the end, and trees in full leaf. The proportions of this room are excellent, and everything but the ceiling, which is too plain. The busts of Bacon and Newton excellent; but that of Bacon looks more like a courtier than a philosopher: his ruff is elegantly plaited in white marble. By Cipriani's painted window, with its glorious anachronisms, we were much amused; and I regret that it is not recorded in Irish Bulls. It represents the presentation of Sir Isaac Newton to His Majesty George the Third, seated on his throne, and Bacon seated on the steps of the said throne writing! Cipriani had made the King, Henry VIII., but the Fellows of the College thought it would be pretty to pay a compliment to His Gracious Majesty George III., so they made Cipriani cut off Henry VIII.'s head, and stick King George in his place: the junction is still to be seen in the first design of the picture, covered with a pasted paper cravat! like the figure that changes heads in the Little Henry book.

Saw Milton's original MSS. of his lesser poems, and his letters and his plan of a tragedy on the subject of Paradise Lost, which tragedy I rejoice he did not write. I have not such delight in seeing the handwriting of great authors and great folk as some people have; besides by this time I had become very hungry, and was right glad to accept Mr. Smedley's proposal that we should repair to his rooms and take some sandwiches.

Rested, ate, talked, looked at the engravings of Clarke's marbles, and read the account of how these ponderous marbles had been transported to England. We saw the marbles themselves. The famous enormous head of Ceres must have belonged to a gigantic statue, and perhaps at a great height may have had a fine effect. It is in a sadly mutilated condition; there is no face; the appearance of the head in front is exactly like that of Sophy's doll, whose face has peeled off, yet Clarke strokes it and talks of its beautiful contour. The hair is fine, and the figure, from its vast size, may be sublime.

After having recruited our strength, we set out again to the Vice-Chancellor Davis's, to see a famous picture of Cromwell. As we knocked at his Vice-Chancellorship's door, Mr. Smedley said to me, "Now, Miss Edgeworth, if you would but settle in Cambridge! here is our Vice-Chancellor a bachelor ... do consider about it."

We went upstairs; found the Vice-Chancellor's room empty; had leisure before he appeared to examine the fine picture of Cromwell, in which there is more the expression of greatness of mind and determination than his usual character of hypocrisy. This portrait seems to say, "Take away that bauble," not "We are looking for the corkscrew."

The Vice-Chancellor entered, and such a wretched, pale, unhealthy object I have seldom beheld! He seemed crippled and writhing with rheumatic pains, hardly able to walk. After a few minutes had passed, Mr. Smedley came round to me and whispered, "Have you made up your mind?" "Yes, quite, thank you."

Now for the beauty of Cambridge—the beauty of beauties—King's College Chapel! On the first entrance I felt silenced by admiration. I never saw anything at once so beautiful and so sublime. The prints give a good idea of the beauty of the spandrilled ceiling, with its rich and light ornaments; but no engraved representation can give an idea of the effect of size, height, and continuity of grandeur in the whole building. Besides, the idea of DURATION, the sublime idea of having lasted for ages, is more fully suggested by the sight of the real building than it can be by any representation or description: for which reason I only tell you the effect it had upon my mind.

The organ began to play an anthem of Handel's while we were in the chapel: I wished for you, my dear Sneyd, particularly at that moment! Your friend took us up the hundred stairs to the roof, where he was delighted with the sound of the organ and the chanting voices rising from the choir below. My father was absorbed in the mechanical wonders of the roof: that stone roof, of which Sir Christopher Wren said, "Show me how the first stone was laid, and I will show you how the second is laid."

Mr. Smedley exclaimed, "Is not the sound of the organ fine?" To which my father, at cross purposes, answered, "Yes, the iron was certainly added afterwards."

Mr. Smedley at once confessed that he had no knowledge or taste for mechanics, but he had the patience and good-nature to walk up and down this stone platform for three-quarters of an hour. He stood observing my mother's very eager examination with my father of the defects in the wooden roof, and pointing out where it had been cut away to admit the stone, as a proof that the stone roof had been an afterthought; and at last turned to me with a look of astonishment. "Mrs. Edgeworth seems to have this taste for mechanics too." He spoke of it as a kind of mania. So I nodded at him very gravely, and answered, "Yes, you will find us all tinctured with it, more or less." At last, to Mr. Smedley's great joy, he got my father alive off this roof, and on his way to Downing, the new college of which Leslie Foster talked so much, and said was to be like the Parthenon. Shockingly windy walk: thought my brains would have been blown out. Passed Peter House, and saw the rooms in which Gray lived, and the irons of his fire-escape at the window. Warned Mr. Smedley of the danger of my father being caught by a coachmaker's yard which we were to pass. My father overheard me, laughed, and contented himself with a side glance at the springs of gigs, and escaped that danger. I nearly disgraced myself, as the company were admiring the front of Emmanuel College, by looking at a tall man stooping to kiss a little child. Got at last, in spite of the wind and coachmakers' yards, within view of Downing College, and was sadly disappointed. It will never bear comparison with King's College Chapel.

Home to dinner: Mr. Farish and Mr. Smedley were very agreeable and entertaining, and did very well together, though such different persons. Mr. Farish is the most primitive, simple-hearted man I ever saw.

The bells were ringing in honour of Professor Farish's election, or, as Mr. Smedley said, at the Professor's expense.

Farish insisted upon it very coolly that they were not ringing for him, but for a shoulder of mutton.

"A shoulder of mutton! what do you mean?"

"Why, a man left to the University a shoulder of mutton for every Thursday, on condition that the bells should always ring for him on that day: so this is for the shoulder of mutton."

Mr. Farish paid us no compliments in words, but his coming to spend the evening with us the day of his election, when I suppose he might have been feasted by all the grand and learned in the University, was, I think, the greatest honour my father has received since he came to England; and so he felt it.

I suppose you know that Mr. Smedley has published minutes of the trial of that Mr. Kendal who was accused of having set fire to Sidney College, and who, though brought off by the talents of Garrow, was so generally thought to be guilty, and to have only escaped by a quirk of the law, that he has been expelled the University. What a strange thing that this trial at Cambridge and that in Dublin, of incendiaries, [Footnote: The trial in Dublin was that of "Moscow Cavendish."] should take place within so short a time of each other! It seems as if the fashion of certain crimes prevailed at certain times.

"Good-bye, Mr. Smedley! I hope you like us half as well as we liked you." We thought it well worth our while to have come thirty miles out of our way to see him and Cambridge, and you, Sneyd, have the thanks of the whole party for your advice.

In passing through the village of Trumpington, and just as we came within sight of Dr. Clarke's house, [Footnote: Edward Daniel Clarke, 1769-1822, one of the most distinguished travellers of the eighteenth century, was Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge.] I urged my father to call upon him.

"Without an introduction, and two ladies with me! No, with all my impudence, my dear Maria, I cannot do that."

"Oh, do! you will repent afterwards if you do not: we shall never have another opportunity of seeing him."

"Well, at your peril, then, be it."

He let down the glass, and ordered the postillion to drive up to Dr. Clarke's house. I quailed in the corner the moment I heard the order given, but said nought. Out jumped my father, and during two or three minutes whilst he was in the house, and my mother and I waiting in the carriage at the door, I was in an agony. But it was soon over; for out came little Dr. Clarke flying to us, all civility, and joy, and gratitude, and honour, and pleasure, "ashamed and obliged," as he handed us up the steps and into a very elegant drawing-room.

I do not know whether you have seen him, but from the print I had imagined he was a large man, with dark eyes and hair, and a penetrating countenance. No such thing: he is a little, square, pale, flat-faced, good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great credulity of countenance, and still greater benevolence. In a moment he whisked about the different rooms upstairs and down, to get together books, sketches, everything that could please us; and Angelica's drawings—she draws beautifully.

Angelica herself, Mrs. Clarke, is a timid, dark, soft-eyed woman, with a good figure. I am told it is rude to say a person is very clean, but I may praise Angelica for looking elegantly clean, brilliantly white, with a lace Mary Queen of Scots cap, like that which I am sure you remember on Lady Adelaide Forbes. She received us with timid courtesy, but her timidity soon wore off, and the half-hour we spent here made us wish to have spent an hour. Dr. Clarke seemed highly gratified that his travels in Greece had interested us so much: showed us the original drawings of Moscow, and a book of views of the ruins at Athens by the draughtsman who went out with the Duc de Choiseul Gouffier—beautifully done; mere outlines, perfectly distinct, and giving, I think, better architectural ideas than we have from more finished and flattered drawings.

We were sorry not to see more, and glad we had seen so much, of Dr. Clarke and his Angelica, and his fine little boy about five years old. A tall, dark-eyed, fine fashionable-looking man, Dr. Clarke introduced to us as Mr. Walpole. My father entered into conversation with him, and found he had known Captain Beaufort in the Mediterranean.

When we were going away, Dr. Clarke, between my mother and me, seemed puzzled how to get us both into the carriage at once; but he called to Mr. Walpole. "Walpole, put this lady into the carriage."

And with a "Meadows" air he obeyed.

Now we are again on the London road, and nothing interrupted our perusal Pride and Prejudice for the rest of the morning. I am desired not to give you my opinion of Pride and Prejudice, but desire you to get it directly, and tell us yours.

To MISS RUXTON.

LONDON, May 1813.

I fear Madame de Stael's arrival may be put off till after we leave town. The Edinburgh review of her book has well prepared all the world for her. The first persons who came to see us were Sir Humphry and Lady Davy, who have been uniformly and zealously kind and attentive to us. We have been frequently at their dinners and parties, and I should fill a roll as long as that genealogy Foote unrolled across the stage, if I were to give you a list of the names of all the people we have met at their house. Of Lord Byron I can tell you only that his appearance is nothing that you would remark. The Miss Berrys are all that you have heard of them from people of various tastes; consequently you know that they are well bred, and have nice tact in conversation. Miss Catharine Fanshaw I particularly like; she has delightful talents. Her drawings have charmed my mother, full of invention as well as taste; her "Village School" and "Village Children at Play" are beautiful compositions, and her drawings for the Bath Guide are full of humour and character.

Lady Crewe has still the remains of much beauty. Except her dress, which happened to be blue, there appeared to be nothing else blue about her. The contrast between her really fashionable air and manners and that of the strugglers and imitators struck me much: Lady Elizabeth Whitbread is, in one word, delightful. Miss Fox very agreeable—converses at once, without preface or commonplace: Lady Charlotte Lindsay ditto: Lady Darnley has been very polite in her attentions: both Lord and Lady Hardwicke peculiarly gracious. Lord Somerville I cannot help being charmed with, for he says he is charmed with Lady Delacour and Lady Geraldine, whom he pronounces to be perfect women of fashion, and says they are in high repute in the equerry's room at Court. He was quite indignant against certain pretenders to fashion. I told him the remark of a friend of ours, that a gentleman or gentlewoman cannot be made under two generations. "In less than five, madam, I think it scarcely possible," said he.

Lady Lansdowne, taking in beauty, character, conversation, talents, and manners, I think superior to any woman I have seen; perfectly natural, daring to be herself, gentle, sprightly, amiable, and engaging. Lydia Whyte has been very kind to us, and eager to bring together people who would suit and please us: very agreeable dinner at her house; she conducts these bel esprit parties well; her vivacity breaks through the constraint of those who stand upon great reputations, and are afraid of committing themselves.

Charming, amiable Lady Wellington! As she truly said of herself, she is always "Kitty Pakenham to her friends." After comparison with crowds of others, beaux esprits, fine ladies and fashionable scramblers for notoriety, her dignified graceful simplicity rises in one's opinion, and we feel it with more conviction of its superiority. She showed us her delightful children. Lord Longford, just come to town, met us yesterday at the Exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds's pictures. Some of these are excellent: his children, from the sublime Samuel to the arch Gipsy, are admirable.

We hope to see Mrs. Siddons act on the 25th; it was thought impossible to get a box, but the moment my father pronounced the name Edgeworth, Mr. Brandon, the box-keeper, said he should have one. Lady Charleville, who is a very clever woman, goes with us with her daughter and Lord Tullamore. We have been to a grand night at Mrs. Hope's—the rooms really deserve the French epithet of superbe—all of beauty, rank, and fashion that London can assemble, I may say, in the newspaper style, were there. The Prince Regent stood one-third of the night holding converse with Lady Elizabeth Monk, she leaning gracefully on a bronze ornament in the centre of the room, in the midst of the sacred but very small circle etiquette could keep round them. About 900 people were at this assembly; the crowd of carriages were so great, that after sitting waiting in ours for an hour, the coachman told us there was no chance of our reaching the door unless we got out and walked. Another good-natured coachman backed his horses, and we bravely crossed the line and got into the house and up the staircase, but no power of ours could have got us on, but for the gloriously large body and the good-natured politeness of the Archbishop of Tuam, who fortunately met us at the door, recognised us just as he would have done at Mrs. Bourke's, in the county of Longford, and made way for us through the crowd, and, in the wake of his greatness, we sailed on prosperously, and never stopped till he presented us to his beautiful daughter, who received us with a winning smile. I asked Mr. Hope who some one was? "I really don't know; I don't know half the people here, nor do they know me or Mrs. Hope even by sight. Just now I was behind a lady who was making her speech, as she thought, to Mrs. Hope, but she was addressing a stranger." Among the old beauties the Duchess of Rutland held her pre-eminence and looked the youngest.

A few days after we came to town we were told by Mr. Wakefield that there was to be at the Freemasons' tavern a meeting on the Lancasterian schools, at which the reports of the Irish Education Committee were to be alluded to, and that the Dukes of Kent and Sussex, Lord Lansdowne, Sir James Macintosh, and Mr. Whitbread were all to speak. We went; fine large hall, ranged with green benches like a lecture room: raised platform at one end for the performers: arm-chairs for the Royal Dukes, and common chairs for common men. Waited an hour, and were introduced to various people, among others, to Mr. Allen, who is famous for his generous benevolence, living most economically and giving thousands as easily as others would give pence. Dumont came and seated himself between my mother and me, and the hour's waiting was so filled with conversation that it seemed but five minutes.

Enter, on the platform, the Royal Dukes preceded by stewards with white staves; gentlemen of the Committee ranged at the back of the theatre, one row in front on each side of the Dukes, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Lancaster, two or three others, and Mr. Edgeworth. The object of the meeting was to effect a junction between the Bell and Lancasterian parties. It had been previously agreed that Lancaster should have his debts paid, and should retire and give up his schools. Lord Lansdowne spoke extremely well, matter and manner; when he adverted to the Board of Education he turned to my father and called upon him to support his assertion, that the dignified clergy in Ireland among those commissioners had acted with liberality. It had been previously arranged that my father was to move the vote of thanks to the ladies, but of this we knew nothing; and when he rose and when I heard the Duke of Kent in his sonorous voice say "Mr. Edgeworth," I was so frightened I dared not look up, but I was soon reassured. My father's speaking was, next to Lord Lansdowne's, the best I heard, and loud plaudits convinced me that I was not singular in this opinion. The Duke of Kent speaks well and makes an excellent chairman.

Yesterday my father was invited to a Lancasterian dinner; for an account of it I refer you to Lord Fingal, next to whom my father sat, but as you may not see him immediately I must tell you that my father's health was drunk, and that when his name was mentioned, loud applause ensued, and the Duke of Bedford, after speaking of the fourteenth report of the Irish Board of Education, pronounced a eulogium on "the excellent letter which is appended to that report, full of liberality and good sense, on which indeed the best part of the report seems founded. I mean the letter by Mr. Edgeworth, to whom this country as well as Ireland is so much indebted."

Yesterday I had a good hour in comfort to write to you before breakfast, which was scarcely ended when Mr. Wakefield came in with a letter from the Duke of Bedford, who is anxious to see my father's experiments on the draft of wheel-carriages tried. Then came Lord Somerville, who sat and talked and invited us to his country-house, but all this did not forward my letter. Then came Lady Darnley; and then my father walked off with Lord Somerville, and we gave orders no one should be let in; so we only heard vain thunders at the door, and I got on half a page, but then came poor Peggy Langan, [Footnote: Grand-daughter to the original of Thady, in Castle Rackrent. Her sister was the original of Simple Susan.] and her we admitted; she is in an excellent place, with Mrs. Haldimand, Mrs. Marcet's sister-in-law, and she, Peggy, sat and talked and told of how happy she was, and how good her mistress was, and we liked her simplicity and goodness of heart, but as I said before, all this did not forward my letter. Coach at the door. "Put on your hat, Maria, and come out and pay visits."

To save myself trouble, I send a list of the visits we made just as my mother marked them on the card by which we steered. GOD knows how I should steer without her. The crosses mark the three places where we were let in. Lady Milbanke is very agreeable, and has a charming well-informed daughter. Mrs. Weddell is a perfectly well-bred, most agreeable old lady, sister to Lady Rockingham, who lived in the Sir Joshua Reynolds set: tells anecdotes of Burke, Fox, and Windham—magnificent house—fine pictures. We spoke of having just seen the exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds's pictures. "Perhaps if you are fond of paintings you would take the trouble of walking into the next room, and I will show you what gives me a particular interest in Sir Joshua Reynolds's pictures." Large folding-doors opened—large room full of admirable copies from Sir Joshua Reynolds in crayons, done by Mrs. Weddell herself. My mother says they are quite astonishing. Her conversation, as good as her painting, passed through many books lightly with touch-and-go ease. I mentioned a curious anecdote of Madame d'Arblay: that when she landed at Portsmouth, a few months ago, and saw on a plate at Admiral Foley's a head of Lord Nelson, and the word Trafalgar, she asked what Trafalgar meant! She actually, as Lady Spencer told me, who had the anecdote from Dr. Charles Burney, did not know that the English had been victorious, or that Lord Nelson was dead! This is the mixed effect of the recluse life she led, and of the care taken in France to keep the people ignorant of certain events. I mentioned a similar instance in Thiebault's Memoirs, of the Chevalier Mason, living at Potsdam, and not knowing anything of the Seven Years' War. Then Mrs. Weddell went through Thiebault and Madame de Bareith's Memoirs, and asked if I had ever happened to meet with an odd entertaining book, Madame de Baviere's Memoirs. How little I thought, my dear Aunt Ruxton, when you gave me that book, that it would stand me in stead at Mrs. Weddell's—we talked it over and had a great deal of laughing and diversion.

Came home: found my father dressing to go to Sir Samuel Romilly's—we two were to dine at Lady Levinge's; while we were dressing a long note from Miss Berry, sent by her own maid, to apologise for a mistake of her servants who had said "not at home," and to entreat we would look in on her this evening—much hurried. Lady Levinge's dinner, which was not on the table till eight o'clock, was very entertaining, because quite a new set of people. Called in the evening at Miss Berry's—quite like French society, most agreeable—had a great deal of conversation with Lady Charlotte Lindsay. Mr. Ward was there, but I did not hear him. Went, shamefully late, to Mrs. Sneyd's—then home: found my father in bed—stood at the foot of it, and heard his account of his dinner. Dr. Parr, Dumont, Malthus, etc., but I have not time to say more. I have been standing in my dressing-gown writing on the top of a chest of drawers, and now I must dress for a breakfast at Lady Davy's, where we are to meet Lord Byron: but I must say, that at the third place where we were let in yesterday, Lady Wellington's, we spent by far the most agreeable half-hour of the day.

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth continues:

One day, coming late to dinner at Mr. Horner's, we found Dr. Parr very angry at our having delayed, and then interrupted dinner, but he ended by giving Maria his blessing. One of our pleasantest days was a breakfast at Mr. and Mrs. Carr's, at Hampstead, where we met General and Mrs. Bentham, just come from Russia, full of interesting information. Maria also spent a day in the country with Sir Samuel and Lady Romilly—who was so beautiful and so engaging; and to this day's happiness Maria often recurred. We met one evening at Lady Charleville's Mrs. Abington, with whom Maria was much entertained; she recited two epilogues for us with exquisite wit and grace—she spoke with frankness and feeling of her career, when often after the triumph of success in some brilliant character, splendidly dressed, in the blaze of light, with thunders of applause, she quitted the theatre for her poor little lonely lodging—and admirably described her disenchanted, dispirited sensations.

One morning Maria and I went to Westminster Abbey with some friends, among whom was Sir James Macintosh—only one morning; days might have been spent without exhausting the information he so easily, and with such enjoyment to himself, as well as to his hearers, poured forth with quotations, appropriate anecdotes, and allusions historical, poetical, and biographical, as we went along.

We unfortunately missed seeing Madame d'Arblay, and we left London before the arrival of Madame de Stael. We went on the 16th of June to Clifton, where we spent some days with Mr. and Mrs. King. [Footnote: Mr. Edgeworth's second daughter Emmeline.]

From Clifton we went to Gloucester, where Maria took up a link of her former life, paying a visit to Mrs. Chandler, from whom she had received much kindness at Mr. Day's when her eyes were inflamed. We then went on to Malvern, where Mrs. Beddoes [Footnote: The third daughter—Anna Edgeworth.] was then living.

MARIA to MRS. RUXTON.

MALVERN LINKS, June 1813.

How good you have been, my dear aunt, in sparing Sophy to Edgeworthstown, and since you have been so good it is in encroaching human nature to expect that you will be still better, and that you and my uncle and Mag will come to Edgeworthstown for her; we shall be home in a fortnight. What joy, what delight to meet you among the dear faces who will welcome us there. The brilliant panorama of London is over, and I have enjoyed more pleasure and have had more amusement, infinitely more than I expected, and received more attention, more kindness than I could have thought it possible would be shown to me; I have enjoyed the delight of seeing my father esteemed and honoured by the best judges in England: I have felt the pleasure of seeing my true friend and mother, for she has been a mother to me, appreciated in the best society, and now with the fulness of content I return home, loving my own friends and my own mode of life preferably to all others, after comparison with all that is fine and gay, and rich and rare.

We spent four days at Clifton with Emmeline, and if our journey to England had been productive of no other good, I should heartily rejoice at our having accomplished this purpose. My father was pleased and happy, and liked all his three grandchildren very much. You may imagine how much pleasure this gave me.

We came here the day before yesterday, and have spent our time delightfully with Anna and her children, and now the carriage is at the door to take us to Mrs. Clifford's. Yesterday we went to see Samuel Essington, [Footnote: The servant who was so faithful and so frightened at the time of the rebellion. He had saved some money and quitted the service of the Edgeworths in 1800.] at the Essington Hotel. He thought it was a carriage full of strangers and was letting down the steps when he beheld my father; his whole face glowed with delight, and the tears stood in his projecting eyes. "Master! Master, I declare! O sir, ma'am, miss, Mrs. Beddoes, Miss Edgeworth: how glad I am!"

He showed us his excellent house, and walked us round his beautiful little lawn and shrubberies, all his own making; and cut moss roses and blush roses for us with such eagerness and delight. "And all, all owing to you, sir, that first taught me."

* * * * *

Mrs. Edgeworth writes:

At Mrs. Clifford's we stayed some days—a beautiful country, not far from Ross which we visited, and Maria was delighted to see all the scenes of the Man of Ross. At Mrs. Clifford's we had one day of most brilliant conversation between Maria, her father, and Sir James Macintosh, who had just come into that neighbourhood. He joined us, unexpectedly, one morning as we were walking out, and touching a shawl Mrs. Clifford wore, "A thousand looms," he said, "are at work in Cashmere at this instant providing these for you."

MARIA to MRS. MARY SNEYD AT EDGEWORTHSTOWN.

MRS. CLIFFORD'S, June 1813.

Saturday Evening.

Received Sneyd's letter. [Footnote: Announcing his engagement to Miss Broadhurst. It was singular that this was the name of the heroine in Miss Edgeworth's Absentee, who selected from her lovers the one who united worth and wit, in reminiscence of an epigram of Mr. Edgeworth on himself, concluding—

There's an edge to his wit and there's worth in his heart.]

Astonishment! Dear Sneyd, I hope he will be as happy as love and fortune can make him. All my ideas are thrown into such confusion by this letter that I can no more. We go to Derby on Tuesday.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 26, 1813.

I have delayed a few days writing to you in the expectation of the arrival of two frankers to send an extract from Dr. Holland's last letter, which will, I hope, entertain you as much as it entertained us. I shall long to hear of our good friend Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton's visit to Black Castle.

We have every reason to be in great anxiety at this moment about a certain trunk containing all our worldly duds, and "Patronage" to boot, but still I have not been able to work myself into any fears about it, though it is a month since we ought to have seen it, nor have we heard any news of it. In the meantime, as I cannot set about revising "Patronage," I have begun a new series of Early Lessons [Footnote: The second parts of Frank, Rosamond, and Harry and Lucy.] for which many mothers told me they wished. I feel that I return with fresh pleasure to literary work from having been so long idle, and I have a famishing appetite for reading. All that we saw in London, I am sure I enjoyed while it was passing as much as possible, but I should be very sorry to live in that whirling vortex, and I find my taste and conviction confirmed on my return to my natural friends and my dear home.

I am glad that some of those who showed us hospitality and kindness in England should have come so soon to Ireland, that we may have some little opportunity of showing our sense of their attentions. Lord Carrington, who franks this, is most amiable and benevolent, without any species of pretension, thinking the best that can be thought of everything and everybody. Mr. Smith, his son, whom we had not seen in London, accompanies him, and his tutor, Mr. Kaye, a Cambridge man, and Lord Gardner, Lord Carrington's son-in-law, suffering from the gouty rheumatism, or rheumatic gout—he does not know or care which: but between the twitches of his suffering he is entertaining and agreeable.

We have just seen a journal by a little boy of eight years old, of a voyage from England to Sicily: the boy is Lord Mahon's son, Lord Carrington's grandson. [Footnote: Philip Henry, afterwards fifth Earl Stanhope, the historian.] It is one of the best journals I ever read, full of facts: exactly the writing of a child, but a very clever child. It is peculiarly interesting to us from having seen Dr. Holland's letters from Palermo. Lord Mahon says that the alarm about the plague at Malta is much greater than it need be—its progress has been stopped: it was introduced by a shoemaker having, contrary to law and reason, surreptitiously brought some handkerchiefs from a vessel that had not performed quarantine. You will nevertheless rejoice that Dr. Holland did not go to Malta. How you will regret the loss of the portmanteau of which that vile Ali Pasha robbed him.

Mr. Fox dined with us to-day, and was very agreeable. Lord Carrington and his travelling companions were at Farnham, where they were most hospitably received. They had no letters of introduction or intention of going there; but, finding a horrid inn at Cavan, they applied for charity to a gentleman for lodging. The gentleman took them to walk in Lord Farnham's grounds. Lord and Lady Farnham saw and invited them to the house, and they are full of admiration and almost affection, I think, for Lord and Lady Farnham: they are so charmed by their hospitality, their goodness to the poor, their care of the young Foxes, their magnificent establishment, their neat cottages for their tenants, and, as Lord Gardner sensibly said, "their judicious economy in the midst of magnificence."

August 9.

I like Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton better than ever upon further acquaintance. She is what the French would call bonne a vivre: so good-humoured, so cheerful, so little disposed to exact attention or to take an authoritative tone in conversation, so ready to give everybody their merits, so indulgent for the follies and frailties, and so hopeful of the reformation of even the faults and vices of the world, that it is impossible not to respect and love her. She wins upon us daily, and mixes so well with this family, that I always forget she is a stranger.

Lady Davy is in high glory at this moment, introducing Madame de Stael everywhere, enjoying the triumph and partaking the gale. They went down, a delightful party, to Cobham—Madame de Stael, Lady Davy, Lord Erskine, Rogers, etc.

Have you heard that Jeffrey, the reviewer, is gone to America in pursuit of a lady, or, as some say, to take possession of an estate left to him by an uncle: he is to be back in time for the Edinburgh Review in September!

August 19.

Lord and Lady Lansdowne came to us on Tuesday. Mr. Greenough comes on Saturday, and after that I think we shall get to Black Castle. Lord Longford came yesterday, and though he is not, you know, exuberant in praise, truly says Lord and Lady Lansdowne are people who must be esteemed and liked the more they are known.

Mr. Forbes, just returned from Russia, has this moment come, and is giving a most interesting account of Petersburgh and Moscow: give me credit for retiring to finish this letter. My father is calling, calling, calling.

Nov. 19.

Last night a letter came from Lady Farnham, announcing Francis Fox's marriage, and naming next Monday for us to go to Farnham. We went last Monday to a play at Castle Forbes, or rather to three farces—"Bombastes Furioso," "Of Age To-morrow," and "The Village Lawyer," taken from the famous Avocat Patelin: the cunning servant-boy shamming simplicity was admirably acted by Lord Rancliffe.

Tell me whether you have seen Madame de Stael's Essai sur la Fiction, prefixed to Zulma, Adelaide, and Pauline—the essay is excellent: I shall be curious to know whether you think as I do of Pauline. Madame de Stael calls Blenheim "a magnificent tomb: splendour without, and the deathlike silence of ennui within." She says she is very proud of having made the Duke of Marlborough speak four words. At the moment she was announced he was distinctly heard to utter these words: "Let me go away." We have just got her Allemagne. We have had great delight in Mrs. Graham's India,—a charming woman, writing, speaking, thinking, or feeling.

Nov. 25.

A letter from Lady Romilly—so easy, so like her conversation. All agree that Madame de Stael is frankness itself, and has an excellent heart. During her brilliant fortnight at Bowood—where, besides Madame de Stael, her Albertine, M. de Stael, and Count Palmella, there were the Romillys, the Macintoshes, Mr. Ward, Mr. Rogers, and M. Dumont—if it had not been for chess-playing, music, and dancing between times, poor human nature never could have borne the strain of attention and admiration.

Jan. 1, 1814.

Hunter has sent a whole cargo of French translations—Popular Tales, with a title under which I should never have known them, Conseils a mon Fils! Manoeuvring: La Mere Intrigante; Ennui—what can they make of it in French? Leonora will translate better than a better thing. Emilie de Coulanges, I fear, will never stand alone. L'Absent, The Absentee,—it is impossible that a Parisian can make any sense of it from beginning to end. But these things teach authors what is merely local and temporary. Les deux Griseldis de Chaucer et Edgeworth; and, to crown all, two works surreptitiously printed in England under our name, and which are no better than they should be.

Pray read Letters to Sir James Macintosh on Madame de Stael's Allemagne. My mother says it is exactly what you would have written: we do not know who is the author.

Jan. 25.

To-day it began to thaw, and thawed so rapidly that we were in danger of being flooded, wet pouring in at all parts, and tubs, and jugs, and pails, and mops running about in all directions, and voices calling, and avalanches of snow thrown by arms of men from gutters and roofs on all sides, darkening windows, and falling with thundering noise.

We have been charmed with a little French play, Les deux Gendres. I wish you could get it, and get Mr. Knox to read it to you: he is still blocked up by the snow at Pakenham Hall.

We have had an entertaining letter, giving an account of a gentleman who is now in England, a native of Delhi. He practised as an advocate in the native courts of Calcutta, from Calcutta to Prince of Wales' Island, and thence to London, and is now Professor of Oriental Languages at Addiscombe. He was at Dr. Malkins': Mrs. Malkin offered him coffee: he refused, and backed. "Not coffee in the house of Madam-Doctor. I take coffee to keep awake; no danger of being drowsy in the house of Madam-Doctor." He was at a great ball where Lord Cornwallis was expected, and he said he would go to him and "bless his father's memory for his conduct in India."

Poor old Robin Woods is very ill, and he has a tame robin that sits on his foot, and hops up for crumbs. One day that I went in, when they were at dinner with a bowl of potatoes between them, I said "How happy you two look!" "Yes, miss, we were that every day since we married."

To MRS. RUXTON.

15 BAGGOT STREET, [Footnote: Mr. and Mrs. Sneyd Edgeworth's house in Dublin.] DUBLIN,

March 1814.

Here we are: arrived at three o'clock: found Henrica looking very well. Such a nice, pretty, elegant house! and they have furnished it so comfortably. It is delightful to see my father here; he enjoys himself so much in his son's house, and Sneyd and Henrica are so happy seeing him pleased with everything. Lady Longford has been here this morning; told us Sir Edward Pakenham was so fatigued by riding an uneasy horse at the battle of Vittoria, he was not able to join for four days. A buckle of Lord Wellington's sword-belt saved him: he wrote four times in one week to Lady Wellington, without ever mentioning his wound. I long for you to see Henrica; she is so kind, and so well-bred and easy in her manners.

* * * * *

In April Mr. Edgeworth had a dangerous illness. He was just out of danger, when, late at night on the 10th of May, his son Lovell arrived from Paris, liberated by the peace after eleven years' detention.

* * * * *

MARIA EDGEWORTH to MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, May 16, 1814/.

My father's contentment at Lovell's [Footnote: The only son of Mr. Edgeworth's second marriage, with Miss Honora Sneyd.] return has done him more good than all the advice of all the surgeons, I do believe, now that the danger is over. If you have suffered from suspense in absence, yet, my dear aunt, you have been spared the torturing terrors we have felt at the sight of the daily, hourly changes, so rapid, so unaccountable: one day, one hour, all hope, the next all despair! The lamp of life, now bright, starting up high and brilliant, then sinking suddenly almost to extinction; the flame flitting, flickering, starting, leaping, as it were, on and off by fits. Some day we shall talk it over in security; now I can hardly bear to look back to it.

All that has passed in France in the last few weeks! a revolution without bloodshed! Paris taken without being pillaged! the Bourbons, after all hope and reason for hope had passed, restored to their capital and their palaces! With what mixed sensations they must enter those palaces! I daresay it has not escaped my aunt that the Venus de Medicis and Apollo Belvidere are both missing together: I make no remarks. I hate scandal—at least I am not so fond of it as the lady of whom it was said she could not see the poker and tongs standing together without suspecting something wrong! I wonder where our ideas, especially those of a playful sort, go at some times? and how it is that they all come junketing back faster than there is room for them at other times? How is it that hope so powerfully excites, and fear so absolutely depresses all our faculties?

Aug. 24.

Sneyd has received a very polite letter from the Marquis de Bonay, who is now ambassador at the Court of Denmark. Mrs. O'Beirne and the Bishop, who like Mons. de Bonay so much, and who have not heard of him for such a length of time, will be delighted to hear of his emerging into light and life. What is more to our purpose is, that he says he can furnish Sneyd with some notes for the Abbe Edgeworth's life, which he had once intended to write himself: he did put a short notice of his life into the foreign papers at Mittau. He says he never knew so perfect a human creature as the Abbe.

I had a letter from Dr. Holland this morning saying at the beginning I should be surprised at its contents; and so I was. The Princess of Wales has invited him to accompany her abroad as her physician! After consulting with his friends he accepted the invitation.

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Oct 13, 1814.

I had a letter from the Duchess of Wellington the day before yesterday, dated from Deal, just when she was going to embark for France. The whole of the letter was full of her children and of sorrow for quitting them.

Two days ago came a young gentleman, Mr. James Gordon, a nephew of Lady Elizabeth Whitbread's, with a very polite introductory note from Lady Elizabeth. He has a great deal of anecdote and information. He has just come from Paris, and he has given me a better account of Paris, and more characteristic, well-authenticated anecdotes than I have heard from anybody else. He mentioned some instances of the gratitude which Louis XVIII. has shown to people of inferior note in England from whom he had received kindness, especially to the innkeeper's wife at Berkhampstead. I am glad for the honour of human nature that this is so.

What do you think Walter Scott says is the most poetical performance he has read for years? That account of the battle of Leipsic which Richard lent to us.

We went to Coolure and had a pleasant day. Waverley was in everybody's hands. The Admiral does not like it: the hero, he says, is such a shuffling fellow. While he was saying this I had in my pocket a letter from Miss Fanshawe, received that morning, saying it was delightful. Lady Crewe tells me that Madame d'Arblay cannot settle in England because the King of France has lately appointed M. d'Arblay to some high situation in consequence of his distinguished services.

Shall I tell you what they, my father and all of them, are doing at this moment? Sprawling on the floor looking at a new rat-trap. Two pounds of butter vanished the other night out of the dairy; they had been put in a shallow pan with water in it, and it is averred the rats ate it, and Peggy Tuite, the dairymaid, to make the thing more credible, gives the following reason for the rats' conduct. "Troth, ma'am, they were affronted at the new rat-trap, they only licked the milk off it, and that occasioned them to run off with the butter!"