Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 17

To MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, 1795.

My father returned late on Friday night, bringing with him a very bad and a very good thing; the bad thing was a bad cold&mdash;the good is Aunt Mary Sneyd. Emmeline was delayed some days at Lichfield by the broken bridges, and bad roads, floods and snows, which have stopped man, and beast, and mail coaches. Mr. Cox, the man who sells camomile drops under the title of Oriental Pearls, wrote an apology to my Aunt Mary for neglecting to send the Pearls in the following elegant phrase: "That the mistake she mentioned he could no ways account for but by presuming that it must have arisen from impediments occasioned by the inclemencies of the season!"

When my father went to see Lord Charlemont, he came to meet him, saying, "I must claim relationship with you, Mr. Edgeworth. I am related to the Abbé Edgeworth, who is I think an honour to the kingdom&mdash;I should say to human nature."

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, April 11, 1795.

My father and Lovell have been out almost every day, when there are no robbers to be committed to jail, at the Logograph. This is the new name instead of the Telegraph, because of its allusion to the logographic printing press, which prints words instead of letters. Phaenologue was thought of, but Logograph sounds better. My father will allow me to manufacture an essay on the Logograph, he furnishing the solid materials and I spinning them. I am now looking over, for this purpose, Wilkins's Real Character, or an Essay towards a Universal Philosophical Language. It is a scarce and very ingenious book; some of the phraseology is so much out of the present fashion, that it would make you smile: such as the synonym for a little man, a Dandiprat. Likewise two prints, one of them a long sheet of men with their throats cut, so as to show the windpipe whilst working out the different letters of the alphabet. The other print of all the birds and beasts packed ready to go into the ark.

Sir Walter James has written a very kind and sensible letter to my father, promising all his influence with his Viceregal brother-in-law about the telegraph. My father means to get a letter from him to Lord Camden, and present it himself, though he rather doubts whether, all things taken together, it is prudent to tie himself to Government. The raising the militia has occasioned disturbances in this county. Lord Granard's carriage was pelted at Athlone. The poor people here are robbed every night. Last night a poor old woman was considerably roasted: the man, who called himself Captain Roast, is committed to jail, he was positively sworn to here this morning. Do you know what they mean by the White Tooths? Men who stick two pieces of broken tobacco pipes at each corner of the mouth, to disguise the face and voice.

April 20.

Here is a whirlwind in our county, and no angel to direct it, though many booted and spurred desire no better than to ride in it. There is indeed an old woman in Ballymahon, who has been the guardian angel of General Crosby; she has averted a terrible storm, which was just ready to burst over his head. The General, by mistake, went into the town of Ballymahon, before his troops came up; and while he was in the inn, a mob of five hundred people gathered in the street. The landlady of the inn called General Crosby aside, and told him, that if the people found him they would certainly tear him to pieces. The General hesitated, but the abler general, the landlady, sallied forth and called aloud in a distinct voice, "Bring round the chaise-and-four for the gentleman from Lanesborough, who is going to Athlone." The General got into the chaise incog., and returning towards Athlone met his troops, and thus effected a most admirable retreat.

Monday Night.

Richard and Lovell are at the Bracket Gate. I hope you know the Bracket Gate, it is near Mr. Whitney's, and so called, as tradition informs me, from being painted red and white like a bracket cow. I am not clear what sort of an animal a bracket cow is, but I suppose it is something not unlike a dun cow and a gate joined together. Richard and Lovell have a nice tent, and a clock, and white lights, and are trying nocturnal telegraphs, which are now brought to satisfactory perfection.

I am finishing "Toys and Tasks;" I wish I might insert your letter to Sneyd, with the receipt for the dye, as a specimen of experiments for children. Sneyd with sparkling eyes returns you his sincere thanks, and my mother with her love sends you the following lines, which she composed to-day for him:


 * To give me all that art can give,
 * My aunt and mother try:
 * One teaches me the way to live,
 * The other how to dye.

But though she makes epigrams, my mother is far from well.

This year Letters for Literary Ladies, Miss Edgeworth's first published work, was produced by Johnson. In 1796 she published the collection of stories known as The Parent's Assistant. In these, in the simplest language, and with wonderful understanding of children, and what would come home to their hearts, she continued to illustrate the maxims of her father. The "Purple Jar" and "Lazy Laurence" are perhaps the best-known stories of the first edition. To another was added "Simple Susan," of which Sir Walter Scott said, "That when the boy brings back the lamb to the little girl, there is nothing for it but to put down the book and cry." Most of these stories were written in the excitement of very troubled times in Ireland.