Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 31

MARIA EDGEWORTH to MISS SOPHY RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN,

Oct. 20, 1800.

This morning dear Henry took leave of home, and set out for Edinburgh. "God prosper him," as I in the language of a fond old nurse keep continually saying to myself.

Mr. Chenevix, a famous chemist, was so good as to come here lately to see my father upon the faith of Mr. Kirwan's assurance that he would "like Mr. Edgeworth." I often wished for you, my dear Sophy, whilst this gentleman was here, because you would have been so much entertained with his conversation about bogs, and mines, and airs, and acids, etc. etc. His history of his imprisonment during the French Revolution in Paris, I found more to my taste. When he was thrown into prison he studied Chaptal and Lavoisier's Chemistry with all his might, and then represented himself as an English gentleman come over to study chemistry in France, and M. Chaptal got him released, and employed him, and he got acquainted with all the chemists and scientific men in France. Mr. Chenevix has taken a house in Brook Street, London, and turned the cellar into a laboratory; the people were much afraid to let it to him, they expected he would blow it up.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN,

Dec. 2, 1800.

My mother has had a sore throat, and Aunt Charlotte and Honora have had feverish attacks, and John Jenkins has had fever, so that my father was obliged to remove him to his own house in the village. There has been and is a fever in the lanes of Edgeworthstown, and so quickly does ill news fly, that this got before us to Collon, to the Speaker's, where we were invited, and had actually set out last week to spend a few days there. When we got to Allenstown, we were told that a servant from the Speaker's had arrived with a letter, and had gone on to Edgeworthstown with it: we waited for his return with the letter, which was to forbid our going to Collon, as Mrs. Foster, widow of the Bishop, was there with her daughters, and was afraid of our bringing infection! We performed quarantine very pleasantly for a week at Allenstown. Mrs. Waller's inexhaustible fund of kindness and generosity is like Aboulcasin's treasure, it is not only inexhaustible, but take what you will from it it cannot be perceptibly diminished. Harriet Beaufort is indeed a charming excellent girl; I love and esteem her more and more as I know her better: she has been at different times between three and four months in the house with us, and I have had full opportunities of seeing down to the kitchen, and up to the garret of her mind.

You are so near Johnson, that you must of course know more of Maria's sublime works than Maria knows of them herself; and besides Lovell, who thinks of them ten times more than Johnson, has not let you rest in ignorance. An octavo edition of Practical Education is to come out at Christmas: we have seen a volume, which looks as well as can be expected. The two first parts of Early Lessons, containing Harry and Lucy, two wee, wee volumes, have just come over to us. Frank and Rosamond will, I suppose, come after with all convenient speed. How Moral Tales are arranged, or in what size they are to appear, I do not know, but I guess they will soon be published, because some weeks ago we received four engravings for frontispieces; they are beautifully engraved by Neagle, and do justice to the designs, two of which are by my mother, and two by Charlotte. I hope you will like them. There are three stories which will be new to you, "The Knapsack," "The Prussian Vase," and "Angelina."

Now, my dear friend, you cannot say that I do not tell you what I am doing. My father is employed making out Charts of History and Chronology, such as are mentioned in Practical Education. He has just finished a little volume containing Explanations of Poetry for children: it explains "The Elegy in a Country Churchyard," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and "The Ode to Fear." It will be a very useful schoolbook. It goes over to-night to Johnson, but how long it will remain with him before you see it in print I cannot divine.

Mrs. Edgeworth narrates:

Belinda was published in 1801. Maria was at Black Castle when the first copy reached her; she contrived, before her aunt saw it, to tear out the title-pages of the three volumes, and her aunt read it without the least suspicion of who was the author, and excessively entertained and delighted, she insisted on Maria's listening to passage after passage as she went on. Maria affected to be deeply interested in some book she held in her hand, and when Mrs. Ruxton exclaimed, "Is not that admirably written?" Maria coldly replied, "Admirably read, I think." And then her aunt, as if she had said too much, added, "It may not be so very good, but it shows just the sort of knowledge of high life which people have who live in the world." Then again and again she called upon Maria for her sympathy, till quite provoked at her faint acquiescence, she at last accused her of being envious: "I am sorry to see my little Maria unable to bear the praises of a rival author."

At this Maria burst into tears, and showing her aunt the title-page she declared herself the author. But Mrs. Ruxton was not pleased&mdash;she never liked Belinda afterwards, and Maria had always a painful recollection of her aunt's suspecting her of the meanness of envy.

In 1801 a second edition of Castle Rackrent was published, "By Maria Edgeworth," as its success was so triumphant that some one&mdash;I heard his name at the time but do not now remember it, and it is better forgotten&mdash;not only asserted that he was the author, but actually took the trouble to copy out several pages with corrections and erasures, as if it was his original MS.!

The Essay on Irish Bulls was published in 1802, "By R.L. Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, author of Castle Rackrent." A gentleman, much interested in improving the breed of Irish cattle, sent, on seeing the advertisement, for this work on Irish Bulls; he was rather confounded by the appearance of the classical bull at the top of the first page, which I had designed from a gem, and when he began to read the book he threw it away in disgust: he had purchased it as Secretary to the Irish Agricultural Society.

Of the partnership in this book, Miss Edgeworth writes long afterwards:

The first design of the essay was my father's; under the semblance of attack, he wished to show the English public the eloquence, wit, and talents of the lower classes of people in Ireland. Working zealously upon the ideas which he suggested, sometimes what was spoken by him was afterwards written by me; or when I wrote my first thoughts, they were corrected and improved by him; so that no book was ever written more completely in partnership. On this, as on most subjects, whether light or serious, when we wrote together, it would now be difficult, almost impossible, to recollect which thoughts were originally his and which were mine.

The notes on the Dublin shoeblacks' metaphorical language are chiefly his. I have heard him tell that story with all the natural, indescribable Irish tones and gestures of which written language can give but a faint idea. He excelled in imitating the Irish, because he never overstepped the modesty or the assurance of nature. He marked exquisitely the happy confidence, the shrewd wit of the people, without condescending to produce effect by caricature. He knew not only their comic talents, but their powers of pathos; and often when he had just heard from me some pathetic complaint, he has repeated it to me while the impression was fresh. In his chapter on Wit and Eloquence in Irish Bulls, there is a speech of a poor free-holder to a candidate who asked for his vote: this speech was made to my father when he was canvassing the county of Longford. It was repeated to me a few hours afterwards, and I wrote it down instantly without, I believe, the variation of a word.