Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 8

To MISS S. RUXTON.

FLEET STREET, LONDON,

October 17, 1792.

I have been with Mrs. Charles Hoare a week, and before I left Clifton had a budget in my head for a letter to you, which I really had not a moment's time to write. I left them all very well, just going to leave Ashton Bower, which I am not sorry for, though it has such a pretty romantic name; it is not a fit Bower to live in in winter, it is so cold and damp. They are going to Prince's Place again, and I daresay will fix there for the winter, though my father has talked of Bath and Plymouth.

I find in half-rubbed-out notes in my pocket-book, "Sophy&mdash;Slave-ship: Sophy&mdash;Rope-walk: Sophy&mdash;Marine acid: Sophy&mdash;Earthquake: Sophy&mdash;Glasshouse," etc.: and I intended to tell you à la longue of these.

We went on board a slave-ship with my brother, and saw the dreadfully small hole in which the poor slaves are stowed together, so that they cannot stir. But probably you know all this.

Mrs. Hoare was at Lisbon during two slight shocks of an earthquake; she says the night was remarkably fine, there was no unwholesome feeling that she can remember in the air, immediately preceding the shock: but they were sitting with the windows open down to the ground, looking at the clearness of the sky, when they felt the shock. The doors and windows, and all the furniture in the room shook for a few instants: they looked at one another in silent terror. But in another instant everything was still, and they came to the use of their voices. Numbers of exaggerated accounts were put into the public papers, and she received vast numbers of terrified letters from her friends in England. So much for the earthquake. The marine acid I must leave till I have my father at my elbow, lest in my great wisdom I should set you wrong.

About the glasshouse: there is one Stephens, an Englishman, who has set up a splendid glasshouse at Lisbon, and the Government have granted him a pine wood sixteen miles in extent to supply his glasshouse with fuel. He has erected a theatre for his workmen, supplied them with scenes, dresses, etc.; and they have acquired such a taste for theatrical amusements, that it has conquered their violent passion for drinking which formerly made them incapable of work three days in the week; now they work as hard as possible, and amuse themselves for one day in the week.

Of the beauty of the Tagus, and its golden sands, and the wolves which Mrs. Hoare had the satisfaction of seeing hunted, I must speak when I see you. Mrs. Hoare is as kind as possible to me, and I spend my time at Roehampton as I like: in London that is not entirely possible. We have only come up to town for a few days. Mr. Hoare's house at Roehampton is an excellent one indeed: a library with nice books, small tables upon castors, low sofas, and all the other things which make rooms comfortable. Lady Hoare, his mother, is said to be a very amiable, sensible woman: I have seen her only once, but I was much entertained at her house at Barnelms, looking at the pictures. I saw Zeluco's figure in Le Brun's "Massacre of the Innocents." My aunt will laugh, and think that I am giving myself great airs when I talk of being entertained looking at pictures; but assure her that I remember what she used to say about taste, and that without affectation I have endeavoured to look at everything worth seeing.