Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 132

MARIA to MRS. R. BUTLER.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET, Dec. 3, 1843.

We dined at Dr. Lushington's last Thursday&mdash;the dinner was very merry and good-humoured. Mr. Richardson was there, and delighted I was to see him, and he talked so affectionately of Sir Walter and auld lang syne times; and Mr. Bentham, the botanist, too, was there, Pakenham's friend, a very agreeable man. After dinner too was to me very entertaining, for I found that a lady, introduced to me as Mrs. Hawse, was daughter to Brunel, and she told me all the truth of her brother and the half-guinea in his throat, and the incision in his windpipe, and his coughing it up at last, and Brodie seeing and snatching it from between his teeth, and driving over all London to show it.

And now we are going to tea at Dr. Holland's.

Monday morning.

That we had a very pleasant evening I need scarcely say, but to Boswell Sydney Smith would out-Boswell Boswell. He talked of course of Ireland and the Priests, and I gave good, and I trust true testimony to their being, before they took to politics&mdash;excellent parish priests, and he talked of Bishop Higgins and Repeal agitations, and I told him of "Don't be anticipating," and laughing at brogue (how easy!) led him to tell me of a conversation of his with Bishop Doyle in former days&mdash;beginning with "My lord," propitiously and propitiatingly, "My lord, don't you think it would be a good plan to have your clergy paid by the State?"

Bishop Doyle assured him it would never be accepted. "But, suppose every one of your clergy found, £150 lodged in the bank for them, and at 5 per cent for arrears?"

"Ah! Mr. Smith, you have a way of putting things!"

Sydney Smith, on his side, was enchanted with Maria Edgeworth&mdash;"Miss Edgeworth was delightful, so clever and sensible. She does not say witty things, but there is such a perfume of wit runs through all her conversation as makes it very brilliant."