Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 32

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.

8 HOLLES STREET, March, 1822.

Your brother Francis is kind to us beyond description, and lets us take him where we will; he dined with us at Mrs. Weddell's,&mdash;this dear old lady copied last year in her seventy-second year a beautiful crayon picture of Lady Dundas,&mdash;and here we met Lady Louisa Stuart, Mr. Stanley of Alderley, and many others.

Yesterday we went the moment we had swallowed our breakfast,&mdash;N.B. superfine green tea given to us by Mrs. Taddy,&mdash;by appointment to Newgate. The private door opened at sight of our tickets, and the great doors and the little doors, and the thick doors, and doors of all sorts, were unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but clean passages, till we came to a room where rows of empty benches fronted us. A table on which lay a large Bible. Several ladies and gentlemen entered and took their seats on benches at either side of the table, in silence.

Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured silk cloak, and plain borderless Quaker cap; a most benevolent countenance,&mdash;Guido-Madonna face,&mdash;calm, benign. "I must make an inquiry,&mdash;Is Maria Edgeworth here? and where?" I went forward; she bade us come and sit beside her. Her first smile as she looked upon me I can never forget.

The prisoners came in, and in an orderly manner ranged themselves on the benches. All quite clean, faces, hair, caps, and hands. On a very low bench in front, little children were seated and were settled by their mothers. Almost all these women, about thirty, were under sentence of transportation, some few only were for imprisonment. One who did not appear was under sentence of death,&mdash;frequently women when sentenced to death become ill, and unable to attend Mrs. Fry; the others come regularly and voluntarily.

She opened the Bible, and read in the most sweetly solemn, sedate voice I ever heard, slowly and distinctly, without anything in the manner that could distract attention from the matter. Sometimes she paused to explain, which she did with great judgment, addressing the convicts, "we have felt; we are convinced." They were very attentive, unaffectedly interested I thought in all she said, and touched by her manner. There was nothing put on in their countenances, not any appearance of hypocrisy. I studied their countenances carefully, but I could not see any which, without knowing to whom they belonged, I should have decided was bad; yet Mrs. Fry assured me that all those women had been of the worst sort. She confirmed what we have read and heard, that it was by their love of their children that she first obtained influence over these abandoned women. When she first took notice of one or two of their fine children, the mothers said that if she could but save their children from the misery they had gone through in vice, they would do anything she bid them. And when they saw the change made in their children by her schooling, they begged to attend themselves. I could not have conceived that the love of their children could have remained so strong in hearts in which every other feeling of virtue had so long been dead. The Vicar of Wakefield's sermon in prison is, it seems, founded on a deep and true knowledge of human nature,&mdash;"the spark of good is often smothered, never wholly extinguished."

Mrs. Fry often says an extempore prayer; but this day she was quite silent while she covered her face with her hands for some minutes: the women were perfectly silent with their eyes fixed upon her, and when she said, "you may go," they went away slowly. The children sat quite still the whole time,&mdash;when one leaned, the mother behind set her upright.

Mrs. Fry told us that the dividing the women into classes has been of the greatest advantage, and putting them under the care of monitors. There is some little pecuniary advantage attached to the office of monitor which makes them emulous to obtain it.

We went through the female wards with Mrs. Fry, and saw the women at various works,&mdash;knitting, rug-making, etc. They have done a great deal of needlework very neatly, and some very ingenious. When I expressed my foolish wonder at this to Mrs. Fry's sister, she replied, "We have to do, recollect, ma'am, not with fools, but with rogues."

There is only one being among all those upon whom she has tried to make salutary impression, on whom she could make none,&mdash;an old Jewess. She is so depraved, and so odiously dirty that she cannot be purified, body or mind; wash her and put clean clothes on, she tears and dirties them, and swarms with vermin again in twenty-four hours. I saw her in the kitchen where they were served with broth: a horrible spectacle, which haunted me the whole day and night afterwards. One eye had been put out and closed up, and the other glared with malignant passion. I asked her if she was not happier since Mrs. Fry had come to Newgate. She made no direct reply, but said, "It is hard to be happy in a jail; if you tasted that broth you'd find it is nothing but dishwater." I did taste it, and found it was very good.

Far from being disappointed with the sight of what Mrs. Fry has effected, I was delighted. We emerged again from the thick, dark, silent walls of Newgate to the bustling city, and thence to the elegant part of the town; and before we had time to arrange our ideas, and while the mild Quaker face and voice, and wonderful resolution and successful exertions of this admirable woman were fresh in our minds, morning visitors flowed in, and common life again went on.

Three or four of these visitors were very agreeable, Sir Humphry Davy, Major Colebrook, Lord Radstock, and Mrs. Scott,&mdash;Mrs. Scott of Danesfield, whom and which we saw when at Lord Carrington's. The Bellman.

April 3.

Fanny and Harriet have been with me at that grand exclusive paradise of fashion, Almack's. Observe that the present Duchess of Rutland who had been a few months away from town, and had offended the Lady Patronesses by not visiting them, could not at her utmost need get a ticket from any one of them, and was kept out to her amazing mortification. This may give you some idea of the importance attached to admission to Almack's. Kind Mrs. Hope got tickets for us from Lady Gwydyr and Lady Cowper; the Patronesses can only give tickets to those whom they personally know; on that plea they avoided the Duchess of Rutland's application, she had not visited them,&mdash;"they really did not know her Grace;" and Lady Cowper swallowed a camel for me, because she did not really know me; I had met her, but had never been introduced to her till I saw her at Almack's. Fanny and Harriet were beautifully dressed: their heads by Lady Lansdowne's hairdresser, Trichot: Mrs. Hope lent Harriet a wreath of her own French roses. Fanny was said by many to be, if not the prettiest, the most elegant looking young woman in the room, and certainly "elegance, birth, and fortune were there assembled," as the newspapers would truly say.

Towards the close of the evening Captain Waldegrave came to me with Mr. Bootle Wilbraham, who has been alternately Wilbraham Bootle and Bootle Wilbraham, till nobody knows how to call him: no matter for me, he came to say he was at our service and our most devoted humble servant to show us the Millbank Penitentiary whenever we pleased. He is a grand man, and presently returned with a grander,&mdash;the Marquis of Londonderry, who by his own account had been dying some time with impatience to be introduced to us; talked much of Castle Rackrent, etc., and of Ireland. Of course I thought his manner and voice very agreeable. He is much fatter and much less solemn than when I saw him in the Irish House of Commons. He introduced us to jolly fat Lady Londonderry, who was vastly gracious, and invited us to one of the four grand parties which she gives every season: and it surprised me very much to perceive the rapidity with which a minister's having talked to a person spread through the room. Everybody I met afterwards that night and the next day observed to me that they had seen Lord Londonderry talking to me for a great while!

We had a crowded party at Lady Londonderry's, but they had no elbows.

April 4.

I recollect that I left off yesterday in the midst of a well-bred crowd at Lady Londonderry's,&mdash;her Marchioness-ship standing at her drawing-room door all in scarlet for three hours, receiving the world with smiles; and how it happened that her fat legs did not sink under her I cannot tell. The chief, I may say the only satisfaction we had at Lady Londonderry's, while we won our way from room to room, nodding to heads, or touching hands, as we passed,&mdash;besides the prodigious satisfaction of feeling ourselves at such a height of fashion, etc.&mdash;was in meeting Mr. Bankes, and Lady Charlotte, and Mr. Lemon behind the door of one of the rooms, and proceeding in the tide along with them into an inner sanctuary, in which we had cool air and a sight of the great Sèvres china vase, which was presented by the King of France to Lord Londonderry at the signing of the peace. Much agreeable conversation from this travelled Mr. Bankes. We heard from Lady Charlotte that her entertaining sister, Lady Harriet Frampton, had just arrived, and when I expressed our wish to become acquainted with her, Mr. Bankes exclaimed, "She is so eager to know you that she would willingly have come to you in worsted stockings, just as she alighted from her travelling carriage, with sandwiches in one pocket and letters and gloves stuffing out the other."

Enter Mr. and Mrs. Hope. Mr. Hope, characteristically curious in vases, turned me round to a famous malachite vase which was given by the Emperor of Russia to Lord Londonderry&mdash;square, upon a pedestal high as my little table; and another, a present of I forget who. So, you see, he has a congress of vases, en desire-t-il mieux?

Many, many dinners and evening parties have rolled over one another, and are swept out of my memory by the tide of the last fortnight: one at Lady Lansdowne's, and one at Mrs. Hope's, and I will go on to one at Miss White's. Mr. Henry Fox, Lord Holland's son, is lame. I sat between him and young Mr. Ord, Fanny between Mr. Milman (the Martyr of Antioch) and Sir Humphry Davy (the Martyr of Matrimony), Harriet between Dr. Holland and young Ord: Mr. Moore (Canterbury) and old-ish Ord completed this select dinner. In the evening the principal personages were Lord James Stuart and Mrs. Siddons: she was exceedingly entertaining, told anecdotes, repeated some passages from Jane Shore beautifully, and invited us to a private evening party at her house.

We have become very intimate with Wollaston and Kater, Mr. Warburton, and Dr. and Mrs. Somerville: they and Dr. and Mrs. Marcet form the most agreeable as well as scientific society in London. We have been to Greenwich Observatory. You remember Mr. and Mrs. Pond? I liked him for the candour and modesty with which he spoke of the parallax dispute between him and Dr. Brinkley, of whom he and all the scientific world here speak with the highest reverence.

We went yesterday with Lord Radstock to the Millbank Penitentiary, where by appointment we were met by Mr. Wilbraham Bootle. We had the pleasure of taking with us Alicia and Captain Beaufort. Solitary confinement for the worst offences: solitary confinement in darkness at first. There are many young offenders; the governors say they are horrid plagues, for they are not allowed to flog them, and they are little influenced by darkness and solitary confinement: oldish men much afraid of it. The disease most common in this prison is scrofula; and it is a curious fact that those who work with their arms at the mills are free from it, those who work with their feet at the tread-mills are subject to it.

Adieu. I must here break off, as Mrs. Primate Stuart has come in, and left me no time for more. The Primate has recovered, and has set out this day with his son for Winchester, to see some haunts of his youth, takes a trip to Bath, and returns in a few days, when I hope we shall see him.

April 6.

I left off in the Millbank Penitentiary, but what more I was going to say I cannot recollect; so, my dear mother, you must go without that wisdom. All that I know now is that I saw a woman who is under sentence of death for having poisoned her sister. She appeared to me to be insane; but it is said that it is a frequent attempt of the prisoners to sham madness, in order to get to Bedlam, from which they can get out when cured. One woman deceived all the medical people, clergyman, jailer, and turnkeys, was removed to Bedlam as incurably mad, and from Bedlam made her escape. I saw a girl of about eighteen, who had been educated at Miss Hesketh's school, and had been put to service in a friend's family. She was in love with a footman who was turned away: the old housekeeper refused the girl permission to go out the night this man was turned away: the girl went straight to a drawer in the housekeeper's room, where she had seen a letter with money in it, took it, and put a coal into the drawer, to set the house on fire! For this she was committed, tried, convicted, and would have been hanged, but for Sir Thomas Hesketh's intercession: he had her sent to the Penitentiary for ten years. Would you not think that virtue and feeling were extinct in this girl? No: the task-mistress took us into the cell, where she was working in company with two other women; she has earned by her constant good conduct the privilege of working in company. One of the Miss Wilbrahams, when all the other visitors except myself had left the cell, turned back and said, "I think I saw you once when I was with Miss Hesketh at her school." The girl blushed, her face gave way, and she burst into an agony of tears, without being able to answer one word.

Yesterday we breakfasted at Mrs. Somerville's, and I put on for her a blue crape turban, to show her how Fanny's was put on, with which she had fallen in love. We dined at Mrs. Hughan's, niece to Joanna Baillie: select party for Sir William Pepys, who is eighty-two, a most agreeable, lively old gentleman, who tells delightful anecdotes of Mrs. Montague, Sir Joshua, Burke, and Dr. Johnson. Mrs. Montague once whispered to Sir William, on seeing a very awkward man coming into the room, "There is a man who would give one of his hands to know what to do with the other." Excellent house of Mrs. Hughan's, full of flowers and luxuries. In the evening many people; the Baillies, and a Miss Jardine, granddaughter of Bruce, the traveller. We carried Sir William off with us at half-past nine to Mrs. Somerville's, and after we had been gone half an hour, Mr. Pepys, a young man between forty and fifty, arrived, and putting his glass up to his eye, spied about for his uncle, discovered that he was gone, and could not tell how or where! Miss Milligan, sister to Mrs. Hughan, told him Miss Edgeworth had carried him off. His own carriage arrived at eleven, and carried Mr. Pepys, by private orders, not knowing where he was going, to Mrs. Somerville's. We had brought Sir William there to hear Mrs. Kater sing and play Handel's music, of which he is passionately fond. It was worth while to bring him to hear her singing, he so exceedengly enjoyed it, and so does Wollaston, who sits as mute as a mouse and as still as the statue of a philosopher charmed.

I forgot to tell you that Lady Elizabeth Belgrave, as pretty and winning as ever, came to see us with Lady Stafford; and yesterday, the third time of calling at her door, I was told by a pimpled, red-blotched door-holder that "her ladyship was not at home," but after he had turned the card to another form out of livery, he said, "My lady is at home to you, ma'am." So up we went, and she was very entertaining, with fresh observations from Paris, and much humour. She said she was sure there was some peculiar charm in the sound of the clinking of their swords in walking up and down the gallery of the Tuileries, which the old stupid ones pace every day for hours. She says she has met with much grateful attention from the royal family, and many of the French whom she had formerly known, but cannot give entertainments, because they have not the means. The Count d'Artois apologised; he has no separate dinner&mdash;always dined with the King, and "very sorry for it." Lady Stafford asked us all to dinner, but we were engaged to Mr. Morritt. She is to ask again after our return from the Deepdene, where we spend Monday and Tuesday with the dear Hopes.