Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Three or four of these visitors were very agreeable, Sir Humphry Davy,

  Major Colebrook, Lord Radstock, and Mrs. Scott, — 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,—”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, — 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, — 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, — besides the prodigious satisfaction of feeling ourselves at such a height of fashion, etc. — 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 — 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, [Footnote: Jean, daughter of Robert Milligan, Esq., of Cotswold, Gloucestershire.] niece to Joanna Baillie: select p
arty 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, [Footnote: Daughter of the first Duke of Sutherland] 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 — 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.

  To MRS. RUXTON. 8 HOLLES STREET, April 10, 1822.

  The great variety of society in London, and the solidity of the sense and information to be gathered from conversation, strike me as far superior to Parisian society. We know, I think, six different and totally independent sets, of scientific, literary, political, travelled, artist, and the fine fashionable, of various shades; and the different styles of conversation are very entertaining.

  Through Lydia White we have become more acquainted with Mrs. Siddons than I ever expected to be. She gave us the history of her first acting of Lady Macbeth, and of her resolving, in the sleep scene, to lay down the candlestick, contrary to the precedent of Mrs. Pritchard and all the traditions, before she began to wash her hands and say, “Out, vile spot!” Sheridan knocked violently at her door during the five minutes she had desired to have entirely to herself, to compose her spirits before the play began. He burst in, and prophesied that she would ruin herself for ever if she persevered in this resolution to lay down the candlestick! She persisted, however, in her determination, succeeded, was applauded, and Sheridan begged her pardon. She described well the awe she felt, and the power of the excitement given to her by the sight of Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Sir Joshua Reynolds in the pit. She invited us to a private reading-party at her own house: present only her daughter, a very pretty young lady, a Mrs. Wilkinson, Mr. Burney, Dr. Holland, Lydia White, Mr. Harness and ourselves. She read one of her finest parts, and that best suited to a private room — Queen Katherine. She was dressed so as to do well for the two parts she was to perform this night, of gentlewoman and queen — black velvet, with black velvet cap and feathers. She sat the whole time, and with a large Shakespear before her; as she knew the part of Katherine by heart, she seldom required the help of glasses, and she recited it incomparably well: the changes of her countenance were striking. From her first burst of indignation when she objects to the Cardinal as her judge, to her last expiring scene, was all so perfectly natural and so touching, we could give no applause but tears. Mrs. Siddons is beautiful even at this moment. Some who had seen her on the stage in this part assured me that it had a much greater effect upon them in a private room, because they were near enough to see the changes of her countenance, and to hear the pathos of her half-suppressed voice. Some one said that, in the dying scene, her very pillow seemed sick.

  She spoke afterwards of the different parts which she had liked and disliked to act; and when she mentioned the characters and scenes she had found easy or difficult, it was curious to observe that the feelings of the actress and the sentiments and reasons of the best critics meet. Whatever was not natural, or inconsistent with the main part of the character, she found she never could act well.

  We spent three days at Easter at the Deepdene; the company there were Mr. C. Moore, Mr. Philip Henry Hope, Mr. and Miss Burrowes, Mr. Harness, Lord Fincastle, Lady Clare, and Lady Isabella Fitzgibbon, and Lord Archibald Hamilton. Deepdene is beautiful at this time of the year — the hawthorn hedges, the tender green of the larch and the sycamore in full leaf.

  To MRS. EDGEWORTH. HOLIES STREET, April 20.

  We are going at two o’clock, and it is now half-past one, to a private view of Sir John Swinburne’s pictures, and we are to dine nine miles out of town, at Flasket House, with Mrs. Fry.

  Barry Fox came yesterday to Grove House, and looked much like a gentleman, as he is, and seemed pleased with his cousins, as well he might be.

  I wish, my dearest mother, you would write a note to Dr. Holland in your next; he has been so kind and sympathising. [Footnote: On the death of Miss Edgeworth’s beloved “aunt”, Mrs. Charlotte Sneyd of Edgeworthstown.] Miss Bessy Holland has come to stay some weeks with her brother — good for her, and for us; she is very amiable. I find a card from Jeffrey was left here while we were at Grove House.

  Just returned from water — colour pictures; some of Prout’s of old towns abroad, like Chester; met there — not at Chester — Lord Grey, Wilkie, Mulready, Lord Radstock, and the Miss Waldegraves, and Lady Stafford, who has more ready and good five minutes’ conversation than anybody I know. She says the French have lost all their national recollections; in travelling through France she asked for various places famous in history, of which they had lost all memory.

  Carriage at the door, and I have not begun to dress!

  April 24.

  The day before yesterday we saw Mrs. Tuite at Lady Sunderlin’s. They have an admirable house. Miss Kitty Malone sees, and is most grateful for it.

  Mrs. Fry’s place at Flasket is beautiful, and she is delightful at home or at Newgate.

  Paid a visit to Lady Derby; full as agreeable as when we saw her, half as fat, and twice as old; asked most kindly for you, and received your daughters with gracious grace.

  Monday, went with Mr. Cohen and Mr. Cockerell to St. Paul’s; he showed us his renovations done in excellent taste. Dined at Miss White’s with Mr. Luttrell, Mr. Hallam, Mr. Sharpe, and Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Nicholson; she is Lady Davy’s half-sister. Most agreeable conversation; no dinners more agreeable than Lydia White’s. Poor creature! how she can go through it I cannot imagine, she is dying. It is dreadful to look at her!

  In the evening at Miss Stable’s, Anna’s friend; met there Mrs. Cunliffe, who was Miss Crewe, very agreeable and, though not regularly handsome, very pleasing in countenance and person.

  Tuesday, spent a happy hour at the Museum. We dined at Mrs. Marcet’s, with only herself and children. Then to an “at home,” at Mrs. Ricardo’s, merely for ten minutes to see the famous Mr. Hume. Don’t like him much; attacks all things and persons, never listens, has no judgment.

  May 3.

  Since Harriet last wrote
we have been to Harrow to hear the speeches of the first class of boys, our future orators. It was a very interesting scene, attended by many ladies, as well as gentlemen. Two of the speeches were from Henry IV., one the crown tried on, well repeated. The situation of the school is beautiful, the lawn laid out with great taste; the master, Dr. Butler, a very well-informed agreeable man, with a picturesque head. We had a very elegant collation, and I sat beside a very agreeable thin old nobleman of the old school, Lord Clarendon. Upon the whole, after hearing the speeches and recitations of these youths, I said to myself, how much better my father taught to read and recite than any of these masters can.

  May 10.

  The sudden death of the Primate [Footnote: Hon. William Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh, fifth son of the third Earl of Bute; he married Sophia, daughter of Thomas Penn of Stoke Poges.] and the horrible circumstances attending it have incapacitated me from any more home-writing at this moment. Mrs. Stuart gave him the medicine; he had twice asked for his draught, and when she saw the servant come in she ran down, seized the bottle and poured it out without looking at the label, which was most distinct “for external application.” When dying, and when struggling under the power of the opium, he called for a pencil and wrote these words for a comfort to his wife: “I could not have lived long, my dear love, at all events.”

  May 22.

  I enclose a note from Lady Louisa Stuart, the Primate’s sister; it is most touching, especially the account of the feelings of his parishioners.

  We have been at the Caledonian ball — Harriet has written a description

  of it to Pakenham; and also to a very pleasant dance at Mrs. Shaw