Richard Lovell Edgeworth Part 4

'Give my love to little F, and tell her that I had not time to explain a section to her. I therefore beg that, with as little explanation as possible, you will bisect a lemon before her, and point out the appearance of the rind, of the cavities, and seeds; and afterwards, at your leisure, get a small cylinder of wood turned for her, and cut it into a transverse section and into a longitudinal section.'

It is curious to note the difference in tone which there is between the children's books written by him and Maria and those of the second half of the nineteenth century. Our duty to our neighbour is the Edgeworth watchword, while our duty to G.o.d is the watchword of Miss Yonge and her school of writers. The swing of the pendulum is constantly pa.s.sing from morality to religion and back again, because both are required for the perfect life.

Among the experiments which Edgeworth made in the management of his children was that: 'Formerly' (Maria writes)' from having observed how apt children are to dispute and quarrel when they are left much together, and from fear of the strong becoming tyrants, and the weak slaves, it had been thought prudent to separate them a good deal. It was believed that they would consequently grow fonder of each other's company, and that they would enjoy it more as they grew more reasonable, from not having the recollection of anything disagreeable in each other's tempers. But my father became thoroughly convinced that the separation of children in a family may lead to evils greater than any partial good that can result from it.

The attempt may induce artifice and disobedience on the part of the children; the separation can scarcely be effected; and, if it were effected, would tend to make the children miserable. He saw that their little quarrels, and the crossings of their tempers and fancies, are nothing in comparison with the inestimable blessings of that fondness, that family affection which grows up among children, who have with each other an early and constant community of pleasures and pains. Separation as a punishment, as a just consequence of children's quarrelling, and as the best means of preventing their disputes, he always found useful. But, except in extreme cases, he had rarely recourse to it, and such seldom occurred. . . . The greatest change, which twenty years further experience made in his practice and opinions in education, was to lessen rather than to increase regulations and restrictions. He saw that, where there is liberty of action, one thing balances another; that nice calculations lead to false results in practice, because we cannot command all the necesssary circ.u.mstances of the data. . . .

'For many years of his life he had, I think, been under one important mistake, in his expectations relative to the conduct of his fellow-creatures, and of the effects of cultivating the human understanding. He had believed that, if rational creatures could be made clearly to see and understand that virtue will render them happy, and vice will render them miserable, either in this world or in the next, they would afterwards, in consequence of this conviction, follow virtue, and avoid vice. . . .

'Hence, both as to national and domestic education, he formerly dwelt princ.i.p.ally upon the cultivation of the understanding, meaning chiefly the reasoning faculty as applied to the conduct. But to see the best, and to follow it, are not, alas! necessary consequences of each other. Resolution is often wanting where conviction is perfect.

--Resolution is most necessary to all our active, and habit most essential to all our pa.s.sive virtues. Probably nine times out of ten the instances of imprudent or vicious conduct arise, not from want of knowledge of good and evil, or from want of conviction that the one leads to happiness, and the other to misery; but from actual deficiency in the strength of resolution, deficiency arising from want of early training in the habit of self control.'

Maria adds: 'The silence which has been observed in Practical Education on the subject of religion has been misunderstood by some, and misrepresented by others. ... To those who, with upright and benevolent intentions, from a sense of public duty, and in a spirit of Christian charity, made remonstrances on this subject, he thought it due to give all the explanation in his power;' and he writes: 'The authors continue to preserve the silence upon this subject, which they before thought prudent; but they disavow, in explicit terms, the design of laying down a system of education founded upon morality, exclusive of religion. . . . We most earnestly deprecate the imputation of disregarding religion in Education. . . . We are convinced that religious obligation is indispensably necessary in the education of all descriptions of people in every part of the world.

'We dread fanaticism and intolerance, whilst we wish to hold religion in a higher point of view than as a subject of seclusive possession, or of outward exhibition. To introduce the awful ideas of G.o.d's superintendence upon puerile occasions, we decline. ... I hope I shall obtain the justice due to me on the subject, and that it will appear that I consider religion, in the large sense of the word, to be the only certain bond of society.

'You have turned back our thoughts to this most important subject (education), upon which, next to a universal reverence for religion, we believe the happiness of mankind to depend.' Maria adds: 'I have often been witness of the care with which he explained the nature and enforced the observance of that great bond of civil society, which rests upon religion. The solemnity of the manner in which he administered an oath can never leave my memory; and I have seen the salutary effect this produced on the minds of those of the lower Irish, who are supposed to be the least susceptible of such impressions. But it was not on the terrors of religion he chiefly dwelt. No man could be more sensible than he was of the consolatory, fortifying influence of the Christian religion in sustaining the mind in adversity, poverty, and age. No man knew better its power to carry hope and peace in the hour of death to the penitent criminal.

When from party bigotry it has happened that a priest has been denied admittance to the condemned criminal, my father has gone to the county gaol to soothe the sufferer's mind, and to receive that confession on which, to the poor Catholic's belief, his salvation depended. . . . Nor did he ever weaken in any heart in which it ever existed that which he considered as the greatest blessing that a human creature can enjoy--firm religious faith and hope.'

The following extract from a letter written to the Roman Catholics of the County of Longford will show that Edgeworth was no bigoted Protestant, but was in advance of his time in the broad views he took of religious liberty: 'Ever since I have taken any part in the politics of Ireland, I have uniformly thought that there should be no civil distinctions between its inhabitants upon account of their religious opinions. I concurred with a great character at the national convention, in endeavouring to persuade our Roman Catholic brethren to take a decided part in favour of parliamentary reform.

They declined it; and it then became absurd and dangerous for individuals to demand rights in the name of a cla.s.s of citizens who would not avow their claim to them. . . . I wish ... to declare myself in favour of a full partic.i.p.ation of rights amongst every denomination of men in Ireland; and if I can, by my personal interference at any public meeting of our county, serve your cause, I shall think it my duty to attend.'

CHAPTER 7

DURING Edgeworth's stay in England in 1792 and 1793 he paid frequent visits to London, and he used to describe to his children a curious meeting which he had in a coffee-house with an old acquaintance whom he had not seen for thirty years:' He observed a gentleman eyeing him with much attention, who at last exclaimed, "It is he. Certainly, sir, you are Mr. Edgeworth?"

'"I am, sir."

'"Gentlemen," said the stranger, with much importance, addressing himself to several people who were near him, "here is the best dancer in England, and a man to whom I am under infinite obligations, for I owe to him the foundation of my fortune. Mr.

Edgeworth and I were scholars of the famous, Aldridge; and once when we practised together, Mr. Edgeworth excelled me so much, that I sat down upon the ground, and burst out a-crying; he could actually complete an entrechat of ten distinct beats, which I could not accomplis.h.!.+ However, I was well consoled by him; for he invented, for Aldridge's benefit, The Tambourine Dance, which had uncommon success. The dresses were Chinese. Twelve a.s.sistants held small drums furnished with bells; these were struck in the air by the dancer's feet when held as high as their arms could reach. This Aldridge performed, and improved upon by stretching his legs asunder, so as to strike two drums at the same time. Those not being the days of elegant dancing, I afterwards," continued the stranger, "exhibited at Paris the tambourine dance, to so much advantage, that I made fifteen hundred pounds by it."

'The person who made this singular address and eulogium was the celebrated dancer, Mr. Slingsby His testimony proves that my father did not overrate his powers as a dancer; but it was not to boast of a frivolous excellence that he told this anecdote to his children; it was to express his satisfaction at having, after the first effervescence of boyish spirits had subsided, cultivated his understanding, turned his inventive powers to useful objects, and chosen as the companions of his maturer years men of the first order of intellect.'

He also took the opportunity while in England of visiting his scientific friends--Watt, Darwin, Keir, and Wedgwood; and it was now that his friends.h.i.+p began with Mr. William Strutt of Derby, with whom he became acquainted by means of Mr. Darwin.

It was about this time that he lost his old friend Lord Longford.

Maria says of him: 'His services in the British navy, and his character as an Irish senator, have been fully appreciated by the public. His value in private life, and as a friend, can be justly estimated only by those who have seen and felt how strongly his example and opinions have, for a long course of years, continued to influence his family, and all who had the honour of his friends.h.i.+p.

The permanence of this influence after death is a stronger proof of the sincerity of the esteem and admiration felt for the character of the individual than any which can be given during his lifetime. I can bear witness that, in one instance, it never ceased to operate.

I know that on every important occasion of my father's life, where he was called upon to judge or act, long after Lord Longford was no more, his example and opinions seemed constantly present to him; he delighted in the recollection of instances of his friend's sound judgment, honour, and generosity; these he applied in his own conduct, and held up to the emulation of his children.'

Doubtless Edgeworth felt, as Charles Lamb expresses it: 'Deaths overset one, and put one out long after the recent grief. Two or three have died within the last two twelvemonths, and so many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a picture, reads an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this person in preference to every other; the person is gone whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every departure destroys a cla.s.s of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! What fun has whist now? What matters it what you lead if you can no longer fancy him looking over you? One never hears anything but the image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would care to share the intelligence. Thus one distributes oneself about, and now for so many parts of me I have lost the market.'

The departure of Edgeworth and his family from Clifton in the autumn of 1793 was hastened by the news that disturbances were breaking out in Ireland. Dr. Beddoes of Clifton, who was courting Edgeworth's daughter Anna, had to console himself with the permission to follow her to Ireland in the spring, where they were married at Edgeworth Town in April 1794.

It was not till the autumn of 1794 that the disturbances in Ireland became alarming; and in a letter to Dr. Darwin, Edgeworth writes: 'Just recovering from the alarm occasioned by a sudden irruption of defenders into this neighbourhood, and from the business of a county meeting, and the glory of commanding a squadron of horse, and from the exertion requisite to treat with proper indifference an anonymous letter sent by persons who have sworn to a.s.sa.s.sinate me; I received the peaceful philosophy of Zoonomia; and though it has been in my hands not many minutes, I found much to delight and instruct me. . . .

'We were lately in a sad state here--the sans culottes (literally so) took a very effectual way of obtaining power; they robbed of arms all the houses in the country, thus arming themselves and disarming their opponents. By waking the bodies of their friends, the human corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of Ireland, but is a.s.sociated with pleasure in their minds by the festivity of these nocturnal orgies. An insurrection of such people, who have been much oppressed, must be infinitely more horrid than anything that has happened in France; for no hired executioners need be sought from the prisons or the galleys. And yet the people here are altogether better than in England. . . . The peasants, though cruel, are generally docile, and of the strongest powers, both of body and mind.

'A good government may make this a great country, because the raw material is good and simple. In England, to make a carte-blanche fit to receive a proper impression, you must grind down all the old rags to purify them.'

His daughter adds: 'The disturbances in the county of Longford were quieted for a time by the military; but again in the autumn of the ensuing year (September 1796), rumours of an invasion prevailed, and spread with redoubled force through Ireland, disturbing commerce, and alarming all ranks of well-disposed subjects.'

CHAPTER 8

It was in 1797 that sorrow again visited the happy circle at Edgeworth Town, and Edgeworth wrote thus of his wife to Dr. Darwin: 'She declines rapidly. But her mind suffers as little as possible. I am convinced from all that I have seen, that good sense diminishes all the evils of life, and alleviates even the inevitable pain of declining health. By good sense, I mean that habit of the understanding which employs itself in forming just estimates of every object that lies before it, and in regulating the temper and conduct. Mrs. Edgeworth, ever since I knew her, has carefully improved and cultivated this faculty; and I do not think I ever saw any person extract more good, and suffer less evil, than she has, from the events of life. . . .'

Mrs. Edgeworth died in the autumn of the year 1797. Maria adds: 'I have heard my father say, that during the seventeen years of his marriage with this lady, he never once saw her out of temper, and never received from her an unkind word or an angry look,'

Edgeworth paid the same compliment to his third wife which he had done to his second--he quickly replaced her. His fourth wife was the daughter of Dr. Beaufort, a highly qultivated man, whose family were great friends of Mrs. Ruxton, Edgeworth's sister. Edgeworth wrote a long letter about scientific matters to Darwin, and kept his most important news to the last: 'I am going to be married to a young lady of small fortune and large accomplishments,--compared with my age, much youth (not quite thirty), and more prudence--some beauty, more sense--uncommon talents, more uncommon temper,--liked by my family, loved by me. If I can say all this three years hence, shall not I have been a fortunate, not to say a wise man?'

Maria adds: 'A few days after the preceding letter was written, we heard that a conspiracy had been discovered in Dublin, that the city was under arms, and its inhabitants in the greatest terror. Dr.

Beaufort and his family were there; my father, who was at Edgeworth Town, set out immediately to join them.

'On his way he met an intimate friend of his; one stage they travelled together, and a singular conversation pa.s.sed. This friend, who as yet knew nothing of my father's intentions, began to speak of the marriage of some other person, and to exclaim against the folly and imprudence of any man's marrying in such disturbed times. "No man of honour, sense or feeling, would inc.u.mber himself with a wife at such a time!" My father urged that this was just the time when a man of honour, sense, or feeling would wish, if he loved a woman, to unite his fate with hers, to acquire the right of being her protector.

'The conversation dropped there. But presently they talked of public affairs--of the important measure expected to be proposed, of a union between England and Ireland--of what would probably be said and done in the next session of Parliament: my father, foreseeing that this important national question would probably come on, had just obtained a seat in Parliament. His friend, not knowing or recollecting this, began to speak of the imprudence of commencing a political career late in life.

'"No man, you know," said he, "but a fool, would venture to make a first speech in Parliament, or to marry, after he was fifty."

'My father laughed, and surrendering all t.i.tle to wisdom, declared that, though he was past fifty, he was actually going in a few days, as he hoped, to be married, and in a few months would probably make his "first speech in Parliament."

'He found Dublin as it had been described to him under arms, in dreadful expectation. The timely apprehension of the heads of the conspiracy at this crisis prevented a revolution, and saved the capital. But the danger for the country seemed by no means over, --insurrections, which were to have been general and simultaneous, broke out in different parts of the kingdom. The confessions of a conspirator, who had turned informer, and the papers seized and published, proved that there existed in the country a deep and widely spread spirit of rebellion. . . .

'Instead of delaying his marriage, which some would have advised, my father urged for an immediate day. On the 31st of May he was married to Miss Beaufort, by her brother, the Rev. William Beaufort, at St. Anne's Church in Dublin. They came down to Edgeworth Town immediately, through a part of the country that was in actual insurrection. Late in the evening they arrived safe at home, and my father presented his bride to his expecting, anxious family.

'Of her first entrance and appearance that evening I can recollect only the general impression, that it was quite natural, without effort or pretension. The chief thing remarkable was, that she, of whom we were all thinking so much, seemed to think so little of herself. . . .

'The sisters of the late Mrs. Edgeworth, those excellent aunts (Mrs.

Mary and Charlotte Sneyd), instead of returning to their English friends and relations, remained at Edgeworth Town. This was an auspicious omen to the common people in our neighbourhood, by whom they were universally beloved--it spoke well, they said, for the new lady. In his own family, the union and happiness she would secure were soon felt, but her superior qualities, her accurate knowledge, judgment, and abilities, in decision and in action, appeared only as occasions arose and called for them. She was found always equal to the occasion, and superior to the expectation.'

Maria had not at first been in favour of her father's marrying Miss Beaufort, but she soon changed her opinion after becoming intimate with her, and writing of her father's choice of a wife says: 'He did not late in life marry merely to please his own fancy, but he chose a companion suited to himself, and a mother fit for his family.

This, of all the blessings we owe to him, has proved the greatest.'

The family at Edgeworth Town pa.s.sed the summer quietly and happily, but (Maria continues) 'towards the autumn of the year 1798, this country became in such a state that the necessity of resorting to the sword seemed imminent. Even in the county of Longford, which had so long remained quiet, alarming symptoms appeared, not immediately in our neighbourhood, but within six or seven miles of us, near Granard. The people were leagued in secret rebellion, and waited only for the expected arrival of the French army to break 'out. In the adjacent counties military law had been proclaimed, and our village was within a mile of the bounds of the disturbed county of Westmeath. Though his own tenantry, and all in whom he put trust, were as quiet, and, as far as he could judge, as well-disposed as ever, yet my father was aware, from information of too good authority to be doubted, that there were disaffected persons in the vicinity.

'Numbers held themselves in abeyance, not so much from disloyalty, as from fear that they should be ultimately the conquered party.

Those who were really and actually engaged, and in communication with the rebels and with the foreign enemy, were so secret and cunning that no proofs could be obtained against them.

'One instance may be given. A Mr. Pallas, who lived at Growse Hall, lately received information that a certain offender was to be found in a lone house, which was described to him. He took a party of men with him in the night, and he got to the house very early in the morning. It was scarcely light. The soldiers searched, but no man was to be found. Mr. Pallas ordered them to search again, for that he was certain the man was in the house; they searched again, but in vain; they gave up the point, and were preparing to mount their horses, when one man, who had stayed a little behind his companions, saw, or thought he saw, something move at the end of the garden behind the house. He looked, and beheld a man's arm come out of the ground: he ran to the spot and called to his companions; but the arm disappeared; they searched, but nothing was to be seen; and though the soldier still persisted in his story, he was not believed "Come," cries one of the party, "don't waste your time here looking for an apparition among these cabbage-stalks--go back once more to the house!" They went to the house, and lo! there stood the man they were in search of in the middle of the kitchen.

'Upon examination it was found that from his garden to his house there had been practiced a secret pa.s.sage underground: a large meal-chest in the kitchen had a false bottom, which lifted up and down at pleasure, to let him into his subterraneous dwelling.

'Whenever he expected the house to be searched, down he went; the moment the search was over, up he came; and had practised this with success, till he grew rash, and returned one moment too soon. . . .