The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume II Part 11

Arrived at Perth at nine o'clock: tea, with silver urn and silver candlesticks, and all luxurious: cold chicken, ham, and marmalade inclusive.

The drive from Perth this morning to Kinross is beautiful, but in a more civilised and less romantic way than our Highland scenery. We are now within view of Lochleven, Queen Mary's island.

During this morning's drive, Sophy sang "In April, when primroses blow"

most charmingly. Her singing was much admired in Edinburgh by Sir Walter Scott, etc., but still more at Mrs. Macpherson's. One day, she sang several of Moore's melodies, and some Scotch songs. Mrs. Macpherson, who is excessively fond of music, was so charmed, she told me afterwards she never heard a voice she thought so sweet and clear, and unaffected. She rejoiced to hear it without music, or any accompaniment that could drown it, or spoil its distinct simplicity. She observed what a charm there is in her distinct p.r.o.nunciation of the words, in her just emphasis, and in her never forgetting the words, or keeping you in any anxiety for her, or requiring to be pressed. "How delightful," said she, "to have such an accomplishment, such a power to please always with her, without requiring instruments, or music-books, or any preparation." I was afraid her singing of Scotch might not suit the Scotch, and she never ventured it till we were at Mrs. Macpherson's, who was quite charmed with it.

Indeed, her soft voice is very different from the screeching some songstresses make, with vast execution. I am particularly full of the pleasure of Sophy's singing at present, because I felt so much delight from it when I was just recovering from my illness. I did not think it was in the nature of my body or soul to feel so much pleasure from singing or music; but the fact is as I tell you. After three nights of pulse at ninety-six and delirium, in which I one night saw the arches of Roslin Chapel, with roses of such brilliant light crowning them that I shut my eyes to avoid the blaze; and another night was haunted with the words "a soldier [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth had been reading Stewart's _History of Highland Regiments_ the day before she was taken ill with an attack of erysipelas.] of the forty-second has lost his portmanteau,"

and continual marching and countermarching, and rummaging of Highland officers and privates in search of it, and an officer laughing at me and saying, "Don't you know this is a common Highland saying, A soldier of the forty-second has lost his portmanteau? It means"--but he never could or would tell me what it meant, when another officer said, "Madam, there is a Lowland saying to match it"; and this also I could never hear.

Another night the words of a song called the "Banks of Aberfeldy"

crossed my imagination, and a fat, rubicund man stood before me, continually telling me that he was "John Aberfeldy, the happy." I cannot tell you how this John Aberfeldy tormented me. After these three horrible nights, when I awoke with my tongue so parched I could not speak till a spoonful of lemon-juice was inserted, I asked Sophy to sing, and she directly sang, "Dear harp of my country." I never shall forget the sort of pleasure; it soothed, it "rapt my" _willing_ not my "_imprisoned_ soul in elysium," and I was so happy to feel I could again follow a rational chain of ideas, and comprehend the words of the beautiful poetry, to which music added such a charm and force. She sang, "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," and "Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour," and "Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?"

and "Vive Henri Quatre!" which I love for the sake of Mrs. Henry Hamilton, and for the sake of Lady Longford's saying to me, with a mother's pride and joy in her enthusiastic eyes, "My Caroline will sing to me at any time, in any inn, or anywhere." I am sure I may say the same of my sister Sophy, who will sing for me at an inn by my sick bed, and with more power of voice than all the stimulus of company and flattery can draw from other young ladies. I never wish to hear a fine singer; I always agree with Dr. Johnson in wis.h.i.+ng that the difficulties had been impossibilities, with all their falsettos and tortures of affectation to which they put themselves. How I hate them, and all the aimings at true Italian p.r.o.nunciation and true Italian manner, which after all is, nine times out of ten, quite erroneous, and such as the Italians themselves would laugh at, or most probably no more comprehend than I did De Leuze repeating the "Botanic Garden": I was just going to ask what language it was, when my mother, good at need, saved me from the irreparable blunder by whispering, "It is English." The words were, I believe, all right, but the accents were all thrown wrong. As Lady Spencer said, "It is wonderful that foreigners never _by accident_ throw the accents right." Milton says:

For eloquence the soul, song moves the sense;

but if he had heard Moore's poetry sung by Sophy, he would have acknowledged that song moved not only the sense, but the soul.

I have dilated upon this to you, my dear Lucy, because you have at times felt the same about Sophy's singing. During my illness, day and night, whenever pain and delirium allowed me rational thought, you and your admirable patience recurred to my mind. I said to myself, "How can she bear it so well, and in her young days, the spring-time of life? how admirable is her resignation and cheerfulness! never a cross word, or cross look, or impatient gesture, and for four years; when I, with all my strength of experience and added philosophy from education, moan and groan aloud, and can scarce bear ten days' illness, with two really angel sisters to nurse me, and watch my 'asking eye'!" You have at least the reward of my perfect esteem and admiration, after comparison with myself, the only true standard by which I can estimate your worth.

Miss Edgeworth and her sisters spent a most happy fortnight with Sir Walter Scott and his family. "Never," writes his son-in-law, "did I see a brighter day at Abbotsford than that on which Miss Edgeworth first arrived there: never can I forget her look and accent when she was received by him at his archway, and exclaimed: 'Everything about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit enough to dream!'"

Sir Walter delighted in Miss Sophy Edgeworth's singing, especially of Moore's Irish melodies. "Moore's the man for songs," he said. "Campbell can write an ode, and I can make a ballad; but Moore beats us all at a song." Sir Walter was then at the height of his fame and "in the glory of his prime," surrounded by his family; both his sons were at home, and his daughter Anne; and he had then staying with him his nephew, "Little Walter." Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart were living at Chiefswood, but they were continually at Abbotsford, or some of the party were continually at Chiefswood; and Sir Walter's joyous manner and life of mind, his looks of fond pride in his children, the pleasantness of his easy manners, the gay walks, the evening conversations, and the drives in the sociable, enchanted Miss Edgeworth. In these drives the flow of story, poetry, wit, and wisdom never ceased; Sir Walter sitting with his dog Spicer on his lap, and Lady Scott with her dog Ourisk on her lap.

Lady Scott one day expressed her surprise that Scott and Miss Edgeworth had not met when the latter was in Edinburgh in 1803. "Why," said Sir Walter, with one of his queer looks, "you forget, my dear, Miss Edgeworth was not a lion then, and my mane, you know, was not grown at all." [Footnote: _Life of George Ticknor_.]

MARIA _to_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

ABBOTSFORD, _July 31, 1823_.

I take a pen merely to say that I will not write! I have so much to say, that I dare not trust myself, as I am still so far from strong, I must not venture to play tricks with that health which it cost my dear, kind nurses so much to preserve. I am as careful of myself as any creature can be without becoming an absolute, selfish egotist. Lady Scott is really so watchful and careful of me, that even when my own family guardian angels are not on either or both sides of me, I can do no wrong, and can come to no harm.

It is quite delightful to see Scott in his family in the country: breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, fondness, and genius, far, far surpa.s.sing his works, his letters, and all my hopes and imagination. His castle of Abbotsford is magnificent, but I forget it in thinking of him.

_To_ MR. RUXTON.

ABBOTSFORD, _Aug. 9, 1823_.

I remember that you requested one of our party to write a few lines from Abbotsford. I think I mentioned to my aunt or Sophy the impression which I first experienced from Sir Walter Scott's great simplicity of manner, joined to his wonderful superiority of intellect. This impression has been strengthened by all I have seen of him since. In living with him in the country, I have particularly liked his behaviour towards his variety of guests, of all ranks, who come to his hospitable castle. Many of these are artists, painters, architects, mechanists, antiquarians, people who look up to him for patronage--none of them permitted to be hangers on or parasites; his manners perfectly kind and courteous, yet such as to command respect; and I never heard any one attempt to flatter him. I never saw an author less of an author in his habits. This I early observed, but have been the more struck with it the longer I have been with him. He has, indeed, such variety of occupations, that he has not time to think of his own works: how he has time to write them is the wonder. You would like him for his love of trees; a great part of his time out of doors is taken up in pruning his trees. I have within this hour heard a gentleman say to him, "You have had a good deal of experience in planting, Sir Walter; do you advise much thinning, or not?"--"I should advise much thinning, but little at a time. If you thin much at a time, you let in the wind, and hurt your trees."

I hope to show you a sketch of Abbotsford Sophy has made--better than any description. Besides the Abbey of Melrose, we have seen many interesting places in this neighbourhood. To-day we have been a delightful drive through Ettrick Forest, and to the ruins of Newark--the hall of Newark, where the ladies bent their necks of snow to hear the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Though great part of Ettrick Forest was cut down years ago, yet much of it has grown up again to respectable height, and many most beautiful oak, ash, and alder trees remain. We had a happy walk by the river, and after refres.h.i.+ng ourselves with a luncheon in a summer-house beautifully situated, we went to look at the ruins of Newark. It was a pity that this fine old building was let to go to ruin, which it has done only within the last seventy years. The late Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleuch, to whom it belonged, had in their youth lived abroad, and were so ignorant about their own estate in Scotland, that when they first came to live here they supposed there were no trees, and no wood they thought could be had, and brought with them, among other things, a barrel full of skewers for the cook.

It is very agreeable to observe how many friends of long standing Scott has in this neighbourhood: they have been here, and we have been at their houses: very good houses, and the style of living excellent.

Except one Prussian prince and one Swiss baron, no grand foreign visitors have been here; indeed, this house is in such a state of painting and papering, and carpenters finis.h.i.+ng new rooms and chasing the inhabitants out of the old, that it was impossible to have much company.

Sir Walter's eldest son was here for some days--now gone back to Sandhurst; he is excessively shy, very handsome, not at all literary, but he has sense and honourable principle, and is very grateful to those who were kind to him in Ireland. His younger brother, Charles, who is now at home, has more easy manners, is more conversible, and has more of his father's literary taste. I am sorry to say we are to leave Abbotsford the day after to-morrow; but the longer we stay the more sorry we shall feel to go. We had intended to have paid a visit to Lady Selkirk at St. Mary's Isle, but this would be a hundred miles out of our way, and I have no time for it, which I regret, as I liked very much the little I saw of Lady Selkirk in London.

After visits at Glasgow and Dalwharran, Miss Edgeworth and her sisters returned to Ireland.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Nov. 20, 1823_.

It is a long time since I have written to you, always waiting a day longer for somebody's coming or going, or sailing or landing. You ask what I am doing: nothing, but reading and idling, and paving a gutter and yard to Honora's pig-stye, and school-house. What have I been reading? The "Siege of Valencia," by Mrs. Hemans, which is an hour too long, but it contains some of the most beautiful poetry I have read for years. I have read Quin's letters from Spain, entertaining; the review of it in the _Quarterly_ is by Blanco White. Dr. Holland's letters continue to be as full of information and interest as ever, though he is a married man. Tell Sophy that the subject of electricity and electro-magnetism is every day affording new facts, and all the philosophers on the Continent are busy about it. Sir Humphry Davy had a narrow escape of breaking his neck by a fall down stairs, but he is not hurt, _tout an contraire_. I had a letter, written in very good English, the other day from M. de Stael; he is now in London, and tells me the French and the Holy Alliance are tyrannising sadly at Geneva, and have ordered all the Italian patriots who had taken refuge there to decamp.

There is one of these, Count Somebody or other, whose name I cannot persuade myself to get up to look for, whom M. de Stael wishes I would take by the hand in London, and what I am to do with him when I have him by the hand I don't know.

I had a letter from Walter Scott, who has been delighted with the history of Caraboo, [Footnote: Caraboo is alluded to in _St. Roman's Well_, published in the autumn of this year. Sir Walter had never heard of her till Miss Edgeworth told her history to him at Abbotsford.] which I sent to him: a pamphlet published at the time. He says that n.o.body with a reasonable head could attempt to calculate the extent of popular credulity, and observes that she, like all the great cheats who have imposed upon mankind, was touched with insanity, half knave, half mad, at last the dupe of her own acting of enthusiasm.

Prince Hohenlohe and the pamphlets, pro and con, occupy us much.

Crampton's second edition of his I think excellent. Some very curious facts have been brought out of the effect of the imagination upon the bodily health. And while Scott is writing novels to entertain the world, and the philosophers in France trying experiments on electro-magnetism, Davy tumbling down stairs, and Denham and Co. in Africa looking for the Niger, here is all London rus.h.i.+ng out to look at the cottage in which a swindler lived who murdered another swindler, and buying bits of the sack in which the dead body was put! Have your newspapers given what we have had in the _Morning Chronicle_? views of Roberts's cottage and the pond with Thurtell and Hunt dragging the body out of it? Shakespear understood John Bull right well, and always gave him plenty of murders and dead bodies. I am glad there are no Irishmen in this base as well as savage gang.

_To_ MISS RUXTON.

PAKENHAM HALL, _Jan. 21_.

We, my mother, Lovell, f.a.n.n.y, and I, came here yesterday, glad to see Lord Longford surrounded by his friends in old Pakenham Hall hospitable style,--he always cordial, unaffected, and agreeable. The house has been completely new-modelled, chimneys taken down from top to bottom, rooms turned about from lengthways to broad-ways, thrown into one another, and out of one another, and the result is that there is a comfortable excellent drawing-room, dining-room, and library, and the bedchambers are admirable. Mrs. Smyth, of Gaybrook, and her daughter are here, and Mr. Knox; and I have been so lucky as to be seated next to him at dinner yesterday, and at breakfast this morning; he is very agreeable when he speaks, and when he is silent it is "silence that speaks."

Lady Longford [Footnote: Georgiana, daughter of the first Earl Beauchamp.] has been very attentive to us. She has the finest and most happy open-faced children I ever saw--not the least troublesome, yet perfectly free and at their case with the company and with their parents.

A box will be left in Dublin for you on Monday morning. There is no telling you how happy I have been getting ready and packing and fussing about the said box for you, flying about the house from the library to the garret. And all for what? When Sophy, whom I beg to be the unpacker, opens it, you will see a certain dabbed-up crooked pasteboard tray in which are four frills for you: I hemmed every inch of them myself, to give them the only value they could have in your eyes.

_To_ MRS. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Feb. 16, 1824_.

My dear Mr. and Mrs. Bannatyne--my dear Mrs. Starke and Miss Bannatyne, and Andrew and Dugald, and all of you kind friends, put your heads close together to hear a piece of intelligence which will, I know, rejoice your kind hearts.

_Our_ dear Sophy and _your_ dear Sophy is going to be married to a person whom her mother, and every one of her own family completely approve, who has been tenderly attached to her for some time, whose principles, understanding, manners, and honourable manly character are such as to deserve such a wife as I may proudly say he will have in Sophy. His birth, family connections, and fortune are all such as we could wish. The gentleman is a cousin of our own Captain Barry Fox; he is an officer, but will probably leave the army, and settle in his own country; we hope within reach of us. He has been so kind and considerate about poor Lucy, so anxious not to deprive her too suddenly of her beloved, and best of nurses, that he has endeared himself the more to us all.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _March 18, 1824_.

The indissoluble knot is tied! What an awful ceremony it is! What an awful deed! How can parents bear to be at the weddings of their children where it is not a marriage of their own free choice? and how can a woman herself p.r.o.nounce that solemn vow when she is marrying for money, or for grandeur, or from any earthly motive but the pure heart?--a purer heart than my sister Sophy's I do believe never approached the altar, nor was the hand ever given more entirely with the free heart. There was no one at the wedding but our own family, Mr. Fox, Francis Fox, and William Beaufort. We six ladies went in the carriage immediately after breakfast to the church, where the gentlemen were waiting for us. The churchyard, and church of course, crowded with the poor people of the village, but as we drove out of our own lawn into Mr. Keating's, there was as little annoyance from starers as possible. William Beaufort married them, as had been Sophy's particular wish. The sun shone out with a bright promise at the moment her marriage was completed. Barry handed her into his chaise, the most commodious, prettiest, and plainest carriage I ever saw, and away they drove.

_To_ MRS. O'BEIRNE. [Footnote: The Bishop of Meath died in 1823; and Mrs. O'Beirne and her daughters went to reside in England.]

BLACK CASTLE, _July 6, 1824_.