When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may be sure, without many
active post-mortem wishes and directions) he left his entertaining
Memoirs half finished, and he desired his daughter Maria in the most
emphatic way to complete them, and to publish them without changing
or altering anything that he had written. People reading them were
surprised by the contents; many blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them
public, not knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands of her
father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at the time to Mrs.
Trench. Many severe and wounding reviews appeared, and this may have
influenced Miss Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs
published by her family.
Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three or
four lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, some
of us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters of
existence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than his
tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure of
sentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriage
must have taken most people by surprise. The writer once expressed her
surprise at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth seems to have
had over women and over the many members of his family who continued to
reside in his home after all the various changes which had taken place
there. Lady S---- to whom she spoke is one who has seen more of life
than most of us, who has for years past carried help to the far-away
and mysterious East, but whose natural place is at home in the more
prosperous and unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in the
least understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I never knew anything
like him. Brilliant, full of energy and charm, he was something quite
extraordinary and irresistible. If you had known him you would not have
wondered at anything.'
'I had in the spring of that year (1797) paid my first visit to
Edgeworthtown with my mother and sister,' writes Miss Beaufort,
afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth, the author of the Memoirs. 'My father
had long before been there, and had frequently met Mr. Edgeworth
at Mrs. Ruxton's. In 1795 my father was presented to the living of
Collon, in the county of Louth, where he resided from that time.
His vicarage was within five minutes' walk of the residence of Mr.
Foster, then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the dear
friend of Mr. Edgeworth, who came to Collon in the spring of 1798
several times, and at last offered me his hand, which I accepted.'
Maria, who was at first very much opposed to the match, would not have
been herself the most devoted and faithful of daughters if she had not
eventually agreed to her father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come by
degrees to feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of a
father over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one of the very
deepest and strongest that can be imagined. Miss Beaufort herself seems
also to have had some special attraction for Maria. She was about her
own age. She must have been a person of singularly sweet character and
gentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new family, but you
will not come as a stranger, dear Miss Beaufort,' writes generous Maria.
'You will not lead a new life, but only continue to lead the life you
have been used to in your own happy cultivated family.' And her
stepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria was to her
from the very first when she came as a bride to the home where the
sisters and the children of the lately lost wife were all assembled to
meet her.
It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married lady coming
along to her home in a postchaise, and seeing something odd on the
side of the road. 'Look to the other side; don't look at it,' says Mr.
Edgeworth; and when they had passed he tells his bride that it was the
body of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a car.
The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, sisters of the late
Mrs. Edgeworth, who made it their home, and of Maria, the last of the
first family. Lovell, now the eldest son, was away; but there were also
four daughters and three sons at home.
All agreed in making me feel at once at home and part of the
family; all received me with the most unaffected cordiality; but
from Maria it was something more. She more than fulfilled the
promise of her letter; she made me at once her most intimate
friend, and in every trifle of the day treated me with the most
generous confidence.
Those times were even more serious than they are now; we hear of Mr.
Bond, the High Sheriff, paying 'a pale visit' to Edgeworthtown. 'I am
going on in the old way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing
in 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my hands
before me would not make any one of us one degree safer.... Simple
Susan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to
England.'... 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she
continues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh!
French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to see
everybody as happy as ourselves.'
On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin that
the French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now at
Athlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. My
father's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully
in earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have not
yet arrived from Dublin.... We, who are so near the scene of action,
cannot by any means discover what _number_ of the French actually
landed; some say 800, some 1,800, some 18,000.'
The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were in
charge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protection
as far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half
an hour afterwards, as we were quietly sitting in the portico, we heard,
as we thought close to us, the report of a pistol or a clap of thunder
which shook the house. The officer soon after returned almost speechless;
he could hardly explain what had happened. The ammunition cart,
containing nearly three barrels of gunpowder, took fire, and burnt
half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove the cart was blown
to atoms. Nothing of him could be found. Two of the horses were killed;
others were blown to pieces, and their limbs scattered to a distance.
The head and body of a man were found a hundred and twenty yards from
the spot.... If we had gone with this ammunition cart, we must have
been killed. An hour or two afterwards we were obliged to fly from
Edgeworthtown. The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile of the
town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed the trunk of the dead
man, bloody limbs of horses, and two dead horses, by the help of men
who pulled on our steeds--all safely lodged now in Mrs. Fallon's inn.'
'Before we had reached the place where the cart had been blown up,' says
Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected that he had left on
the table in his study a list of the yeomanry corps which he feared
might endanger the poor fellows and their families if it fell into the
hands of the rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of
his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned the paper, and
rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a most interesting and spirited
account of the next few days. The rebels spared Mr. Edgeworth's house,
although they broke into it. After a time the family were told that all
was safe for their return, and the account of their coming home, as it
is given in the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's life by his daughter,
is a model of style and admirable description.
In 1799 Mr. Edgeworth came into Parliament for the borough of St.
Johnstown. He was a Unionist by conviction, but he did not think the
times were yet ripe for the Union, and he therefore voted against it.
In some of his letters to Dr. Darwin written at this time, he says that
he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few remaining weeks of
the session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well,
as he says, '_to quarrel with myself_.' He also adds that Maria continues
writing for children under the persuasion that she cannot be more
serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity)
affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and _his giant
brood_.' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. The
Doctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's
answers with all their characteristic and lively variety, were nearly at
an end.
It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great success, and published
'Castle Rackrent,' a book--not for children this time--which made
everybody talk who read, and those read who had only talked before. This
work was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation that
some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of the story with
erasures and different signs of authenticity, and assume the authorship.
One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind is the honest
candour and genuine critical faculty which is hers. Her appreciation of
her own work and that of others is unaffected and really discriminating,
whether it is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or
Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts which she
estimates justly and reasonably. 'I have read "Corinne" with my father,
and I like it better than he does. In one word, I am dazzled by the
genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and
critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout the whole
work: but I will not dilate upon it in a letter. I could talk for three
hours to you and my aunt.'
Elsewhere she speaks with the warmest admiration of a 'Simple Story.'
Jane Austen's books were not yet published; but another writer, for whom
Mr. Edgeworth and his daughter had a very great regard and admiration,
was Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of her later
life found no little help and comfort in the friendship and constancy of
Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation,
paid him a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and
where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. There is a little
anecdote of domestic life at this time in the Memoirs which gives
one a glimpse, not of an authoress, but of a very sympathising and
impressionable person. 'Maria took her little sister to bring down to
her father, but when she had descended a few steps a panic seized her,
and she was afraid to go either backwards or forwards. She sat down on
the stairs afraid she should drop the child, afraid that its head would
come off, and afraid that her father would find her sitting there and
laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a
terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs
till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger
children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as
indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families.
Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines
are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by
some to have been Maria herself, impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet
full of spirit and animation.
In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes kindly of the
authoress, and sends her a message. The letter is dated April 17, 1802.
'I am glad to find you still amuse yourself with mechanism in spite of
the troubles of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to
come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the pleasant house
with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the deep umbrageous valley,
with the talkative stream running down it, and Derby tower in the
distance. The letter, so kind, so playful in its tone, was never
finished. Dr. Darwin was writing as he was seized with what seemed a
fainting fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes of the
shock her father felt when the sad news reached him; a shock, she says,
which must in some degree be experienced by every person who reads this
letter of Dr. Darwin's.
No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. To
us, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'that
giant brood,' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long as
people live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those things
which give life to life itself.