'Belinda,' 'Castle Rackrent,' the 'Parents' Assistant,' the 'Essays on
Practical Education,' had all made their mark. The new series of popular
tales was also welcomed. There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworth
had several MSS. in hand in various stages, stories to correct for the
press. There was also a long novel, first begun by her father and taken
up and carried on by her. The 'Essays on Practical Education,' which
were first published in 1798, continued to be read. M. Pictet had
translated the book into French the year before; a third edition was
published some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which the
authors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve years'
additional experience in a numerous family, and careful attention to the
results of other modes of education, have given the authors no reason to
retract what they have advanced in these volumes.'
In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter states that he
modified his opinions in one or two particulars; allowing more and
more liberty to the children, and at the same time conceding greater
importance to the habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory.
The essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many of the hints
contained in them most certainly apply to the little children of to-day
no less than to their small grandparents. A lady whose own name is high
in the annals of education was telling me that she had been greatly
struck by the resemblance between the Edgeworth system and that of
Froebel's Kindergarten method, which is now gaining more and more ground
in people's estimation, the object of both being not so much to cram
instruction into early youth as to draw out each child's powers of
observation and attention.
The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in 1809, and
contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of the most remarkable of
Miss Edgeworth's works. The second series included the 'Absentee,' that
delightful story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even
more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first only an episode
in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but the public was impatient, so
were the publishers, and fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was
printed as a separate tale.
'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to amuse his wife, who was
recovering from illness; it was originally called the 'Fortunes of the
Freeman Family,' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more
in fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious without
any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious,
well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy
persons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends to
back them. But the novel has yet to be written that will prove that,
where merits are more equal, a little patronage is not of a great deal
of use, or that people's positions in life are exactly proportioned to
their merit. Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human
Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the problem of what
people's deserts should be. Let us hope that personal advancement is
only one of the many things people try for in life, and that there are
other prizes as well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere
speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the novel itself she
says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so vast a subject that it
flounders about in my hands and quite overpowers me.'
It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions another
circumstance which interested her at this time, and which was one of
those events occurring now and again which do equal credit to all
concerned.
I have written a preface and notes [she says]--for I too would be
an editor--for a little book which a very worthy countrywoman of
mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, granddaughter to
Burke's first preceptor. She is poor. She has behaved most
handsomely about some letters of Burke's to her grandfather and
herself. It would have been advantageous to her to publish them;
but, as Mrs. Burke[2]--Heaven knows why--objected, she desisted.
Mrs. Leadbeater was an Irish Quaker lady whose simple and spirited
annals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle in his later days, and whose
'Cottage Dialogues' greatly struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and the
kind Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions,
exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. Edgeworth took the
MSS. out of the hands of an Irish publisher, and, says Maria, 'our
excellent friend's worthy successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, on
our recommendation, agreed to publish it for her.' Mr. Edgeworth's own
letter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his good-natured offices
and their satisfactory results.
Footnote 2: Mrs. Burke, hearing more of the circumstances, afterwards
sent permission; but Mrs. Leadbeater being a Quakeress, and having once
_promised_ not to publish, could not take it upon herself to break her
covenant.
From R. L. Edgeworth, July 5, 1810.
Miss Edgeworth desires me as a man of business to write to Mrs.
Leadbeater relative to the publication of 'Cottage Dialogues.'
Miss Edgeworth has written an advertisement, and will, with Mrs.
Leadbeater's permission, write notes for an English edition. The
scheme which I propose is of two parts--to sell the English
copyright to the house of Johnson in London, where we dispose of
our own works, and to publish a very large and cheap edition for
Ireland for schools.... I can probably introduce the book into
many places. Our family takes 300 copies, Lady Longford 50, Dr.
Beaufort 20, &c.... I think Johnson & Co. will give 50_l._ for the
English copyright.
After the transaction Mr. Edgeworth wrote to the publishers as
follows:--
May 31, 1811: Edgeworthtown.
My sixty-eighth birthday.
My dear Gentlemen,--I have just heard your letter to Mrs.
Leadbeater read by one who dropped tears of pleasure from a sense
of your generous and handsome conduct. I take great pleasure in
speaking of you to the rest of the world as you deserve, and I
cannot refrain from expressing to yourselves the genuine esteem
that I feel for you. I know that this direct praise is scarcely
allowable, but my advanced age and my close connection with you
must be my excuse.--Yours sincerely,
R. L. E.
Tears seem equivalent to something more than the estimated value of Mrs.
Leadbeater's labours. The charming and well-known Mrs. Trench who was
also Mary Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. 'Miss
Edgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much spirit and originality
as if she had never before explored the mine which many thought she had
exhausted.'
All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth correspondence, which,
however (following the course of most correspondence), does not seem to
have been always equally agreeable. There are some letters (among others
which I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about this time to an
unfortunate young man who seems to have annoyed her greatly by his
excited importunities.
I thank you [she says] for your friendly zeal in defence of my
powers of pathos and sublimity; but I think it carries you much
too far when it leads you to imagine that I refrain, from
principle or virtue, from displaying powers that I really do not
possess. I assure you that I am not in the least capable of
writing a dithyrambic ode, or any other kind of ode.
One is reminded by this suggestion of Jane Austen also declining to
write 'an historical novel illustrative of the august House of Coburg.'
The young man himself seems to have had some wild aspirations after
authorship, but to have feared criticism.
The advantage of the art of printing [says his friendly Minerva]
is that the mistakes of individuals in reasoning and writing will
be corrected in time by the public, so that the cause of truth
cannot suffer; and I presume you are too much of a philosopher to
mind the trifling mortification that the detection of a mistake
might occasion. You know that some sensible person has observed
that acknowledging a mistake is saying, only in other words, that
we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday.
He seems at last to have passed the bounds of reasonable correspondence,
and she writes as follows:--
Your last letter, dated in June, was many months before it reached
me. In answer to all your reproaches at my silence I can only
assure you that it was not caused by any change in my opinions or
good wishes; but I do not carry on what is called a regular
correspondence with anybody except with one or two of my very
nearest relations; and it is best to tell the plain truth that my
father particularly dislikes my writing letters, so I write as few
as I possibly can.