I have spent a very happy week at Collon; [Footnote: Dr. Beaufort,
father of the fourth Mrs. Edgeworth, was Vicar of Collon.] I never saw
your mother in such excellent spirits. She and Dr. Beaufort were so good
as to bring me to Dundalk, where my aunt had appointed to meet me; but
her courage failed her about going over the Mountain road, and she sent
Mr. Corry's chaise with hired horses. I foresaw we should have a battle
about those horses, and so we had--only a skirmish, in which I came off
victorious! Your father, who, next to mine, is, I think, the best and
most agreeable traveller in the world, walked us about Dundalk and to
the Quay, etc., whilst the horses were resting, and we ate black
cherries and were very merry. They pitied me for the ten-mile stage I
was to go alone, but I did not pity myself, for I had Sir William
Jones's and Sir William Chambers's _Asiatic Miscellany._ The
metaphysical poetry of India, however, is not to my taste; and though
the Indian Cupid, with his bow of sugar-cane and string of bees and five
arrows for the five senses, is a very pretty and very ingenious little
fellow, I have a preference in favour of our own Cupid, and of the two
would rather leave orders with "my porter" to admit the "well-known
boy." [Footnote: From an Address to Cupid, by the Duc de Nivernois,
translated by Mr. Edgeworth.]
Besides the company of Sir William Jones, I had the pleasure of meeting
on the road Mr. Parkinson Ruxton and Sir Chichester Fortescue, who had
been commissioned by my aunt to hail me; they accordingly did so, and
after a mutual broadside of compliments, they sheered off. The road to
Newry is like Wales--Ravensdale, three miles of wood, glen, and
mountain.
My aunt and Sophy were on the steps of the inn at Newry to receive me.
The road from Newry to Rosstrevor is both sublime and beautiful. The inn
at Rosstrevor is like the best sort of English breakfasting inn. But to
proceed with my journey, for I must go two miles and a half from
Rosstrevor to my aunt's house. Sublime mountains and sea--road, a flat
gravelled walk, walled on the precipice side. You see a slated English
or Welsh-looking farmhouse amongst some stunted trees, apparently in the
sea; you turn down a long avenue of firs, only three feet high, but
old-looking, six rows deep on each side. The two former proprietors of
this mansion had opposite tastes--one all for straight, and the other
all for serpentine lines; and there was a war between snug and
picturesque, of which the traces appear every step you proceed. You seem
driving down into the sea, to which this avenue leads; but you suddenly
turn and go back from the shore, through stunted trees of various sorts
scattered over a wild common, then a dwarf mixture of shrubbery and
orchard, and you are at the end of the house, which is pretty. The front
is ugly, but from it you look upon the bay of Carlingford--Carlingford
Head opposite to you--vessels under sail, near and distant--little
islands, sea-birds, and landmarks standing in the sea. Behind the house
the mountains of Morne. I saw all this with admiration, tired as I was,
for it was seven o'clock. In the parlour is a surprising chimney-piece,
as gigantic as that at Grandsire's at Calais, with wonderful wooden
ornaments and a tablet representing Alexander's progress through India,
he looking very pert, driving four lions.
After dinner I was so tired, that in spite of all my desire to see and
hear, I was obliged to lie down and refit. After resting, but not
sleeping, I groped my way down the broad old staircase, _felt_ my road,
passed _two_ clock-cases on the landing-place, and arrived in the
parlour, where I was glad to see candles and tea, and my dear aunt, and
Sophy, and Margaret's illumined, affectionate faces. Tea. "Come, now,"
says my aunt, "let us show Maria the wonderful passage; it looks best by
candlelight." I followed my guide through a place that looks like Mrs.
Radcliffe in lower life--passage after passage, very low-roofed, and
full of strange lumber; came to a den of a bed-chamber, then another,
and a study, all like the hold of a ship, and fusty; but in this study
were mahogany bookcases, glass doors, and well-bound, excellent books.
All kinds of tables, broken and stowed on top of each other, and parts
of looking-glasses, looking as if they had been there a hundred years,
and jelly glasses on a glass stand, as if somebody had supped there the
night before. Turn from the study and you see a staircase, more like a
step-ladder, very narrow, but one could squeeze up at a time, by which
we went into a place like that you may remember at the post-house in the
Low Countries--two chambers, if chambers they could be called, quite
remote from the rest of the house, low ceilings, strange scraps of
many-coloured paper on the walls, an old camp bed, a feather bed with
half the feathers out; one window, low, but wide.
"Out of that window," said my aunt, "as Isabella told us, the corpse was
carried."
"Who is Isabella?" cried I; but before my aunt could answer I was struck
with new wonder at the sight of two French looking-glasses, in gilt
frames, side by side, reaching from the ceiling to the floor, and placed
exactly opposite the bed! [Footnote: This mysterious apartment had
belonged to a poor crazed lady who died there, and who had, as Isabella,
the gardener's wife, related, a passion for fine papers, different
patterns of which were put on the walls to please her, and also the
French mirrors, on which she delighted to look from her bed. And when
she died her coffin was, to avoid the crooked passages, taken out of the
window.]
I was now so tired that I could neither see, hear, nor understand,
imagine, or wonder any longer. Sophy somehow managed to get my clothes
off, and literally put me into bed. The images of all these people and
things flitted before my eyes for a few seconds, and then I was fast
asleep.
Mrs. and Miss Fortescue came in the morning, and among other things
mentioned the fancy ball in Dublin. Mrs. Sheridan [Footnote: Mrs. Tom
Sheridan.] was the handsomest woman there. The Duchess of Bedford was
dressed as Mary Queen of Scots, and danced with Lord Darnley. At supper
the Duchess _motioned_ to Lady Darnley to come to her table; but Lady
Darnley refused, as she had a party of young ladies. The Duchess
reproached her rather angrily. "Oh," said Lady Darnley, "when the Queen
of Scots was talking to Darnley, it would not have done for me to have
been too near them."
MRS. EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS SOPHY RUXTON.