We have just had a charming letter from Mrs. Barbauld, in which she asks
if we have read _Marmion_, Mr. Scott's new poem: we have not. 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 through the whole work. But I will not I dilate upon it in
a letter; I could talk of it for three hours to you and my aunt. I
almost broke my foolish heart over the end of the third volume, and my
father acknowledges he never read anything more pathetic.
Pray remember my garden when the Beauforts come to us. It adds very much
to my happiness, especially as Honora and all the children have shares
in it, and I assure you it is very cheerful to see the merry,
scarlet-coated, busy little workwomen in their territories, sowing, and
weeding, and transplanting hour after hour.
_June 4._
Lady Elizabeth Pakenham and Mrs. Stewart and her son Henry, a fine
intelligent boy, and her daughter Kitty, who promises to be as gentle as
her mother, have been here. I liked Mrs. Stewart's conversation much,
and thought her very interesting.
_June 9._
My father and mother have gone to the Hills to settle a whole clan of
tenants whose leases are out, and who _expect that because_ they have
all lived under his Honour, they and theirs these hundred years, that
his Honour shall and will contrive to divide the land that supported ten
people amongst their sons and sons' sons, to the number of a hundred.
And there is Cormac with the reverend locks, and Bryan with the flaxen
wig, and Brady with the long brogue, and Paddy with the short, and Terry
with the butcher's-blue coat, and Dennis with no coat at all, and Eneas
Hosey's widow, and all the Devines, pleading and quarrelling about
boundaries and bits of bog. I wish Lord Selkirk was in the midst of
them, with his hands crossed before him; I should like to know if he
could make them understand his _Essay on Emigration._
My father wrote to Sir Joseph Banks to apply through the French
Institute for leave for Lovell to travel as a _literate_ in Germany, and
I have frequently written about him to our French friends; and those
passages in my letters were never answered. All their letters are now
written, as Sir Joseph Banks observed, under evident constraint and
fear.
* * * * *
Mrs. Edgeworth writes:
This summer of 1808 Mr. and Mrs. Ruxton and their two daughters passed
some time with us. My father, mother, and sister came also, and Maria
read out _Ennui_ in manuscript. We used to assemble in the middle of the
day in the library, and everybody enjoyed it. One evening when we were
at dinner with this large party, the butler came up to Mr. Edgeworth.
"Mrs. Apreece, sir; she is getting out of her carriage." Mr. Edgeworth
went to the hall door, but we all sat still laughing, for there had been
so many jokes about Mrs. Apreece, who was then travelling in Ireland,
that we thought it was only nonsense of Sneyd's, who we supposed had
dressed up some one to personate her; and we were astonished when Mr.
Edgeworth presented her as the real Mrs. Apreece. She stayed some days,
and was very brilliant and agreeable. She continued, as Mrs. Apreece and
as Lady Davy, to be a kind friend and correspondent of Maria's.
MARIA _to_ C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, AT EDINBURGH.