One of the things that perplexes the dreamer--for, in spite of the
realists, there are dreamers still--is the almost complete extinction of
the early editions of certain popular works. The pompous, respectable,
full-wigged folios, with their long lists of subscribers, and their
magniloquent dedications, find their permanent abiding-places in
noblemen's collections, where, unless--with the _Chrysostom_ in Pope's
verses--they are used for the smoothing of bands or the pressing of
flowers, no one ever disturbs their drowsy diuturnity. Their bulk makes
them sacred: like the regimental big drum, they are too large to be
mislaid. But where are all the first copies of that little octavo of 246
pages, price eighteenpence, "Printed by T. Maxey for Rich. Marriot, in
S. Dunstans Church-yard, Fleetstreet" in 1653, which constitutes the
_editio princeps_ of Walton's _Angler_. Probably they were worn out in
the pockets of Honest Izaak's "brothers of the Angle," or left to bake
and cockle in the sunny corners of wasp-haunted alehouse windows, or
dropped in the deep grass by some casual owner, more careful for flies
and caddis-worms, or possibly for the contents of a leathern bottle,
than all the "choicely-good" madrigals of Maudlin the milkmaid. In any
case, there are very few of the little tomes, with their quaint
"coppers" of fishes, in existence now, nor is it silver that pays for
them. And that other eighteenpenny book, put forth by "_Nath. Ponder_ at
the _Peacock_ in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_" five and twenty years
later,--_The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That which is to
come_,--why is it that there are only five known copies, none quite
perfect, now extant, of which the best sold not long since for more than
£1400? Of these five, the first that came to light had been preserved
owing to its having taken sanctuary, almost upon publication, in a great
library, where it was forgotten. But the others that passed over Mr.
Ponder's counter in the Poultry,--were they all lost, thumbed and
dog's-eared out of being? They are gone,--that is all you can say; and
gone apparently beyond reach of recovery.
These remarks,--which scarcely rise to the dignity of reflections--have
been suggested by the difficulty which the writer has experienced in
obtaining particulars as to the earliest form of the _Parent's
Assistant_. As a matter of course, children's books are more liable to
disappear than any others. They are sooner torn, soiled, dismembered,
disintegratedsooner find their way to that mysterious unlocated limbo of
lost things, which engulfs so much. Yet one scarcely expected that even
the British Museum would not have possessed a copy of the first issue of
Miss Edgeworth's book. Such, however, seems to be the case. According to
the catalogue, there is nothing earlier at Bloomsbury than a portion of
the second edition; and from the inexplicit and conjectural manner in
which most of the author's biographers speak of the work, it can
scarcely--outside private collections--be very easily accessible.
Fortunately the old _Monthly Review_ for September, 1796, with most
exemplary forethought for posterity, gives, as a heading to its notice,
a precise and very categorical account of the first impression. _The
Parent's Assistant; or, Stories for Children_ was, it appears, published
in two parts, making three small duodecimo volumes. The price, bound,
was six shillings. There was no author's name; but it was said to be "by
E.M." (i.e. Edgeworth, Maria), and the publisher was Cowper's Dissenter
publisher, Joseph Johnson of No. 72, St. Paul's Churchyard. Part I.
contained "The Little Dog Trusty; or, The Liar and the Boy of Truth";
"The Orange Man; or, the Honest Boy and the Thief"; "Lazy Lawrence";
"Tarleton"; and "The False Key"; Part II., "The Purple Jar," "The
Bracelets," "Mademoiselle Panache," "The Birthday Present," "Old Poz,"
and "The Mimic." In the same year, 1796, a second edition appeared,
apparently with, some supplementary stories, e.g.: "Barring Out," and in
1800 came a third edition in six volumes. In this the text was increased
by "Simple Susan," "The Little Merchants," "The Basket Woman," "The
White Pigeon," "The Orphans," "Waste Not, Want Not," "Forgive and
Forget," and "Eton Montem." One story, "The Purple Jar" at the beginning
of Part II. of the first edition, was withdrawn, and afterwards included
in another series, while the stories entitled respectively "Little Dog
Trusty" and "The Orange Man" have disappeared from the collection,
probably for the reason given in one of the first prefaces, namely, that
they "were written for a much earlier age than any of the others, and
with such a perfect simplicity of expression as, to many, may appear
insipid and ridiculous." The six volumes of the third edition came out
successively on the first day of the first six months of 1800. The
Monthly Reviewer of the first edition, it may be added, was highly
laudatory; and his commendations show that the early critics of the
author were fully alive to her distinctive qualities, "The moral and
prudential lessons of these volumes," says the writer, "are judiciously
chosen; and the stories are invented with great ingenuity, and are
happily contrived to excite curiosity and awaken feeling without the aid
of improbable fiction or extravagant adventure. The language is varied
in its degree of simplicity, to suit the pieces to different ages, but
is throughout neat and correct; and, without the least approach towards
vulgarity or meanness, it is adapted with peculiar felicity to the
understandings of children. The author's taste, in this class of
writing, appears to have been formed on the best models; and the work
will not discredit a place on the same shelf with Berquin's _Child's
Friend_, Mrs. Barbauld's _Lessons for Children_, and Dr. Aikin's
_Evenings at Home_. The story of 'Lazy Lawrence'"--the notice goes
on--"is one of the best lectures on industry which we have ever read.
"The _Critical Review_, which also gave a short account of the _Parent's
Assistant_ in its number for January 1797, does not rehearse the
contents. But it confirms the title, etc., adding that the price, in
boards, was 4s. 6d.; and its praise, though brief, is very much to the
point. "The present production is particularly sensible and judicious;
the stories are well written, simple, and affecting; calculated, not
only for moral improvement, but to exercise the best affections of the
human heart."
With one of the books mentioned by the _Monthly Review_--_Evenings at
Home_--Miss Edgeworth was fully prepared, at all events as regards
format, to associate herself. "The stories," she says in a letter to her
cousin, Miss Sophy Ruxton, "are printed and bound the same size as
_Evenings at Home_, and I am afraid you will dislike the title." Her
father had sent the book to press as the _Parent's Friend_, a name no
doubt suggested by the _Ami des Enfants_ of Berquin; but "Mr. Johnson
[the publisher]," continues Miss Edgeworth, "has degraded it into _The
Parent's Assistant_, which I dislike particularly, from association with
an old book of arithmetic called The _Tutor's Assistant_." The ground of
objection is not very formidable; but the _Parent's Assistant_ is
certainly an infelicitous name. From some other of the author's letters
we are able to trace the gradual growth of the work. Mr. Edgeworth, her
father, an utilitarian of much restless energy, and many projects, was
greatly interested in education,--or, as he would have termed it,
practical education,--and long before this date, as early, indeed, as
May 1780, he had desired his daughter, while she was still a girl at a
London school, to write him a tale about the length of a _Spectator_;
upon the topic of "Generosity," to be taken from history or romance.
This was her first essay in fiction; and it was pronounced by the judge
to whom it was submitted,--in competition with a rival production by a
young gentleman from Oxford,--to be an excellent story, and extremely
well written, although with this commendation was coupled the somewhat
damaging inquiry,--"But where's the Generosity?" The question cannot be
answered now, as the manuscript has not been preserved, though the
inconvenient query, we are told, became a kind of personal proverb with
the young author, who was wont to add that this first effort contained
"a sentence of inextricable confusion between a saddle, a man, and his
horse." This was a defect from which she must have speedily freed
herself, since her style, as her first reviewer allowed, is
conspicuously direct and clear. Accuracy in speaking and writing had,
indeed, been early impressed upon her. Her father's doctrinaire ally and
co-disciplinarian, Mr. Thomas Day, later the author of _Sandford and
Merton_, and apparently the first person of whom it is affirmed that "he
talked like a book," had been indefatigable in bringing this home to his
young friend, when she visited him in her London school-days. Not
content alone to dose her copiously with Bishop Berkeley's Tar
Water--the chosen beverage of Young and Richardson--he was unwearied in
ministering to her understanding. "His severe reasoning and
uncompromising love of truth awakened her powers, and the questions he
put to her, the necessity of perfect accuracy in her answers, suited the
bent of her mind. Though such strictness was not always agreeable, she
even then perceived its advantages, and in after life was deeply
grateful to Mr. Day."[22]
Note:
[22] _Maria Edgeworth_, by Helen Zimmern, 1888, p. 13.
The training she underwent from the inexorable Mr, Day was continued by
her father when she quitted school, and moved with her family to the
parental seat at Edgeworthstown in Ireland. Mr. Edgeworth, whose
principles were as rigorous as those of his friend, devoted himself
early to initiating her into business habits. He taught her to copy
letters, to keep accounts, to receive rents, and, in short, to act as
his agent and factotum. She frequently accompanied him in the many
disputes and difficulties which arose with his Irish tenantry; and,
apart from the insight which this must have afforded her into the
character and idiosyncrasies of the people, she no doubt very early
acquired that exact knowledge of leases and legacies and dishonest
factors which is a noticeable feature even of her children's books.[23]
It is some time, however, before we hear of any successor to
"Generosity"; but, in 1782, her father, with a view to provide her with
an occupation for her leisure, proposed to her to prepare a translation
of the _Adèle et Théodore_ of Madame de Genlis, those letters upon
education by which that gentle and multifarious moralist acquired--to
use her own words--at once "the suffrages of the public, and the
irreconcilable hatred of all the so-called philosophers and their
partisans." At first there had been no definite thought of print in Mr,
Edgeworth's mind. But as the work progressed, the idea gathered
strength; and he began to prepare his daughter's manuscript for the
press. Then, unhappily, when the first volume was finished, Holcroft's
complete translation appeared, and made the labour needless. Yet it was
not without profit. It had been excellent practice in aiding Miss
Edgeworth's faculty of expression, and increasing her vocabulary--to say
nothing of the influence which the portraiture of individuals and the
satire of reigning follies which are the secondary characteristics of
Madame de Genlis's most well-known work, may have had on her own
subsequent efforts as a novelist. Meanwhile her mentor, Mr. Day, was
delighted at the interruption of her task. He possessed, to the full,
that rooted antipathy to feminine authorship of which we find so many
traces in Miss Burney's novels and elsewhere; and he wrote to
congratulate Mr. Edgeworth on having escaped the disgrace of having a
translating daughter. At this time, as already stated, he himself had
not become the author of _Sandford and Merton_, which, as a matter of
fact, owed its inception to the Edgeworths, being at first simply
intended as a short story to be inserted in the _Harry and Lucy_ Mr.
Edgeworth wrote in conjunction with his second wife, Honora Sneyd. As
regards the question of publication, both Maria and her father, although
sensible of Mr. Day's prejudices, appear to have deferred to his
arguments. Nor were these even lost to the public, for we are informed
that, in Miss Edgeworth's first book, ten years later, the _Letters to
Literary Ladies,_ she employed and embodied much that he had advanced.
But for the present, she continued to write--though solely for her
private amusement--essays, little stories, and dramatic sketches. One of
these last must have been "Old Poz," a pleasant study of a country
justice and a _gazza ladra_, which appeared in Part II. of the first
issue of the _Parent's Assistant_, and which, we are told, was acted by
the Edgeworth children in a little theatre erected in the dining-room
for the purpose. According to her sisters, it was Miss Edgeworth's
practice first to write her stories on a slate, and then to read them
out. If they were approved, she transcribed them fairly. "Her writing
for children"--says one of her biographers--"was a natural outgrowth of
a practical study of their wants and fancies; and her constant care of
the younger children gave her exactly the opportunity required to
observe the development of mind incident to the age and capacity of
several little brothers and sisters." According to her own account, her
first critic was her father. "Whenever I thought of writing anything, I
always told him [my father] my first rough plans; and always, with the
instinct of a good critic, he used to fix immediately upon that which
would best answer the purpose.--'_Sketch that, and shew it to
me._'--These words, from the experience of his sagacity, never failed to
inspire me with hope of success. It was then sketched. Sometimes, when I
was fond of a particular part, I used to dilate on it in the sketch; but
to this he always objected--'I don't want any of your painting--none of
your drapery!--I can imagine all that--let me see the bare skeleton.'"
Note:
[23] Cf. "Attorney Case" in the story of "Simple Susan."
Of the first issue of the _Parent's Assistant_ in 1796, a sufficient
account has already been given. In the "Preface" the practical intention
of several of the stories is explicitly set forth. "Lazy Lawrence," we
are told, illustrates the advantages of industry, and demonstrates that
people feel cheerful and happy whilst they are employed; while
"Tarleton" represents "the danger and the folly of that weakness of
mind, and that easiness to be led, which too often pass for good
nature"; "The False Key" points out some of the evils to which a
well-educated boy, on first going to service, is exposed from the
profligacy of his fellow-servants; "The Mimic," the drawback of vulgar
acquaintances; "Barring Out," the errors to which a high spirit and the
love of party are apt to lead, and so forth. In the final paragraph
stress is laid upon what every fresh reader must at once recognise as
the supreme merit of the stories, namely, their dramatic faculty, or (in
the actual words of the "Preface"), their art of "keeping alive hope and
fear and curiosity, by some degree of intricacy."[24] The plausibility
of invention, the amount of ingenious contrivance and of clever
expedient in these professedly nursery stories, is indeed extraordinary;
and nothing can exceed the dexterity with which--to use Dr. Johnson's
words concerning _She Stoops to Conquer_--"the incidents are so prepared
as not to seem improbable." There is no better example of this than the
admirable tale of "The Mimic," in which the most unlooked-for
occurrences succeed each other in the most natural way, while the
disappearance at the end of the little sweep, who has levanted up the
chimney in Frederick's new blue coat and buff waistcoat, is a
master-stroke. Everybody has forgotten everything about him until the
precise moment when he is needed to supply the fitting surprise of the
finish,--a surprise which is only to be compared to that other
revelation in _The Rose and the Ring_ of Thackeray, where the long-lost
and obnoxious porter at Valoroso's palace, having been turned by the
Fairy Blackstick into a door knocker for his insolence, is restored to
the sorrowing Servants' Hall exactly when his services are again
required in the capacity of Mrs. Gruffanuffs husband. But in Miss
Edgeworth's little fable there is no fairy agency. "Fairies were not
much in her line," says Lady Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, "but
philanthropic manufacturers, liberal noblemen, and benevolent ladies in
travelling carriages, do as well and appear in the nick of time to
distribute rewards or to point a moral."
Note:
[24] The "Preface to Parents"--Miss Emily Lawless suggests to me--was
probably by Mr. Edgeworth.
Although, by their sub-title, these stories are avowedly composed for
children, they are almost as attractive to grown-up readers. This is
partly owing to their narrative skill, partly also to the clear
characterisation, which already betrays the coming author of _Castle
Rackrent_ and _Belinda_ and _Patronage_--the last, under its first name
of _The Freeman Family_, being already partly written, although many
years were still to pass before it saw the light in 1814. Readers, wise
after the event, might fairly claim to have foreseen from some of the
personages in the _Parent's Assistant_ that the author, however sedulous
to describe "such situations only ... as children can easily imagine,"
was not able entirely to resist tempting specimens of human nature like
the bibulous Mr. Corkscrew, the burglar butler in "The False Key," or
Mrs. Pomfret, the housekeeper of the same story, whose prejudices
against the _Villaintropic_ Society, and its unholy dealing with the
"_drugs and refuges_" of humanity, are quite in the style of the Mrs.
Slipslop of a great artist whose works one would scarcely have expected
to encounter among the paper-backed and grey-boarded volumes which lined
the shelves at Edgeworthstown. Mrs. Theresa Tattle, again, in "The
Mimic," is a type which requires but little to fit it for a subordinate
part in a novel, as is also Lady Diana Sweepstakes in "Waste not, Want
not." In more than one case, we seem to detect an actual portrait. Mr.
Somerville of Somerville ("The White Pigeon"), to whom that "little
town" belonged,--who had done so much "to inspire his tenantry with a
taste for order and domestic happiness, and took every means in his
power to encourage industrious, well-behaved people to settle in his
neighbourhood,"--can certainly be none other than the father of the
writer of the _Parent's Assistant_, the busy and beneficent, but surely
eccentric, Mr. Edgeworth of Edgeworthstown.
When, in 1849, the first two volumes of Macaulay's _History_ were
issued, Miss Edgeworth, then in her eighty-third winter, was greatly
delighted to find her name, coupled with a compliment to one of her
characters, enshrined in a note to chap. vi. But her gratification was
qualified by the fact that she could discover no similar reference to
her friend, Sir Walter Scott. The generous "twinge of pain," to which
she confesses, was intelligible. Scott had always admired her genius,
and she admired his. In the "General Preface" to the _Waverley Novels_,
twenty years before, he had gone so far as to say that, without hoping
to emulate "the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact" of
Miss Edgeworth, he had attempted to do for his own country what she had
done for hers; and it is clear, from other sources, that this was no
mere form of words. And he never wavered in his admiration. In his last
years, not many months before his death, when he had almost forgotten
her name, he was still talking kindly of her work. Speaking to Mrs. John
Davy of Miss Austen and Miss Ferrier, he said: "And there's that Irish
lady, too--but I forget everybody's name now" ... "she's _very_ clever,
and best in the little touches too. I'm sure in that children's story,
where the little girl parts with her lamb, and the little boy brings it
back to her again, there's nothing for it but just to put down the book
and cry."[25] The reference is to "Simple Susan," the longest and
prettiest tale in the _Parent's Assistant_.
Note:
[25] Lockhart's _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, ch. lxxxi. _ad finem_.
Another anecdote pleasantly connects the same book with a popular work
of a later writer. Readers of _Cranford_ will recall the feud between
the Johnson-loving Miss Jenkyns of that story and its _Pickwick_-loving
Captain Brown. The Captain--as is well-known--met his death by a railway
accident, just after he had been studying the last monthly "green
covers" of Dickens. Years later, the assumed narrator of _Cranford_
visits Miss Jenkyns, then faliing into senility. She still vaunts _The
Rambler_; still maunders vaguely of the "strange old book, with the
queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for reading-that book by Mr.
Boz, you know--_Old Poz_; when I was a girl--but that's a long time
ago--I acted Lucy in _Old Poz_." There can be no mistake. Lucy is the
justice's daughter in Miss Edgeworth's little chamber-drama.