A BOOK OF SIBYLS

 MRS BARBAULD MISS EDGEWORTH

 MRS OPIE MISS AUSTEN

BY

MISS THACKERAY(MRS RICHMOND RITCHIE)

LONDONSMITH, ELDER, & CO. , 15 WATERLOO PLACE1883

[_All rights reserved_]

[_Reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine_]

_TO_

_MRS OLIPHANT_

_My little record would not seem to me in any way complete without yourname, dear Sibyl of our own, and as I write it here, I am grateful toknow that to mine and me it is not only the name of a Sibyl with deepvisions, but of a friend to us all. __A. T. R. _

PREFACE. 

Not long ago, a party of friends were sitting at luncheon in a suburbof London, when one of them happened to make some reference to MapleGrove and Selina, and to ask in what county of England Maple Grove wassituated. Everybody immediately had a theory. Only one of the company (aFrench gentleman, not well acquainted with English) did not recognisethe allusion. A lady sitting by the master of the house (she will, Ihope, forgive me for quoting her words, for no one else has a betterright to speak them) said, 'What a curious sign it is of Jane Austen'sincreasing popularity! Here are five out of six people sitting round atable, nearly a hundred years after her death, who all recognise at oncea chance allusion to an obscure character in one of her books. '

It seemed impossible to leave out Jane Austen's dear household namefrom a volume which concerned women writing in the early part of thiscentury, and although the essay which is called by her name has alreadybeen reprinted, it is added with some alteration in its place with theothers. 

Putting together this little book has been a great pleasure and interestto the compiler, and she wishes once more to thank those who have sokindly sheltered her during her work, and lent her books and papersand letters concerning the four writers whose works and manner of beingshe has attempted to describe; and she wishes specially to expressher thanks to the Baron and Baroness VON HÜGEL, to the ladies of MissEdgeworth's family, to Mr. HARRISON, of the London Library, to the MissREIDS, of Hampstead, to Mrs. FIELD and her daughters, of Squire's Mount, Hampstead, to Lady BUXTON, Mrs. BROOKFIELD, Miss ALDERSON, and MissSHIRREFF. 

 CONTENTS. PAGE

 MRS. BARBAULD [1743-1825] 1 MARIA EDGEWORTH [1767-1849] 51 MRS. OPIE [1769-1853] 149 JANE AUSTEN [1775-1817] 197

A BOOK OF SIBYLS. 

_MRS. BARBAULD. _

 1743-1825. 

 'I've heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. ' _Measure for Measure. _

I. 

'The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with whose works Ibecame acquainted--before those of any other author, male or female--whenI was learning to spell words of one syllable in her story-books forchildren. ' So says Hazlitt in his lectures on living poets. He goes onto call her a very pretty poetess, strewing flowers of poesy as shegoes. 

The writer must needs, from the same point of view as Hazlitt, look uponMrs. Barbauld with a special interest, having also first learnt to readout of her little yellow books, of which the syllables rise up one byone again with a remembrance of the hand patiently pointing to each inturn; all this recalled and revived after a lifetime by the sight of arusty iron gateway, behind which Mrs. Barbauld once lived, of some oldletters closely covered with a wavery writing, of a wide prospect thatshe once delighted to look upon. Mrs. Barbauld, who loved to share herpleasures, used to bring her friends to see the great view from theHampstead hill-top, and thus records their impressions:--

'I dragged Mrs. A. Up as I did you, my dear, to our Prospect Walk, fromwhence we have so extensive a view. 

'Yes, ' said she, 'it is a very fine view indeed for a flat country. '

'While, on the other hand, Mrs. B. Gave us such a dismal account of theprecipices, mountains, and deserts she encountered, that you would havethought she had been on the wildest part of the Alps. '

The old Hampstead highroad, starting from the plain, winds its wayresolutely up the steep, and brings you past red-brick houses andwalled-in gardens to this noble outlook; to the heath, with its fresh, inspiriting breezes, its lovely distances of far-off waters and gorsyhollows. At whatever season, at whatever hour you come, you are prettysure to find one or two votaries--poets like Mrs. Barbauld, or commonplacepeople such as her friends--watching before this great altar of nature;whether by early morning rays, or in the blazing sunset, or when theevening veils and mists with stars come falling, while the lights ofLondon shine far away in the valley. Years after Mrs. Barbauld wrote, one man, pre-eminent amongst poets, used to stand upon this hill-top, and lo! as Turner gazed, a whole generation gazed with him. For himItaly gleamed from behind the crimson stems of the fir-trees; the spiritof loveliest mythology floated upon the clouds, upon the many changingtints of the plains; and, as the painter watched the lights upon thedistant hills, they sank into his soul, and he painted them down for us, and poured his dreams into our awakening hearts. 

He was one of that race of giants, mighty men of humble heart, who havelooked from Hampstead and Highgate Hills. Here Wordsworth trod; heresang Keats's nightingale; here mused Coleridge; and here came Carlyle, only yesterday, tramping wearily, in search of some sign of his oldcompanions. Here, too, stood kind Walter Scott, under the elms of theJudges' Walk, and perhaps Joanna Baillie was by his side, coming outfrom her pretty old house beyond the trees. Besides all these, were awhole company of lesser stars following and surrounding the brighterplanets--muses, memoirs, critics, poets, nymphs, authoresses--coming todrink tea and to admire the pleasant suburban beauties of this modernParnassus. A record of many of their names is still to be found, appropriately enough, in the catalogue of the little Hampstead librarywhich still exists, which was founded at a time when the very handsthat wrote the books may have placed the old volumes upon the shelves. Present readers can study them at their leisure, to the clanking of thehorses' feet in the courtyard outside, and the splashing of buckets. A few newspapers lie on the table--stray sheets of to-day that havefluttered up the hill, bringing news of this bustling now into a pastserenity. The librarian sits stitching quietly in a window. An old ladycomes in to read the news; but she has forgotten her spectacles, andsoon goes away. Here, instead of asking for 'Vice Versā, ' or Ouida'slast novel, you instinctively mention 'Plays of the Passions, ' MissBurney's 'Evelina, ' or some such novels; and Mrs. Barbauld's works arealso in their place. When I asked for them, two pretty old Quakervolumes were put into my hands, with shabby grey bindings, with finepaper and broad margins, such as Mr. Ruskin would approve. Of allthe inhabitants of this bookshelf Mrs. Barbauld is one of the mostappropriate. It is but a few minutes' walk from the library in HeathStreet to the old corner house in Church Row where she lived for a time, near a hundred years ago, and all round about are the scenes of much ofher life, of her friendships and interests. Here lived her friends andneighbours; here to Church Row came her pupils and admirers, and, laterstill, to the pretty old house on Rosslyn Hill. As for Church Row, asmost people know, it is an avenue of Dutch red-faced houses, leadingdemurely to the old church tower, that stands guarding its graves in theflowery churchyard. As we came up the quiet place, the sweet windy droneof the organ swelled across the blossoms of the spring, which werelighting up every shabby corner and hillside garden. Through thispleasant confusion of past and present, of spring-time scatteringblossoms upon the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoningpast memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one couldpicture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from thecorner house with the ivy walls--distinct, sedate--passing under the olddoorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many finemuslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but slightand graceful in her quick advance, with blue eyes, with delicate sharpfeatures, and a dazzling skin. As for the gentleman, I pictured him adapper figure, with dark eyes, dressed in black, as befitted a ministereven of dissenting views. The lady came forward, looking amused by myscrutiny, somewhat shy I thought--was she going to speak? And by thesame token it seemed to me the gentleman was about to interrupt her. ButMargaret, my young companion, laughed and opened an umbrella, or a cockcrew, or some door banged, and the fleeting visions of fancydisappeared. 

Many well-authenticated ghost stories describe the apparition of bygonepersons, and lo! when the figure vanishes, a letter is left behind! Somesuch experience seemed to be mine when, on my return, I found a packetof letters on the hall table--letters not addressed to me, but to someunknown Miss Belsham, and signed and sealed by Mrs. Barbauld's hand. They had been sent for me to read by the kindness of some ladies nowliving at Hampstead, who afterwards showed me the portrait of the lady, who began the world as Miss Betsy Belsham and who ended her career asMrs. Kenrick. It is an oval miniature, belonging to the times of powderand of puff, representing not a handsome, but an animated countenance, with laughter and spirit in the expression; the mouth is large, the eyesare dark, the nose is short. This was the _confidante_ of Mrs. Barbauld'searly days, the faithful friend of her latter sorrows. The letters, keptby 'Betsy' with faithful conscientious care for many years, give thestory of a whole lifetime with unconscious fidelity. The gaiety ofyouth, its impatience, its exuberance, and sometimes bad taste; thewider, quieter feelings of later life; the courage of sorrowful times;long friendship deepening the tender and faithful memories of age, whenthere is so little left to say, so much to feel--all these things arethere. 

II. 

Mrs. Barbauld was a schoolmistress, and a schoolmaster's wife anddaughter. Her father was Dr. John Aikin, D. D. ; her mother was Miss JaneJennings, of a good Northamptonshire family--scholastic also. Dr. Aikinbrought his wife home to Knibworth, in Leicestershire, where he opened aschool which became very successful in time. Mrs. Barbauld, their eldestchild, was born here in 1743, and was christened Anna Lętitia, aftersome lady of high degree belonging to her mother's family. Two or threeyears later came a son. It was a quiet home, deep hidden in the secludedrural place; and the little household lived its own tranquil life faraway from the storms and battles and great events that were stirringthe world. Dr. Aikin kept school; Mrs. Aikin ruled her household withcapacity, and not without some sternness, according to the custom of thetime. It appears that late in life the good lady was distressed by thebackwardness of her grandchildren at four or five years old. 'I once, indeed, knew a little girl, ' so wrote Mrs. Aikin of her daughter, 'whowas as eager to learn as her instructor could be to teach her, and whoat two years old could read sentences and little stories, in her _wise_book, roundly and without spelling, and in half a year or more couldread as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believeI never shall. ' It was fortunate that no great harm came of this prematureforcing, although it is difficult to say what its absence might nothave done for Mrs. Barbauld. One can fancy the little assiduous girl, industrious, impulsive, interested in everything--in all life andall nature--drinking in, on every side, learning, eagerly wondering, listening to all around with bright and ready wit. There is a prettylittle story told by Mrs. Ellis in her book about Mrs. Barbauld, howone day, when Dr. Aikin and a friend 'were conversing on the passions, 'the Doctor observes that joy cannot have place in a state of perfectfelicity, since it supposes an accession of happiness. 

'I think you are mistaken, papa, ' says a little voice from the oppositeside of the table. 

'Why so, my child?' says the Doctor. 

'Because in the chapter I read to you this morning, in the Testament, itis said that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteththan over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance. "'

Besides her English Testament and her early reading, the little girl wastaught by her mother to do as little daughters did in those days, toobey a somewhat austere rule, to drop curtsies in the right place, tomake beds, to preserve fruits. The father, after demur, but surelynot without some paternal pride in her proficiency, taught the childLatin and French and Italian, and something of Greek, and gave her anacquaintance with English literature. One can imagine little Nancy withher fair head bending over her lessons, or, when playing time had come, perhaps a little lonely and listening to the distant voices of theschoolboys at their games. The mother, fearing she might acquire roughand boisterous manners, strictly forbade any communication with theschoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times andof the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauldused to attribute to this early formal training something of thehesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off. She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. Onecould imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful, and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against the rigid order of herhome, and feeling lonely for want of liberty and companionship. It wastrue she had birds and beasts and plants for her playfellows, but shewas of a gregarious and sociable nature, and she was unconsciouslylonging for something more, and perhaps feeling a want in her earlylife which no silent company can supply. 

She was about fifteen when a great event took place. Her father wasappointed classical tutor to the Warrington Academy, and thitherthe little family removed. We read that the Warrington Academy was aDissenting college started by very eminent and periwigged personages, whose silhouettes Mrs. Barbauld herself afterwards cut out insticking-plaster, and whose names are to this day remembered and held injust esteem. They were people of simple living and high thinking, theybelonged to a class holding then a higher place than now in the world'sesteem, that of Dissenting ministers. The Dissenting ministers werefairly well paid and faithfully followed by their congregations. Thecollege was started under the auspices of distinguished members of thecommunity, Lord Willoughby of Parham, the last Presbyterian lord, beingpatron. Among the masters were to be found the well-known names of Dr. Doddridge; of Gilbert Wakefield, the reformer and uncompromising martyr;of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, the Hebrew scholar; of Dr. Priestley, thechemical analyst and patriot, and enterprising theologian, who leftEngland and settled in America for conscience and liberty's sake. 

Many other people, neither students nor professors, used to come toWarrington, and chief among them in later years good John Howard withMSS. For his friend Dr. Aikin to correct for the press. Now for thefirst time Mrs. Barbauld (Miss Aikin she was then) saw something of reallife, of men and manners. It was not likely that she looked back withany lingering regret to Knibworth, or would have willingly returnedthither. A story in one of her memoirs gives an amusing picture of themanners of a young country lady of that day. Mr. Haines, a rich farmerfrom Knibworth, who had been greatly struck by Miss Aikin, followed herto Warrington, and 'obtained a private audience of her father and beggedhis consent to be allowed to make her his wife. ' The father answered'that his daughter was there walking in the garden, and he might goand ask her himself. ' 'With what grace the farmer pleaded his cause Iknow not, ' says her biographer and niece. 'Out of all patience at hisunwelcome importunities, my aunt ran nimbly up a tree which grew by thegarden wall, and let herself down into the lane beyond. '

The next few years must have been perhaps the happiest of Mrs. Barbauld'slife. Once when it was nearly over she said to her niece, Mrs. LeBreton, from whose interesting account I have been quoting, that she hadnever been placed in a situation which really suited her. As one readsher sketches and poems, one is struck by some sense of this detractinginfluence of which she complains: there is a certain incompleteness andslightness which speaks of intermittent work, of interrupted trains ofthought. At the same time there is a natural buoyant quality in much ofher writing which seems like a pleasant landscape view seen through thebars of a window. There may be wider prospects, but her eyes are bright, and this peep of nature is undoubtedly delightful. 

III. 

The letters to Miss Belsham begin somewhere about 1768. The young ladyhas been paying a visit to Miss Aikin at Warrington, and is interestedin everyone and everything belonging to the place. Miss Aikin is no lesseager to describe than Miss Belsham to listen, and accordingly a wholestream of characters and details of gossip and descriptions in fadedink come flowing across their pages, together with many expressions ofaffection and interest. 'My dear Betsy, I love you for discarding theword Miss from your vocabulary, ' so the packet begins, and it continuesin the same strain of pleasant girlish chatter, alternating with thehistory of many bygone festivities, and stories of friends, neighbours, of beaux and partners; of the latter genus, and of Miss Aikin's effortsto make herself agreeable, here is a sample:--'I talked to him, smiledupon him, gave him my fan to play with, ' says the lively young lady. 'Nothing would do; he was grave as a philosopher. I tried to raisea conversation: "'Twas fine weather for dancing. " He agreed to myobservation. "We had a tolerable set this time. " Neither did he contradictthat. Then we were both silent--stupid mortal thought I! but unreasonableas he appeared to the advances that I made him, there was one object inthe room, a sparkling object which seemed to attract all his attention, on which he seemed to gaze with transport, and which indeed he hardlytook his eyes off the whole time. .. . The object that I mean was hisshoebuckle. '

One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in some such strain toher friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after one of the evenings at Bingley'shospitable mansion. And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romanticthan Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the wings of the wind, 'she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy what?--only that I love her dearly. '

Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in these letters, and tohave assumed the more dignified Lętitia upon her marriage) pours outher lively heart, laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimentalaffairs of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. Perhaps fewyoung ladies now-a-days would write to their _confidantes_ with theannouncement that for some time past a young sprig had been teasing themto have him. This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She alsowrites poems and _jeux d'esprit_, and receives poetry in return fromBetsy, who calls herself Camilla, and pays her friend many compliments, for Miss Aikin in her reply quotes the well-known lines:--

 Who for another's brow entwines the bays, And where she well might rival stoops to Praise. 

Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of a full-blownauthoress, and is publishing a successful book of poems in conjunctionwith her brother, which little book created much attention at the time. One day the Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see heramongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My brother (saucyfellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think (stroking his chin as hewalks backwards and forwards in the room with great gravity). I think weshould admire one another. '

'When you come among us, ' continues the warm-hearted friend, 'we shallset the bells a-ringing, bid adieu to care and gravity, and sing "O bejoyful. "' And finally, after some apologies for her remiss correspondence, 'I left my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. Well, itis a clever thing too, to have a husband to write one's letters for one. If I had one I would be a much better correspondent to you. I wouldorder him to write every week. '

And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, and did not forgetthe resolutions made by Miss Aikin in 1773. In 1774 comes some eventfulnews: 'I should have written to you sooner had it not been for theuncertainty and suspense in which for a long time I have been involved;and since my lot has been fixed for many busy engagements which haveleft me few moments of leisure. They hurry me out of my life. It ishardly a month that I have certainly known I should fix on Norfolk, andnow next Thursday they say I am to be finally, irrevocably married. Pityme, dear Betsy; for on the day I fancy when you will read this letter, will the event take place which is to make so great an era in my life. Ifeel depressed, and my courage almost fails me. Yet upon the whole Ihave the greatest reason to think I shall be happy. I shall possess theentire affection of a worthy man, whom my father and mother now entirelyand heartily approve. The people where we are going, though strangers, have behaved with the greatest zeal and affection; and I think we havea fair prospect of being useful and living comfortably in that state ofmiddling life to which I have been accustomed, and which I love. '

And then comes a word which must interest all who have ever cared andfelt grateful admiration for the works of one devoted human being andtrue Christian hero. Speaking of her father's friend, John Howard, shesays with an almost audible sigh: 'It was too late, as you say, or Ibelieve I should have been in love with Mr. Howard. Seriously, I lookedupon him with that sort of reverence and love which one should have fora guardian angel. God bless him and preserve his health for the health'ssake of thousands. And now farewell, ' she writes in conclusion: 'I shallwrite to you no more under this name; but under any name, in everysituation, at any distance of time or place, I shall love you equallyand be always affectionately yours, tho' _not_ always, A. AIKIN. '

 * * * * *

Poor lady! The future held, indeed, many a sad and unsuspected hour forher, many a cruel pang, many a dark and heavy season, that must haveseemed intolerably weary to one of her sprightly and yet somewhatindolent nature, more easily accepting evil than devising escape fromit. But it also held many blessings of constancy, friendship, kindlydeeds, and useful doings. She had not devotion to give such as that ofthe good Howard whom she revered, but the equable help and sympathy forothers of an open-minded and kindly woman was hers. Her marriage wouldseem to have been brought about by a romantic fancy rather than by atender affection. Mr. Barbauld's mind had been once unhinged; hisprotestations were passionate and somewhat dramatic. We are told thatwhen she was warned by a friend, she only said, 'But surely, if I throwhim over, he will become crazy again;' and from a high-minded sense ofpity, she was faithful, and married him against the wish of her brotherand parents, and not without some misgivings herself. He was a manperfectly sincere and honourable; but, from his nervous want ofequilibrium, subject all his life to frantic outbursts of ill-temper. Nobody ever knew what his wife had to endure in secret; her calm andrestrained manner must have effectually hidden the constant anxiety ofher life; nor had she children to warm her heart, and brighten up hermonotonous existence. Little Charles, of the Reading-book, who is bid tocome hither, who counted so nicely, who stroked the pussy cat, and whodeserved to listen to the delightful stories he was told, was not herown son but her brother's child. When he was born, she wrote to entreatthat he might be given over to her for her own, imploring her brother tospare him to her, in a pretty and pathetic letter. This was a motheryearning for a child, not a schoolmistress asking for a pupil, thoughperhaps in after times the two were somewhat combined in her. There is apretty little description of Charles making great progress in 'climbingtrees and talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that ourCharles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly naturalised inhis new situation; and if I should make any blunders in my letter, Imust beg you to impute it to his standing by me and chattering all thetime. ' And how pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in thatmost charming little book written for him and for the babies of babiesto come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it and appreciation ofchildhood which cannot fail to strike those who have to do with childrenand with Mrs. Barbauld's books for them: children themselves, those bestcritics of all, delight in it. 

'Where's Charles?' says a little scholar every morning to the writer ofthese few notes. 

IV. 

Soon after the marriage, there had been some thought of a college foryoung ladies, of which Mrs. Barbauld was to be the principal; but sheshrank from the idea, and in a letter to Mrs. Montagu she objects tothe scheme of higher education for women away from their natural homes. 'I should have little hope of cultivating a love of knowledge in a younglady of fifteen who came to me ignorant and uncultivated. It is too latethen to begin to learn. The empire of the passions is coming on. Thoseattachments begin to be formed which influence the happiness of futurelife. The care of a mother alone can give suitable attention to thisimportant period. ' It is true that the rigidness of her own home had notprevented her from making a hasty and unsuitable marriage. But it is notthis which is weighing on her mind. 'Perhaps you may think, ' she says, 'that having myself stepped out of the bounds of female reserve inbecoming an author, it is with an ill grace that I offer thesestatements. '

Her arguments seem to have been thought conclusive in those days, andthe young ladies' college was finally transmuted into a school forlittle boys at Palgrave, in Norfolk, and thither the worthy coupletransported themselves. 

One of the letters to Miss Belsham is thus dated:--'_The 14th of July, in the village of Palgrave (the pleasantest village in all England), atten o'clock, all alone in my great parlour, Mr. Barbauld being studyinga sermon, do I begin a letter to my dear Betsy. _'

When she first married, and travelled into Norfolk to keep school atPalgrave, nothing could have seemed more tranquil, more contented, morematter-of-fact than her life as it appears from her letters. Dreams, andfancies, and gay illusions and excitements have made way for thesomewhat disappointing realisation of Mr. Barbauld with his neatlyturned and friendly postscripts--a husband, polite, devoted, it istrue, but somewhat disappointing all the same. The next few yearsseem like years in a hive--storing honey for the future, and puttingaway--industrious, punctual, monotonous. There are children's lessons tobe heard, and school-treats to be devised. She sets them to act playsand cuts out paper collars for Henry IV. ; she always takes a class ofbabies entirely her own. (One of these babies, who always loved her, became Lord Chancellor Denman; most of the others took less brilliant, but equally respectable places, in after life. ) She has also householdmatters and correspondence not to be neglected. In the holidays, theymake excursions to Norwich, to London, and revisit their old haunts atWarrington. In one of her early letters, soon after her marriage, shedescribes her return to Warrington. 

'Dr. Enfield's face, ' she declares, 'is grown half a foot longer since Isaw him, with studying mathematics, and for want of a game of romps; forthere are positively none now at Warrington but grave matrons. I whohave but half assumed the character, was ashamed of the levity of mybehaviour. '

It says well indeed for the natural brightness of the lady's dispositionthat with sixteen boarders and a satisfactory usher to look after, sheshould be prepared for a game of romps with Dr. Enfield. 

On another occasion, in 1777, she takes little Charles away with her. 'He has indeed been an excellent traveller, ' she says; 'and though, likehis great ancestor, some natural tears he shed, like him, too, he wipedthem soon. He had a long sound sleep last night, and has been very busyto-day hunting the puss and the chickens. And now, my dear brother andsister, let me again thank you for this precious gift, the value of whichwe are both more and more sensible of as we become better acquainted withhis sweet disposition and winning manners. '

She winds up this letter with a postscript:--

'Everybody here asks, "Pray, is Dr. Dodd really to be executed?" as ifwe knew the more for having been at Warrington. '

Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld's brother, the father of little Charles and ofLucy Aikin, whose name is well known in literature, was himself a man ofgreat parts, industry, and ability, working hard to support his family. He alternated between medicine and literature all his life. When hishealth failed he gave up medicine, and settled at Stoke Newington, andbusied himself with periodic literature; meanwhile, whatever his ownpursuits may have been, he never ceased to take an interest in hissister's work and to encourage her in every way. 

It is noteworthy that few of Mrs. Barbauld's earlier productionsequalled what she wrote at the very end of her life. She seems to havebeen one of those who ripen with age, growing wider in spirit withincreasing years. Perhaps, too, she may have been influenced by thechange of manners, the reaction against formalism, which was growing upas her own days were ending. Prim she may have been in manner, but shewas not a formalist by nature; and even at eighty was ready to learn tosubmit to accept the new gospel that Wordsworth and his disciples hadgiven to the world, and to shake off the stiffness of early training. 

It is idle to speculate on what might have been if things had happenedotherwise; if the daily stress of anxiety and perplexity which hauntedher home had been removed--difficulties and anxieties which may wellhave absorbed all the spare energy and interest that under happiercircumstances might have added to the treasury of English literature. But if it were only for one ode written when the distracting cares ofover seventy years were ending, when nothing remained to her but theessence of a long past, and the inspirations of a still glowing, stillhopeful, and most tender spirit, if it were only for the ode called'Life, ' which has brought a sense of ease and comfort to so many, Mrs. Barbauld has indeed deserved well of her country-people and should beheld in remembrance by them. 

Her literary works are, after all, not very voluminous. She is bestknown by her hymns for children and her early lessons, than whichnothing more childlike has ever been devised; and we can agree with herbrother, Dr. Aikin, when he says that it requires true genius to enterso completely into a child's mind. 

After their first volume of verse, the brother and sister had publisheda second in prose, called 'Miscellaneous Pieces, ' about which there isan amusing little anecdote in Rogers's 'Memoirs. ' Fox met Dr. Aikin atdinner. 

'"I am greatly pleased with your 'Miscellaneous Pieces, '" said Fox. Aikin bowed. "I particularly admire, " continued Fox, "your essay'Against Inconsistency in our Expectations. '"

'"That, " replied Aikin, "is my sister's. "

'"I like much, " returned Fox, "your essay 'On Monastic Institutions. '"

'"That, " answered Aikin, "is also my sister's. "

'Fox thought it best to say no more about the book. '

These essays were followed by various of the visions and Eastern piecesthen so much in vogue; also by political verses and pamphlets, whichseemed to have made a great sensation at the time. But Mrs. Barbauld'sturn was on the whole more for domestic than for literary life, althoughliterary people always seem to have had a great interest for her. 

During one Christmas which they spent in London, the worthy couple goto see Mrs. Siddons; and Mrs. Chapone introduces Mrs. Barbauld to MissBurney. 'A very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady, 'says Mrs. Barbauld, who is always kind in her descriptions. Mrs. Barbauld's one complaint in London is of the fatigue from hairdressers, and the bewildering hurry of the great city, where she had, notwithstandingher quiet country life, many ties, and friendships, and acquaintances. Her poem on 'Corsica' had brought her into some relations with Boswell;she also knew Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. Here is her description of the'Great Bear:'--

'I do not mean that one which shines in the sky over your head; but theBear that shines in London--a great rough, surly animal. His Christianname is Dr. Johnson. 'Tis a singular creature; but if you stroke him hewill not bite, and though he growls sometimes he is not ill-humoured. '

Johnson describes Mrs. Barbauld as suckling fools and chronicling smallbeer. There was not much sympathy between the two. Characters such asJohnson's harmonise best with the enthusiastic and easily influenced. Mrs. Barbauld did not belong to this class; she trusted to her ownjudgment, rarely tried to influence others, and took a matter-of-factrather than a passionate view of life. She is as severe to him in hercriticism as he was in his judgment of her: they neither of them did theother justice. 'A Christian and a man-about-town, a philosopher, and abigot acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it more miserablethrough fear of death. ' So she writes of him, and all this was true; buthow much more was also true of the great and hypochondriacal old man!Some years afterwards, when she had been reading Boswell's long-expected'Life of Johnson, ' she wrote of the book:--'It is like going to Ranelagh;you meet all your acquaintances; but it is a base and mean thing tobring thus every idle word into judgment. ' In our own day we too haveour Boswell and our Johnson to arouse discussion and indignation. 

'Have you seen Boswell's "Life of Johnson?" He calls it a Flemishportrait, and so it is--two quartos of a man's conversation and pettyhabits. Then the treachery and meanness of watching a man for yearsin order to set down every unguarded and idle word he uttered, isinconceivable. Yet with all this one cannot help reading a good dealof it. ' This is addressed to the faithful Betsy, who was also keepingschool by that time, and assuming brevet rank in consequence. 

Mrs. Barbauld might well complain of the fatigue from hairdressers inLondon. In one of her letters to her friend she thus describes a lady'sdress of the period:--

'Do you know how to dress yourself in Dublin? If you do not, I will tellyou. Your waist must be the circumference of two oranges, no more. Youmust erect a structure on your head gradually ascending to a foot high, exclusive of feathers, and stretching to a penthouse of most horribleprojection behind, the breadth from wing to wing considerably broaderthan your shoulder, and as many different things in your cap as inNoah's ark. Verily, I never did see such monsters as the heads now invogue. I am a monster, too, but a moderate one. '

She must have been glad to get back to her home, to her daily work, toCharles, climbing his trees and talking his nonsense. 

In the winter of 1784 her mother died at Palgrave. It was Christmasweek; the old lady had come travelling four days through the snow in apostchaise with her maid and her little grandchildren, while her sonrode on horseback. But the cold and the fatigue of the journey, and thediscomfort of the inns, proved too much for Mrs. Aikin, who reached herdaughter's house only to die. Just that time three years before Mrs. Barbauld had lost her father, whom she dearly loved. There is a strikingletter from the widowed mother to her daughter recording the event. Itis almost Spartan in its calmness, but nevertheless deeply touching. Nowshe, too, was at rest, and after Mrs. Aikin's death a cloud of sadnessand depression seems to have fallen upon the household. Mr. Barbauld wasailing; he was suffering from a nervous irritability which occasionallyquite unfitted him for his work as a schoolmaster. Already his wife musthave had many things to bear, and very much to try her courage andcheerfulness; and now her health was also failing. It was in 1775 thatthey gave up the academy, which, on the whole, had greatly flourished. It had been established eleven years; they were both of them in need ofrest and change. Nevertheless, it was not without reluctance that theybrought themselves to leave their home at Palgrave. A successor wasfound only too quickly for Mrs. Barbauld's wishes; they handed overtheir pupils to his care, and went abroad for a year's sunshine anddistraction. 

V. 

What a contrast to prim, starched scholastic life at Palgrave must havebeen the smiling world, and the land flowing with oil and wine, in whichthey found themselves basking! The vintage was so abundant that yearthat the country people could not find vessels to contain it. 'The roadscovered with teams of casks, empty or full according as they were goingout or returning, and drawn by oxen whose strong necks seemed to bebowed unwillingly under the yoke. Men, women, and children were abroad;some cutting with a short sickle the bunches of grapes, some breakingthem with a wooden instrument, some carrying them on their backs fromthe gatherers to those who pressed the juice; and, as in our harvest, the gleaners followed. '

From the vintage they travel to the Alps, 'a sight so majestic, sototally different from anything I had seen before, that I am ready tosing _nunc dimittis_, ' she writes. They travel back by the south ofFrance and reach Paris in June, where the case of the Diamond Necklaceis being tried. Then they return to England, waiting a day at Boulognefor a vessel, but crossing from thence in less than four hours. Howpretty is her description of England as it strikes them after theirabsence! 'And not without pleasing emotion did we view again the greenswelling hills covered with large sheep, and the winding road borderedwith the hawthorn hedge, and the English vine twirled round the tallpoles, and the broad Medway covered with vessels, and at last the gentleyet majestic Thames. '

There were Dissenters at Hampstead in those days, as there are still, and it was a call from a little Unitarian congregation on the hillsidewho invited Mr. Barbauld to become their minister, which decided theworthy couple to retire to this pleasant suburb. The place seemedpromising enough; they were within reach of Mrs. Barbauld's brother, Dr. Aikin, now settled in London, and to whom she was tenderly attached. There were congenial people settled all about. On the high hill-top werepleasant old houses to live in. There was occupation for him andliterary interest for her. 

They are a sociable and friendly pair, hospitable, glad to welcome theirfriends, and the acquaintance, and critics, and the former pupils whocome toiling up the hill to visit them. Rogers comes to dinner 'at halfafter three. ' They have another poet for a neighbour, Miss JoannaBaillie; they are made welcome by all, and in their turn make otherswelcome; they do acts of social charity and kindness wherever they seethe occasion. They have a young Spanish gentleman to board who concealsa taste for 'seguars. ' They also go up to town from time to time. Onone occasion Mr. Barbauld repairs to London to choose a wedding presentfor Miss Belsham, who is about to be married to Mr. Kenrick, a widowerwith daughters. He chose two slim Wedgwood pots of some late classicmodel, which still stand, after many dangers, safely on either side ofMrs. Kenrick's portrait in Miss Reid's drawing-room at Hampstead. Wedgwood must have been a personal friend: he has modelled a lovely headof Mrs. Barbauld, simple and nymph-like. 

Hampstead was no further from London in those days than it is now, andthey seem to have kept up a constant communication with their friendsand relations in the great city. They go to the play occasionally. 'Ihave not indeed seen Mrs. Siddons often, but I think I never saw her tomore advantage, ' she writes. 'It is not, however, seeing a play, it isonly seeing one character, for they have nobody to act with her. '

Another expedition is to Westminster Hall, where Warren Hastings wasthen being tried for his life. 

'The trial has attracted the notice of most people who are within reachof it. I have been, and was very much struck with all the apparatus andpomp of justice, with the splendour of the assembly which containedeverything distinguished in the nation, with the grand idea that theequity of the English was to pursue crimes committed at the other sideof the globe, and oppressions exercised towards the poor Indians who hadcome to plead their cause; but all these fine ideas vanish and fade awayas one observes the progress of the cause, and sees it fall into thesummer amusements, and take the place of a rehearsal of music or anevening at Vauxhall. '

Mrs. Barbauld was a Liberal in feeling and conviction; she was neverafraid to speak her mind, and when the French Revolution first began, she, in common with many others, hoped that it was but the dawning ofhappier times. She was always keen about public events; she wrote anaddress on the opposition to the repeal of the Test Act in 1791, and shepublished her poem to Wilberforce on the rejection of his great bill forabolishing slavery:--

 Friends of the friendless, hail, ye generous band!

she cries, in warm enthusiasm for the devoted cause. 

Horace Walpole nicknamed her Deborah, called her the Virago Barbauld, and speaks of her with utter rudeness and intolerant spite. But whetheror not Horace Walpole approved, it is certain that Mrs. Barbauldpossessed to a full and generous degree a quality which is now lesscommon than it was in her day. 

Not very many years ago I was struck on one occasion when a noble oldlady, now gone to her rest, exclaimed in my hearing that people of thisgeneration had all sorts of merits and charitable intentions, but thatthere was one thing she missed which had certainly existed in her youth, and which no longer seemed to be of the same account: that public spiritwhich used to animate the young as well as the old. 

It is possible that philanthropy, and the love of the beautiful, and thegratuitous diffusion of wall-papers may be the modern rendering of thegood old-fashioned sentiment. Mrs. Barbauld lived in very stirring days, when private people shared in the excitements and catastrophes of publicaffairs. To her the fortunes of England, its loyalty, its success, werea part of her daily bread. By her early associations she belonged to aparty representing opposition, and for that very reason she was the morekeenly struck by the differences of the conduct of affairs and theopinions of those she trusted. Her friend Dr. Priestley had emigrated toAmerica for his convictions' sake; Howard was giving his noble life forhis work; Wakefield had gone to prison. Now the very questions areforgotten for which they struggled and suffered, or the answers havecome while the questions are forgotten, in this their future which isour present, and to which some unborn historian may point back with amoral finger. 

Dr. Aikin, whose estimate of his sister was very different from HoraceWalpole's, occasionally reproached her for not writing more constantly. He wrote a copy of verses on this theme:--

 Thus speaks the Muse, and bends her brows severe: Did I, Lętitia, lend my choicest lays, And crown thy youthful head with freshest bays, That all the expectance of thy full-grown year, Should lie inert and fruitless? O revere Those sacred gifts whose meed is deathless praise, Whose potent charm the enraptured soul can raise Far from the vapours of this earthly sphere, Seize, seize the lyre, resume the lofty strain. 

She seems to have willingly left the lyre for Dr. Aikin's use. A fewhymns, some graceful odes, and stanzas, and _jeux d'esprit_, a certainnumber of well-written and original essays, and several politicalpamphlets, represent the best of her work. Her more ambitious poemsare those by which she is the least remembered. It was at Hampsteadthat Mrs. Barbauld wrote her contributions to her brother's volume of'Evenings at Home, ' among which the transmigrations of Indur may bequoted as a model of style and delightful matter. One of the best of her_jeux d'esprit_ is the 'Groans of the Tankard, ' which was written inearly days, with much spirit and real humour. It begins with a classicincantation, and then goes on:--

 'Twas at the solemn silent noontide hour When hunger rages with despotic power, When the lean student quits his Hebrew roots For the gross nourishment of English fruits, And throws unfinished airy systems by For solid pudding and substantial pie. 

The tankard now, Replenished to the brink, With the cool beverage blue-eyed maidens drink, but, accustomed to very different libations, is endowed with voice andutters its bitter reproaches:--

 Unblest the day, and luckless was the hour Which doomed me to a Presbyterian's power, Fated to serve a Puritanic race, Whose slender meal is shorter than their grace. 

VI. 

Thumbkin, of fairy celebrity, used to mark his way by flinging crumbs ofbread and scattering stones as he went along; and in like manner authorstrace the course of their life's peregrinations by the pamphlets andarticles they cast down as they go. Sometimes they throw stones, sometimes they throw bread. In '92 and '93 Mrs. Barbauld must have beenoccupied with party polemics and with the political miseries of thetime. A pamphlet on Gilbert Wakefield's views, and another on 'Sinsof the Government and Sins of the People, ' show in what direction herthoughts were bent. Then came a period of comparative calm again and ofliterary work and interest. She seems to have turned to Akenside andCollins, and each had an essay to himself. These were followed bycertain selections from the _Spectator_, _Tatler_, &c. , preceded by oneof those admirable essays for which she is really remarkable. She alsopublished a memoir of Richardson prefixed to his correspondence. SirJames Mackintosh, writing at a later and sadder time of her life, saysof her observations on the moral of Clarissa that they are as fine apiece of mitigated and rational stoicism as our language can boast of. 

In 1802 another congregation seems to have made signs from StokeNewington, and Mrs. Barbauld persuaded her husband to leave his flock atHampstead and to buy a house near her brother's at Stoke Newington. Thiswas her last migration, and here she remained until her death in 1825. One of her letters to Mrs. Kenrick gives a description of what mighthave been a happy home:--'We have a pretty little back parlour thatlooks into our little spot of a garden, ' she says, 'and catches everygleam of sunshine. We have pulled down the ivy, except what covers thecoach-house We have planted a vine and a passion-flower, with abundanceof jessamine against the window, and we have scattered roses andhoneysuckle all over the garden. You may smile at me for parading soover my house and domains. ' In May she writes a pleasant letter, in goodspirits, comparing her correspondence with her friend to the flower ofan aloe, which sleeps for a hundred years, and on a sudden pushes outwhen least expected. 'But take notice, the life is in the aloe all thewhile, and sorry should I be if the life were not in our friendship allthe while, though it so rarely diffuses itself over a sheet of paper. '

She seems to have been no less sociable and friendly at Stoke Newingtonthan at Hampstead. People used to come up to see her from London. Herletters, quiet and intimate as they are, give glimpses of most of theliterary people of the day, not in memoirs then, but alive and drinkingtea at one another's houses, or walking all the way to Stoke Newingtonto pay their respects to the old lady. 

Charles Lamb used to talk of his two _bald_ authoresses, Mrs. Barbauldbeing one and Mrs. Inchbald being the other. Crabb Robinson and Rogerswere two faithful links with the outer world. 'Crabb Robinson correspondswith Madame de Staėl, is quite intimate, ' she writes, 'has receivedI don't know how many letters, ' she adds, not without some slightamusement. Miss Lucy Aikin tells a pretty story of Scott meeting Mrs. Barbauld at dinner, and telling her that it was to her that he owed hispoetic gift. Some translations of Bürger by Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, which she had read out at Edinburgh, had struck him so much that theyhad determined him to try his own powers in that line. 

She often had inmates under her roof. One of them was a beautiful andcharming young girl, the daughter of Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh, whoseearly death is recorded in her mother's life. Besides company at home, Mrs. Barbauld went to visit her friends from time to time--the Estlinsat Bristol, the Edgeworths, whose acquaintance Mr. And Mrs. Barbauldmade about this time, and who seem to have been invaluable friends, bringing as they did a bright new element of interest and cheerfulfriendship into her sad and dimming life. A man must have extraordinarilygood spirits to embark upon four matrimonial ventures as Mr. Edgeworthdid; and as for Miss Edgeworth, appreciative, effusive, and warm-hearted, she seems to have more than returned Mrs. Barbauld's sympathy. 

Miss Lucy Aikin, Dr. Aikin's daughter, was now also making her own markin the literary world, and had inherited the bright intelligence andinterest for which her family was so remarkable. Much of Miss Aikin'swork is more sustained than her aunt's desultory productions, but itlacks that touch of nature which has preserved Mrs. Barbauld's memorywhere more important people are forgotten. 

Our authoress seems to have had a natural affection for sisterauthoresses. Hannah More and Mrs. Montague were both her friends, sowere Madame d'Arblay and Mrs. Chapone in a different degree; she musthave known Mrs. Opie; she loved Joanna Baillie. The latter is describedby her as the young lady at Hampstead who came to Mr. Barbauld's meetingwith as demure a face as if she had never written a line. And Miss Aikin, in her memoirs, describes in Johnsonian language how the two MissBaillies came to call one morning upon Mrs. Barbauld:--'My auntimmediately introduced the topic of the anonymous tragedies, andgave utterance to her admiration with the generous delight in themanifestation of kindred genius which distinguished her. ' But it seemsthat Miss Baillie sat, nothing moved, and did not betray herself. Mrs. Barbauld herself gives a pretty description of the sisters in theirhome, in that old house on Windmill Hill, which stands untouched, withits green windows looking out upon so much of sky and heath and sun, with the wainscoted parlours where Walter Scott used to come, and thelow wooden staircase leading to the old rooms above. It is in one of herletters to Mrs. Kenrick that Mrs. Barbauld gives a pleasant glimpse ofthe poetess Walter Scott admired. 'I have not been abroad since I was atNorwich, except a day or two at Hampstead with the Miss Baillies. Oneshould be, as I was, beneath their roof to know all their merit. Theirhouse is one of the best ordered I know. They have all manner ofattentions for their friends, and not only Miss B. , but Joanna, is asclever in furnishing a room or in arranging a party as in writing plays, of which, by the way, she has a volume ready for the press, but she willnot give it to the public till next winter. The subject is to be thepassion of fear. I do not know what sort of a hero that passion canafford!' Fear was, indeed, a passion alien to her nature, and she didnot know the meaning of the word. 

Mrs. Barbauld's description of Hannah More and her sisters living ontheir special hill-top was written after Mr. Barbauld's death, andthirty years after Miss More's verses which are quoted by Mrs. Ellis inher excellent memoir of Mrs. Barbauld:--

 Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse A tribute to thy virtues or thy muse; This humble merit shall at least be mine, The poet's chaplet for thy brows to twine; My verse thy talents to the world shall teach, And praise the graces it despairs to reach. 

Then, after philosophically questioning the power of genius to confertrue happiness, she concludes:--

 Can all the boasted powers of wit and song Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong? Fallacious hope which daily truths deride-- For you, alas! have wept and Garrick died. 

Meanwhile, whatever genius might not be able to achieve, the five MissMores had been living on peacefully together in the very comfortablecottage which had been raised and thatched by the poetess's earnings. 

'Barley Wood is equally the seat of taste and hospitality, ' says Mrs. Barbauld to a friend. 

'Nothing could be more friendly than their reception, ' she writes to herbrother, 'and nothing more charming than their situation. An extensiveview over the Mendip Hills is in front of their house, with a prettyview of Wrington. Their home--cottage, because it is thatched--stands onthe declivity of a rising ground, which they have planted and made quitea little paradise. The five sisters, all good old maids, have livedtogether these fifty years. Hannah More is a good deal broken, butpossesses fully her powers of conversation, and her vivacity. Weexchanged riddles like the wise men of old; I was given to understandshe was writing something. '

There is another allusion to Mrs. Hannah More in a sensible letter fromMrs. Barbauld, written to Miss Edgeworth about this time, declining tojoin in an alarming enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, 'a _Feminiad_, a literary paper to be entirely contributed to by ladies, and where all articles are to be accepted. ' 'There is no bond of union, 'Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among literary women any more than among literarymen; different sentiments and connections separate them much more thanthe joint interest of their sex would unite them. Mrs. Hannah More wouldnot write along with you or me, and we should possibly hesitate atjoining Miss Hays or--if she were living--Mrs. Godwin. ' Then shesuggests the names of Miss Baillie, Mrs. Opie, her own niece Miss LucyAikin, and Mr. S. Rogers, who would not, she thinks, be averse tojoining the scheme. 

VII. 

How strangely unnatural it seems when Fate's heavy hand falls upon quietand common-place lives, changing the tranquil routine of every day intothe solemnities and excitements of terror and tragedy! It was aftertheir removal to Stoke Newington that the saddest of all blows fellupon this true-hearted woman. Her husband's hypochondria deepened andchanged, and the attacks became so serious that her brother and hisfamily urged her anxiously to leave him to other care than her own. Itwas no longer safe for poor Mr. Barbauld to remain alone with his wife, and her life, says Mrs. Le Breton, was more than once in peril. But, atfirst, she would not hear of leaving him; although on more than oneoccasion she had to fly for protection to her brother close by. 

There is something very touching in the patient fidelity with which Mrs. Barbauld tried to soothe the later sad disastrous years of her husband'slife. She must have been a woman of singular nerve and courage to endureas she did the excitement and cruel aberrations of her once gentle anddevoted companion. She only gave in after long resistance. 

'An alienation from me has taken possession of his mind, ' she says, in aletter to Mrs. Kenrick; 'my presence seems to irritate him, and I mustresign myself to a separation from him who has been for thirty years thepartner of my heart, my faithful friend, my inseparable companion. ' Withher habitual reticence, she dwells no more on that painful topic, butgoes on to make plans for them both, asks her old friend to come andcheer her in her loneliness; and the faithful Betsy, now a widow withgrown-up step-children, ill herself, troubled by deafness and otherinfirmities, responds with a warm heart, and promises to come, bringingthe comfort with her of old companionship and familiar sympathy. Thereis something very affecting in the loyalty of the two aged womenstretching out their hands to each other across a whole lifetime. Afterher visit Mrs. Barbauld writes again:--

'He is now at Norwich, and I hear very favourable accounts of his healthand spirits; he seems to enjoy himself very much amongst his old friendsthere, and converses among them with his usual animation. There are nosymptoms of violence or of depression; so far is favourable; but thiscruel alienation from me, in which my brother is included, still remainsdeep-rooted, and whether he will ever change in this point Heaven onlyknows. The medical men fear he will not: if so, my dear friend, whatremains for me but to resign myself to the will of Heaven, and to thinkwith pleasure that every day brings me nearer a period which naturallycannot be very far off, and at which this as well as every temporalaffliction must terminate?

'"Anything but this!" is the cry of weak mortals when afflicted; andsometimes I own I am inclined to make it mine; but I will check myself. '

But while she was hoping still, a fresh outbreak of the malady occurred. He, poor soul, weary of his existence, put an end to his sufferings: hewas found lifeless in the New River. Lucy Aikin quotes a Dirge foundamong her aunt's papers after her death:--

 Pure Spirit, O where art thou now? O whisper to my soul, O let some soothening thought of thee This bitter grief control. 

 'Tis not for thee the tears I shed, Thy sufferings now are o'er. The sea is calm, the tempest past, On that eternal shore. 

 No more the storms that wrecked thy peace Shall tear that gentle breast, Nor summer's rage, nor winter's cold That poor, poor frame molest. 

 * * * * *

 Farewell! With honour, peace, and love, Be that dear memory blest, Thou hast no tears for me to shed, When I too am at rest. 

But her time of rest was not yet come, and she lived for seventeen yearsafter her husband. She was very brave, she did not turn from thesympathy of her friends, she endured her loneliness with courage, sheworked to distract her mind. Here is a touching letter addressed to Mrs. Taylor, of Norwich, in which she says:--'A thousand thanks for your kindletter, still more for the very short visit that preceded it. Thoughshort--too short--it has left indelible impressions on my mind. Myheart has truly had communion with yours; your sympathy has been balm toit; and I feel that there is _now_ no one on earth to whom I could pourout that heart more readily. .. . I am now sitting alone again, and feellike a person who has been sitting by a cheerful fire, not sensible atthe time of the temperature of the air; but the fire removed, he findsthe season is still winter. Day after day passes, and I do not know whatto do with my time; my mind has no energy nor power of application. '

How much she felt her loneliness appears again and again from onepassage and another. Then she struggled against discouragement; shetook to her pen again. To Mrs. Kenrick she writes:--'I intend to pay myletter debts; not much troubling my head whether I have anything to sayor not; yet to you my heart has always something to say: it alwaysrecognises you as among the dearest of its friends; and while it feelsthat new impressions are made with difficulty and early effaced, retains, and ever will retain, I trust beyond this world, those of ourearly and long-tried affection. '

She set to work again, trying to forget her heavy trials. It was duringthe first years of her widowhood that she published her edition of theBritish novelists in some fifty volumes. There is an opening chapter tothis edition upon novels and novel-writing, which is an admirable andmost interesting essay upon fiction, beginning from the very earliesttimes. 

In 1811 she wrote her poem on the King's illness, and also the longerpoem which provoked such indignant comments at the time. It describesBritain's rise and luxury, warns her of the dangers of her unboundedambition and unjustifiable wars:--

 Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring. 

Her ingenuous youth from Ontario's shore who visits the ruins of Londonis one of the many claimants to the honour of having suggested LordMacaulay's celebrated New Zealander:--

 Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet Each splendid square and still untrodden street, Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way. 

It is impossible not to admire the poem, though it is stilted and not tothe present taste. The description of Britain as it now is and as itonce was is very ingenious:--

 Where once Bonduca whirled the scythčd car, And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war, Light forms beneath transparent muslin float, And tutor'd voices swell the artful note; Light-leaved acacias, and the shady plane, And spreading cedars grace the woodland reign. 

The poem is forgotten now, though it was scouted at the time andviolently attacked, Southey himself falling upon the poor old lady, anddevouring her, spectacles and all. She felt these attacks very much, andcould not be consoled, though Miss Edgeworth wrote a warm-hearted letterof indignant sympathy. But Mrs. Barbauld had something in her too genuineto be crushed, even by sarcastic criticism. She published no more, butit was after her poem of '1811' that she wrote the beautiful ode bywhich she is best known and best remembered, --the ode that Wordsworthused to repeat and say he envied, that Tennyson has called 'sweetverses, ' of which the lines ring their tender hopeful chime like sweetchurch bells on a summer evening. 

Madame d'Arblay, in her old age, told Crabb Robinson that every nightshe said the verses over to herself as she went to her rest. To thewriter they are almost sacred. The hand that patiently pointed out toher, one by one, the syllables of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns for children, that tended our childhood, as it had tended our father's, marked theseverses one night, when it blessed us for the last time. 

 Life, we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear, Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time. Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime, Bid me 'Good morning. '

Mrs. Barbauld was over seventy when she wrote this ode. A poem, called'Octogenary Reflections, ' is also very touching:--

 Say ye, who through this round of eighty years Have proved its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears; Say what is life, ye veterans who have trod, Step following steps, its flowery thorny road? Enough of good to kindle strong desire; Enough of ill to damp the rising fire; Enough of love and fancy, joy and hope, To fan desire and give the passions scope; Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, To seal the wise man's sentence--'All is vain. '

There is another fragment of hers in which she likens herself to aschoolboy left of all the train, who hears no sound of wheels to bearhim to his father's bosom home. 'Thus I look to the hour when I shallfollow those that are at rest before me. ' And then at last the time camefor which she longed. Her brother died, her faithful Mrs. Kenrick died, and Mrs. Taylor, whom she loved most of all. She had consented to giveup her solitary home to spend the remaining years of her life in thehome of her adopted son Charles, now married, and a father; but it waswhile she was on a little visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Aikin, thatthe summons came, very swiftly and peacefully, as she sat in her chairone day. Her nephew transcribed these, the last lines she ever wrote:--

'Who are you?'

'Do you not know me? have you not expected me?'

'Whither do you carry me?'

'Come with me and you shall know. '

'The way is dark. '

'It is well trodden. '

'Yes, in the forward track. '

'Come along. '

'Oh! shall I there see my beloved ones? Will they welcome me, and willthey know me? Oh, tell me, tell me; thou canst tell me. '

'Yes, but thou must come first. '

'Stop a little; keep thy hand off till thou hast told me. '

'I never wait. '

'Oh! shall I see the warm sun again in my cold grave?'

'Nothing is there that can feel the sun. '

'Oh, where then?'

'Come, I say. '

One may acknowledge the great progress which people have made since Mrs. Barbauld's day in the practice of writing prose and poetry, in the artof expressing upon paper the thoughts which are in most people's minds. It is (to use a friend's simile) like playing upon the piano--everybodynow learns to play upon the piano, and it is certain that the modestperformances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meetwith the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, thestock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increasedvolubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, and are grateful for it. 

_MISS EDGEWORTH. _

 1767-1849. 

 'Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading. '--_Hen. VIII. _

EARLY DAYS. 

I. 

Few authoresses in these days can have enjoyed the ovations andattentions which seem to have been considered the due of many of theladies distinguished at the end of the last century and the beginning ofthis one. To read the accounts of the receptions and compliments whichfell to their lot may well fill later and lesser luminaries with envy. Crowds opened to admit them, banquets spread themselves out before them, lights were lighted up and flowers were scattered at their feet. Dukes, editors, prime ministers, waited their convenience on their staircases;whole theatres rose up _en masse_ to greet the gifted creatures of thisand that immortal tragedy. The authoresses themselves, to do them justice, seem to have been very little dazzled by all this excitement. HannahMore contentedly retires with her maiden sisters to the Parnassus onthe Mendip Hills, where they sew and chat and make tea, and teach thevillage children. Dear Joanna Baillie, modest and beloved, lives on topeaceful age in her pretty old house at Hampstead, looking throughtree-tops and sunshine and clouds towards distant London. 'Out therewhere all the storms are, ' I heard the children saying yesterday asthey watched the overhanging gloom of smoke which, veils the city ofmetropolitan thunders and lightning. Maria Edgeworth's apparitions asa literary lioness in the rush of London and of Paris society were butinterludes in her existence, and her real life was one of constantexertion and industry spent far away in an Irish home among her ownkindred and occupations and interests. We may realise what these werewhen we read that Mr. Edgeworth had no less than four wives, who allleft children, and that Maria was the eldest daughter of the wholefamily. Besides this, we must also remember that the father whom sheidolised was himself a man of extraordinary powers, brilliant inconversation (so I have been told), full of animation, of interest, ofplans for his country, his family, for education and literature, formechanics and scientific discoveries; that he was a gentleman widelyconnected, hospitably inclined, with a large estate and many tenants tooverlook, with correspondence and acquaintances all over the world; andbesides all this, with various schemes in his brain, to be eventuallyrealised by others of which velocipedes, tramways, and telegraphs werebut a few of the items. 

One could imagine that under these circumstances the hurry andexcitement of London life must have sometimes seemed tranquillity itselfcompared with the many and absorbing interests of such a family. Whatthese interests were may be gathered from the pages of a very interestingmemoir from which the writer of this essay has been allowed to quote. Itis a book privately printed and written for the use of her children bythe widow of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and is a record, among otherthings, of a faithful and most touching friendship between Maria and herfather's wife--'a friendship lasting for over fifty years, and unbrokenby a single cloud of difference or mistrust. ' Mrs. Edgeworth, who wasMiss Beaufort before her marriage, and about the same age as MissEdgeworth, unconsciously reveals her own most charming and unselfishnature as she tells her stepdaughter's story. 

When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, it seems to her thatshe lived in company with a delightful host of little playmates, bright, busy, clever children, whose cheerful presence remains more vividly inher mind than that of many of the real little boys and girls who used toappear and disappear disconnectedly as children do in childhood, whenfriendship and companionship depend almost entirely upon the convenienceof grown-up people. Now and again came little cousins or friends toshare our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, ever to berelied upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly companions--simpleSusan, lame Jervas, Talbot, the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow'sson with his arms round old Lightfoot's neck, the generous Ben, with hiswhipcord and his useful proverb of 'waste not, want not'--all of thesewere there in the window corner waiting our pleasure. After Parents'Assistant, to which familiar words we attached no meaning whatever, camePopular Tales in big brown volumes off a shelf in the lumber-room of anapartment in an old house in Paris, and as we opened the books, lo!creation widened to our view. England, Ireland, America, Turkey, the mines of Golconda, the streets of Bagdad, thieves, travellers, governesses, natural philosophy, and fashionable life, were all laidunder contribution, and brought interest and adventure to our humdrumnursery corner. All Mr. Edgeworth's varied teaching and experience, allhis daughter's genius of observation, came to interest and delight ourplay-time, and that of a thousand other little children in differentparts of the world. People justly praise Miss Edgeworth's admirablestories and novels, but from prejudice and early association thesebeloved childish histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly asa writer for children that we venture to consider her here. Some of thestories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter Scott, who bestknew how to write for the young so as to charm grandfathers as well asHugh Littlejohn, Esq. , and all the grandchildren, is said to have wipedhis kind eyes as he put down 'Simple Susan. ' A child's book, says areviewer of those days defining in the 'Quarterly Review, ' should be'not merely less dry, less difficult, than a book for grown-up people;but more rich in interest, more true to nature, more exquisite in art, more abundant in every quality that replies to childhood's keenerand fresher perception. ' Children like facts, they like short vividsentences that tell the story: as they listen intently, so they read;every word has its value for them. It has been a real surprise to thewriter to find, on re-reading some of these descriptions of scenery andadventure which she had not looked at since her childhood, that thedetails which she had imagined spread over much space are contained in afew sentences at the beginning of a page. These sentences, however, showthe true art of the writer. 

It would be difficult to imagine anything better suited to the mindof a very young person than these pleasant stories, so complete inthemselves, so interesting, so varied. The description of Jervas'sescape from the mine where the miners had plotted his destruction, almost rises to poetry in its simple diction. Lame Jervas has warned hismaster of the miners' plot, and showed him the vein of ore which theyhave concealed. The miners have sworn vengeance against him, and hislife is in danger. His master helps him to get away, and comes into theroom before daybreak, bidding him rise and put on the clothes which hehas brought. 'I followed him out of the house before anybody else wasawake, and he took me across the fields towards the high road. At thisplace we waited till we heard the tinkling of the bells of a team ofhorses. "Here comes the waggon, " said he, "in which you are to go. Sofare you well, Jervas. I shall hear how you go on; and I only hope youwill serve your next master, whoever he may be, as faithfully as youhave served me. " "I shall never find so good a master, " was all I couldsay for the soul of me; I was quite overcome by his goodness and sorrowat parting with him, as I then thought, for ever. ' The description ofthe journey is very pretty. 'The morning clouds began to clear away; Icould see my master at some distance, and I kept looking after him asthe waggon went on slowly, and he walked fast away over the fields. 'Then the sun begins to rise. The waggoner goes on whistling, but lameJervas, to whom the rising sun was a spectacle wholly surprising, starts up, exclaiming in wonder and admiration. The waggoner bursts intoa loud laugh. 'Lud a marcy, ' says he, 'to hear un' and look at un' abody would think the oaf had never seen the sun rise afore;' upon whichJervas remembers that he is still in Cornwall, and must not betrayhimself, and prudently hides behind some parcels, only just in time, forthey meet a party of miners, and he hears his enemies' voice hailing thewaggoner. All the rest of the day he sits within, and amuses himself bylistening to the bells of the team, which jingle continually. 'On oursecond day's journey, however, I ventured out of my hiding-place. Iwalked with the waggoner up and down the hills, enjoying the fresh air, the singing of the birds, and the delightful smell of the honeysucklesand the dog-roses in the hedges. All the wild flowers and even the weedson the banks by the wayside were to me matters of wonder and admiration. At almost every step I paused to observe something that was new to me, and I could not help feeling surprised at the insensibility of myfellow-traveller, who plodded along, and seldom interrupted hiswhistling except to cry 'Gee, Blackbird, aw woa, ' or 'How now, Smiler?'Then Jervas is lost in admiration before a plant 'whose stem was abouttwo feet high, and which had a round shining purple beautiful flower, 'and the waggoner with a look of scorn exclaims, 'Help thee, lad, dostnot thou know 'tis a common thistle?' After this he looks upon Jervas asvery nearly an idiot. 'In truth I believe I was a droll figure, for myhat was stuck full of weeds and of all sorts of wild flowers, and bothmy coat and waistcoat pockets were stuffed out with pebbles andfunguses. ' Then comes Plymouth Harbour: Jervas ventures to ask somequestions about the vessels, to which the waggoner answers 'They benothing in life but the boats and ships, man;' so he turned away andwent on chewing a straw, and seemed not a whit more moved to admirationthan he had been at the sight of the thistle. 'I conceived a highadmiration of a man who had seen so much that he could admire nothing, 'says Jervas, with a touch of real humour. 

Another most charming little idyll is that of Simple Susan, who was areal maiden living in the neighbourhood of Edgeworthstown. The storyseems to have been mislaid for a time in the stirring events of thefirst Irish rebellion, and overlooked, like some little daisy by abattlefield. Few among us will not have shared Mr. Edgeworth's partialityfor the charming little tale. The children fling their garlands and tieup their violets. Susan bakes her cottage loaves and gathers marigoldsfor broth, and tends her mother to the distant tune of Philip's pipecoming across the fields. As we read the story again it seems as ifwe could almost scent the fragrance of the primroses and the doubleviolets, and hear the music sounding above the children's voices, andthe bleatings of the lamb, so simply and delightfully is the whole storyconstructed. Among all Miss Edgeworth's characters few are more familiarto the world than that of Susan's pretty pet lamb. 

II. 

No sketch of Maria Edgeworth's life, however slight, would be completewithout a few words about certain persons coming a generation before her(and belonging still to the age of periwigs), who were her father'sassociates and her own earliest friends. Notwithstanding all that hasbeen said of Mr. Edgeworth's bewildering versatility of nature, he seemsto have been singularly faithful in his friendships. He might take upnew ties, but he clung pertinaciously to those which had once existed. His daughter inherited that same steadiness of affection. In his life ofErasmus Darwin, his grandfather, Mr. Charles Darwin, writing of thesevery people, has said, 'There is, perhaps, no safer test of a man's realcharacter than that of his long-continued friendship with good andable men. ' He then goes on to quote an instance of a long-continuedaffection and intimacy only broken by death between a certain set ofdistinguished friends, giving the names of Keir, Day, Small, Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood, and Darwin, and adding to them the names of Edgeworthhimself and of the Galtons. 

Mr. Edgeworth first came to Lichfield to make Dr. Darwin's acquaintance. His second visit was to his friend Mr. Day, the author of 'Sandford andMerton, ' who had taken a house in the valley of Stow, and who invitedhim one Christmas on a visit. 'About the year 1765, ' says Miss Seward, 'came to Lichfield, from the neighbourhood of Reading, the young and gayphilosopher, Mr. Edgeworth; a man of fortune, and recently married to aMiss Elers, of Oxfordshire. The fame of Dr. Darwin's various talentsallured Mr. E. To the city they graced. ' And the lady goes on to describeMr. Edgeworth himself:--'Scarcely two-and-twenty, with an exterior yetmore juvenile, having mathematic science, mechanic ingenuity, and acompetent portion of classical learning, with the possession of themodern languages. .. . He danced, he fenced, he winged his arrows withmore than philosophic skill, ' continues the lady, herself a person of nolittle celebrity in her time and place. Mr. Edgeworth, in his Memoirs, pays a respectful tribute to Miss Seward's charms, to her agreeableconversation, her beauty, her flowing tresses, her sprightliness andaddress. Such moderate expressions fail, however, to do justice to thislady's powers, to her enthusiasm, her poetry, her partisanship. Theportrait prefixed to her letters is that of a dignified person with anoval face and dark eyes, the thick brown tresses are twined with pearls, her graceful figure is robed in the softest furs and draperies of theperiod. In her very first letter she thus poetically describes hersurroundings:--'The autumnal glory of this day puts to shame the summer'ssullenness. I sit writing upon this dear green terrace, feeding atintervals my little golden-breasted songsters. The embosomed vale ofStow glows sunny through the Claude-Lorraine tint which is spread overthe scene like the blue mist over a plum. '

In this Claude-Lorraine-plum-tinted valley stood the house which Mr. Dayhad taken, and where Mr. Edgeworth had come on an eventful visit. MissSeward herself lived with her parents in the Bishop's palace at Lichfield. There was also a younger sister, 'Miss Sally, ' who died as a girl, andanother very beautiful young lady their friend, by name Honora Sneyd, placed under Mrs. Seward's care. She was the heroine of Major André'sunhappy romance. He too lived at Lichfield with his mother, and hishopeless love gives a tragic reality to this by-gone holiday of youthand merry-making. As one reads the old letters and memoirs the echoesof laughter reach us. One can almost see the young folks all comingtogether out of the Cathedral Close, where so much of their time waspassed; the beautiful Honora, surrounded by friends and adorers, chaperoned by the graceful Muse her senior, also much admired, and muchmade of. Thomas Day is perhaps striding after them in silence with keencritical glances; his long black locks flow unpowdered down his back. Incontrast to him comes his brilliant and dressy companion, Mr. Edgeworth, who talks so agreeably. I can imagine little Sabrina, Day's adoptedfoundling, of whom so many stories have been told, following shyly ather guardian's side in her simple dress and childish beauty, and André'syoung handsome face turned towards Miss Sneyd. So they pass on happy andcontented in each other's company, Honora in the midst, beautiful, stately, reserved: she too was one of those not destined to be old. 

Miss Seward seems to have loved this friend with a very sincere andadmiring affection, and to have bitterly mourned her early death. Herletters abound in apostrophes to the lost Honora. But perhaps the poorMuse expected almost too much from friendship, too much from life. She expected, as we all do at times, that her friends should be notthemselves but her, that they should lead not their lives but her own. So much at least one may gather from the various phases of her styleand correspondence, and her complaints of Honora's estrangement andsubsequent coldness. Perhaps, also, Miss Seward's many vagaries andsentiments may have frozen Honora's sympathies. Miss Seward was allasterisks and notes of exclamation. Honora seems to have forced feelingdown to its most scrupulous expression. She never lived to be softenedby experience, to suit herself to others by degrees: with great love shealso inspired awe and a sort of surprise. One can imagine her pointingthe moral of the purple jar, as it was told long afterwards by herstepdaughter, then a little girl playing at her own mother's knee in hernursery by the river. 

People in the days of shilling postage were better correspondents thanthey are now when we have to be content with pennyworths of news and ofaffectionate intercourse. Their descriptions and many details bring allthe chief characters vividly before us, and carry us into the hearts andthe pocket-books of the little society at Lichfield as it then was. Thetown must have been an agreeable sojourn in those days for people ofsome pretension and small performance. The inhabitants of Lichfield seemactually to have read each other's verses, and having done so to havetaken the trouble to sit down and write out their raptures. They were apleasant lively company living round about the old cathedral towers, meeting in the Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palaceitself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature of theirown and good criticism at second hand, quoting Dr. Johnson to oneanother with the familiarity of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, they must have gained something of vigour and originality. 

With all her absurdities Miss Seward had some real critical power andappreciation; and some of her lines are very pretty. [1] An 'Ode to theSun' is only what might have been expected from this Lichfield Corinne. Her best known productions are an 'Elegy on Captain Cook, ' a 'Monody onMajor André, ' whom she had known from her early youth; and there is apoem, 'Louisa, ' of which she herself speaks very highly. But even morethan her poetry did she pique herself upon her epistolary correspondence. It must have been well worth while writing letters when they were notonly prized by the writer and the recipients, but commented on by theirfriends in after years. 'Court Dewes, Esq. , ' writes, after five years, for copies of Miss Seward's epistles to Miss Rogers and Miss Weston, ofwhich the latter begins:--'Soothing and welcome to me, dear Sophia, isthe regret you express for our separation! Pleasant were the weeks wehave recently passed together in this ancient and embowered mansion! Ihad strongly felt the silence and vacancy of the depriving day on whichyou vanished. How prone are our hearts perversely to quarrel with thefriendly coercion of employment at the very instant in which it isclearing the torpid and injurious mists of unavailing melancholy!' Thenfollows a sprightly attack before which Johnson may have quailed indeed. 'Is the Fe-fa-fum of literature that snuffs afar the fame of his brotherauthors, and thirsts for its destruction, to be allowed to gallopunmolested over the fields of criticism? A few pebbles from thewell-springs of truth and eloquence are all that is wanted to bring themight of his envy low. ' This celebrated letter, which may stand asa specimen of the whole six volumes, concludes with the followingapostrophe:--'Virtuous friendship, how pure, how sacred are thydelights! Sophia, thy mind is capable of tasting them in all theirpoignance: against how many of life's incidents may that capacity beconsidered as a counterpoise!'

 Footnote 1: In a notice of Miss Seward in the _Annual Register_, just after her death in 1809, the writer, who seems to have known her, says:--'Conscious of ability, she freely displayed herself in a manner equally remote from annoyance and affectation. .. . Her errors arose from a glowing imagination joined to an excessive sensibility, cherished instead of repressed by early habits. It is understood that she has left the whole of her works to Mr. Scott, the northern poet, with a view to their publication with her life and posthumous pieces. '

There were constant rubs, which are not to be wondered at, between MissSeward and Dr. Darwin, who, though a poet, was also a singularly witty, downright man, outspoken and humorous. The lady admires his genius, bitterly resents his sarcasms; of his celebrated work, the 'BotanicGarden, ' she says, 'It is a string of poetic brilliants, and they are ofthe first water, but the eye will be apt to want the intersticial blackvelvet to give effect to their lustre. ' In later days, notwithstandingher 'elegant language, ' as Mr. Charles Darwin calls it, she said severalspiteful things of her old friend, but they seem more prompted byprivate pique than malice. 

If Miss Seward was the Minerva and Dr. Darwin the Jupiter of theLichfield society, its philosopher was Thomas Day, of whom Miss Seward'sdescription is so good that I cannot help one more quotation:--

'Powder and fine clothes were at that time the appendages of gentlemen;Mr. Day wore not either. He was tall and stooped in the shoulders, fullmade but not corpulent, and in his meditative and melancholy air adegree of awkwardness and dignity were blended. ' She then compareshim with his guest, Mr. Edgeworth. 'Less graceful, less amusing, lessbrilliant than Mr. E. , but more highly imaginative, more classical, anda deeper reasoner; strict integrity, energetic friendship, open-handedgenerosity, and diffusive charity, greatly overbalanced on the side ofvirtue, the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud contempt of commonlife society. ' Wright, of Derby, painted a full-length picture of Mr. Day in 1770. 'Mr. Day looks upward enthusiastically, meditating onthe contents of a book held in his dropped right hand . .. A flash oflightning plays in his hair and illuminates the contents of the volume. ''Dr. Darwin, ' adds Miss Seward, 'sat to Mr. Wright about the sameperiod--_that_ was a simply contemplative portrait of the most perfectresemblance. '

III. 

Maria must have been three years old this eventful Christmas time whenher father, leaving his wife in Berkshire, came to stay with Mr. Day atLichfield, and first made the acquaintance of Miss Seward and her poeticcircle. Mr. Day, who had once already been disappointed in love, andwhose romantic scheme of adopting his foundlings and of educating one ofthem to be his wife, has often been described, had brought one of themaidens to the house he had taken at Lichfield. This was Sabrina, as hehad called her. Lucretia, having been found troublesome, had been sentoff with a dowry to be apprenticed to a milliner. Sabrina was a charminglittle girl of thirteen; everybody liked her, especially the friendlyladies at the Palace, who received her with constant kindness, as theydid Mr. Day himself and his visitor. What Miss Seward thought of Sabrina'seducation I do not know. The poor child was to be taught to despiseluxury, to ignore fear, to be superior to pain. She appears, however, tohave been very fond of her benefactor, but to have constantly provokedhim by starting and screaming whenever he fired uncharged pistols ather skirts, or dropped hot melted sealing-wax on her bare arms. Sheis described as lovely and artless, not fond of books, incapable ofunderstanding scientific problems, or of keeping the imaginary andterrible secrets with which her guardian used to try her nerves. I donot know when it first occurred to him that Honora Sneyd was all thathis dreams could have imagined. One day he left Sabrina under manyrestrictions, and returning unexpectedly found her wearing some garmentor handkerchief of which he did not approve, and discarded her on thespot and for ever. Poor Sabrina was evidently not meant to mate and soarwith philosophical eagles. After this episode, she too was despatched, to board with an old lady, in peace for a time, let us hope, and intranquil mediocrity. 

Mr. Edgeworth approved of this arrangement; he had never considered thatSabrina was suited to his friend. But being taken in due time to call atthe Palace, he was charmed with Miss Seward, and still more by all hesaw of Honora; comparing her, alas! in his mind 'with all other women, and secretly acknowledging her superiority. ' At first, he says, MissSeward's brilliance overshadowed Honora, but very soon her merits grewupon the bystanders. 

Mr. Edgeworth carefully concealed his feelings except from his host, whowas beginning himself to contemplate a marriage with Miss Sneyd. Mr. Day presently proposed formally in writing for the hand of the lovelyHonora, and Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back theanswer; and being married himself, and out of the running, he appears tohave been unselfishly anxious for his friend's success. In the packetMr. Day had written down the conditions to which he should expect hiswife to subscribe. She would have to begin at once by giving up allluxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and promise tocontinue to seclude herself entirely in his company. Miss Sneyd does notseem to have kept Mr. Edgeworth waiting long while she wrote her answerdecidedly saying that she could not admit the unqualified control of ahusband over all her actions, nor the necessity for 'seclusion fromsociety to preserve female virtue. ' Finding that Honora absolutelyrefused to change her way of life, Mr. Day went into a fever, for whichDr. Darwin bled him. Nor did he recover until another Miss Sneyd, Elizabeth by name, made her appearance in the Close. 

Mr. Edgeworth, who was of a lively and active disposition, hadintroduced archery among the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and hedescribes a fine summer evening's entertainment passed in agreeablesports, followed by dancing and music, in the course of which Honora'ssister, Miss Elizabeth, appeared for the first time on the Lichfieldscene, and immediately joined in the country dance. There is a vividdescription of the two sisters in Mr. Edgeworth's memoirs, of thebeautiful and distinguished Honora, loving science, serious, eager, reserved; of the more lovely but less graceful Elizabeth, with less ofenergy, more of humour and of social gifts than her sister. ElizabethSneyd was, says Edgeworth, struck by Day's eloquence, by his unboundedgenerosity, by his scorn of wealth. His educating a young girl for hiswife seemed to her romantic and extraordinary; and she seems to havethought it possible to yield to the evident admiration she had arousedin him. But, whether in fun or in seriousness, she represented to himthat he could not with justice decry accomplishments and graces that hehad not acquired. She wished him to go abroad for a time to study toperfect himself in all that was wanting; on her own part she promisednot to go to Bath, London, or any public place of amusement until hisreturn, and to read certain books which he recommended. 

Meanwhile Mr. Edgeworth had made no secret of his own feeling for Honorato Mr. Day, 'who with all the eloquence of virtue and of friendship'urged him to fly, to accompany him abroad, and to shun dangers he couldnot hope to overcome. Edgeworth consented to this proposal, and the twofriends started for Paris, visiting Rousseau on their way. They spentthe winter at Lyons, as it was a place where excellent masters of allsorts were to be found; and here Mr. Day, with excess of zeal--

 put himself (says his friend) to every species of torture, ordinary and extraordinary, to compel his Antigallican limbs, in spite of their natural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage the _great horse_. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd honourably, he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these exercises, for which he had not the slightest taste, and for which, except horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign contempt. It was astonishing to behold the energy with which he persevered in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two boards which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means Mr. Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but screwing was in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; but original formation and inveterate habit resisted all his endeavours at personal improvement. I could not help pitying my philosophic friend, pent up in durance vile for hours together, with his feet in the stocks, a book in his hand, and contempt in his heart. 

Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent and agreeableapartments, ' and occupied himself with engineering. He is certainlycuriously outspoken in his memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs. Edgeworth, Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complainingdisposition, and did not make him so happy at home as a woman of a morelively temper might have succeeded in doing. He was tempted, he said, tolook for happiness elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairsmay have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome little son, who at Day's suggestion had been brought up upon the Rousseau system, and was in consequence quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody. Poor Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. Shejoined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having a dread oflying-in abroad, returned home to die in her confinement, leaving fourlittle children. Maria could remember being taken into her mother's roomto see her for the last time. 

Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met by his friend ThomasDay, who had preceded him, and whose own suit does not seem to haveprospered meanwhile. But though notwithstanding all his efforts ThomasDay had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, hecould still feel for his friend. His first words were to tell Edgeworththat Honora was still free, more beautiful than ever; while Virtue andHonour commanded it, he had done all he could to divide them; now hewished to be the first to promote their meeting. The meeting resulted inan engagement, and Mr. Edgeworth and Miss Sneyd were married within fourmonths by the benevolent old canon in the Lady Chapel of LichfieldCathedral. 

Mrs. Seward wept; Miss Seward, 'notwithstanding some imaginarydissatisfaction about a bridesmaid, ' was really glad of the marriage, weare told; and the young couple immediately went over to Ireland. 

IV. 

Though her life was so short, Honora Edgeworth seems to have made thedeepest impression on all those she came across. Over little Maria shehad the greatest influence. There is a pretty description of the childstanding lost in wondering admiration of her stepmother's beauty, as shewatched her soon after her marriage dressing at her toilet-table. LittleMaria's feeling for her stepmother was very deep and real, and theinfluence of those few years lasted for a lifetime. Her own exquisitecarefulness she always ascribed to it, and to this example may also beattributed her habits of order and self-government, her life of reasonand deliberate judgment. 

The seven years of Honora's married life seem to have been very peacefuland happy. She shared her husband's pursuits, and wished for nothingoutside her own home. She began with him to write those little bookswhich were afterwards published. It is just a century ago since she andMr. Edgeworth planned the early histories of Harry and Lucy and Frank;while Mr. Day began his 'Sandford and Merton, ' which at first wasintended to appear at the same time, though eventually the third partwas not published till 1789. 

As a girl of seventeen Honora Sneyd had once been threatened withconsumption. After seven years of married life the cruel malady againdeclared itself; and though Dr. Darwin did all that human resource coulddo, and though every tender care surrounded her, the poor young ladyrapidly sank. There is a sad, prim, most affecting letter, addressed tolittle Maria by the dying woman shortly before the end; and then comesthat one written by the father, which is to tell her that all is over. 

If Mr. Edgeworth was certainly unfortunate in losing again and again thehappiness of his home, he was more fortunate than most people in beingable to rally from his grief. He does not appear to have been unfaithfulin feeling. Years after, Edgeworth, writing to console Mrs. Day upon herhusband's death, speaks in the most touching way of all he had sufferedwhen Honora died, and of the struggle he had made to regain his hold oflife. This letter is in curious contrast to that one written at thetime, as he sits by poor Honora's deathbed; it reads strangely cold andirrelevant in these days when people are not ashamed of feeling or ofdescribing what they feel. 'Continue, my dear daughter'--he writes toMaria, who was then thirteen years old--'the desire which you feel ofbecoming amiable, prudent, and of use. The ornamental parts of acharacter, with such an understanding as yours, necessarily ensue; buttrue judgment and sagacity in the choice of friends, and the regulationof your behaviour, can be only had from reflection, and from beingthoroughly convinced of what experience in general teaches too late, that to be happy we must be good. '

'Such a letter, written at such a time, ' says the kind biographer, 'madethe impression it was intended to convey; and the wish to act up to thehigh opinion her father had formed of her character became an excitingand controlling power over the whole of Maria's future life. ' On herdeathbed, Honora urged her husband to marry again, and assured him thatthe woman to suit him was her sister Elizabeth. Her influence was sogreat upon them both that, although Elizabeth was attached to some oneelse, and Mr. Edgeworth believed her to be little suited to himself, they were presently engaged and married, not without many difficulties. The result proved how rightly Honora had judged. 

It was to her father that Maria owed the suggestion of her first startin literature. Immediately after Honora's death he tells her to write atale about the length of a 'Spectator, ' on the subject of generosity. 'It must be taken from history or romance, must be sent the dayse'nnight after you receive this; and I beg you will take some painsabout it. ' A young gentleman from Oxford was also set to work to try hispowers on the same subject, and Mr. William Sneyd, at Lichfield, was tobe judge between the two performances. He gave his verdict for Maria:'An excellent story and very well written: but where's the generosity?'This, we are told, became a sort of proverb in the Edgeworth family. 

The little girl meanwhile had been sent to school to a certain Mrs. Lataffiere, where she was taught to use her fingers, to write a lovelydelicate hand, to work white satin waistcoats for her papa. She was thenremoved to a fashionable establishment in Upper Wimpole Street, where, says her stepmother, 'she underwent all the usual tortures ofbackboards, iron collars, and dumb-bells, with the unusual one of beinghung by the neck to draw out the muscles and increase the growth, --asignal failure in her case. ' (Miss Edgeworth was always a very tinyperson. ) There is a description given of Maria at this school of hers ofthe little maiden absorbed in her book with all the other children atplay, while she sits in her favourite place in front of a carved oakcabinet, quite unconscious of the presence of the romping girls allabout her. 

Hers was a very interesting character as it appears in theMemoirs--sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet dependent;methodical, observant. Sometimes as one reads of her in early life oneis reminded of some of the personal characteristics of the writer whoperhaps of all writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art--ofCharlotte Brontė, whose books are essentially of the modern andpassionate school, but whose strangely mixed character seemed rather tobelong to the orderly and neatly ruled existence of Queen Charlotte'sreign. People's lives as they really are don't perhaps vary very much, but people's lives as they seem to be assuredly change with the fashions. Miss Edgeworth and Miss Brontė were both Irishwomen, who have often, with all their outcome, the timidity which arises from quick andsensitive feeling. But the likeness does not go very deep. Maria, whose diffidence and timidity were personal, but who had a firm andunalterable belief in family traditions, may have been saved from somedanger of prejudice and limitation by a most fortunate though tryingillness which affected her eyesight, and which caused her to be removedfrom her school with its monstrous elegancies to the care of Mr. Day, that kindest and sternest of friends. 

This philosopher in love had been bitterly mortified when the livelyElizabeth Sneyd, instead of welcoming his return, could not conceal herlaughter at his uncouth elegancies, and confessed that, on the whole, she had liked him better as he was before. He forswore Lichfield andmarriage, and went abroad to forget. He turned his thoughts to politics;he wrote pamphlets on public subjects and letters upon slavery. His poemof the 'Dying Negro' had been very much admired. Miss Hannah More speaksof it in her Memoirs. The subject of slavery was much before people'sminds, and Day's influence had not a little to do with the risingindignation. 

Among Day's readers and admirers was one person who was destined to havea most important influence upon his life. By a strange chance hisextraordinary ideal was destined to be realised; and a young lady, good, accomplished, rich, devoted, who had read his books, and sympathisedwith his generous dreams, was ready not only to consent to his strangeconditions, but to give him her whole heart and find her best happinessin his society and in carrying out his experiments and fancies. She wasMiss Esther Milnes, of Yorkshire, an heiress; and though at first Dayhesitated and could not believe in the reality of her feeling, herconstancy and singleness of mind were not to be resisted, and they weremarried at Bath in 1778. We hear of Mr. And Mrs. Day spending the firstwinter of their married life at Hampstead, and of Mrs. Day, thicklyshodden, walking with him in a snowstorm on the common, and ascribingher renewed vigour to her husband's Spartan advice. 

Day and his wife eventually established themselves at Anningsley, nearChobham. He had insisted upon settling her fortune upon herself, butMrs. Day assisted him in every way, and sympathised in his many schemesand benevolent ventures. When he neglected to make a window to thedressing-room he built for her, we hear of her uncomplainingly lightingher candles; to please him she worked as a servant in the house, and alltheir large means were bestowed in philanthropic and charitable schemes. Mr. Edgeworth quotes his friend's reproof to Mrs. Day, who was fond ofmusic: 'Shall we beguile the time with the strains of a lute while ourfellow-creatures are starving?' 'I am out of pocket every year about300_l. _ by the farm I keep, ' Day writes his to his friend Edgeworth. 'The soil I have taken in hand, I am convinced, is one of the mostcompletely barren in England. ' He then goes on to explain his reasonsfor what he is about. 'It enables me to employ the poor, and the resultof all my speculations about humanity is that the only way of benefitingmankind is to give them employment and make them earn their money. 'There is a pretty description of the worthy couple in their homedispensing help and benefits all round about, draining, planting, teaching, doctoring--nothing came amiss to them. Their chief friend andneighbour was Samuel Cobbett, who understood their plans, andsympathised in their efforts, which, naturally enough, were viewed withdoubt and mistrust by most of the people round about. It was atAnningsley that Mr. Day finished 'Sandford and Merton, ' begun many yearsbefore. His death was very sudden, and was brought about by one of hisown benevolent theories. He used to maintain that kindness alone couldtame animals; and he was killed by a fall from a favourite colt which hewas breaking in. Mrs. Day never recovered the shock. She lived two yearshidden in her home, absolutely inconsolable, and then died and was laidby her husband's side in the churchyard at Wargrave by the river. 

It was to the care of these worthy people that little Maria was sentwhen she was ill, and she was doctored by them both physically andmorally. 'Bishop Berkeley's tar-water was still considered a specificfor all complaints, ' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would beof use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large tumblerfull of it to her every morning. She dreaded his "Now, Miss Maria, drinkthis. " But there was, in spite of his stern voice, something of pity andsympathy in his countenance. His excellent library was open to her, andhe directed her studies. His severe reasoning and uncompromising truthof mind awakened all her powers, and the questions he put to her and theworking out of the answers, the necessity of perfect accuracy in all herwords, suited the natural truth of her mind; and though such strictnesswas not agreeable, she even then perceived its advantage, and in afterlife was grateful for it. '

V. 

We have seen how Miss Elizabeth Sneyd, who could not make up her mind tomarry Mr. Day notwithstanding all he had gone through for her sake, hadeventually consented to become Mr. Edgeworth's third wife. With thisstepmother for many years to come Maria lived in an affectionateintimacy, only to be exceeded by that most faithful companionship whichexisted for fifty years between her and the lady from whose memoirs Iquote. 

It was about 1782 that Maria went home to live at Edgeworthtown withher father and his wife, with the many young brothers and sisters. Thefamily was a large one, and already consisted of her own sisters, ofHonora the daughter of Mrs. Honora, and Lovell her son. To thesesucceeded many others of the third generation; and two sisters of Mrs. Edgeworth's, who also made their home at Edgeworthtown. 

 Maria had once before been there, "very young, but she was now old enough to be struck with the difference then so striking between Ireland and England. " The tones and looks, the melancholy and the gaiety of the people, were so new and extraordinary to her that the delineations she long afterwards made of Irish character probably owe their life and truth to the impression made on her mind at this time as a stranger. Though it was June when they landed, there was snow on the roses she ran out to gather, and she felt altogether in a new and unfamiliar country. 

She herself describes the feelings of the master of a family returningto an Irish home:--

 Wherever he turned his eyes, in or out of his home, damp dilapidation, waste appeared. Painting, glazing, roofing, fencing, finishing--all were wanting. The backyard and even the front lawn round the windows of the house were filled with loungers, followers, and petitioners; tenants, undertenants, drivers, sub-agent and agent were to have audience; and they all had grievances and secret informations, accusations, reciprocations, and quarrels each under each interminable. 

Her account of her father's dealings with them is admirable:--

 I was with him constantly, and I was amused and interested in seeing how he made his way through their complaints, petitions, and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the time in good humour with the people and they delighted with him, though he often rated them roundly when they stood before him perverse in litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected in cunning or convicted of falsehood. They saw into his character almost as soon as he understood theirs. 

Mr. Edgeworth had in a very remarkable degree that power of ruling andadministering which is one of the rarest of gifts. He seems to haveshown great firmness and good sense in his conduct in the troubled timesin which he lived. He saw to his own affairs, administered justice, putdown middlemen as far as possible, reorganised the letting out of theestate. Unlike many of his neighbours, he was careful not to sacrificethe future to present ease of mind and of pocket. He put down rack-rentsand bribes of every sort, and did his best to establish things upon afirm and lasting basis. 

But if it was not possible even for Mr. Edgeworth to make such thingsall they should have been outside the house, the sketch given of thefamily life at home is very pleasant. The father lives in perfectconfidence with his children, admitting them to his confidence, interesting them in his experiments, spending his days with them, consulting them. There are no reservations; he does his business in thegreat sitting-room, surrounded by his family. I have heard it describedas a large ground-floor room, with windows to the garden and with twocolumns supporting the further end, by one of which Maria's writing-deskused to be placed--a desk which her father had devised for her, whichused to be drawn out to the fireside when she worked. Does not Mr. Edgeworth also mention in one of his letters a picture of Thomas Dayhanging over a sofa against the wall? Books in plenty there were, we may be sure, and perhaps models of ingenious machines and differentappliances for scientific work. Sir Henry Holland and Mr. Ticknor give acurious description of Mr. Edgeworth's many ingenious inventions. Therewere strange locks to the rooms and telegraphic despatches to thekitchen; clocks at the one side of the house were wound up by simplyopening certain doors at the other end. It has been remarked that allMiss Edgeworth's heroes had a smattering of science. Several of herbrothers inherited her father's turn for it. We hear of them raisingsteeples and establishing telegraphs in partnership with him. Mariashared of the family labours and used to help her father in the businessconnected with the estate, to assist him, also, to keep the accounts. She had a special turn for accounts, and she was pleased with herexquisitely neat columns and by the accuracy with which her figures fellinto their proper places. Long after her father's death this knowledgeand experience enabled her to manage the estate for her eldest stepbrother, Mr. Lovell Edgeworth. She was able, at a time of great nationaldifficulty and anxious crisis, to meet a storm in which many a largerfortune was wrecked. 

But in 1782 she was a young girl only beginning life. Storms were notyet, and she was putting out her wings in the sunshine. Her father sether to translate 'Adčle et Théodore, ' by Madame de Genlis (she had agreat facility for languages, and her French was really remarkable). Holcroft's version of the book, however, appeared, and the Edgeworthtranslation was never completed. Mr. Day wrote a letter to congratulateMr. Edgeworth on the occasion. It seemed horrible to Mr. Day that awoman should appear in print. 

It is possible that the Edgeworth family was no exception to the rule bywhich large and clever and animated families are apt to live in acertain atmosphere of their own. But, notwithstanding this strong familybias, few people can have seen more of the world, felt its temper morejustly, or appreciated more fully the interesting varieties of people tobe found in it than Maria Edgeworth. Within easy reach of Edgeworthtownwere different agreeable and cultivated houses. There was Pakenham Hallwith Lord Longford for its master; one of its daughters was the futureDuchess of Wellington, 'who was always Kitty Pakenham for her oldfriends. ' There at Castle Forbes also lived, I take it, more than oneof the well-bred and delightful persons, out of 'Patronage, ' and the'Absentee, ' who may, in real life, have borne the names of Lady Moiraand Lady Granard. Besides, there were cousins and relations withoutnumber--Foxes, Ruxtons, marriages and intermarriages; and when the timecame for occasional absences and expeditions from home, the circles seemto have spread incalculably in every direction. The Edgeworths appear tohave been a genuinely sociable clan, interested in others and certainlyinteresting to them. 

VI. 

The first letter given in the Memoirs from Maria to her favourite auntRuxton is a very sad one, which tells of the early death of her sisterHonora, a beautiful girl of fifteen, the only daughter of Mrs. HonoraEdgeworth, who died of consumption, as her mother had died. This letter, written in the dry phraseology of the time, is nevertheless full offeeling, above all for her father who was, as Maria says elsewhere, ever since she could think or feel, the first object and motive of hermind. 

Mrs. Edgeworth describes her sister-in-law as follows:--

 Mrs. Ruxton resembled her brother in the wit and vivacity of her mind and strong affections; her grace and charm of manner were such that a gentleman once said of her; 'If I were to see Mrs. Ruxton in rags as a beggar woman sitting on the doorstep, I should say "Madam" to her. ' 'To write to her Aunt Ruxton was, as long as she lived, Maria's greatest pleasure while away from her, ' says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'and to be with her was a happiness she enjoyed with never flagging and supreme delight. Blackcastle was within a few hours' drive of Edgeworthtown, and to go to Blackcastle was the holiday of her life. '

Mrs. Edgeworth tells a story of Maria once staying at Blackcastle andtearing out the title page of 'Belinda, ' so that her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, read the book without any suspicion of the author. She was so delightedwith it that she insisted on Maria listening to page after page, exclaiming 'Is not that admirably written?' 'Admirably read, I think, 'said Maria; until her aunt, quite provoked by her faint acquiescence, says, 'I am sorry to see my little Maria unable to bear the praises of arival author;' at which poor Maria burst into tears, and Mrs. Ruxtoncould never bear the book mentioned afterwards. 

It was with Mrs. Ruxton that a little boy, born just after the deathof the author of 'Sandford and Merton, ' was left on the occasion ofthe departure of the Edgeworth family for Clifton, in 1792, where Mr. Edgeworth spent a couple of years for the health of one of his sons. InJuly the poor little brother dies in Ireland. 'There does not, now thatlittle Thomas is gone, exist even a person of the same name as Mr. Day, 'says Mr. Edgeworth, who concludes his letter philosophically, as thefather of twenty children may be allowed to do, by expressing a hopethat to his nurses, Mrs. Ruxton and her daughter, 'the remembrance oftheir own goodness will soon obliterate the painful impression of hismiserable end. ' During their stay at Clifton Richard Edgeworth, theeldest son, who had been brought up upon Rousseau's system, and whoseems to have found the Old World too restricted a sphere for hisenergies, after going to sea and disappearing for some years, suddenlypaid them a visit from South Carolina, where he had settled and married. The young man was gladly welcomed by them all. He had been long separatedfrom home, and he eventually died very young in America; but his sisteralways clung to him with fond affection, and when he left them to returnhome she seems to have felt his departure very much. 'Last Saturday mypoor brother Richard took leave of us to return to America. He has goneup to London with my father and mother, and is to sail from thence. Wecould not part from him without great pain and regret, for he made usall extremely fond of him. '

Notwithstanding these melancholy events, Maria Edgeworth seems to haveled a happy busy life all this time among her friends, her relations, her many interests, her many fancies and facts, making much of thechildren, of whom she writes pleasant descriptions to her aunt. 'Charlotte is very engaging and promises to be handsome. Sneyd is, andpromises everything. Henry will, I think, through life always do morethan he promises. Little Honora is a sprightly blue-eyed child at nursewith a woman who is the picture of health and simplicity. Lovell isperfectly well. Doctor Darwin has paid him very handsome compliments onhis lines on the Barbarini Vase in the first part of the "BotanicGarden. "'

Mr. Edgeworth, however, found the time long at Clifton, though, asusual, he at once improved his opportunities, paid visits to his friendsin London and elsewhere, and renewed many former intimacies andcorrespondences. 

Maria also paid a visit to London, but the time had not come for her toenjoy society, and the extreme shyness of which Mrs. Edgeworth speaksmade it pain to her to be in society in those early days. 'Since I havebeen away from home, ' she writes, 'I have missed the society of myfather, mother, and sisters more than I can express, and more thanbeforehand I could have thought possible. I long to see them all again. Even when I am most amused I feel a void, and now I understand what anaching void is perfectly. ' Very soon we hear of her at home again, 'scratching away at the Freeman family. ' Mr. Edgeworth is reading aloudGay's 'Trivia' among other things, which she recommends to her aunt. 'Ihad much rather make a bargain with any one I loved to read the samebooks with them at the same hour than to look at the moon likeRousseau's famous lovers. ' There is another book, a new book for thechildren, mentioned about this time, 'Evenings at Home, ' which they alladmire immensely. 

Miss Edgeworth was now about twenty-six, at an age when a woman's powershave fully ripened; a change comes over her style; there is a fulness ofdescription in her letters and a security of expression which showmaturity. Her habit of writing was now established, and she describesthe constant interest her father took and his share in all she did. Someof the slighter stories she first wrote upon a slate and read out to herbrothers and sisters; others she sketched for her father's approval, andarranged and altered as he suggested. The letters for literary ladieswere with the publishers by this time, and these were followed byvarious stories and early lessons, portions of 'Parents' Assistant, 'and of popular tales, all of which were sent out in packets and lentfrom one member of the family to another before finally reaching Mr. Johnson, the publisher's, hands. Maria Edgeworth in some of her lettersfrom Clifton alludes with some indignation to the story of Mrs. HannahMore's ungrateful _protégée_ Lactilla, the literary milkwoman, whosepoems Hannah More was at such pains to bring before the world, and forwhom, with her kind preface and warm commendations and subscriptionlist, she was able to obtain the large sum of 500_l. _ The ungratefulLactilla, who had been starving when Mrs. More found her out, seems tohave lost her head in this sudden prosperity, and to have accused herbenefactress of wishing to steal a portion of the money. Maria Edgeworthmust have been also interested in some family marriages which took placeabout this time. Her own sister Anna became engaged to Dr. Beddoes, ofClifton, whose name appears as prescribing for the authors of variousmemoirs of that day. He is 'a man of ability, of a great name in thescientific world, ' says Mr. Edgeworth, who favoured the Doctor's'declared passion, ' as a proposal was then called, and the marriageaccordingly took place on their return to Ireland. Emmeline, anothersister, was soon after married to Mr. King, a surgeon, also living atBristol, and Maria was now left the only remaining daughter of thefirst marriage, to be good aunt, sister, friend to all the youngermembers of the party. She was all this, but she herself expressly statesthat her father would never allow her to be turned into a nursery drudge;her share of the family was limited to one special little boy. Meanwhileher pen-and-ink children are growing up, and starting out in the worldon their own merits. 

'I beg, dear Sophy, ' she writes to her cousin, 'that you will not callmy little stories by the sublime name of my works; I shall else beashamed when the little mouse comes forth. The stories are printed andbound the same size as 'Evenings at Home, ' but I am afraid you willdislike the title. My father had sent the 'Parents' Friend, ' but Mr. Johnson has degraded it into 'Parents' Assistant. '

In 1797, says Miss Beaufort, who was to be so soon more intimatelyconnected with the Edgeworth family, Johnson wished to publish morevolumes of the 'Parents' Assistant' on fine paper, with prints, and Mrs. Ruxton asked me to make some designs for them. These designs seem tohave given great satisfaction to the Edgeworth party, and especially toa little boy called William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew upto be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel family complaint. Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also failing all this time--'Though shemakes epigrams she is far from well, ' says Maria; but they, none of themseem seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of politics, isabsorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help of his sons, he is tryingto establish. It is one which will act by night as well as by day. 

It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection growing andput down for a time by the soldiers; armed bands going about 'defending'the country and breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a Frenchinvasion had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 came rumours ofevery description, and Mr. Edgeworth was very much disappointed that hisproposal for establishing a telegraph across the water to England wasrejected by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin that he had offeredhimself as a candidate for the county, and been obliged to relinquishat the last moment; but these minor disappointments were lost in thetrouble which fell upon the household in the following year--the deathof the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and died of consumption in1797. 

VII. 

When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may be sure, without manyactive post-mortem wishes and directions) he left his entertainingMemoirs half finished, and he desired his daughter Maria in the mostemphatic way to complete them, and to publish them without changingor altering anything that he had written. People reading them weresurprised by the contents; many blamed Miss Edgeworth for making thempublic, not knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands of herfather's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at the time to Mrs. Trench. Many severe and wounding reviews appeared, and this may haveinfluenced Miss Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirspublished by her family. 

Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three orfour lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, someof us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters ofexistence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than histenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure ofsentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriagemust have taken most people by surprise. The writer once expressed hersurprise at the extraordinary influence that Mr. Edgeworth seems to havehad over women and over the many members of his family who continued toreside in his home after all the various changes which had taken placethere. Lady S---- to whom she spoke is one who has seen more of lifethan most of us, who has for years past carried help to the far-awayand mysterious East, but whose natural place is at home in the moreprosperous and unattainable West End. This lady said, 'You do not in theleast understand what my Uncle Edgeworth was. I never knew anythinglike him. Brilliant, full of energy and charm, he was something quiteextraordinary and irresistible. If you had known him you would not havewondered 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 havebeen herself the most devoted and faithful of daughters if she had noteventually agreed to her father's wishes, and, as daughters do, come bydegrees to feel with him and to see with his eyes. The influence of afather over a daughter where real sympathy exists is one of the verydeepest and strongest that can be imagined. Miss Beaufort herself seemsalso to have had some special attraction for Maria. She was about herown age. She must have been a person of singularly sweet character andgentle liberality of mind. 'You will come into a new family, but youwill 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 youhave been used to in your own happy cultivated family. ' And herstepmother in a few feeling words describes all that Maria was to herfrom the very first when she came as a bride to the home where thesisters and the children of the lately lost wife were all assembled tomeet her. 

It gives an unpleasant thrill to read of the newly-married lady comingalong to her home in a postchaise, and seeing something odd on theside 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 thebody of a man hung by the rebels between the shafts of a car. 

The family at Edgeworthtown consisted of two ladies, sisters of the lateMrs. Edgeworth, who made it their home, and of Maria, the last of thefirst family. Lovell, now the eldest son, was away; but there were alsofour 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 amgoing on in the old way, writing stories, ' says Maria Edgeworth, writingin 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my handsbefore me would not make any one of us one degree safer. .. . SimpleSusan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her toEngland. '. .. 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us, ' shecontinues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh!French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to seeeverybody as happy as ourselves. '

On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin thatthe French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now atAthlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. Myfather's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fullyin earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have notyet arrived from Dublin. .. . We, who are so near the scene of action, cannot by any means discover what _number_ of the French actuallylanded; some say 800, some 1, 800, some 18, 000. '

The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were incharge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protectionas far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Halfan 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 thunderwhich 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 burnthalf-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove the cart was blownto 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 fromthe spot. .. . If we had gone with this ammunition cart, we must havebeen killed. An hour or two afterwards we were obliged to fly fromEdgeworthtown. The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile of thetown; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed the trunk of the deadman, bloody limbs of horses, and two dead horses, by the help of menwho 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, ' saysMrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected that he had left onthe table in his study a list of the yeomanry corps which he fearedmight endanger the poor fellows and their families if it fell into thehands of the rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard ofhis life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned the paper, andrejoined us safely. ' The Memoirs give a most interesting and spiritedaccount 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 allwas safe for their return, and the account of their coming home, as itis 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 thetimes 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 thathe was offered 3, 000 guineas for his seat for the few remaining weeks ofthe session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well, as he says, '_to quarrel with myself_. ' He also adds that Maria continueswriting for children under the persuasion that she cannot be moreserviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity)affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and _his giantbrood_. ' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. TheDoctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth'sanswers with all their characteristic and lively variety, were nearly atan end. 

It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great success, and published'Castle Rackrent, ' a book--not for children this time--which madeeverybody talk who read, and those read who had only talked before. Thiswork was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation thatsome one was at the pains to copy out the whole of the story witherasures and different signs of authenticity, and assume the authorship. 

One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind is the honestcandour and genuine critical faculty which is hers. Her appreciation ofher own work and that of others is unaffected and really discriminating, whether it is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, orScott's new novel the 'Pirate, ' or one of her own manuscripts which sheestimates 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 thegenius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste andcritical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout the wholework: but I will not dilate upon it in a letter. I could talk for threehours 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 whomMr. Edgeworth and his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, was Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of her laterlife found no little help and comfort in the friendship and constancy ofMaria Edgeworth. Mr. And Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, paid him a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, andwhere the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. There is a littleanecdote of domestic life at this time in the Memoirs which givesone a glimpse, not of an authoress, but of a very sympathising andimpressionable person. 'Maria took her little sister to bring down toher 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 onthe stairs afraid she should drop the child, afraid that its head wouldcome off, and afraid that her father would find her sitting there andlaugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in aterrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairstill she safely reached the sitting-room. ' For all these youngerchildren Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, asindeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroinesare more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said bysome to have been Maria herself, impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yetfull of spirit and animation. 

In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes kindly of theauthoress, 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 ofthe troubles of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend tocome and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the pleasant housewith the garden, the ponds full of fish, the deep umbrageous valley, with the talkative stream running down it, and Derby tower in thedistance. The letter, so kind, so playful in its tone, was neverfinished. Dr. Darwin was writing as he was seized with what seemed afainting fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes of theshock 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 thisletter of Dr. Darwin's. 

No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. Tous, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'thatgiant brood, ' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long aspeople live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those thingswhich give life to life itself. 

VIII. 

'Calais after a rough passage; Brussels, flat country, tiled houses, trees and ditches, the window shutters turned out to the street;fishwives' legs, Dunkirk, and the people looking like wooden toys set inmotion; Bruges and its mingled spires, shipping, and windmills. ' Thesenotes of travel read as if Miss Edgeworth had been writing down onlyyesterday a pleasant list of the things which are to be seen two hoursoff, to-day no less plainly than a century ago. She jots it all downfrom her corner in the postchaise, where she is propped up with afather, brother, stepmother, and sister for travelling companions, anda new book to beguile the way. She is charmed with her new book. It isthe story of 'Mademoiselle de Clermont, ' by Madame de Genlis, and onlyjust out. The Edgeworths (with many other English people) rejoiced inthe long-looked-for millennium, which had been signed only the previousautumn, and they now came abroad to bask in the sunshine of the Continent, which had been so long denied to our mist-bound islanders. We hear ofthe enthusiastic and somewhat premature joy with which this peace wasreceived by all ranks of people. Not only did the English rush over toFrance; foreigners crossed to England, and one of them, an old friend ofMr. Edgeworth's, had already reached Edgeworthtown, and inspired itsenterprising master with a desire to see those places and things oncemore which he heard described. Mr. Edgeworth was anxious also to showhis young wife the treasures in the Louvre, and to help her to developher taste for art. He had had many troubles of late, lost friends andchildren by death and by marriage. One can imagine that the change musthave been welcome to them all. Besides Maria and Lovell, his eldestson, he took with him a lovely young daughter, Charlotte Edgeworth, thedaughter of Elizabeth Sneyd. They travelled by Belgium, stopping ontheir way at Bruges, at Ghent, and visiting pictures and churches alongthe road, as travellers still like to do. Mrs. Edgeworth was, as we havesaid, the artistic member of the party. We do not know what modernrhapsodists would say to Miss Edgeworth's very subdued criticisms anddescriptions of feeling on this occasion. 'It is extremely agreeable tome, ' she writes, 'to see paintings with those who have excellent tasteand no affectation. ' And this remark might perhaps be thought even moreto the point now than in the pre-ęsthetic age in which it was innocentlymade. The travellers are finally landed in Paris in a magnificent hotelin a fine square, 'formerly Place Louis-Quinze, afterwards Place de laRévolution, now Place de la Concorde. ' And Place de la Concorde itremains, wars and revolutions notwithstanding, whether lighted by theflames of the desperate Commune or by the peaceful sunsets which streamtheir evening glory across the blood-stained stones. 

The Edgeworths did not come as strangers to Paris; they brought lettersand introductions with them, and bygone associations and friendshipswhich had only now to be resumed. The well-known Abbé Morellet, theirold acquaintance, 'answered for them, ' says Miss Edgeworth, and besidesall this Mr Edgeworth's name was well known in scientific circles. Bréguet, Montgolfier, and others all made him welcome. Lord HenryPetty, as Maria's friend Lord Lansdowne was then called, was in Paris, and Rogers the poet, and Kosciusko, cured of his wounds. For the firsttime they now made the acquaintance of M. Dumont, a lifelong friend andcorrespondent. There were many others--the Delesserts, of the FrenchProtestant faction, Madame Suard, to whom the romantic Thomas Day hadpaid court some thirty years before, and Madame Campan, and MadameRécamier, and Madame de Rémusat, and Madame de Houdetot, now seventy-twoyears of age, but Rousseau's Julie still, and Camille Jordan, and theChevalier Edelcrantz, from the Court of the King of Sweden. 

The names alone of the Edgeworths' entertainers represent a delightfuland interesting section of the history of the time. One can imaginethat besides all these pleasant and talkative persons the FaubourgSaint-Germain itself threw open its great swinging doors to therelations of the Abbé Edgeworth who risked his life to stand by hismaster upon the scaffold and to speak those noble warm-hearted words, the last that Louis ever heard. One can picture the family party asit must have appeared with its pleasant British looks--the agreeable'ruddy-faced' father, the gentle Mrs. Edgeworth, who is somewheredescribed by her stepdaughter as so orderly, so clean, so freshlydressed, the child of fifteen, only too beautiful and delicatelylovely, and last of all Maria herself, the nice little unassuming, Jeannie-Deans-looking body Lord Byron described, small, homely, perhaps, but with her gift of French, of charming intercourse, her fresh laurelsof authorship (for 'Belinda' was lately published), her bright animation, her cultivated mind and power of interesting all those in her company, to say nothing of her own kindling interest in every one and every thinground about her. 

Her keen delights and vivid descriptions of all these new things, faces, voices, ideas, are all to be read in some long and most charming lettersto Ireland, which also contain the account of a most eventful crisiswhich this Paris journey brought about. The letter is dated March 1803, and it concludes as follows:--

 Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will surprise you as much as it surprised me--by the coming of M. Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman whom we have mentioned to you, of superior understanding and mild manners. He came to offer me his hand and heart! My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his attachment, for I have seen but very little of him, and have not had time to have formed any judgment except that I think nothing could tempt me to leave my own dear friends and my own country to live in Sweden. 

Maria Edgeworth was now about thirty years of age, at a time of lifewhen people are apt to realise perhaps almost more deeply than in earlyyouth the influence of feeling, its importance, and strange power overevents. Hitherto there are no records in her memoirs of any sentimentalepisodes, but it does not follow that a young lady has not had her ownphase of experience because she does not write it out at length to hervarious aunts and correspondents. Miss Edgeworth was not a sentimentalperson. She was warmly devoted to her own family, and she seems to havehad a strong idea of her own want of beauty; perhaps her admiration forher lovely young sisters may have caused this feeling to be exaggeratedby her. But no romantic, lovely heroine could have inspired a deeper ormore touching admiration than this one which M. Edelcrantz felt for hisEnglish friend; the mild and superior Swede seems to have beenthoroughly in earnest. 

So indeed was Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried away by thenatural impulse of the moment. She realised the many difficulties anddangers of the unknown; she looked to the future; she turned to her ownhome, and with an affection all the more felt because of the trialto which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control andself-restraint which she had learnt returned with instinctive force. Sometimes it happens that people miss what is perhaps the best forthe sake of the next best, and we see convenience and old habit andexpediency, and a hundred small and insignificant circumstances, gathering like some avalanche to divide hearts that might give andreceive very much from each. But sentiment is not the only thing inlife. Other duties, ties, and realities there are; and it is difficultto judge for others in such matters. Sincerity of heart and truth tothemselves are pretty sure in the end to lead people in the rightdirection for their own and for other people's happiness. Only, in theexperience of many women there is the danger that fixed ideas, and otherpeople's opinion, and the force of custom may limit lives which mighthave been complete in greater things, though perhaps less perfect in thelesser. People in the abstract are sincere enough in wishing fulness ofexperience and of happiness to those dearest and nearest to them; but weare only human beings, and when the time comes and the horrible necessityfor parting approaches, our courage goes, our hearts fail, and we thinkwe are preaching reason and good sense while it is only a most naturalinstinct which leads us to cling to that to which we are used and tothose we love. 

Mr. Edgeworth did not attempt to influence Maria. Mrs. Edgeworthevidently had some misgivings, and certainly much sympathy for theChevalier and for her friend and stepdaughter. She says:--

 Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and admiration; she was extremely in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth left her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly what it would be to us to lose her and what she would feel at parting with us. She decided rightly for her own future happiness and for that of her family, but she suffered much at the time and long afterwards. While we were at Paris I remember that in a shop, where Charlotte and I were making purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, and so deep in reverie that when her father came in and stood opposite to her she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she started and burst into tears. .. . I do not think she repented of her refusal or regretted her decision. She was well aware that she could not have made M. Edelcrantz happy, that she would not have suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her want of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was perhaps better she should think so, for it calmed her mind; but from what I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man capable of really valuing her. I believe he was much attached to her, and deeply mortified at her refusal. He continued to reside in Sweden after the abdication of his master, and was always distinguished for his high character and great abilities. He never married. He was, except for his very fine eyes, remarkably plain. 

So ends the romance of the romancer. There are, however, manyhappinesses in life, as there are many troubles. 

Mrs. Edgeworth tells us that after her stepdaughter's return toEdgeworthtown she occupied herself with various literary works, correcting some of her former MSS. For the press, and writing 'Madame deFleury, ' 'Emilie de Coulanges, ' and 'Leonora. ' But the high-flown andromantic style did suit her gift, and she wrote best when her genuineinterest and unaffected glances shone with bright understanding sympathyupon her immediate surroundings. When we are told that 'Leonora' waswritten in the style the Chevalier Edelcrantz preferred, and that theidea of what he would think of it was present to Maria in every page, webegin to realise that for us at all events it was a most fortunate thingthat she decided as she did. It would have been a loss indeed to theworld if this kindling and delightful spirit of hers had been choked bythe polite thorns, fictions, and platitudes of an artificial, courtlylife and by the well-ordered narrowness of a limited standard. She neverheard what the Chevalier thought of the book; she never knew that heever read it even. It is a satisfaction to hear that he married no oneelse, and while she sat writing and not forgetting in the pleasantlibrary at home, one can imagine the romantic Chevalier in his distantCourt faithful to the sudden and romantic devotion by which he is nowremembered. Romantic and chivalrous friendship seems to belong to hiscountry and to his countrymen. 

IX. 

There are one or two other episodes less sentimental than this onerecorded of this visit to Paris, not the least interesting of thesebeing the account given of a call upon Madame de Genlis. The youngerauthor from her own standpoint having resolutely turned away from thevoice of the charmer for the sake of that which she is convinced to beduty and good sense, now somewhat sternly takes the measure of her eldersister, who has failed in the struggle, who is alone and friendless, andwho has made her fate. 

The story is too long to quote at full length. An isolated page withoutits setting loses very much; the previous description of the darknessand uncertainty through which Maria and her father go wandering, andasking their way in vain, adds immensely to the sense of the gloom andisolation which are hiding the close of a long and brilliant career. Atlast, after wandering for a long time seeking for Madame de Genlis, thetravellers compel a reluctant porter to show them the staircase in theArsenal, where she is living, and to point out the door before he goesoff with the light. 

They wait in darkness. The account of what happens when the door isopened is so interesting that I cannot refrain from quoting it atlength:--

 After ringing the bell we presently heard doors open and little footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a girl of about Honora's size, holding an ill set-up, wavering candle in her hand, the light of which fell full upon her face and figure. Her face was remarkably intelligent--dark sparkling eyes, dark hair curled in the most fashionable long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us. The dress of her figure by no means suited the head and elegance of her attitude. What her nether weeds might be we could not distinctly see, but they seemed a coarse short petticoat like what Molly Bristow's children would wear. After surveying us and hearing our name was Edgeworth she smiled graciously and bid us follow her, saying, 'Maman est chez elle. ' She led the way with the grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance across two ante-chambers, miserable-looking; but, miserable or not, no home in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, for we were still in doubt which to think her, led into a small room in which the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black who rose from her chair by the fireside; as the door opened a great puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, chairs, and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and inkstands, and birdcages, and a harp. She did not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle I could not see her face or anything but the outline of her form and her attitude. Her form was the remains of a fine form, her attitude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. 

 I being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to the figure in darkness. 'Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur de nous mander qu'elle voulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre visite, ' said I, or words to that effect, to which she replied by taking my hand and saying something in which 'charmée' was the most intelligible word. While she spoke she looked over my shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he was a gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she wished to please and seated us in _fauteuils_ near the fire. 

 I then had a full view of her face--figure very thin and melancholy dark eyes, long sallow cheeks, compressed thin lips, two or three black ringlets on a high forehead, a cap that Mrs. Grier might wear--altogether in appearance of fallen fortunes, worn-out health, and excessive but guarded irritability. To me there was nothing of that engaging, captivating manner which I had been taught to expect. She seemed to me to be alive only to literary quarrels and jealousies. The muscles of her face as she spoke, or as my father spoke to her, quickly and too easily expressed hatred and anger. .. . She is now, you know, _dévote acharnée_. .. . Madame de Genlis seems to have been so much used to being attacked that she has defence and apologies ready prepared. She spoke of Madame de Staėl's 'Delphine' with detestation. .. . Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary; you begged me to see her with favourable eyes, and I went, after seeing her 'Rosičre de Salency, ' with the most favourable disposition, but I could not like her. .. . And from time to time I saw, or thought I saw, through the gloom of her countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my father judges of her much more favourably than I do. She evidently took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over whose mind he could gain great ascendency. 

The 'young and gay philosopher' at fifty is not unchanged since we knewhim first. Maria adds a postscript:

 I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who showed us in is a girl whom she is educating. 'Elle m'appelle maman, mais elle n'est pas ma fille. ' The manner in which this little girl spoke to Madame de Genlis and looked at her appeared to me more in her favour than anything else. I went to look at what the child was writing; she was translating Darwin's _Zoonomia_. 

Every description one reads by Miss Edgeworth of actual things andpeople makes one wish that she had written more of them. This one is themore interesting from the contrast of the two women, both so remarkableand coming to so different a result in their experience of life. 

This eventful visit to Paris is brought to an eventful termination byseveral gendarmes, who appear early one morning in Mr. Edgeworth'sbedroom with orders that he is to get up and to leave Paris immediately. Mr. Edgeworth had been accused of being brother to the Abbé de Fermont. When the mitigated circumstances of his being only a first cousin wereput forward by Lord Whitworth, the English Ambassador, the Edgeworthsreceived permission to return from the suburb to which they had retired;but private news hurried their departure, and they were only in time toescape the general blockade and detention of English prisoners. Afterlittle more than a year of peace, once more war was declared on May 20, 1803. Lovell, the eldest son, who was absent at the time and travellingfrom Switzerland, was not able to escape in time; nor for twelve yearsto come was the young man able to return to his own home and family. 

X. 

'Belinda, ' 'Castle Rackrent, ' the 'Parents' Assistant, ' the 'Essays onPractical Education, ' had all made their mark. The new series of populartales was also welcomed. There were other books on the way; Miss Edgeworthhad several MSS. In hand in various stages, stories to correct for thepress. There was also a long novel, first begun by her father and takenup and carried on by her. The 'Essays on Practical Education, ' whichwere first published in 1798, continued to be read. M. Pictet hadtranslated the book into French the year before; a third edition waspublished some ten years later, in 1811, in the preface of which theauthors say, 'It is due to the public to state that twelve years'additional experience in a numerous family, and careful attention to theresults of other modes of education, have given the authors no reason toretract what they have advanced in these volumes. '

In Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, however, his daughter states that hemodified his opinions in one or two particulars; allowing more andmore liberty to the children, and at the same time conceding greaterimportance to the habit of early though mechanical efforts of memory. The essays seem in every way in advance of their time; many of the hintscontained in them most certainly apply to the little children of to-dayno less than to their small grandparents. A lady whose own name is highin the annals of education was telling me that she had been greatlystruck by the resemblance between the Edgeworth system and that ofFroebel's Kindergarten method, which is now gaining more and more groundin people's estimation, the object of both being not so much to craminstruction into early youth as to draw out each child's powers ofobservation and attention. 

The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in 1809, andcontained among other stories 'Ennui, ' one of the most remarkable ofMiss Edgeworth's works. The second series included the 'Absentee, ' thatdelightful story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us evenmore than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first only an episodein the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but the public was impatient, sowere the publishers, and fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' wasprinted as a separate tale. 

'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to amuse his wife, who wasrecovering from illness; it was originally called the 'Fortunes of theFreeman Family, ' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were morein fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious withoutany commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious, well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthypersons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends toback 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 dealof use, or that people's positions in life are exactly proportioned totheir merit. Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of HumanExpectations' contains the best possible answer to the problem of whatpeople's deserts should be. Let us hope that personal advancement isonly one of the many things people try for in life, and that there areother prizes as well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewherespeaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the novel itself shesays (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so vast a subject that itflounders about in my hands and quite overpowers me. '

It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions anothercircumstance which interested her at this time, and which was one ofthose events occurring now and again which do equal credit to allconcerned. 

 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 spiritedannals of Ballitore delighted Carlyle in his later days, and whose'Cottage Dialogues' greatly struck Mr. Edgeworth at the time; and thekind Edgeworths, finding her quite unused to public transactions, exerted themselves in every way to help her. Mr. Edgeworth took theMSS. Out of the hands of an Irish publisher, and, says Maria, 'ourexcellent friend's worthy successor in St. Paul's Churchyard has, onour recommendation, agreed to publish it for her. ' Mr. Edgeworth's ownletter to Mrs. Leadbeater gives the history of his good-natured officesand 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 asfollows:--

 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 wasalso Mary Leadbeater's friend, writes warmly praising the notes. 'MissEdgeworth's notes on your Dialogues have as much spirit and originalityas if she had never before explored the mine which many thought she hadexhausted. '

All these are pleasant specimens of the Edgeworth correspondence, which, however (following the course of most correspondence), does not seem tohave been always equally agreeable. There are some letters (among otherswhich I have been allowed to see) written by Maria about this time to anunfortunate young man who seems to have annoyed her greatly by hisexcited 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 towrite 'an historical novel illustrative of the august House of Coburg. '

The young man himself seems to have had some wild aspirations afterauthorship, 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. 

XI. 

While Maria Edgeworth was at work in her Irish home, successfullyproducing her admirable delineations, another woman, born some eightyears later, and living in the quiet Hampshire village where the elmtrees spread so greenly, was also at work, also writing books thatwere destined to influence many a generation, but which were meanwhilewaiting unknown, unnoticed. Do we not all know the story of the brownpaper parcel lying unopened for years on the publisher's shelf andcontaining Henry Tilney and all his capes, Catherine Morland and allher romance, and the great John Thorpe himself, uttering those valuableliterary criticisms which Lord Macaulay, writing to his little sistersat home, used to quote to them? 'Oh, Lord!' says John Thorpe, 'I neverread novels; I have other things to do. '

A friend reminds us of Miss Austen's own indignant outburst. 'Only anovel! only "Cecilia, " or "Camilla, " or "Belinda;" or, in short, onlysome work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, themost thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of itsvarieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed tothe world in the best-chosen language. ' If the great historian, wholoved novels himself, had not assured us that we owe Miss Austen andMiss Edgeworth to the early influence of the author of 'Evelina, ' onemight grudge 'Belinda' to such company as that of 'Cecilia' and'Camilla. '

'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published about thesame time as 'Patronage' and 'Tales of Fashionable Life. ' Their twoauthors illustrate, curiously enough, the difference between the nationalcharacteristics of English and Irish--the breadth, the versatility, theinnate wit and gaiety of an Irish mind; the comparative narrowness ofrange of an English nature; where, however, we are more likely to gethumour and its never-failing charm. Long afterwards Jane Austen sent oneof her novels to Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated it indeed, as such amind as hers could not fail to do, but it was with no such enthusiasmas that which she felt for other more ambitious works, with more ofincident, power, knowledge of the world, in the place of that one subtlequality of humour which for some persons outweighs almost every other. Something, some indefinite sentiment, tells people where they amalgamateand with whom they are intellectually akin; and by some such process ofcriticism the writer feels that in this little memoir of Miss Edgeworthshe has but sketched the outer likeness of this remarkable woman's lifeand genius; and that she has scarcely done justice to very much in MissEdgeworth, which so many of the foremost men of her day couldappreciate--a power, a versatility, an interest in subjects for theirown sakes, not for the sakes of those who are interested in them, whichwas essentially hers. 

It is always characteristic to watch a writer's progress in theestimation of critics and reviewers. In 1809 Miss Edgeworth ismoderately and respectfully noticed. 'As a writer of novels and talesshe has a marked peculiarity, that of venturing to dispense common senseto her readers and to bring them within the precincts of real life. Without excluding love from her pages she knows how to assign to it itstrue limits. ' In 1812 the reviewer, more used to hear the author'spraises on all sides, now starts from a higher key, and, as far as truthto nature and delineation of character are concerned, does not allow arival except 'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas. ' The following criticism isjust and more to the point:--

 To this power of masterly and minute delineation of character Miss Edgeworth adds another which has rarely been combined with the former, that of interweaving the peculiarities of her persons with the conduct of her piece, and making them, without forgetting for a moment their personal consistency, conduce to the general lesson. .. . Her virtue and vice, though copied exactly from nature, lead with perfect ease to a moral conclusion, and are finally punished or rewarded by means which (rare as a retribution in this world is) appear for the most part neither inconsistent nor unnatural. 

Then follows a review of 'Vivian' and of the 'Absentee, ' which isperhaps the most admirable of her works. We may all remember howMacaulay once pronounced that the scene in the 'Absentee' where LordColambre discovers himself to his tenantry was the best thing of thesort since the opening of the twenty-second book of the 'Odyssey. '

An article by Lord Dudley, which is still to be quoted, appeared in the'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he says of her works applies no less toMiss Edgeworth's own life than to the principles which she inculcates. 

 The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly and irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right person so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and the novel ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite irregular for the most reasonable people to make any use whatever of their reason on the most important occasion of their lives. Miss Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty power with far less reverence. She has analysed it and found it does not consist of one simple element, but that several common ingredients enter into its composition--habit, esteem, a belief of some corresponding sentiment and of suitableness in the character and circumstances of the party. She has pronounced that reason, timely and vigorously applied, is almost a specific, and, following up this bold empirical line of practice, she has actually produced cases of the entire cure of persons who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite qualities are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant good sense which, without checking the course of our kind affections, exercises its influence at every moment and surveys deliberately the motives and consequences of every action. Utility is her object, reason and experience her means. 

XII. 

This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out after a visit from theEdgeworth family to London in 1813, which seems to have been a mostbrilliant and amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid you, 'wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I exulted in it foryour sake and for my sex's sake. ' Miss Edgeworth was at the height ofher popularity, in good spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth wasseventy, but he looked years younger, and was still in undiminishedhealth and vigour. The party was welcomed, fźted, sought aftereverywhere. Except that they miss seeing Madame d'Arblay and leaveLondon before the arrival of Madame de Staėl, they seem to have come infor everything that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. Theybreakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they call upon duchessesand scientific men. Maria's old friend the Duchess of Wellington is notless her friend than she was in County Longford. Every one likes themand comes knocking at their lodging-house door, while Maria upstairs iswriting a letter, standing at a chest of drawers. 'Miss Edgeworth isdelightful, ' says Tom Moore, 'not from display, but from repose andunaffectedness, the least pretending person. ' Even Lord Byron writeswarmly of the authoress whose company is so grateful, and who goes hersimple, pleasant way cheerful and bringing kind cheer, and makingfriends with the children as well as with the elders. Many of thesechildren in their lives fully justified her interest, children whom wein turn have known and looked up to as distinguished greyheaded men. 

Some one asked Miss Edgeworth how she came to understand children as shedid, what charm she used to win them. 'I don't know, ' she said kindly;'I lie down and let them crawl over me. ' She was greatly pleased on oneoccasion when at a crowded party a little girl suddenly started forth, looked at her hard, and said, 'I like simple Susan best, ' and rushedaway overwhelmed at her own audacity. The same lady who was present onthis occasion asked her a question which we must all be grateful to havesolved for us--how it happened that the respective places of Laura andRosamond came to be transposed in 'Patronage, ' Laura having been thewiser elder sister in the 'Purple Jar, ' and appearing suddenly as theyounger in the novel. Miss Edgeworth laughed and said that Laura hadbeen so preternaturally wise and thoughtful as a child, she could neverhave kept her up to the mark, and so she thought it best to change thecharacter altogether. 

During one of her visits to London Miss Edgeworth went to dine at thehouse of Mr. Marshall; and his daughter, Lady Monteagle, tells a littlestory which gives an impression, and a kind one, of the celebratedguest. Everything had been prepared in her honour, the lights lighted, the viands were cooked. Dinner was announced, and some important personwas brought forward to hand Miss Edgeworth down, when it was discoveredthat she had vanished. For a moment the company and the dinner were allat a standstill. She was a small person, but diligent search was made. Miss Edgeworth had last been seen with the children of the house, andshe was eventually found in the back kitchen, escorted by the saidchildren, who, having confided their private affairs to her sympatheticear, had finally invited her to come with them and see some rabbitswhich they were rearing down below. A lady who used to live at Cliftonas a little girl, and to be sometimes prescribed for by Dr. King, wasonce brought up as a child to Miss Edgeworth, and she told me how verymuch puzzled she felt when the bright old lady, taking her by thehand, said, 'Well, my dear, how do you do, and how is my excellentbrother-in-law?' One can imagine what a vague sort of being an'excellent brother-in-law' would seem to a very young child. 

We read in Miss Edgeworth's memoir of her father that Mr. Edgeworthrecovered from his serious illness in 1814 to enjoy a few more years oflife among his friends, his children, and his experiments. His goodhumour and good spirits were undiminished, and he used to quote an oldfriend's praise of 'the privileges and convenience of old age. ' He waspast seventy, but he seems to have continued his own education to theend of life. 'Without affecting to be young, he exerted himself toprevent any of his faculties from sinking into the indolent state whichportends their decay, ' and his daughter says that he went on learning tothe last, correcting his faults and practising his memory by variousdevices, so that it even improved with age. 

In one of his last letters to Mrs. Beaufort, his wife's mother, hespeaks with no little paternal pleasure of his home and his children:'Such excellent principles, such just views of human life and manners, such cultivated understandings, such charming tempers make a littleParadise about me;' while with regard to his daughter's works he addsconcerning the book which was about to appear, 'If Maria's tales failwith the public, you will hear of my hanging myself. '

Mr. Edgeworth died in the summer of 1817, at home, surrounded by hisfamily, grateful, as he says, to Providence for allowing his body toperish before his mind. 

 During the melancholy months which succeeded her father's death Maria hardly wrote any letters; her sight was in a most alarming state. The tears, she said, felt in her eyes like the cutting of a knife. She had overworked them all the previous winter, sitting up at night and struggling with her grief as she wrote 'Ormond. ' She was now unable to use them without pain. .. . Edgeworthtown now belonged to Lovell, the eldest surviving brother, but he wished it to continue the home of the family. Maria set to work to complete her father's memoirs and to fulfil his last wish. 

It was not without great hesitation and anxiety that she determined tofinish writing her father's Life. There is a touching appeal in a letterto her aunt Ruxton. 'I felt the happiness of my life was at stake. Even if all the rest of the world had praised it and you had beendissatisfied, how miserable should I have been!' And there is anothersentence written at Bowood, very sad and full of remembrance: 'I feel asif I had lived a hundred years and was left alive after everybody else. 'The book came out, and many things were said about it, not all praise. The 'Quarterly' was so spiteful and intolerant that it seemed almostpersonal in its violence. It certainly would have been a great loss tothe world had this curious and interesting memoir never been published, but at the time the absence of certain phrases and expressions ofopinions which Mr. Edgeworth had never specially professed seemedgreatly to offend the reviewers. 

The worst of these attacks Miss Edgeworth never read, and the taskfinished, the sad months over, the poor eyes recovered, she crossed toEngland. 

XIII. 

One is glad to hear of her away and at Bowood reviving in good company, in all senses of the word. Her old friend Lord Henry Petty, now LordLansdowne, was still her friend and full of kindness. Outside the housespread a green deer-park to rest her tired eyes, within were pleasantand delightful companions to cheer her soul. Sir Samuel Romilly wasthere, of whom she speaks with affectionate admiration, as she does ofher kind host and hostess. 'I much enjoy the sight of Lady Lansdowne'shappiness with her husband and her children. Beauty, fortune, cultivatedsociety all united--in short, everything that the most reasonable orunreasonable could wish. She is so amiable and desirous to make othershappy. '

Miss Edgeworth's power of making other people see things as she doesis very remarkable in all these letters; with a little imagination onecould almost feel as if one might be able to travel back into thepleasant society in which she lived. When she goes abroad soon afterwith her two younger sisters (Fanny, the baby whose head so nearly cameoff in her arms, and Harriet, who have both grown up by this timeto be pretty and elegant young ladies), the sisters are made welcomeeverywhere. In Paris, as in London, troops of acquaintance came forwardto receive 'Madame Maria et mesdemoiselles ses soeurs, ' as they usedto be announced. Most of their old friends were there still; only thechildren had grown up and were now new friends to be greeted. It is aconfusion of names in visionary succession, comprising English people noless than French. Miss Edgeworth notes it all with a sure hand and truepen; it is as one of the sketch-books of a great painter, where wholepictures are indicated in a few just lines. Here is a peep at theAbbaye aux Bois in 1820:--

 We went to Madame Récamier in her convent, l'Abbaye aux Bois, up seventy-eight steps. All came in with asthma. Elegant room; she as elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden, Madame de Boigne, a charming woman, and Madame la Maréchale de ----, a battered beauty, smelling of garlic and screeching in vain to pass as a wit. .. . Madame Récamier has no more taken the veil than I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is quite beautiful; she dresses herself and her little room with elegant simplicity, and lives in a convent only because it is cheap and respectable. 

One sees it all, the convent, the company, the last refrain of formertriumphs, the faithful romantic Matthieu de Montmorenci, and above allthe poor Maréchale, who will screech for ever in her garlic. Let us turnthe page, we find another picture from these not long past days:--

 Breakfast at Camille Jordan's; it was half-past twelve before the company assembled, and we had an hour's delightful conversation with Camille Jordan and his wife in her spotless white muslin and little cap, sitting at her husband's feet as he lay on the sofa; as clean, as nice, as fresh, as thoughtless of herself as my mother. At this breakfast we saw three of the most distinguished of that party who call themselves 'les Doctrinaires' and say they are more attached to measures than to men. 

Here is another portrait of a portrait and its painter:--

 Princess Potemkin is a Russian, but she has all the grace, softness, winning manner of the Polish ladies. Oval face, pale, with the finest, softest, most expressive chestnut dark eyes. She has a sort of politeness which pleases peculiarly, a mixture of the ease of high rank and early habit with something that is sentimental without affectation. Madame le Brun is painting her picture. Madame le Brun is sixty-six, with great vivacity as well as genius, and better worth seeing than her pictures, for though they are speaking she speaks. 

Another visit the sisters paid, which will interest the readers ofMadame de la Rochejaquelin's memoirs of the war in the Vendée:--

In a small bedroom, well furnished, with a fire just lighted, we foundMadame de la Rochejaquelin on the sofa; her two daughters at work, onespinning with a distaff, the other embroidering muslin. Madame is a fatwoman with a broad, round, fair face and a most benevolent expression, her hair cut short and perfectly grey as seen under her cap; the rest ofthe face much too young for such grey locks; and though her face andbundled form all squashed on to a sofa did not at first promise much ofgentility, you could not hear her speak or hear her for three minuteswithout perceiving that she was well-born and well-bred. 

Madame de la Rochejaquelin seems to have confided in Miss Edgeworth. 

 'I am always sorry when any stranger sees me, _parce que je sais que je détruis toute illusion. Je sais que je devrais avoir l'air d'une héroļne. _' She is much better than a heroine; she is benevolence and truth itself. 

We must not forget the scientific world where Madame Maria was no lessat home than in fashionable literary cliques. The sisters saw somethingof Cuvier at Paris; in Switzerland they travelled with the Aragos. Theywere on their way to the Marcets at Geneva when they stopped at Coppet, where Miss Edgeworth was always specially happy in the society of MadameAuguste de Staėl and Madame de Broglie. But Switzerland is not oneof the places where human beings only are in the ascendant; otherinfluences there are almost stronger than human ones. 'I did notconceive it possible that I should feel so much pleasure from thebeauties of nature as I have done since I came to this country. Thefirst moment when I saw Mont Blanc will remain an era in my life--anew idea, a new feeling standing alone in the mind. ' Miss Edgeworthpresently comes down from her mountain heights and, full of interest, throws herself into the talk of her friends at Coppet and Geneva, fromwhich she quotes as it occurs to her. Here is Rocca's indignant speechto Lord Byron, who was abusing the stupidity of the Genevese. 'Eh!milord, pourquoi venir vous fourrer parmi ces honnźtes gens?' There isArago's curious anecdote of Napoleon, who sent for him after the battleof Waterloo, offering him a large sum of money to accompany him toAmerica. The Emperor had formed a project for founding a scientificcolony in the New World. Arago was so indignant with him for abandoninghis troops that he would have nothing to say to the plan. A far moretouching story is Dr. Marcet's account of Josephine. 'Poor Josephine! Doyou remember Dr. Marcet's telling us that when he breakfasted with hershe said, pointing to her flowers, "These are my subjects. I try to makethem happy"?'

Among other expeditions they made a pilgrimage to the home of theauthor of a work for which Miss Edgeworth seems to have entertained amysterious enthusiasm. The novel was called 'Caroline de Lichfield, ' andwas so much admired at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentlemanwho wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the authoress, and who, more fortunate than the poor Chevalier Edelcrantz, was not refused bythe lady. Perhaps some similarity of experience may have led MariaEdgeworth to wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past forMiss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and moulded inits own groove; the consideration, the variety, the difficulties ofunmarried life were hers, its agreeable change, its monotony of feelingand of unselfish happiness, compared with the necessary regularity, themore personal felicity, the less liberal interests of the married. Herlife seems to have been full to overflowing of practical occupationand consideration for others. What changing scenes and colours, what anumber of voices, what a crowd of outstretched hands, what interestingprocessions of people pass across her path! There is something of herfather's optimism and simplicity of nature in her unceasing brightnessand activity, in her resolutions to improve as time goes on. Her youngbrothers and sisters grow to be men and women; with her sisters'marriages new interests touch her warm heart. Between her and thebrothers of the younger generation who did not turn to her as a sortof mother there may have been too great a difference of age for thatcompanionship to continue which often exists between a child and agrown-up person. So at least one is led to believe was the case asregards one of them, mentioned in a memoir which has recently appeared. But to her sisters she could be friend, protector, chaperon, sympathisingcompanion, and elder sister to the end of her days. We hear of them allat Bowood again on their way back to Ireland, and then we find them allat home settling down to the old life, 'Maria reading Sévigné, ' of whomshe never tires. 

XIV. 

One of the prettiest and most sympathetic incidents in Maria Edgeworth'slife was a subsequent expedition to Abbotsford and the pleasure she gaveto its master. They first met in Edinburgh, and her short accountconjures up the whole scene before us:--

 Ten o'clock struck as I read this note. We were tired, we were not fit to be seen, but I thought it right to accept Walter Scott's cordial invitation, sent for a hackney coach, and just as we were, without dressing, we went. As the coach stopped we saw the hall lighted, and the moment the door opened heard the joyous sounds of loud singing. Three servants' 'The Miss Edgeworths!' sounded from hall to landing-place, and as I paused for a moment in the anteroom I heard the first sound of Walter Scott's voice--'The Miss Edgeworths _come_!' The room was lighted by only one globe lamp; a circle were singing loud and beating time: all stopped in an instant. 

Is not this picture complete? Scott himself she describes as 'full ofgenius without the slightest effort at expression, delightfully natural, more lame but not so unwieldy as she expected. ' Lady Scott she goes onto sketch in some half-dozen words--'French, large dark eyes, civil andgood-natured. '

 When we wakened the next morning the whole scene of the preceding night seemed like a dream [she continues]; however at twelve came the real Lady Scott, and we called for Scott at the Parliament House, who came out of the Courts with joyous face, as if he had nothing on earth to do or to think of but to show us Edinburgh. 

In her quick, discriminating way she looks round and notes them all oneby one. 

 Mr. Lockhart is reserved and silent, but he appears to have much sensibility under this reserve. Mrs. Lockhart is very pleasing--a slight, elegant figure and graceful simplicity of manner, perfectly natural. There is something most winning in her affectionate manner to her father. He dotes upon her. 

A serious illness intervened for poor Maria before she and her devotedyoung nurses could reach Abbotsford itself. There she began to recover, and Lady Scott watched over her and prescribed for her with the mosttender care and kindness. 'Lady Scott felt the attention and respectMaria showed to her, perceiving that she valued her and treated her as afriend, ' says Mrs. Edgeworth; 'not, as too many of Sir Walter's guestsdid, with neglect. ' This is Miss Edgeworth's description of theAbbotsford family life:--

 It is quite delightful to see Scott and his family in the country; breakfast, dinner, supper, the same flow of kindness, fondness, and genius, far, far surpassing his works, his letters, and all my hopes and imagination. His Castle of Abbotsford is magnificent, but I forget it in thinking of him. 

The return visit, when Scotland visited Ireland, was no less successful. Mrs. Edgeworth writes:--

Maria and my daughter Harriet accompanied Sir Walter and Miss Scott, Mr. Lockhart, and Captain and Mrs. Scott to Killarney. They travelled in anopen calčche of Sir Walter's. .. . 

Sir Walter was, like Maria, never put out by discomforts on a journey, but always ready to make the best of everything and to find amusement inevery incident. He was delighted with Maria's eagerness for everybody'scomfort, and diverted himself with her admiration of a greenbaize-covered door at the inn at Killarney. 'Miss Edgeworth, you are somightily pleased with that door, I think you will carry it away with youto Edgeworthtown. '

Miss Edgeworth's friendships were certainly very remarkable, and comprisealmost all the interesting people of her day in France as well as inEngland. [3] She was liked, trusted, surrounded, and she appears to havehad the art of winning to her all the great men. We know the Duke ofWellington addressed verses to her; there are pleasant intimations ofher acquaintance with Sir James Mackintosh, Romilly, Moore, and Rogers, and that most delightful of human beings, Sydney Smith, whom shethoroughly appreciated and admired. Describing her brother Frank, shesays, somewhere, 'I am much inclined to think that he has a naturalgenius for happiness; in other words, as Sydney Smith would say, _greathereditary constitutional joy_. ' 'To attempt to Boswell Sydney Smith'sconversation would be to outboswell Boswell, ' she writes in anotherletter home; but in Lady Holland's memoir of her father there is apleasant little account of Miss Edgeworth herself, 'delightful, clever, and sensible, ' listening to Sydney Smith. She seems to have gone theround of his parish with him while he scolded, doctored, joked his poorpeople according to their needs. 

 Footnote 3: A touching illustration of her abiding influence is to be found cited in an article in the _Daily News_ of September 7, 1883, published as these proofs are going to press, by 'One Who Knew' Ivan Turguéneff, that great Russian whom we might almost claim if love and admiration gave one a right to count citizenship with the great men of our time. An elder brother of his knew Miss Edgeworth, perhaps at Abbotsford, for he visited Walter Scott there, or at Coppet with Madame de Staėl. This man, wise and cultivated in all European literature, 'came to the conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had struck on a vein from which most of the great novelists of the future would exclusively work. She took the world as she found it, and selected from it the materials that she thought would be interesting to write about, in a clear and natural style. It was Ivan Turguéneff himself who told me this, says the writer of the article, and he modestly said that he was an unconscious disciple of Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. He had not the advantage of knowing English; but as a youth he used to hear his brother translate to visitors at his country house in the Uralian Hills passages from _Irish Tales and Sketches_, which he thought superior to her three-volume novels. Turguéneff also said to me, "It is possible, nay probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish of the co. Longford and the squires and squirees, that it would not have occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the classes parallel to them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing out the beauties of her unambitious works, to call attention to their extreme simplicity and to the distinction with which she treated the simple ones of the earth. "'

'During her visit she saw much of my father, ' says Lady Holland; 'andher talents as well as her thorough knowledge and love of Ireland madeher conversation peculiarly agreeable to him. ' On her side Maria writeswarmly desiring that some Irish bishopric might be forced upon SydneySmith, which 'his own sense of natural charity and humanity would forbidhim refuse. .. . In the twinkling of an eye--such an eye as his--he wouldsee all our manifold grievances up and down the country. One word, one_bon mot_ of his, would do more for us, I guess, than ----'s fourhundred pages and all the like with which we have been bored. '

The two knew how to make good company for one another; thequiet-Jeanie-Deans body could listen as well as give out. We are toldthat it was not so much that she said brilliant things, but that ageneral perfume of wit ran through her conversation, and she mostcertainly had the gift of appreciating the good things of others. Whether in that 'scene of simplicity, truth, and nature' a London rout, or in some quiet Hampstead parlour talking to an old friend, or in herown home among books and relations and interests of every sort, MissEdgeworth seems to have been constantly the same, with presence of mindand presence of heart too, ready to respond to everything. I think herwarmth of heart shines even brighter than her wit at times. 'I could notbear the idea that you suspected me of being so weak, so vain, sosenseless, ' she once wrote to Mrs. Barbauld, 'as to have my head turnedby a little fashionable flattery. ' If her head was not turned it musthave been because her spirit was stout enough to withstand the world'salmost irresistible influence. 

Not only the great men but the women too are among her friends. Shewrites prettily of Mrs. Somerville, with her smiling eyes and pinkcolour, her soft voice, strong, well-bred Scotch accent, timid, notdisqualifying timid, but naturally modest. 'While her head is among thestars her feet are firm upon the earth. ' She is 'delighted' with acriticism of Madame de Staėl's upon herself, in a letter to M. Dumont. 'Vraiment elle était digne de l'enthousiasme, mais elle se perd dansvotre triste utilité. ' It is difficult to understand why this shouldhave given Miss Edgeworth so much pleasure; and here finally is a littlevision conjured up for us of her meeting with Mrs. Fry among herprisoners:--

 Little doors, and thick doors, and doors of all sorts were unbolted and unlocked, and on we went through dreary but clean passages till we came to a room where rows of empty benches fronted us, a table on which lay a large Bible. Several ladies and gentlemen entered, took their seats on benches at either side of the table in silence. Enter Mrs. Fry in a drab-coloured silk cloak and a plain, borderless Quaker cap, a most benevolent countenance, calm, benign. 'I must make an inquiry. Is Maria Edgeworth here?' And when I went forward she bade me come and sit beside her. Her first smile as she looked upon me I can never forget. The prisoners came in in an orderly manner and ranged themselves upon the benches. 

XV. 

'In this my sixtieth year, to commence in a few days, ' says MissEdgeworth, writing to her cousin Margaret Ruxton, 'I am resolved to makegreat progress. ' 'Rosamond at sixty, ' says Miss Ruxton, touched andamused. Her resolutions were not idle. 

'The universal difficulties of the money market in the year 1826 werefelt by us, ' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her memoir, 'and Maria, who sinceher father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it;undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which sheconducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered thestorm that swamped so many in this financial crisis. ' We also hear of anopportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an oldlady, a distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who soldthem and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown with the proceeds. 

 _April_ 8, 1827. --I am quite well and in high good humour and good spirits, in consequence of having received the whole of Lovell's half-year's rents in full, with pleasure to the tenants and without the least fatigue or anxiety to myself. 

It was about this time her novel of 'Helen' was written, the last of herbooks, the only one that her father had not revised. There is a vividaccount given by one of her brothers of the family assembled in thelibrary to hear the manuscript read out, of their anxiety and theirpleasure as they realised how good it was, how spirited, how well equalto her standard. Tickner, in his account of Miss Edgeworth, says thatthe talk of Lady Davenant in 'Helen' is very like Miss Edgeworth's ownmanner. His visit to Edgeworthtown was not long after the publication ofthe book. His description, if only for her mention of her father, isworth quoting:--

 As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet us, a small, short, spare body of about sixty-seven, with extremely frank and kind manners, but who always looks straight into your face with a pair of mild deep grey eyes whenever she speaks to you. With characteristic directness she did not take us into the library until she had told us that we should find there Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh, and her aunt, Miss Sneyd, a person very old and infirm, and that the only other persons constituting the family were Mrs. Edgeworth, Miss Honora Edgeworth, and Dr. Alison, a physician. .. . Miss Edgeworth's conversation was always ready, as full of vivacity and variety as I can imagine. .. . She was disposed to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could. And in her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt, Miss Sneyd, who cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and admiration. .. . About herself as an author she seems to have no reserve or secrets. She spoke with great kindness and pleasure of a letter I brought to her from Mr. Peabody, explaining some passage in his review of 'Helen' which had troubled her from its allusion to her father. 'But, ' she added, 'no one can know what I owe to my father. He advised and directed me in everything. I never could have done anything without him. There are things I cannot be mistaken about, though other people can. I know them. ' As she said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole person was moved. .. . It was, therefore, something of a trial to talk so brilliantly and variously as she did from nine in the morning to past eleven at night. 

She was unfeignedly glad to see good company. Here is her account ofanother visitor:--

 _Sept_. 26. --The day before yesterday we were amusing ourselves by telling who among literary and scientific people we should wish to come here next. Francis said Coleridge; I said Herschell. Yesterday morning, as I was returning from my morning walk at half-past eight, I saw a bonnetless maid in the walk, with a letter in her hand, in search of me. When I opened the letter I found it was from Mr. Herschell, and that he was waiting for an answer at Mr. Briggs's inn. I have seldom been so agreeably surprised, and now that he is gone and that he has spent twenty-four hours here, if the fairy were to ask me the question again I should still more eagerly say, 'Mr. Herschell, ma'am, if you please. '

She still came over to England from time to time, visiting at hersisters' houses. Honora was now Lady Beaufort; another sister, Fanny, the object of her closest and most tender affection, was Mrs. LestockWilson. Age brought no change in her mode of life. Time passes withtranquil steps, for her not hasting unduly. 'I am perfect, ' she writesat the age of seventy-three to her stepmother of seventy-two, 'so nomore about it, and thank you from my heart and every component part ofmy precious self for all the care, and successful care, you have takenof me, your old petted nurseling. '

Alas! it is sad to realise that quite late in life fresh sorrows fellupon this warm-hearted woman. Troubles gather; young sisters fade awayin their beauty and happiness. But in sad times and good times the oldhome is still unchanged, and remains for those that are left to turn tofor shelter, for help, and consolation. To the very last Miss Edgeworthkept up her reading, her correspondence, her energy. All along we haveheard of her active habits--out in the early morning in her garden, coming in to the nine o'clock breakfast with her hands full of roses, sitting by and talking and reading her letters while the others ate. Herlast letter to her old friend Sir Henry Holland was after reading thefirst volume of Lord Macaulay's History. Sir Henry took the letter toLord Macaulay, who was so much struck by its discrimination that heasked leave to keep it. 

She was now eighty-two years of age, and we find her laughing kindlyat the anxiety of her sister and brother-in-law, who had heard of herclimbing a ladder to wind up an old clock at Edgeworthtown. 'I amheartily obliged and delighted by your being such a goose and Richardsuch a gander, ' she says 'as to be frightened out of your wits by myclimbing a ladder to take off the top of the clock. ' She had not feltthat there was anything to fear as once again she set the time that wasso nearly at an end for her. Her share of life's hours had been wellspent and well enjoyed; with a peaceful and steady hand and tranquilheart she might mark the dial for others whose hours were still to come. 

Mrs. Edgeworth's own words tell all that remains to be told. 

 It was on the morning of May 22, 1849, that she was taken suddenly ill with pain in the region of the heart, and after a few hours breathed her last in my arms. She had always wished to die quickly, at home, and that I should be with her. All her wishes were fulfilled. She was gone, and nothing like her again can we see in this world. 

_MRS OPIE. _

 1769-1853. 

 'Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness. '--_As You Like It_. 

I. 

It is not very long since some articles appeared in the 'CornhillMagazine' which were begun under the influence of certain ancientbookshelves with so pleasant a flavour of the old world that it seemedat the time as if yesterday not to-day was the all-important hour, andone gladly submitted to the subtle charm of the past--its silent veils, its quiet incantations of dust and healing cobweb. The phase is but apassing one with most of us, and we must soon feel that to dwell atlength upon each one of the pretty old fancies and folios of the writersand explorers who were born towards the end of the last century would bean impossible affectation; and yet a postscript seems wanting to thesketches which have already appeared of Mrs. Barbauld and MissEdgeworth, and the names of their contemporaries should not be quitepassed over. 

In a hundred charming types and prints and portraits we recognise thewell-known names as they used to appear in the garb of life. Grandladies in broad loops and feathers, or graceful and charming as nymphsin muslin folds, with hanging clouds of hair; or again, in modestcoiffes such as dear Jane Austen loved and wore even in her youth. Hannah More only took to coiffes and wimples in later life; in earlydays she was fond of splendour, and, as we read, had herself painted inemerald earrings. How many others besides her are there to admire! Whodoes not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. Trimmerand Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend showed me a sprightly, dark-eyed miniature of Felicia Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among allher sister muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she wasrepresented by her husband with luxuriant chestnut hair piled up Romneyfashion in careless loops, with the radiant yet dreaming eyes which arean inheritance for some members of her family. 

The authoresses of that day had the pre-eminence in looks, in graciousdress and bearing; but they were rather literary women than anythingelse, and had but little in common with the noble and brilliant writerswho were to follow them in our own more natural and outspoken times;whose wise, sweet, passionate voices are already passing away into thedistance; of whom so few remain to us. [4] The secret of being real is novery profound one, and yet how rare it is, how long it was before thereaders and writers of this century found it out! It is like the secretof singing in perfect tune, or of playing the violin as Joachim can playupon it. In literature, as in music, there is at times a certainindescribable tone of absolute reality which carries the reader away andfor the moment absorbs him into the mind of the writer. Somemetempsychosis takes place. It is no longer a man or a woman turning thepages of a book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the bookitself, living the very life which it records, breathing the spirit andsoul of the writer. Such books are events, not books to us, newconditions of existence, new selves suddenly revealed through theexperience of other more vivid personalities than our own. The actualexperience of other lives is not for us, but this link of simple realityof feeling is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle ofthe loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied--one man comes with hisfishes and lo! the multitude is filled. 

 Footnote 4: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us, whose portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for the generations who will love her works. 

But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of speaking from theheart, was one of the last to be made by women. In France Madame deSévigné and Madame de La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, butin England the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully atpen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of theirsurprising achievements in the way of literature as never to forget fora single instant that they were in print. With the exception of JaneAusten and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of thiscentury were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actualcreators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to theirgreat successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnsonand wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments fromMackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and SydneySmith, and above all tears from Walter Scott. 

Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. Opie may havesaid not less for her own charm and sweetness of nature than for themerit of her unassuming productions; she must have been a bright, merry, and fascinating person, and compliments were certainly more in her linethan the tributes of tears which she records. 

The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting than the heroinesthemselves, and Amelia Opie was certainly no exception to this somewhatgeneral statement. A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming brightglances on her friends, confident, intelligent, full of interest inlife, carried along in turn by one and by another influence, she comesbefore us a young and charming figure, with all the spires of Norwichfor a background, and the sound of its bells, and the stir of itsassizes, as she issues from her peaceful home in her father's tranquilold house, where the good physician lives widowed, tending his poor andhis sick, and devotedly spoiling his only child. 

II. 

Amelia Opie was born in 1769 in the old city of Norwich, within reach ofthe invigorating breezes of the great North Sea. Her youth must havebeen somewhat solitary; she was the only child of a kind and cultivatedphysician, Doctor James Alderson, whose younger brother, a barrister, also living in Norwich, became the father of Baron Alderson. Her motherdied in her early youth. From her father, however, little Amelia seemsto have had the love and indulgence of over half a century, a tender andadmiring love which she returned with all her heart's devotion. She wasthe pride and darling of his home, and throughout her long life herfather's approbation was the one chief motive of her existence. Spoilingis a vexed question, but as a rule people get so much stern justice fromall the rest of the world that it seems well that their parents shouldlove and comfort them in youth for the many disgraces and difficultiesyet to come. 

Her mother is described as a delicate, high-minded woman, 'somewhat of adisciplinarian, ' says Mrs. Opie's excellent biographer, Miss Brightwell, but she died too soon to carry her theories into practice. Miss Brightwellsuggests that 'Mrs. Opie might have been more demure and decorous hadher mother lived, but perhaps less charming. ' There are some versesaddressed to her mother in Mrs. Opie's papers in which it must beconfessed that the remembrance of her admonition plays a most importantpart--

 Hark! clearer still thy voice I hear. Again reproof in accents mild, Seems whispering in my conscious ear, and so on. 

Some of Mrs. Alderson's attempts at discipline seemed unusual andexperimental; the little girl was timid, afraid of black people, ofblack beetles, and of human skeletons. She was given the skeleton toplay with, and the beetles to hold in her hand. One feels more sympathywith the way in which she was gently reconciled to the poor negro withthe frightening black face--by being told the story of his wrongs. Butwith the poor mother's untimely death all this maternal supervisioncame to an end. 'Amelia, your mother is gone; may you never have reasonto blush when you remember her!' her father said as he clasped hislittle orphan to his heart; and all her life long Amelia rememberedthose words. 

There is a pretty reminiscence of her childhood from a beginning of thememoir which was never written:--'One of my earliest recollections is ofgazing on the bright blue sky as I lay in my little bed before my hourof rising came, listening with delighted attention to the ringing of apeal of bells. I had heard that heaven was beyond those blue skies, andI had been taught that _there_ was the home of the good, and I fanciedthat those sweet bells were ringing in heaven. ' The bells were ringingfor the Norwich Assizes, which played an important part in our littleheroine's life, and which must have been associated with many of herearly memories. 

The little girl seems to have been allowed more liberty than is usuallygiven to children. 'As soon as I was old enough to enjoy a procession, 'she says, 'I was taken to see the Judges come in. Youthful pages inpretty dresses ran by the side of the High Sheriff's carriage, in whichthe Judges sat, while the coaches drove slowly and with a solemnitybecoming the high and awful office of those whom they contained. .. . Withreverence ever did I behold the Judges' wigs, the scarlet robes theywore, and even the white wand of the Sheriff. '

There is a description which in after years might have made a prettypicture for her husband's pencil of the little maiden wandering into thecourt one day, and called by a kind old Judge to sit beside him upon thebench. She goes on to recount how next day she was there again; and whensome attendant of the court wanted her to leave the place, saying notunnaturally, 'Go, Miss, this is no place for you; be advised, ' the Judgeagain interfered, and ordered the enterprising little girl to be broughtto her old place upon the cushion by his side. The story gives one acurious impression of a child's life and education. She seems to havecome and gone alone, capable, intelligent, unabashed, interested in allthe events and humours of the place. 

Children have among other things a very vivid sense of citizenshipand public spirit, somewhat put out in later life by the rush ofpersonal feeling, but in childhood the personal events are so few andso irresponsible that public affairs become an actual part of life andof experience. While their elders are still discussing the news andweighing its importance, it is already a part of the children's life. Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy child, free, affectionate, independent; grateful, as a child should be, towards those who befriendedher. One of her teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, for whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards shecame with her husband and a friend to visit the Dutch church at Norwich. 'The two gentlemen were engaged in looking round and making theirobservations, and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began to hop anddance upon the spot where I stood, when my eyes chanced to fall uponthe pavement below, and I started at beholding the well-known name ofChristian graved upon the slab; I stopped in dismay, shocked to findthat I had actually been dancing upon the grave of my old master--he whofirst taught me to dance. '

III. 

After her mother's death, Amelia Alderson, who was barely fifteen at thetime, began to take her place in society. She kept her father's house, received his friends, made his home bright with her presence. The lawyerscame round in due season: Sir James Mackintosh came, the town was fullof life, of talk, of music, and poetry, and prejudice. 

Harriet Martineau, in her memoir of Mrs. Opie, gives a delightful andhumorous account of the Norwich of that day--rivalling Lichfield and itsliterary coterie, only with less sentimentality and some additionalpeculiarities of its own. One can almost see the Tory gentlemen, as MissMartineau describes them, setting a watch upon the Cathedral, lest theDissenters should burn it as a beacon for Boney; whereas good BishopBathurst, with more faith in human nature, goes on resolutely touchinghis hat to the leading Nonconformists. 'The French taught in schools, 'says Miss Martineau, 'was found to be unintelligible when the peaceat length arrived, taught as it was by an aged powdered Monsieurand an elderly flowered Madame, who had taught their pupils' Norfolkpronunciation. But it was beginning to be known, ' she continues, 'thatthere was such a language as German, and in due time there was a youngman who had actually been in Germany, and was translating "Nathan theWise. " When William Taylor became eminent as almost the only Germanscholar in England, old Norwich was very proud and grew, to say thetruth, excessively conceited. She was (and she might be) proud of herSayers, she boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, and finallycalled herself the "Athens of England. "'

In this wholesome, cheerful Athens, blown by the invigorating Northernbreezes, little Amelia bloomed and developed into a lovely and happygirl. She was fortunate, indeed, in her friends. One near at hand musthave been an invaluable adviser for a motherless, impressionable girl. Mrs. John Taylor was so loved that she is still remembered. Mrs. Barbauldprized and valued her affection beyond all others. 'I know the valueof your letters, ' says Sir James Mackintosh, writing from Bombay;'they rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common--children, literature, and life. I ought to be made permanently better bycontemplating a mind like yours. ' And he still has Mrs. Taylor inhis mind when he concludes with a little disquisition on the contrastbetween the barren sensibility, the indolent folly of some, the usefulkindness of others, 'the industrious benevolence which requires avigorous understanding and a decisive character. '

Some of Mrs. Opie's family have shown me a photograph of her in herQuaker dress, in old age, dim, and changed, and sunken, from which it isvery difficult to realise all the brightness, and life, and animationwhich must have belonged to the earlier part of her life. The delightfulportrait of her engraved in the 'Mirror' shows the animated beamingcountenance, the soft expressive eyes, the abundant auburn waves ofhair, of which we read. The picture is more like some charming allegoricalbeing than a real live young lady--some Belinda of the 'Rape of theLock' (and one would as soon have expected Belinda to turn Quakeress). Music, poetry, dancing, elves, graces and flirtations, cupids, seem toattend her steps. She delights in admiration, friendship, companionship, and gaiety, and yet with it all we realise a warm-hearted sincerity, andappreciation of good and high-minded things, a truth of feeling passingout of the realms of fancy altogether into one of the best realities oflife. She had a thousand links with life: she was musical, artistic; shewas literary; she had a certain amount of social influence; she had avoice, a harp, a charming person, mind and manner. Admiring monarchs inlater days applauded her performance; devoted subjects were her friendsand correspondents, and her sphere in due time extended beyond theapproving Norwich-Athenian coterie of old friends who had known her fromher childhood, to London itself, where she seems to have been madewelcome by many, and to have captivated more than her share of victims. 

In some letters of hers written to Mrs. Taylor and quoted by herbiographer we get glimpses of some of these early experiences. Thebright and happy excitable girl comes up from Norwich to London to bemade more happy still, and more satisfied with the delight of life asit unfolds. Besides her fancy for lawyers, literary people had a greatattraction for Amelia, and Godwin seems to have played an important partin her earlier experience. A saying of Mrs. Inchbald's is quoted byher on her return home as to the report of the world being that Mr. Holcroft was in love with Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Inchbald with Mr. Godwin, Mr. Godwin with Miss Alderson, and Miss Alderson with Mr. Holcroft!

The following account of Somers Town, and a philosopher's costume inthose days, is written to her father in 1794:--

 After a most delightful ride through some of the richest country I ever beheld, we arrived about one o'clock at the philosopher's house; we found him with his hair _bien poudré_, and in a pair of new sharp-toed red morocco slippers, not to mention his green coat and crimson under-waistcoat. 

From Godwin's by the city they come to Marlborough Street, and find Mrs. Siddons nursing her little baby, and as handsome and charming as ever. They see Charles Kemble there, and they wind up their day by calling onMrs. Inchbald in her pleasant lodgings, with two hundred pounds justcome in from Sheridan for a farce of sixty pages. Godwin's attentionsseem to have amused and pleased the fair, merry Amelia, who is not alittle proud of her arch influence over various rugged and apparentlyinaccessible persons. Mrs. Inchbald seems to have been as jealous ofMiss Alderson at the time as she afterwards was of Mary Wollstonecraft. 'Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake?' says Godwin, partingfrom Amelia. 'Not even your slipper? I had it once in my possession. ''This was true, ' adds Miss Amelia; 'my shoe had come off and he pickedit up and put it in his pocket. ' Elsewhere she tells her friend Mrs. Taylor that Mr. Holcroft would like to come forward, but that he had nochance. 

That some one person had a chance, and a very good one, is plain enoughfrom the context of a letter, but there is nothing in Mrs. Opie's lifeto show why fate was contrary in this, while yielding so bountiful ashare of all other good things to the happy country girl. 

Among other people, she seems to have charmed various French refugees, one of whom was the Duc d'Aiguillon, come over to England with someseven thousand others, waiting here for happier times, and hiding theirsorrows among our friendly mists. Godwin was married when Miss Aldersonrevisited her London friends and admirers in 1797--an eventful visit, when she met Opie for the first time. 

The account of their first meeting is amusingly given in MissBrightwell's memoirs. It was at an evening party. Some of those presentwere eagerly expecting the arrival of Miss Alderson, but the evening waswearing away and still she did not appear; 'at length the door was flungopen, and she entered bright and smiling, dressed in a robe of blue, herneck and arms bare, and on her head a small bonnet placed in somewhatcoquettish style sideways and surmounted by a plume of three whitefeathers. Her beautiful hair hung in waving tresses over her shoulders;her face was kindling with pleasure at the sight of her old friends, andher whole appearance was animated and glowing. At the time she came inMr. Opie was sitting on a sofa beside Mr. F. , who had been saying fromtime to time, 'Amelia is coming; Amelia will surely come. Why is she nothere?' and whose eyes were turned in her direction. He was interruptedby his companion eagerly exclaiming, 'Who is that--who is that?' andhastily rising Opie pressed forward to be introduced to the fair objectwhose sudden appearance had so impressed him. ' With all her love ofexcitement, of change, of variety, one cannot but feel, as I have said, that there was also in Amelia Alderson's cheerful life a vein of deepand very serious feeling, and the bracing influence of the upright andhigh-minded people among whom she had been brought up did not count fornothing in her nature. She could show her genuine respect for what wasgenerous and good and true, even though she did not always find strengthto carry out the dream of an excitable and warm-hearted nature. 

IV. 

There is something very interesting in the impression one receives ofthe 'Inspired Peasant, ' as Alan Cunningham calls John Opie--the manwho did not paint to live so much as live to paint. He was a simple, high-minded Cornishman, whose natural directness and honesty wereunspoiled by favour, unembittered by failure. Opie's gift, like somedeep-rooted seed living buried in arid soil, ever aspired upwards towardsthe light. His ideal was high; his performance fell far short of hislife-long dream, and he knew it. But his heart never turned from itslife's aim, and he loved beauty and Art with that true and unfailingdevotion which makes a man great, even though his achievements do notshow all he should have been. 

The old village carpenter, his father, who meant him to succeed tothe business, was often angry, and loudly railed at the boy when goodwhite-washed walls and clean boards were spoiled by scrawls oflamp-black and charcoal. John worked in the shop and obeyed his father, but when his day's task was over he turned again to his darlingpursuits. At twelve years old he had mastered Euclid, and could alsorival 'Mark Oaks, ' the village phenomenon, in painting a butterfly; bythe time John was sixteen he could earn as much as 7_s. _ 6_d. _ for aportrait. It was in this year that there came to Truro an accomplishedand various man Dr. Wolcott--sometimes a parson, sometimes a doctor ofmedicine, sometimes as Peter Pindar, a critic and literary man. Thisgentleman was interested by young Opie and his performances, andhe asked him on one occasion how he liked painting. 'Better thanbread-and-butter, ' says the boy. Wolcott finally brought his _protégé_to London, where the Doctor's influence and Opie's own undoubted meritbrought him success; and to Opie's own amazement he suddenly foundhimself the fashion. His street was crowded with carriages; longprocessions of ladies and gentlemen came to sit to him; he was able tofurnish a house 'in Orange Court, by Leicester Fields;' he was beginningto put by money when, as suddenly as he had been taken up, he wasforgotten again. The carriages drove off in some other direction, andOpie found himself abandoned by the odd, fanciful world of fashions, which would not be fashions if they did not change day by day. It mighthave proved a heart-breaking phase of life for a man whose aim had beenless single. But Opie was of too generous a nature to value popularitybeyond achievement. He seems to have borne this freak of fortune withgreat equanimity, and when he was sometimes overwhelmed, it was not bythe praise or dispraise of others, but by his own consciousness offailure, of inadequate performance. Troubles even more serious than lossof patronage and employment befell him later. He had married, unhappilyfor himself, a beautiful, unworthy woman, whose picture he has paintedmany times. She was a faithless as well as a weak and erring wife, and finally abandoned him. When Opie was free to marry again he wasthirty-six, a serious, downright man of undoubted power and influence, of sincerity and tenderness of feeling, of rugged and unusual manners. He had not many friends, nor did he wish for many, but those who knewhim valued him at his worth. His second wife showed what was in her byher appreciation of his noble qualities, though one can hardly realise agreater contrast than that of these two, so unlike in character, intraining, and disposition. They were married in London, at MaryleboneChurch, in that dismal year of '98, which is still remembered. Opieloved his wife deeply and passionately; he did not charm her, though shecharmed him, but for his qualities she had true respect and admiration. 

V. 

Opie must be forgiven if he was one-idead, if he erred from toomuch zeal. All his wife's bright gaiety of nature, her love for herfellow-creatures, her interest in the world, her many-sidedness, thisuncompromising husband would gladly have kept for himself. For him hiswife and his home were the whole world; his Art was his whole life. 

The young couple settled down in London after their marriage, where, notwithstanding fogs and smoke and dull monotony of brick and smut, somany beautiful things are created; where Turner's rainbow lights werefirst reflected, where Tennyson's 'Princess' sprang from the fog. Itwas a modest and quiet installation, but among the pretty things whichAmelia brought to brighten her new home we read of blue feathers andgold gauze bonnets, tiaras, and spencers, scarlet ribbons, buff net, andcambric flounces, all of which give one a pleasant impression of herintention to amuse herself, and to enjoy the society of her fellows, andto bring her own pleasant contributions to their enjoyment. 

Opie sat working at his easel, painting portraits to earn money for hiswife's use and comfort, and encouraging her to write, for he had faithin work. He himself would never intermit his work for a single day. Hewould have gladly kept her always in his sight. 'If I would stay at homefor ever, I believe my husband would be merry from morning to night--alover more than a husband, ' Amelia writes to Mrs. Taylor. He seemed tohave some feeling that time for him was not to be long--that life waspassing quickly by, almost too quickly to give him time to realise hisnew home happiness, to give him strength to grasp his work. He was norapid painter, instinctively feeling his light and colour and action, and seizing the moment's suggestion, but anxious, laborious, andinvolved in that sad struggle in which some people pass their lives, forever disappointed. Opie's portraits seem to have been superior to hiscompositions, which were well painted, 'but unimaginative andcommonplace, ' says a painter of our own time, whose own work quickenswith that mysterious soul which some pictures (as indeed some humanbeings) seem to be entirely without. 

'During the nine years that I was his wife, ' says Mrs. Opie, 'I neversaw him satisfied with any one of his productions. Often, very often, hehas entered my sitting-room, and, throwing himself down in an agony ofdespondence upon the sofa, exclaimed, "I shall never be a painter!"'

He was a wise and feeling critic, however great his shortcomings as apainter may have been. His lectures are admirable; full of real thoughtand good judgment. Sir James Mackintosh places them beyond Reynolds's insome ways. 

'If there were no difficulties every one would be a painter, ' says Opie, and he goes on to point out what a painter's object should be--'thediscovery or conception of perfect ideas of things; nature in itspurest and most essential form rising from the species to the genus, thehighest and ultimate exertion of human genius. ' For him it was nogrievance that a painter's life should be one long and serious effort. 'If you are wanting to yourselves, rule may be multiplied upon rule andprecept upon precept in vain. ' Some of his remarks might be thoughtstill to apply in many cases, no less than they did a hundred years ago, when he complained of those green-sick lovers of chalk, brick-dust, charcoal and old tapestry, who are so ready to decry the merits ofcolouring and to set it down as a kind of superfluity. It is curious tocontrast Opie's style in literature with that of his wife, who belongsto the entirely past generation which she reflected, whereas he wrotefrom his own original impressions, saying those things which struck himas forcibly then as they strike us now. 'Father and Daughter' was Mrs. Opie's first acknowledged book. It was published in 1801, and the authorwrites modestly of all her apprehensions. 'Mr. Opie has no patience withme; he consoles me by averring that fear makes me overrate others andunderrate myself. ' The book was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh. ' We hear ofone gentleman who lies awake all night after reading it; and Mrs. Inchbald promises a candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. Besides stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several poemsand verses which were much admired. There was an impromptu to Sir JamesMackintosh, which brought a long letter in return, and one of her songswas quoted by Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how unexpectedlythe compliment came upon her, and how she shrunk down upon her seat inorder to screen herself from observation. '

The lines are indeed charming:--

 Go, youth, beloved in distant glades, New friends, new hopes, new joys to find, Yet sometimes deign 'midst fairer maids To think on her thou leav'st behind. Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share Must never be my happy lot; But thou may'st grant this humble prayer, Forget me not, forget me not. 

 Yet should the thought of my distress Too painful to thy feelings be, Heed not the wish I now express, Nor ever deign to think of me; But oh! if grief thy steps attend, If want, if sickness be thy lot, And thou require a soothing friend, Forget me not, forget me not. 

VI. 

The little household was a modest one, but we read of a certain amountof friendly hospitality. Country neighbours from Norfolk appear upon thescene; we find Northcote dining and praising the toasted cheese. Mrs. Opie's heart never for an instant ceased to warm to her old friends andcompanions. She writes an amusing account to Mrs. Taylor of her Londonhome, her interests and visitors, 'her happy and delightful life. ' Sheworked, she amused herself, she received her friends at home and went tolook for them abroad. Among other visits, Mrs. Opie speaks of one to anold friend who has 'grown plump, ' and of a second to 'Betsy Fry' who, notwithstanding her comfortable home and prosperous circumstances, hasgrown lean. It would be difficult to recognise under this familiarcognomen and description the noble and dignified woman whose name andwork are still remembered with affectionate respect and wonder by a notless hard-working, but less convinced and convincing generation. Thisfriendship was of great moment to Amelia Opie in after days, at atime when her heart was low and her life very sad and solitary; butmeanwhile, as I have said, there were happy times for her; youth andyouthful spirits and faithful companionship were all hers, and troubleshad not yet come. 

One day Mrs. Opie gives a characteristic account of a visit from Mrs. Taylor's two sons. '"John, " said I, "will you take a letter from me toyour mother?" "Certainly, " replied John, "for then I shall be sure ofbeing welcome. " "Fy, " returned I. "Mr. Courtier, you know you wantnothing to add to the heartiness of the welcome you will receive athome. " "No, indeed, " said Richard, "and if Mrs. Opie sends her letter byyou it will be one way of making it less valued and attended to than itwould otherwise be. " To the truth of this speech I subscribed and wrotenot. I have heard in later days a pretty description of the simple homein which all these handsome, cultivated, and remarkable young peoplegrew up round their noble-minded mother. ' One of Mrs. John Taylor'sdaughters became Mrs. Reeve, the mother of Mr. Henry Reeve, another wasMrs. Austin, the mother of Lady Duff Gordon. 

Those lean kine we read of in the Bible are not peculiar to Egypt and tothe days of Joseph and his brethren. The unwelcome creatures are apt tomake their appearance in many a country and many a household, and indefault of their natural food to devour all sorts of long-cherishedfancies, hopes, and schemes. Some time after his marriage, Opiesuddenly, and for no reason, found himself without employment, and theseverest trial they experienced during their married life, says hiswife, was during this period of anxiety. She, however, cheered himwomanfully, would not acknowledge her own dismay, and Opie, gloomy anddesponding though he was, continued to paint as regularly as before. Presently orders began to flow in again, and did not cease until hisdeath. 

VII. 

Their affairs being once more prosperous, a long-hoped-for dream becamea reality, and they started on an expedition to Paris, a solemn event inthose days and not lightly to be passed over by a biographer. One longwar was ended, another had not yet begun. The Continent was a promisedland, fondly dreamt of though unknown. 'At last in Paris; at last in thecity which she had so longed to see!' Mrs. Opie's description of herarrival reads a comment upon history. As they drive into the town, everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the houses are inscriptionsconcerning 'L'Indivisibilité de la République. ' How many subsequentwritings upon the wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party findrooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine, that token of order and tranquillity, was then perpetually standing. The young wife's feelings may be imagined when within an hour of theirarrival Opie, who had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with aface of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at once. TheLouvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness of everything, the houses, the ground they stood on, all dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost manif he remained! By some happy interposition they succeed in gettingadmission to the Louvre, and as the painter wonders and admires hisnervous terrors leave him. The picture left by Miss Edgeworth of ParisSociety in the early years of the century is more brilliant, but notmore interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting scene, gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all round about. There isthe shadow of the ghastly guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, theshadows of wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air ofarms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, flashing Parisstreams with sunlight, is piled with treasures and trophies of victory, and crowded with well-known characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brownwig concealing his honourable scars; Masséna's earrings flash in thesun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush of tourists, andthe eager life stirring round about the walls of the old Louvre. 

It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and years after, in herlittle rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress, used to give an imitation of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain, Cain, where art thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones. 

We get among other things an interesting glimpse of Fox standing in theLouvre Gallery opposite the picture of St. Jerome by Domenichino, apicture which, as it is said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, whohappened to be introduced to him, then and there dissented from thisopinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points than I am, ' saysFox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of the two passing on togetherdiscussing and comparing the pictures. She describes them next standingbefore the 'Transfiguration' of Raphael. The Louvre in those days musthave been for a painter a wonder palace indeed. The 'Venus de' Medici'was on her way; it was a time of miracles, as Fox said. Meanwhile Mrs. Opie hears someone saying that the First Consul is on his way from theSenate, and she hurries to a window to look out. 'Bonaparte seems veryfond of state and show for a Republican, ' says Mrs. Fox. Fox himselfhalf turns to the window, then looks back to the pictures again. As forOpie, one may be sure his attention never wandered for one instant. 

They saw the First Consul more than once. The Pacificator, as he wasthen called, was at the height of his popularity; on one occasionthey met Fox with his wife on his arm crossing the Carrousel to theTuģlerģes, where they are also admitted to a ground-floor room, fromwhence they look upon a marble staircase and see several officersascending, 'one of whom, with a helmet which seemed entirely of gold, was Eugčne de Beauharnais. A few minutes afterwards, ' she says, 'therewas a rush of officers down the stairs, and among them I saw a shortpale man with his hat in his hand, who, as I thought, resembled LordErskine in profile. .. . ' This of course is Bonaparte, unadorned amidstall this studied splendour, and wearing only a little tricolouredcockade. Maria Cosway, the painter, who was also in Paris at the time, took them to call at the house of Madame Bonaparte _mčre_, where theywere received by 'a blooming, courteous ecclesiastic, powdered and withpurple stockings and gold buckles, and a costly crucifix. This isCardinal Fesch, the uncle of Bonaparte. It is said that when Fox wasintroduced to the First Consul he was warmly welcomed by him, and wasmade to listen to a grand harangue upon the advantages of peace, towhich he answered scarcely a word; though he was charmed to talk withMadame Bonaparte, and to discuss with her the flowers of which she wasso fond. ' The Opies met Fox again in England some years after, when hesat to Opie for one of his finest portraits. It is now at Holker, andthere is a characteristic description of poor Opie, made nervous by thecriticism of the many friends, and Fox, impatient but encouraging, andagain whispering, 'Don't attend to them; you must know best. '

VIII. 

'Adeline Mowbray; or, Mother and Daughter, ' was published by Mrs. Opieafter this visit to the Continent. It is a melancholy and curiousstory, which seems to have been partly suggested by that of poor MaryWollstonecraft, whose prejudices the heroine shares and expiates by afate hardly less pathetic than that of Mary herself. The book remindsone of a very touching letter from Godwin's wife to Amelia Alderson, written a few weeks before her death, in which she speaks of her'contempt for the forms of a world she should have bade a longgood-night to had she not been a mother. ' Justice has at length beendone to this mistaken but noble and devoted woman, and her story haslately been written from a wider point of view than Mrs. Opie's, thoughshe indeed was no ungenerous advocate. Her novel seems to have givensatisfaction; 'a beautiful story, the most natural in its pathos of anyfictitious narrative in the language, ' says the 'Edinburgh, ' writingwith more leniency than authors now expect. Another reviewer, speakingwith discriminating criticism, says of Mrs. Opie: 'She does not reasonwell, but she has, like most accomplished women, the talent of perceivingtruth without the process of reasoning. Her language is often inaccurate, but it is always graceful and harmonious. She can do nothing well thatrequires to be done with formality; to make amends, however, sherepresents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle. '

Adeline Mowbray dies of a broken heart, with the following somewhatdiscursive farewell to her child: 'There are two ways in which a mothercan be of use to her daughter; the one is by instilling into her mindvirtuous principles, and by setting her a virtuous example, the other isby being to her, in her own person, an awful warning!'

 * * * * *

One or two of Opie's letters to his wife are given in the memoir. Theyring with truth and tender feeling. The two went to Norwich together onone occasion, when Opie painted Dr. Sayers, the scholar, who, in returnfor his portrait, applied an elegant Greek distich to the painter. Mrs. Opie remained with her father, and her husband soon returned to hisstudio in London. When she delayed, he wrote to complain. 'My dearestLife, I cannot be sorry that you do not stay longer, though, as I said, on your father's account, I would consent to it. Pray, Love, forgiveme, and make yourself easy. I did not suspect, till my last letter wasposted, that it might be too strong. I had been counting almost thehours till your arrival for some time. As to coming down again I cannotthink of it, for though I could perhaps better spare the time at presentfrom painting than I could at any part of the last month, I find I mustnow go hard to work to finish my lectures, as the law says they must bedelivered the second year after the election. '

The Academy had appointed Opie Professor of Painting in the place ofFuseli, and he was now trying his hand at a new form of composition, andnot without well-deserved success. But the strain was too great forthis eager mind. Opie painted all day; of an evening he worked at hislectures on painting. From September to February he allowed himself norest. He was not a man who worked with ease; all he did cost him mucheffort and struggle. After delivering his first lecture, he complainedthat he could not sleep. It had been a great success; his colleagueshad complimented him, and accompanied him to his house. He was able tocomplete the course, but immediately afterwards he sickened. No onecould discover what was amiss; the languor and fever increased day byday. 

His wife nursed him devotedly, and a favourite sister of his came tohelp her. Afterwards it was of consolation to the widow to remember thatno hired nurse had been by his bedside, and that they had been able todo everything for him themselves. One thing troubled him as he laydying; it was the thought of a picture which he had not been able tocomplete in time for the exhibition. A friend and former pupil finishedit, and brought it to his bedside. He said with a smile, 'Take it away, it will do now. '

To the last he imagined that he was painting upon this picture, and hemoved his arms as though he were at work. His illness was inflammationof the brain. He was only forty-five when he died, and he was buried inSt. Paul's, and laid by Sir Joshua, his great master. 

The portrait of Opie, as it is engraved in Alan Cunningham's Life, isthat of a simple, noble-looking man, with a good thoughtful face and afine head. Northcote, Nollekens, Horne Tooke, all his friends spokewarmly of him. 'A man of powerful understanding and ready apprehension, 'says one. 'Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom into a few words than almostanybody I ever saw, ' says another. 'I do not say that he was alwaysright, ' says Northcote; 'but he always put your thoughts into a newtrack that was worth following. ' Some two years after his death thelectures which had cost so much were published, with a memoir by Mrs. Opie. Sir James Mackintosh has written one of his delightful criticismsupon the book:--

 The cultivation of every science and the practice of every art are in fact a species of action, and require ardent zeal and unshaken courage. .. . Originality can hardly exist without vigour of character. .. . The discoverer or inventor may indeed be most eminently wanting in decision in the general concerns of life, but he must possess it in those pursuits in which he is successful. Opie is a remarkable instance of the natural union of these superior qualities, both of which he possesses in a high degree. .. . He is inferior in elegance to Sir Joshua, but he is superior in strength; he strikes more, though he charms less. .. . Opie is by turns an advocate, a controvertist, a panegyrist, a critic; Sir Joshua more uniformly fixes his mind on general and permanent principles, and certainly approaches more nearly to the elevation and tranquillity which seem to characterise the philosophic teacher of an elegant art. 

IX. 

Mrs. Opie went back, soon after her husband's death, to Norwich, to herearly home, her father's house; nor was she a widow indeed while shestill had this tender love and protection. 

That which strikes one most as one reads the accounts of Mrs. Opieis the artlessness and perfect simplicity of her nature. The deepestfeeling of her life was her tender love for her father, and if sheremained younger than most women do, it may have been partly from thegreat blessing which was hers so long, that of a father's home. Timepassed, and by degrees she resumed her old life, and came out and aboutamong her friends. Sorrow does not change a nature, it expresses certainqualities which have been there all along. 

So Mrs. Opie came up to London once more, and welcomed and was madewelcome by many interesting people. Lord Erskine is her friend always;she visits Madame de Staėl; she is constantly in company with SydneySmith, the ever-welcome as she calls him. Lord Byron, Sheridan, LordDudley, all appear upon her scene. There is a pretty story of hersinging her best to Lady Sarah Napier, old, blind, and saddened, butstill happy in that she had her sons to guide and to protect her steps. Among her many entertainments, Mrs. Opie amusingly describes a dinner atSir James Mackintosh's, to which most of the guests had been asked atdifferent hours, varying from six to half-past seven, when BaronWilliam von Humboldt arrives. He writes to her next day, calling herMademoiselle Opie, 'no doubt from my juvenile appearance, ' she adds, writing to her father. It is indeed remarkable to read of her spiritslong after middle life, her interest and capacity for amusement. Shepays 4_l. _ for a ticket to a ball given to the Duke of Wellington; shedescribes this and many other masquerades and gaieties, and the blueball, and the pink ball, and the twenty-seven carriages at her door, andher sight of the Emperor of Russia in her hotel. When the rest of theladies crowd round, eager to touch his clothes, Mrs. Opie, carried awayby the general craze, encircles his wrist with her finger and thumb. Apart from these passing fancies, she is in delightful society. 

Baron Alderson, her cousin and friend, was always kind and affectionateto her. The pretty little story is well known of his taking her home inher Quaker dress in the Judges' state-coach at Norwich, saying, 'Come, Brother Opie, ' as he offered her his arm to lead her to the carriage. She used to stay at his house in London, and almost the last visit sheever paid was to him. 

One of the most interesting of her descriptions is that of her meetingwith Sir Walter Scott and with Wordsworth at a breakfast in MountStreet, and of Sir Walter's delightful talk and animated stories. Onecan imagine him laughing and describing a Cockney's terrors in theHighlands, when the whole hunt goes galloping down the crags, as istheir North-country fashion. 'The gifted man, ' says Mrs. Opie, with herold-fashioned adjectives, 'condescended to speak to me of my "Father andDaughter. " He then went on faithfully to praise his old friend JoannaBaillie and her tragedies, and to describe a tragedy he once thought ofwriting himself. He should have had no love in it. His hero should havebeen the uncle of his heroine, a sort of misanthrope, with only oneaffection in his heart, love for his niece, like a solitary gleam ofsunshine lighting the dark tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling. '

'It might perhaps be a weakness, ' says the Friend, long after recallingthis event, 'but I must confess how greatly I was pleased at the time. 'No wonder she was pleased that the great wizard should have liked hernovel. 

It would be impossible to attempt a serious critique of Mrs. Opie'sstories. They are artless, graceful, written with an innocent good faithwhich disarms criticism. That Southey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintoshshould also have read them and praised them may, as I have said, proveas much for the personal charm of the writer, and her warm sunshine ofpleasant companionship, as for the books themselves. They seem to haverun through many editions, and to have received no little encouragement. Morality and sensation alternate in her pages. Monsters abound there. They hire young men to act base parts, to hold villainous conversationswhich the husbands are intended to overhear. They plot and scheme toruin the fair fame and domestic happiness of the charming heroines, butthey are justly punished, and their plots are defeated. One villain, onhis way to an appointment with a married woman, receives so severe ablow upon the head from her brother, that he dies in agonies of fruitlessremorse. Another, who incautiously boasts aloud his deep-laid schemeagainst Constantia's reputation in the dark recesses of a stage-coach, is unexpectedly seized by the arm. A stranger in the corner, whom he hadnot noticed, was no other than the baronet whom Constantia has loved allalong. The dawn breaks in brightly, shining on the stranger's face:baffled, disgraced, the wicked schemer leaves the coach at the very nextstage, and Constantia's happiness is ensured by a brilliant marriagewith the man she loves. 'Lucy is the dark sky, ' cries another lovelyheroine, 'but you, my lord, and my smiling children, these are therainbow that illumines it; and who would look at the gloom that see themany tinted Iris? not I, indeed. ' 'Valentine's Eve, ' from which this isquoted, was published after John Opie's death. So was a novel called'Temper, ' and the 'Tales of Real Life. ' Mrs. Opie, however, gave upwriting novels when she joined the Society of Friends. 

For some years past, Mrs. Opie had been thrown more and more in thecompany of a very noble and remarkable race of men and women livingquietly in their beautiful homes in the neighbourhood of Norwich, butof an influence daily growing--handsome people, prosperous, generous, with a sort of natural Priesthood belonging to them. Scorning to livefor themselves alone, the Gurneys were the dispensers and originators ofa hundred useful and benevolent enterprises in Norwich and elsewhere. They were Quakers, and merchants, and bankers. How much of their strengthlay in their wealth and prosperity, how much in their enthusiasm, theirhigh spirits, voluntarily curbed, their natural instinct both to leadand to protect, it would be idle to discuss. It is always difficult forpeople who believe in the all-importance of the present to judge ofothers, whose firm creed is that the present is nothing as compared tothe future. Chief among this remarkable family was Elizabeth Gurney, the wife of Josiah Fry, the mother of many children, and the good angel, indeed, of the unhappy captives of those barbarous days, prisoners, towhose utter gloom and misery she brought some rays of hope. There arefew figures more striking than that of the noble Quaker lady starting onher generous mission, comforting the children, easing the chains of thecaptives. No domineering Jellyby, but a motherly, deep-hearted woman;shy, and yet from her very timidity gaining an influence, which lesssensitive natures often fail to win. One likes to imagine the dignifiedsweet face coming in--the comforting Friend in the quiet garb of theQuaker woman standing at the gates of those terrible places, bidding thedespairing prisoners be of good hope. 

Elizabeth Fry's whole life was a mission of love and help to others; herbrothers and her many relations heartily joined and assisted her in manyplans and efforts. 

For Joseph John Gurney, the head of the Norwich family, Mrs. Opie issaid to have had a feeling amounting to more than friendship. Be this asit may, it is no wonder that so warm-hearted and impressionable a womanshould have been influenced by the calm goodness of the friends withwhom she was now thrown. It is evident enough, nor does she attempt toconceal the fact, that the admiration and interest she feels for JohnJoseph Gurney are very deep motive powers. There comes a time in mostlives, especially in the lives of women, when all the habits andcertainties of youth have passed away, when life has to be built upagain upon the foundations indeed of the past, the friendships, thememories, the habits of early life, but with new places and things toabsorb and to interest, new hearts to love. And one day people wake upto find that the friends of their choice have become their home. Peopleare stranded perhaps seeking their share in life's allowance, andsuddenly they come upon something, with all the charm which belongs todeliberate choice, as well as that of natural affinity. How well onecan realise the extraordinary comfort that Amelia Opie must have foundin the kind friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! Herfather was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. Her own life ofstruggle, animation, intelligence, was over, as she imagined, for ever. No wonder if for a time she was carried away, if she forgot her ownnature, her own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this newrevelation. Here was a new existence, here was a Living Church ready todraw her within its saving walls. John Joseph Gurney must have been aman of extraordinary personal influence. For a long time past he hadbeen writing to her seriously. At last, to the surprise of the world, though not without long deliberation and her father's full approval, shejoined the Society of Friends, put on their dress, and adopted theirpeculiar phraseology. People were surprised at the time, but I think itwould have been still more surprising if she had not joined them. J. J. Gurney, in one of his letters, somewhat magnificently describes Mrs. Opie as offering up her many talents and accomplishments a brilliantsacrifice to her new-found persuasions. 'Illustrations of Lying, 'moral anecdotes on the borderland of imagination, are all that she ishenceforth allowed. 'I am bound in a degree not to invent a story, because when I became a Friend it was required of me not to do so, ' shewrites to Miss Mitford, who had asked her to contribute to an annual. Miss Mitford's description of Mrs. Opie, 'Quakerised all over, andcalling Mr. Haydon 'Friend Benjamin, ' is amusing enough; and so alsois the account of the visiting card she had printed after she becamea Quaker, with 'Amelia Opie, ' without any prefix, as is the Quakerway; also, as is not their way, with a wreath of embossed pink rosessurrounding the name. There is an account of Mrs. Opie published in the'Edinburgh Review, ' in a delightful article entitled the 'Worthies ofNorwich, ' which brings one almost into her very presence. 

 Amelia Opie at the end of the last century and Amelia Opie in the garb and with the speech of a member of the Society of Friends sounds like two separate personages, but no one who recollects the gay little songs which at seventy she used to sing with lively gesture, the fragments of drama to which, with the zest of an innate actress, she occasionally treated her young friends, or the elaborate faultlessness of her appearance--the shining folds and long train of her pale satin draperies, the high, transparent cap, the crisp fichu crossed over the breast, which set off to advantage the charming little plump figure with its rounded lines--could fail to recognise the same characteristics which sparkled about the wearer of the pink calico domino in which she frolicked incognito 'till she was tired' at a ball given by the Duke of Wellington in 1814, or of the eight blue feathers which crowned the waving tresses of her flaxen hair as a bride. 

Doctor Alderson died in October 1825, and Mrs. Opie was left alone. Shewas very forlorn when her father died. She had no close ties to carryher on peacefully from middle age to the end of life. The great breakhad come; she was miserable, and, as mourners do, she falls upon herselfand beats her breast. All through these sad years her friends at Northreppsand at Earlham were her chief help and consolation. As time passed herdeep sorrow was calmed, when peaceful memories had succeeded to the keenanguish of her good old father's loss. She must have suffered deeply;she tried hard to be brave, but her courage failed her at times: shetried hard to do her duty; and her kindness and charity were unfailing, for she was herself still, although so unhappy. Her journals arepathetic in their humility and self-reproaches for imaginary omissions. She is lonely; out of heart, out of hope. 'I am so dissatisfied withmyself that I hardly dare ask or expect a blessing upon my labours, ' shesays; and long lists of kind and fatiguing offices, of visits to sickpeople and poor people, to workhouses and prisons, are interspersed withexpressions of self-blame. 

 * * * * *

The writer can remember as a child speculating as she watched thestraight-cut figure of a Quaker lady standing in the deep window of anold mansion that overlooked the Luxembourg Gardens at Paris, with alltheir perfume and blooming scent of lilac and sweet echoes of children, while the quiet figure stood looking down upon it all from--to achild--such an immeasurable distance. As one grows older one becomesmore used to garbs of different fashions and cut, and one can believe inpresent sunlight and the scent of flowering trees and the happy sound ofchildren's voices going straight to living hearts beneath their severaldisguises, and Mrs. Opie, notwithstanding her Quaker dress, loved brightcolours and gay sunlight. She was one of those who gladly made lifehappy for others, who naturally turned to bright and happy thingsherself. When at last she began to recover from the blow which hadfallen so heavily upon her she went from Norwich to the Lakes and Fellsfor refreshment, and then to Cornwall, and among its green seas andsoftly clothed cliffs she found good friends (as most people do who goto that kind and hospitable county), and her husband's relations, whowelcomed her kindly. As she recovered by degrees she began to seesomething of her old companions. She went to London to attend the Maymeetings of the Society, and I heard an anecdote not long ago which musthave occurred on some one of these later visits there. 

One day when some people were sitting at breakfast at Samuel Rogers's, and talking as people do who belong to the agreeable classes, theconversation happened to turn upon the affection of a father for hisonly child, when an elderly lady who had been sitting at the table, andwho was remarkable for her Quaker dress, her frills and spotless folds, her calm and striking appearance, started up suddenly, burst into apassion of tears, and had to be led sobbing out of the room. She did notreturn, and the lady who remembers the incident, herself a young brideat the time, told me it made all the more impression upon her at thetime because she was told that the Quaker lady was Mrs. Opie. My friendwas just beginning her life. Mrs. Opie must have been ending hers. It is not often that women, when youth is long past, shed sudden andpassionate tears of mere emotion, nor perhaps would a Quaker, trainedfrom early childhood to calm moods and calm expressions, have been sosuddenly overpoweringly affected; but Mrs. Opie was no born daughter ofthe community, she was excitable and impulsive to the last. I have hearda lady who knew her well describe her, late in life, laughing heartilyand impetuously thrusting a somewhat starched-up Friend into a deeparm-chair exclaiming, 'I will hurl thee into the bottomless pit. '

X. 

 At sight of thee, O Tricolor, I seem to feel youth's hours return, The loved, the lost!

So writes Mrs. Opie at the age of sixty, reviving, delighting, as shecatches sight of her beloved Paris once more, and breathes its clearand life-giving air, and looks out across its gardens and glitteringgables and spires, and again meets her French acquaintances, and throwsherself into their arms and into their interests with all her old warmthand excitability. The little grey bonnet only gives certain incongruouspiquancy to her pleasant, kind-hearted exuberance. She returns toEngland, but far-away echoes reach her soon of changes and revolutionsconcerning all the people for whom her regard is so warm. In August, 1830, came the news of a new revolution--'The Chamber of Deputiesdissolved for ever; the liberty of the press abolished; king, ministers, court, and ambassadors flying from Paris to Vincennes; cannon plantedagainst the city; 5, 000 people killed, and the Rue de Rivoli runningwith blood. ' No wonder such rumours stirred and overwhelmed the staunchbut excitable lady. 'You will readily believe how anxious, interested, and excited I feel, ' she says; and then she goes on to speak ofLafayette, 'miraculously preserved through two revolutions, and inchains and in a dungeon, now the leading mind in another conflict, andlifting not only an armed but a restraining hand in a third revolution. '

Her heart was with her French friends and intimates, and though she keptsilence she was not the less determined to follow its leading, and, without announcing her intention, she started off from Norwich and, after travelling without intermission, once more arrived in her belovedcity. But what was become of the Revolution? 'Paris seemed as bright andpeaceful as I had seen it thirteen months ago! The people, the busypeople passing to and fro, and soldiers, omnibuses, cabriolets, citadenes, carts, horsemen hurrying along the Rue de Rivoli, while foot passengerswere crossing the gardens, or loungers were sitting on its benches toenjoy the beauty of the May-November. ' She describes two men crossingthe Place Royale singing a national song, the result of theRevolution:--

 Pour briser leurs masses profondes, Qui conduit nos drapeaux sanglants, C'est la Liberté de deux mondes, C'est Lafayette en cheveux blancs. 

Mrs. Opie was full of enthusiasm for noble Lafayette surveying his courtof turbulent intrigue and shifting politics; for Cuvier in his ownrealm, among more tranquil laws, less mutable decrees. She should havebeen born a Frenchwoman, to play a real and brilliant part among allthese scenes and people, instead of only looking on. Something stirredin her veins too eager and bubbling for an Englishwoman's scant shareof life and outward events. No wonder that her friends at Norwich wereanxious, and urged her to return. They heard of her living in the midstof excitement, of admiration, and with persons of a different religionand way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions carriedtheir weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much care ofwas a talisman, drawing the most friendly of Friends away from the placeof her adoption. But she came back unchanged to her home, to her quietassociations; she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerfulinterest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on her kind soulseemed to shine more and more brightly. Every one came to see her, tobe cheered and warmed by her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of whichher room was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says herbiographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted like a screen, and the colour flew about the little room. She kept up a greatcorrespondence; she was never tired of writing, though the letters onother people's business were apt to prove a serious burden at times. But she lives on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in littleselfishnesses, ' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider othersin trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier to fulfilthe greater duties, and the character will not exhibit that tryinginconsistency which one sees in great and often in pious persons. ' Herhealth fails, but not her courage. She goes up to London for the lasttime to her cousin's house. She is interested in all the people shemeets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the time. Shereturns home, contented with all; with the house which she feels so'desirable to die in, ' with her window through which she can view thewoods and rising ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in theirglory, ' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, for the radianceis brighter than ever I saw it before;' and then she wonders whether themansions in heaven will be draped in such brightness; and so to the lastthe gentle, bright, _rainbow_ lady remained surrounded by kind andsmiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light of herfavourite prismatic colours shining round about the couch on which shelay. 

_JANE AUSTEN. _

 1775-1817. 

 'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre les hommes. '--PASCAL. 

'I did not know that you were a studier of character, ' says Bingley toElizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study. '

'Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at leastthat advantage. '

'The country, ' said Darcy, 'can in general supply but few subjects forsuch a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined andunvarying society. '

'But people themselves alter so much, ' Elizabeth answers, 'that there issomething new to be observed in them for ever. '

'Yes, indeed, ' cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by Darcy's manner ofmentioning a country neighbourhood; 'I assure you that we have quite asmuch of _that_ going on in the country as in town. '

'Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained acomplete victory over him, continued her triumph. '

These people belong to a whole world of familiar acquaintances, who are, notwithstanding their old-fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, morealive to us than a great many of the people among whom we live. Weknow so much more about them to begin with. Notwithstanding a certainreticence and self-control which seems to belong to their age, and withall their quaint dresses, and ceremonies, and manners, the ladies andgentlemen in 'Pride and Prejudice' and its companion novels seem likeliving people out of our own acquaintance transported bodily into abygone age, represented in the half-dozen books that contain JaneAusten's works. Dear books! bright, sparkling with wit and animation, inwhich the homely heroines charm, the dull hours fly, and the very boresare enchanting. 

Could we but study our own bores as Miss Austen must have studied hersin her country village, what a delightful world this might be!--a worldof Norris's economical great walkers, with dining-room tables to disposeof; of Lady Bertrams on sofas, with their placid 'Do not act anythingimproper, my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;' of Bennets, Goddards, Bates's; of Mr. Collins's; of Rushbrooks, with two-and-forty speechesapiece--a world of Mrs. Eltons. .. . Inimitable woman! she must be aliveat this very moment, if we but knew where to find her, her basket on herarm, her nods and all-importance, with Maple Grove and the Sucklings inthe background. She would be much excited were she aware how she isesteemed by a late Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is well acquaintedwith Maple Grove and Selina too. It might console her for Mr. Knightly'sshabby marriage. 

All these people nearly start out of the pages, so natural andunaffected are they, and yet they never lived except in the imaginationof one lady with bright eyes, who sat down some seventy years ago to anold mahogany desk in a quiet country parlour, and evoked them for us. One seems to see the picture of the unknown friend who has charmed us solong--charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and companions forus in lonely places, conferring happiness and harmless mirth upongenerations to come. One can picture her as she sits erect, with herlong and graceful figure, her full round face, her bright eyes castdown, --Jane Austen, 'the woman of whom England is justly proud'--whosemethod generous Macaulay has placed near Shakespeare. She is writingin secret, putting away her work when visitors come in, unconscious, modest, hidden at home in heart, as she was in her sweet and womanlylife, with the wisdom of the serpent indeed and the harmlessness of adove. 

Some one said just now that many people seem to be so proud of seeinga joke at all, that they impress it upon you until you are perfectlywearied by it. Jane Austen was not of these; her humour flows gentle andspontaneous; it is no elaborate mechanism nor artificial fountain, buta bright natural stream, rippling and trickling over every stone andsparkling in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-a-days to hear ayoung lady announce herself as a studier of character. From her quiethome in the country lane this one reads to us a real page from theabsorbing pathetic humorous book of human nature--a book that we canmost of us understand when it is translated into plain English; butof which the quaint and illegible characters are often difficult todecipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all respect for Darcy'sopinion, must require something of country-like calm and concentrationand freedom of mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsivestudent not to attribute something of his own moods to his specimensinstead of dispassionately contemplating them from a critical distance. 

Besides the natural fun and wit and life of her characters, 'allperfectly discriminated, ' as Macaulay says, Jane Austen has the gift oftelling a story in a way that has never been surpassed. She rules herplaces, times, characters, and marshals them with unerring precision. In her special gift for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Herpicnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations offeelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural andlifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us--thescene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it isrecorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselvesso vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginaryscenes, we seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see thepeople coming and going: the gentlemen courteous and in top-boots, theladies demure and piquant; we can almost hear them talking to oneanother. No retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life days andevents follow one another. Last Tuesday does not suddenly start intoexistence all out of place; nor does 1790 appear upon the scene when weare well on in '21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero tohero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to unimportant membersof the company. With Jane Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each otherlike clockwork, one central figure is always present on the scene, thatfigure is always prepared for company. Miss Edwards's curl-papers arealmost the only approach to dishabille in her stories. There arepostchaises in readiness to convey the characters from Bath or Lyme toUppercross, to Fullerton, from Gracechurch Street to Meryton, as theirbusiness takes them. Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square toHartfield, by a road that Miss Austen herself must have travelled in thecurricle with her brother, driving to London on a summer's day. It wasa wet ride for Mr. Knightly, followed by that never-to-be-forgottenafternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had changed into a softerquarter, the clouds were carried off, and Emma, walking in the sunshine, with spirits freshened and thoughts a little relieved, and thinking ofMr. Knightly as sixteen miles away, meets him at the garden door; andeverybody, I think, must be the happier, for the happiness and certaintythat one half-hour gave to Emma and her 'indifferent' lover. 

There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's letters to a niece, which shows that all this successful organisation was not brought aboutby chance alone, but came from careful workmanship. 

'Your aunt C. , ' she says, 'does not like desultory novels, and is ratherfearful that yours will be too much so--that there will be too frequenta change from one set of people to another, and that circumstances willbe sometimes introduced of apparent consequence, which will lead tonothing. It will not be so great an objection to me. I allow much morelatitude than she does, and think nature and spirit cover many sins of awandering story. .. . '

But, though the sins of a wandering story may be covered, the virtues ofa well-told one make themselves felt unconsciously, and without aneffort. Some books and people are delightful, we can scarce tell why;they are not so clever as others that weary and fatigue us. It is acertain effort to read a story, however touching, that is disconnectedand badly related. It is like an ill-drawn picture, of which thecolouring is good. Jane Austen possessed both gifts of colour and ofdrawing. She could see human nature as it was; with near-sighted eyes, it is true; but having seen, she could combine her picture by her art, and colour it from life. How delightful the people are who play atcards, and pay their addresses to one another, and sup, and discuss eachother's affairs! Take Mr. Bennet's reception of his sons-in-law. TakeSir Walter Elliot compassionating the navy and Admiral Baldwin--'ninegrey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top--a wretchedexample of what a seafaring life can do, for men who are exposed toevery climate and weather until they are not fit to be seen. It is apity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach AdmiralBaldwin's age. .. . ' Or shall we quote the scene of Fanny Price's returnwhen she comes to visit her family at Portsmouth; in all daughterlyagitation and excitement, and the brother's and father's and sister'sreception of her. .. . 'A stare or two at Fanny was all the voluntarynotice that her brother bestowed, but he made no objection to her kissinghim, though still entirely engaged in detailing further particulars ofthe "Thrush's" going out of harbour, in which he had a strong right ofinterest, being about to commence his career of seamanship in her atthis very time. After the mother and daughter have received her, Fanny'sseafaring father comes in, and does not notice her at first in hisexcitement. "Captain Walsh thinks you will certainly have a cruise tothe westward with the 'Elephant' by ---- I wish you may. But old Scholeywas saying just now that he thought you would be sent first to the'Texel. ' Well, well, we are ready whatever happens. But by ---- you losta fine sight by not being here in the morning to see the 'Thrush' go outof harbour. I would not have been out of the way for a thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast time to say she had slipped her mooringsand was coming out. I jumped up and made but two steps to the platform. If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat she is one; and there she liesat Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for aneight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform for two hours this afternoonlooking at her. She lies close to the 'Endymion, ' between her and the'Cleopatra, ' just to the eastward of the sheer hulk. "'

'"Ha!" cried William, "_that's_ just where I should have put her myself. It's the best berth in Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here isFanny, turning and leading her forward--it is so dark you do not seeher. "'

'With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price nowreceived his daughter, and having given her a cordial hug and observedthat she was grown into a woman and he supposed would be wanting ahusband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again. '

How admirably it is all told! how we hear them all talking!

From her own brothers Jane Austen learned her accurate knowledge ofships and seafaring things, from her own observation she must havegathered her delightful droll science of men and women and their waysand various destinations. Who will not recognise Mrs. Norris in thatmaster-touch by which she removes the curtain to save Sir Thomas'sfeelings, that curtain which had been prepared for the privatetheatricals he so greatly disapproved of? Mrs. Norris thoughtfullycarries it off to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly inwant of green baize. 

II. 

The charm of friends of pen-and-ink is their unchangeableness. We go tothem when we want them. We know where to seek them; we know what toexpect from them. They are never preoccupied; they are always 'at home;'they never turn their backs nor walk away as people do in real life, norlet their houses and leave the neighbourhood, and disappear for weekstogether; they are never taken up with strange people, nor suddenlyabsorbed into some more genteel society, or by some nearer fancy. Eventhe most volatile among them is to be counted upon. We may haveneglected them, and yet when we meet again there are the familiar oldfriends, and we seem to find our own old selves again in their company. For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings have swept by, leavinginterests and recollections in their place; but at all ages there mustbe days that belong to our youth, hours that will recur so long as menforbear and women remember, and life itself exists. Perhaps the mostfashionable marriage on the _tapis_ no longer excites us very much, butthe sentiment of an Emma or an Anne Elliot comes home to some of us asvividly as ever. It is something to have such old friends who are soyoung. An Emma, blooming, without a wrinkle or a grey hair, aftertwenty years' acquaintance; an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly and charmingever. .. . 

In the 'Roundabout Papers' there is a passage about the pen-and-inkfriends my father loved:--

'They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of the North. " Whatif some writer should appear who can write so _enchantingly_ that heshall be able to call into actual life the people whom he invents? Whatif Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now(though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoewere to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? SupposeUncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide in silent?Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter, with a noiselessswagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on UncleToby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse with his hair dyed green; and all theCrummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Rogerde Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of LaMancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look rather wistfullytowards the window, musing upon these people. Were any of them to enter, I think I should not be very much frightened. .. . '

Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed here, but who willcome unannounced to join the goodly company, creations that, like somepeople, do actually make part of our existence, and make us the betterfor theirs? To express some vague feelings is to stamp them. Have we anyone of us a friend in a Knight of La Mancha, a Colonel Newcome, a SirRoger de Coverley? They live for us even though they may have neverlived. They are, and do actually make part of our lives, one of the bestand noblest parts. To love them is like a direct communication with thegreat and generous minds that conceived them. 

 * * * * *

It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding generations, todetermine how much each book reflects of the time in which it waswritten; how much of its character depends upon the mind and the mood ofthe writer. The greatest minds, the most original, have the least stampof the age, the most of that dominant natural reality which belongs toall great minds. We know how a landscape changes as the day goes on, and how the scene brightens and gains in beauty as the shadows begin tolengthen. The clearest eyes must see by the light of their own hour. Jane Austen's literary hour must have been a midday hour: bright, unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without much shadow orelaborate artistic effect. Our own age is more essentially an age ofstrained emotion, little remains to us of starch, or powder, or courtlyreserve. What we have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, wehave gained in emphasis. Our danger is now, not of expressing andfeeling too little, but of expressing more than we feel. 

The living writers of to-day lead us into distant realms and worldsundreamt of in the placid and easily contented gigot age. Our characterstravel by rail and are no longer confined to postchaises. There iscertainly a wide difference between Miss Austen's heroines and, let ussay, a Maggie Tulliver. One would be curious to know whether, betweenthe human beings who read Jane Austen's books to-day and those who readthem fifty years ago, there is as great a contrast. One reason may be, perhaps, that characters in novels are certainly more intimate with usand on less ceremonious terms than in Jane Austen's days, when heroinesnever gave up a certain gentle self-respect and humour and hardness ofheart in which some modern types are a little wanting. Whatever happensthey could for the most part speak of quietly and without bitterness. Love with them does not mean a passion so much as an interest, deep, silent, not quite incompatible with a secondary flirtation. MarianneDashwood's tears are evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, sighs and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes onedisagreeable morning making up her mind to the unnatural alliancebetween Mr. Knightly and Harriet Smith. It was the spirit of the age, and, perhaps, one not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austenherself was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling. In the lastwritten page of her last written book, there is an expression of thedeepest and truest experience. Annie Elliot's talk with Captain Benfieldis the touching utterance of a good woman's feelings. They are speakingof men and of women's affections. 'You are always labouring andtoiling, ' she says, 'exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all united; neither time nor life to be called yourown. It would be too hard, indeed (with a faltering voice), if a woman'sfeelings were to be added to all this. '

Further on she says, eagerly: 'I hope I do justice to all that isfelt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I shouldundervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachmentand constancy were known only by woman. No! I believe you capable ofeverything good and great in your married lives. I believe you equalto every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance so longas--if I may be allowed the expression--so long as you have an object;I mean while the woman you love lives and lives for you. _All theprivilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, youneed not court it) is that of loving longest when existence or when hopeis gone. _'

She could not immediately have uttered another sentence--her heart wastoo full, her breath too much oppressed. 

Dear Anne Elliot!--sweet, impulsive, womanly, tender-hearted--one canalmost hear her voice, pleading the cause of all true women. In thosedays when, perhaps, people's nerves were stronger than they are now, sentiment may have existed in a less degree, or have been more ruled byjudgment, it may have been calmer and more matter-of-fact; and yet JaneAusten, at the very end of her life, wrote thus. Her words seem to ringin our ears after they have been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been JaneAusten herself, speaking for the last time. There is something so true, so womanly about her, that it is impossible not to love her most of all. She is the bright-eyed heroine of the earlier novels, matured, softened, cultivated, to whom fidelity has brought only greater depth andsweetness instead of bitterness and pain. 

What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and try to enumerate thedifferent influences by which our lives have been affected--influencesof other lives, of art, of nature, of place and circumstance, --ofbeautiful sights passing before our eyes, or painful ones: seasonsfollowing in their course--hills rising on our horizons--scenes of ruinand desolation--crowded thoroughfares--sounds in our ears, jarring orharmonious--the voices of friends, calling, warning, encouraging--ofpreachers preaching--of people in the street below, complaining, andasking our pity! What long processions of human beings are passingbefore us! What trains of thought go sweeping through our brains! Manseems a strange and ill-kept record of many and bewildering experiences. Looking at oneself--not as oneself, but as an abstract human being--oneis lost in wonder at the vast complexities which have been brought tobear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disappointment perhaps, at thediscordant result of so great a harmony. Only we know that the wholediapason is beyond our grasp: one man cannot hear the note of thegrasshoppers, another is deaf when the cannon sounds. Waiting amongthese many echoes and mysteries of every kind, and light and darkness, and life and death, we seize a note or two of the great symphony, andtry to sing; and because these notes happen to jar, we think all isdiscordant hopelessness. Then come pressing onward in the crowd oflife, voices with some of the notes that are wanting to our ownpart--voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to an accordant one;making harmony for us as they pass us by. Perhaps this is in life thehappiest of all experience, and to few of us there exists any morecomplete ideal. 

And so now and then in our lives, when we learn to love a sweet andnoble character, we all feel happier and better for the goodness andcharity which is not ours, and yet which seems to belong to us whilewe are near it. Just as some people and states of mind affect usuncomfortably, so we seem to be true to ourselves with a truthfulperson, generous-minded with a generous nature; life seems lessdisappointing and self-seeking when we think of the just and sweet andunselfish spirits, moving untroubled among dinning and distractinginfluences. These are our friends in the best and noblest sense. We arethe happier for their existence, --it is so much gain to us. They mayhave lived at some distant time, we may never have met face to face, orwe may have known them and been blessed by their love; but their lightshines from afar, their life is for us and with us in its generousexample; their song is for our ears, and we hear it and love it still, though the singer may be lying dead. 

III. 

A little book, written by one of Jane Austen's nephews, tells with atouching directness and simplicity the story of this good and giftedwoman, whose name has long been a household word among us, but of whosehistory nothing was known until this little volume appeared. It is butthe story of a country lady, of quiet days following quiet days ofseasons in their course of common events; and yet the history is deeplyinteresting to those who loved the writer of whom it is written; and aswe turn from the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we feelmore than ever that she, too, was one of those true friends who belongto us inalienably--simple, wise, contented, living in others, one ofthose whom we seem to have a right to love. Such people belong to allhumankind by the very right of their wide and generous sympathies, oftheir gentle wisdom and loveableness. Jane Austen's life, as it is toldby Mr. Austen Legh, is very touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is acountry landscape, where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of the greatelm-tree rocking in the wind: sometimes, as we read, they come fallingwith a crash into the sweep; birds are flying about the old house, homely in its simple rule. The rafters cross the whitewashed ceilings, the beams project into the room below. We can see it all: the parlourwith the horsehair sofa, the scant, quaint furniture, the old-fashionedgarden outside, with its flowers and vegetables combined, and along thesouth side of the garden the green terrace sloping away. 

There is a pretty description of the sisters' devotion to one another(when Cassandra went to school little Jane accompanied her, the sisterscould not be parted), of the family party, of the old place, 'wherethere are hedgerows winding, with green shady footpaths within thecopse; where the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found. ' Thereis the wood-walk, with its rustic seats, leading to the meadows; thechurch-walk leading to the church, 'which is far from the hum of thevillage, and within sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the greymanor-house through its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet violets, both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall. Largeelms protrude their rough branches, old hawthorns shed their blossomsover the graves, and the hollow yew-tree must be at least coėval withthe church. '

One may read the account of Catherine Morland's home with new interest, from the hint which is given of its likeness to the old house atSteventon, where dwelt the unknown friend whose voice we seem to hearat last, and whose face we seem to recognise, her bright eyes and browncurly hair, her quick and graceful figure. One can picture the childrenwho are playing at the door of the old parsonage, and calling for AuntJane. One can imagine her pretty ways with them, her sympathy for theactive, their games and imaginations. There is Cassandra. She is olderthan her sister, more critical, more beautiful, more reserved. There isthe mother of the family, with her keen wit and clear mind; the handsomefather--'the handsome proctor, ' as he was called; the five brothers, driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes by, the winter days go by;the young lady still sits writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at thesound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in thewisest brains and the most foolish. 

It must have been at Steventon--Jane Austen's earliest home--that Mr. Collins first made his appearance (Lady Catherine not objecting, as weknow, to his occasional absence on a Sunday, provided another clergymanwas engaged to do the duty of the day), and here, conversing with MissJane, that he must have made many of his profoundest observations uponhuman nature; remarking, among other things, that resignation is neverso perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of itsvalue in our estimation, and propounding his celebrated theory about theusual practice of elegant females. It must have been here, too, that poorMrs. Bennet declared, with some justice, that once estates are entailed, one can never tell how they will go; here, too, that Mrs. Allen's spriggedmuslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were woven; that his gig was built, 'curricle-hung lamps, seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silvermoulding, all, you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new, orbetter. He asked fifty guineas. .. . I closed with him directly, threwdown the money, and the carriage was mine. '

'And I am sure, ' said Catherine, 'I know so little of such things, thatI cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear. '

'Neither the one nor the other, ' says John Thorpe. 

Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon--that good-humoured lady in'Sense and Sensibility, ' who thinks it so ridiculous that her husbandnever hears her when she speaks to him. We are told that Marianne andEllinor have been supposed to represent Cassandra and Jane Austen; butMr. Austen Legh says that he can trace no resemblance. Jane Austen isnot twenty when this book is written, and only twenty-one when 'Prideand Prejudice' is first devised. 

Cousins presently come on the scene, and amongst them the romanticfigure of a young, widowed Comtesse de Feuillade, flying from theRevolution to her uncle's home. She is described as a clever andaccomplished woman, interested in her young cousins, teaching themFrench (both Jane and Cassandra knew French), helping in their variousschemes, in their theatricals in the barn. She eventually marries hercousin, Henry Austen. The simple family annals are not without theirromance; but there is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover diesabroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party. Jane, too, 'receives the addresses' (do such things as addresses exist nowadays?)'of a gentleman possessed of good character and fortune, and ofeverything, in short, except the subtle power of touching her heart. 'One cannot help wondering whether this was a Henry Crawford or an Eltonor a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already seen the person that even Cassandrathought good enough for her sister?

Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters' fate (there is a sadcoincidence and similarity in it) was to be undivided; their life, theirexperience was the same. Some one without a name takes leave of Jane oneday, promising to come back. He never comes back: long afterwards theyhear of his death. The story seems even sadder than Cassandra's in itssilence and uncertainty, for silence and uncertainty are death in lifeto some people. .. . 

There is little trace of such a tragedy in Jane Austen's books--not onemorbid word is to be found, not one vain regret. Hers was not a natureto fall crushed by the overthrow of one phase of her manifold life. Sheseems to have had a natural genius for life, if I may so speak; toovivid and genuinely unselfish to fail her in her need. She could gatherevery flower, every brightness along her road. Good spirit, content, allthe interests of a happy and observant nature were hers. Her gentlehumour and wit and interest cannot have failed. 

It is impossible to calculate the difference of the grasp by which oneor another human being realises existence and the things relating to it, nor how much more vivid life seems to some than to others. Jane Austen, while her existence lasted, realised it, and made the best use of thegifts that were hers. Yet, when her life was ending, then it was givento her to understand the change that was at hand; as willingly as shehad lived, she died. Some people seem scarcely to rise up to their ownwork, to their own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by hernephew, is beyond her work, which only contained one phase of thatsweet and wise nature--the creative, observant, outward phase. For herhome, for her sister, for her friends, she kept the depth and tendernessof her bright and gentle sympathy. She is described as busy with herneat and clever fingers sewing for the poor, working fanciful keepsakesfor her friends. There is the cup and ball that she never failed tocatch; the spillikens lie in an even ring where she had thrown them;there are her letters, straightly and neatly folded, and fittingsmoothly in their creases. There is something sweet, orderly, andconsistent in her character and all her tastes--in her fondness forCrabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought to be a Mrs. Crabbe. She sings of an evening old ballads to old-fashioned tunes witha low sweet voice. 

Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her sister in their mobcaps, young still, but dressed soberly beyond their years. One can imagine'Aunt Jane, ' with her brother's children round her knee, telling herdelightful stories or listening to theirs, with never-failing sympathy. One can fancy Cassandra, who does not like desultory novels, moreprudent and more reserved, and somewhat less of a playfellow, lookingdown upon the group with elder sister's eyes. 

Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon in 1800:--

'I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and then my paper will bemy own. Mary fully intended writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and onlyhappened entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my fatherwishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the price of hops. 

 '_Sunday Evening. _'We have had a dreadful storm of wind in the forepart of the day, whichhas done a great deal of mischief among our trees. I was sitting alonein the drawing-room when an odd kind of crash startled me. In a momentafterwards it was repeated. I then went to the window. I reached it justin time to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into thesweep!!!

'The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first crash, and whichwas nearest to the pond, taking a more easterly direction, sank amongour screen of chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, breakingoff the head of another, and stripping the two corner chestnuts ofseveral branches in its fall. This is not all: the maple bearing theweathercock was broken in two, and what I regret more than all the restis, that all the three elms that grew in Hall's Meadow, and gave suchornament to it, are gone. '

A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these letters 'ejaculating somewonder about the cocks and hens. ' Mrs. Stent seems to have tried theirpatience, and will be known henceforward as having bored Jane Austen. 

They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-five years of age and goto Bath, from whence a couple of pleasant letters are given us. Jane iswriting to her sister. She has visited Miss A. , who, like all otheryoung ladies, is considerably genteeler than her parents. She isheartily glad that Cassandra speaks so comfortably of her health andlooks: could travelling fifty miles produce such an immediate change?'You were looking poorly when you were here, and everybody seemedsensible of it. ' Is there any charm in a hack postchaise? But if therewere, Mrs. Craven's carriage might have undone it all. Then Mrs. Stentappears again. 'Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her lot to be always in theway; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody. 'Elsewhere she writes, upon Mrs. ----'s mentioning that she had sent the'Rejected Addresses' to Mr. H. , 'I began talking to her a little aboutthem, and expressed my hope of their having amused her. Her answer was, "Oh dear, yes, very much; very droll indeed; the opening of the houseand the striking up of the fiddles!" What she meant, poor woman, whoshall say?'

But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is the charity of all clearminds, it is only the muddled who are intolerant. All who love Emma andMr. Knightly must remember the touching little scene in which hereproves her for her thoughtless impatience of poor Miss Bates'svolubility. 

'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up froma period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtlessspirits and in the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her. .. . This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from pleasant tome, but I must, I will, I will tell you truths while I am satisfied withproving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting thatyou will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do menow. '

'While they talked they were advancing towards the carriage: it wasready, and before she could speak again he had handed her in. He hadmisinterpreted the feeling which kept her face averted and her tonguemotionless. ' Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned English, is as applicable now as it was when it was spoken. We know that he wasan especial favourite with Jane Austen. 

IV. 

Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to Southampton. In 1811, Mrs. Austen, her daughters, and her niece, settled finally at Chawton, a house belonging to Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he was adopted by anuncle, whose name he took), and from Chawton all her literary work wasgiven to the world. 'Sense and Sensibility, ' 'Pride and Prejudice, ' werealready written; but in the next five years, from thirty-five to forty, she set to work seriously, and wrote 'Mansfield Park, ' 'Emma, ' and'Persuasion. ' Any one who has written a book will know what an amount oflabour this represents. .. . One can picture to oneself the little familyscene which Jane describes to Cassandra. 'Pride and Prejudice' just comedown in a parcel from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. To dinner; and Janeand her mother setting to in the evening and reading aloud half thefirst volume of a new novel sent down by the brother. Unsuspicious MissB. Is delighted. Jane complains of her mother's too rapid way of gettingon; 'though she perfectly understands the characters herself, she cannotspeak as they ought. Upon the whole, however, ' she says, 'I am quitevain enough and well-satisfied enough. ' This is her own criticism of'Pride and Prejudice':--'The work is rather too light, and bright, andsparkling. It wants shade. It wants to be stretched out here and therewith a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemnspecious nonsense about something unconnected with the story--an essayon writing, a critique on Walter Scott or the "History of Bonaparte. "'

And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her labour of love, interested in her 'own darling children's' success; 'the light of thehome, ' one of the real living children says afterwards, speaking in thedays when she was no longer there. She goes to London once or twice. Once she lives for some months in Hans Place, nursing a brother throughan illness. Here it was that she received some little compliments andmessages from the Prince Regent, to whom she dedicated 'Emma. ' He thanksher and acknowledges the handsome volumes, and she laughs and tells herpublisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated, whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestionsfrom Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkableclergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, somethinglike Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man'senemy but his own. ' Failing to impress this character upon the authoress, he makes a fresh suggestion, and proposes that she should write aromance illustrative of the august house of Coburg. 'It would beinteresting, ' he says, 'and very properly dedicated to Prince Leopold. '

To which the authoress replies: 'I could no more write a romance than anepic poem. I could not seriously sit down to write a romance under anyother motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for meto keep it up, and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before the first chapter. '

There is a delightful collection of friends' suggestions which she hasput together, but which is too long to be quoted here. She calls it, 'Plan of a Novel, as suggested by various Friends. '

All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life passes in the sameway as in the old cottage at Chawton. Aunt Jane, with her young face andher mob-cap, makes play-houses for the children, helps them to dress up, invents imaginary conversations for them, supposing that they are allgrown up, the day after a ball. One can imagine how delightful a gamethat must have seemed to the little girls. She built her nest, did thisgood woman, happily weaving it out of shreds, and ends, and scraps ofdaily duty, patiently put together; and it was from this nest that shesang the song, bright and brilliant, with quaint thrills and unexpectedcadences, that reaches us even here through near a century. The lessonher life seems to teach us is this: Don't let us despise our nests--lifeis as much made of minutes as of years; let us complete the dailyduties; let us patiently gather the twigs and the little scraps of moss, of dried grass together, and see the result!--a whole, completed andcoherent, beautiful even without the song. 

We come too soon to the story of her death. And yet did it come toosoon? A sweet life is not the sweeter for being long. Jane Austen livedyears enough to fulfil her mission. She lived long enough to write sixbooks that were masterpieces in their way--to make a world the happierfor her industry. 

One cannot read the story of her latter days, of her patience, hersweetness, and gratitude, without emotion. There is family trouble, weare not told of what nature. She falls ill. Her nieces find her in herdressing-gown, like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her bedroom; but shegets up and greets them, and, pointing to seats which had been arrangedfor them by the fire, says: 'There is a chair for the married lady, anda little stool for you, Caroline. ' But she is too weak to talk, andCassandra takes them away. 

At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to a well-known doctorthere. 

'It distressed me, ' she says, in one of her last, dying letters, 'to seeUncle Henry and William Knight, who kindly attended us, riding in therain almost the whole way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow, andhope they will stay the night; and on Thursday, which is a confirmationand a holiday, we hope to get Charles out to breakfast. We have had butone visit from _him_, poor fellow, as he is in the sick room. .. . Godbless you, dear E. ; if ever you are ill, may you be as tenderly nursedas I have been. .. . '

But nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save her to them all, and she sinks from day to day. To the end she is full of concern forothers. 

'As for my dearest sister, my tender, watchful, indefatigable nurse hasnot been made ill by her exertions, ' she writes. 'As to what I owe her, and the anxious affection of all my beloved family on this occasion, Ican only cry over it, and pray God to bless them more and more. '

One can hardly read this last sentence with dry eyes. It is her partingblessing and farewell to those she had blessed all her life by herpresence and her love--that love which is beyond death; and of which thebenediction remains, not only spoken in words, but by the ever-presentsigns and the tokens of those lifetimes which do not end for us as longas we ourselves exist. 

They asked her when she was near her end if there was anything shewanted. 

'Nothing but death, ' she said. Those were her last words. She died onthe 18th of July, 1817, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, whereshe lies not unremembered. 

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TRANSCRIBER's NOTE

Two instances of Bryon for _Byron_ have been corrected. The followingadditional changes have been made:

 A. I. R. (in dedication) A. _T. _ R. 

 her sad and dimning life her sad and _dimming_ life

 it was to her father hat it was to her father _that_

 who invited Mrs. Barbauld to who invited _Mr. _ Barbauld become their minister become their minister

 He was interrupted by her He was interrupted by _his_ companion companion

 Mrs. Opie's description of her Mrs. Opie's description of her arrival reads a comment upon arrival reads _like_ a comment history. Upon history. 

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