The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth Volume II Part 9

In this frank you will receive a copy of a very interesting letter from f.a.n.n.y Stewart. The post and steam vessels bring the most distant parts of the world now so much within our reach that friends cannot be much more separated by being at "Nova Zembla, or the LORD knows where," than by being in different counties of the same kingdom. There is f.a.n.n.y Stewart dining with Sneyd's friends, the Bishop of Quebec's family; and young Mountain was in Switzerland when we were at Interlachen with Sneyd and Henrica, and the year before at Ardbraccan and Edgeworthstown.

Things are odd till they pair off, and so become even. Sneyd and Henrica, who were at Geneva, have been invited to the Baron Polier's, near Lausanne, the brother of Madame de Montolieu, whom I told you of.

Madame Polier was the intimate friend of an intimate friend of Henrica's, Miss French, of Derby, who has married a Cambridge friend of Sneyd's, Mr. Smedley, and they are now on a visit at the said Madame Polier's--a Derbys.h.i.+re party in the heart of Switzerland, and by various connections _felted_ together!

When Honora is on the sofa beside you, make her give you an account of Francis's play, _Catiline_, which he and f.a.n.n.y, and Harriet and Sophy, and James Moilliet and Pakenham _got up_ without our being in the secret, and acted the night before last, as it were impromptu, to our inexpressible surprise and pleasure. Francis, during his holidays with us in London, used to be often scribbling something; but I never inquired or guessed what it was. f.a.n.n.y and Harriet, in the midst of the hurry of London dissipation, and of writing all manner of notes, etc., for me, and letters home innumerable, contrived to copy out fair for him all his sc.r.a.ps; and when put together they made a goodly tragedy in two acts, wonderfully well written for his age--some parts, for any age, excellent.

After tea the library became empty suddenly of all the young people. My aunt Mary, my brother Lovell, and I remaining with Quin, who had dined here, talking on, never missed them; and the surprise was as great as heart could wish when my mother put into our hands the play-bills, and invited us to follow her to her dressing-room.

CATILINE,

A Tragedy, in Two Acts.

Catiline (in love with Aurelia) Francis.

Cato (father of Aurelia) Pakenham.

Cicero (in love with Aurelia) Harriet.

Caesar Moilliet.

Aurelia (daughter of Cato) Sophy.

Julia (wife to Cato) f.a.n.n.y.

We found Lucy on her sofa, with her feet towards the green-house; a half-circle of chairs for the audience, with their backs touching the wardrobe--candlestick-footlights, well shaded with square sofa-cus.h.i.+ons standing on end.

Prologue spoken by Harriet; curtain drew back, and Catiline and Aurelia appeared. f.a.n.n.y had dressed Francis, from Kennet's _Antiquities_, out of an old rag-chest, and a more complete little Roman figure I never saw, though made up no mortal can tell how, like one of your own doings, dear aunt, with a crown of ilex leaves. Aurelia was perfectly draped in my French crimson shawl; she looked extremely cla.s.sical and pretty, and her voice was so sweet, and her looks alternately so indignant to Catiline and so soft when she spoke of the man she loved, that I do not wonder Catiline was so desperately enamoured.

Pakenham was wonderful: he had received no instructions. They had determined to leave him to himself, and see what would come of it. He had brought down an old wig from the garret, and Catiline and Cato could not settle which it became best or worst; so Catiline wore his ilex crown, and Pakenham a scarlet cap and black velvet cloak, his eyebrows and chin darkened, a most solemn, stern countenance, a roll of white paper in his hand, the figure immovable, as if cut in stone: the soul of Cato seemed to have got into him. I never heard any actor speak better, nor did I ever see a part better sustained; it seemed as if one saw Cato through a diminis.h.i.+ng gla.s.s. In one scene he interrupts Cicero, who is going off into a fine simile--"Enough: the tale." He said these three words so well, with such severity of tone, and such a piercing look, that I see and hear him still. His voice was as firm as a man's, and his self-possession absolute. He had his part so perfectly, that he was as independent of the prompter as of all the rest of the world.

Moilliet recited and played his part of Caesar wondrous well. You may think how well Pakenham and all of them must have acted, when we could stand the ridicule of Pakenham's Cato opposite to Moilliet's Caesar. One of James Moilliet's eyes would have contained all the eyes of Cato, Catiline, and Cicero. f.a.n.n.y, as Julia, was beautiful.

BLACK CASTLE, _Dec. 6, 1822_.

How do you all do, my dear friends, after last night's hurricane?

[Footnote: Numbers of the finest trees were blown down. The staircase skylight was blown away, and the lead which surrounded it rolled up as neatly as if just out of the plumber's: roofs were torn off and cabins blown down.] Have any trees been blown away? Has the spire stood? Is Madgy Woods alive? How many roofs of houses in the town have been blown away, and how many hundred slates and panes of gla.s.s must be replaced?

The gla.s.s dome over the staircase at Ardbraccan has been blown away; two of the saloon windows blown in. The servants in this house sat up all night; I slept soundly. My aunt, roused at an unwonted hour from her bed this morning, stood at the foot of mine while I was yet dreaming; and she avers that when she told me that eight trees and the great green gates were blown down, that I sat up in my bed, and, opening one eye, answered, "Is it in the newspaper, ma'am?" When I came out to breakfast, the first object I beheld was the uprooted elms lying prostrate opposite the breakfast-room windows; and Mr. Fitzherbert says more than a hundred are blown down in the uplands.

Now I have done with the hurricane, I must tell you a dream of Bess's: she thought she went to call upon a lady, and found her reading a pious tract called "The Penitent Poodle!"

_To_ MRS. O'BEIRNE.

BLACK CASTLE, _Jan. 15, 1823_.

We are delighted with _Peveril_, though there is too much of the dwarfs and the elfie. Scott cannot deny himself one of these spirits in some shape or other; I hope that we shall find that this elfin page, who has the power of shrinking or expanding, as it seems, to suit the occasion, is made really necessary to the story. I think the dwarf more allowable and better drawn than the page, true to history, and consistent; but Finella is sometimes handsome enough to make duke and king ready to be in love with her, and sometimes an odious little fury, clenching her hands, and to be lifted up or down stairs out of the hero's way. The indistinctness about her is not that indistinctness which belongs to the sublime, but that which arises from unsteadiness in the painter's hand when he sketched the figure. He touched and retouched at different times, without having, as it seems, a determined idea himself of what he would make her; nor had he settled whether she should bring with her "airs from heaven," or blasts from that place which is never named to ears polite.

In May 1823 Miss Edgeworth took her half-sisters Harriet and Sophy to Scotland. It was a very happy time to her, chiefly because there she made an acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott, which soon ripened into an intimate and lasting friends.h.i.+p. He had already admired her stories, which he spoke of as "a sort of _essence_ of common sense."

MARIA _to_ MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

KINNEIL, _June 2, 1823_.

I wish you were here with us. We arrived between nine and ten last night. The sea-sh.o.r.e approaching Kinneil House is exactly the idea I had of the road to Glenthorn Castle; the hissing sound of the wheels and all, and at last the postillion stopped where one road sloped directly down into the Frith of Forth, and another turned abruptly up hill. He said, "This is a-going into the water; I ha' come the wrong way." And up the narrow road up the hill he went and turned the carriage, and down again, and back the road we had come some little distance, and splash across to a road on the opposite side, and then by the oddest back way that seemed to be leading us into the stables, till at last we saw the door of the real house, an old but white-washed castle-mansion. A short-faced old butler in black came out of a sort of sentry-box back door to receive us, and through odd pa.s.sages and staircases we reached the drawing-room, where we found fire and candles, and Mrs. Stewart and a young tall man; Mrs. Stewart, just as you saw her at Bowood, received Harriet and Sophy in her arms, spoke of their dear mother and of Honora, and seated us on the sofa, and told Sophy to open a letter from f.a.n.n.y, which she put into her hand, and "feel herself at home," which indeed we did. The tall young man was no hindrance to this feeling; an intimate friend, a Mr. Jackson, who has been staying with Mr. Stewart as his companion ever since his illness.

We pa.s.sed through numerous ante-chambers, nooks, and halls--broad white stone corner staircase, winding with low-arched roof. Our two rooms open into one another--mine large, with four black doors, one locked and two opening into closets, and back stairs, and if you mount to another story, all the rooms are waste garrets. Mrs. Stewart told us this morning that there were plenty of ghosts at our service belonging to Kinneil House. One in particular, Lady Lilyburn, who is often seen all in white, as a ghost should be, and with white wings, fluttering on the top of the castle, from whence she leaps into the sea--a prodigious leap of three or four hundred yards, nothing for a well-bred ghost. At other times she wears boots, and stumps up and down stairs in them, and across pa.s.sages, and through bedchambers, frightening ladies' maids and others.

We have not heard her _yet_.

When we looked out of our windows this morning we saw fine views, and in the shrubbery near the house some of the largest lilacs I ever saw in rich flower. From another window, half a mile length of avenue with gates through which we should by rights have approached the front of the house. But all this time I have not said one word of what I had intended to be the subject of this: Lanark and Mr. Owen's school. I am called down to Lady Anna Maria Elliot; [Footnote: Afterwards Countess Russell.]

my mother may remember her in former days--she is said to be like Die Vernon.

_To_ MRS. RUXTON.

EDINBURGH, 32 ABERCROMBY PLACE,

_June 8, 1823_.

You have had our history up to Kinneil House. Mr. and Miss Stewart accompanied us some miles on our road to show us the palace of Linlithgow--very interesting to see, but not to describe. The drive from Linlithgow to Edinburgh is nothing extraordinary, but the road approaching the city is grand, and the first view of the castle and "mine own romantic town" delighted my companions; the day was fine and they were sitting outside on the barouche seat--a seat which you, my dear aunt, would not have envied them with all their fine prospects. By this approach to Edinburgh there are no suburbs; you drive at once through magnificent broad streets and fine squares. All the houses are of stone, darker than the Ardbraccan stone, and of a kind that is little injured by weather or time. Margaret Alison [Footnote: Margaret, daughter of Dr. James Gregory, married to William Pulteney Alison, Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.] had taken lodgings for us in Abercromby Place--finely built, with hanging shrubbery garden, and the house as delightful as the situation. As soon as we had unpacked and arranged our things the evening of our arrival, we walked, about ten minutes' distance from us, to our dear old friends, the Alisons. We found them shawled and bonneted, just coming to see us.

Mr. Alison and Sir Walter Scott had settled that we should dine the first day after our arrival with Mr. Alison, which was just what we wished; but on our return home we found a note from Sir Walter:

"DEAR MISS EDGEWORTH,

"I have just received your kind note, just when I had persuaded myself it was most likely I should see you in person or hear of your arrival.

Mr. Alison writes to me you are engaged to dine with him to-morrow, which puts Roslin out of the question for that day, as it might keep you late. On Sunday I hope you will join our family-party at five, and on Monday I have asked one or two of the Northern Lights on purpose to meet you. I should be engrossing at any time, but we shall be more disposed to be so just now, because on the 12th I am under the necessity of going to a different kingdom (only the kingdom of _Fife_) for a day or two.

To-morrow, if it is quite agreeable, I will wait on you about twelve, and hope you will permit me to show you some of our improvements.

"I am always,

"Most respectfully yours,

"WALTER SCOTT.

"EDINBURGH, _Friday._

"_Postscript._--Our old family coach is _licensed_ to carry _six_; so take no care on that score. I enclose Mr. Alison's note; truly sorry I could not accept the invitation it contains.

"_Postscript._--My wife insists I shall add that the Laird of Staffa promised to look in on us this evening at eight or nine, for the purpose of letting us hear one of his clansmen sing some Highland boat-songs and the like, and that if you will come, as the Irish should to the Scotch, without any ceremony, you will hear what is perhaps more curious than mellifluous. The man returns to the isles to-morrow. There are no strangers with us; no party; none but all our own family and two old friends. Moreover, all our woman-kind have been calling at Gibbs's hotel, so if you are not really tired and late, you have not even pride, the ladies' last defence, to oppose to this request. But, above all, do not fatigue yourself and the young ladies. No dressing to be thought of."

Ten o'clock struck as I read the 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, 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, and Walter Scott in the most cordial and courteous manner stepped forward to welcome us: "Miss Edgeworth, this is so kind of you!"

My first impression was, that he was neither so large, nor so heavy in appearance as I had been led to expect by description, prints, bust, and picture. He is more lame than I expected, but not unwieldy; his countenance, even by the uncertain light in which I first saw it, pleased me much, benevolent, and full of genius without the slightest effort at expression; delightfully natural, as if he did not know he was Walter Scott or the Great Unknown of the North, as if he only thought of making others happy. [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth describes Sir Walter Scott in her _Helen_: "If you have seen Raeburn's admirable pictures, or Chantrey's speaking bust, you have as complete an idea of Sir Walter Scott as painting or sculpture can give. The first impression of his appearance and manner was surprising to me, I recollect, from its quiet, unpretending good-nature; but scarcely had that impression been made, before I was struck with something of the chivalrous courtesy of other times. In his conversation you would have found all that is most delightful in all his works--the combined talents and knowledge of the historian, novelist, antiquary, and poet. He recited poetry admirably, his whole face and figure kindling as he spoke; but whether talking, reading, or reciting, he never tired me, even with admiring. And it is curious that, in conversing with him, I frequently found myself forgetting that I was speaking with Sir Walter Scott; and, what is even more extraordinary, forgetting that Sir Walter Scott was speaking to me, till I was awakened to the conviction by his saying something which no one else could have said. Altogether, he was certainly the most perfectly agreeable and perfectly amiable great man I ever knew."] After naming to us "Lady Scott, Staffa, my daughter Lockhart, Sophia, another daughter Anne, my son, my son-in-law Lockhart," just in the broken circle as they then stood, and showing me that only his family and two friends, Mr. Clark and Mr. Sharpe, were present, he sat down for a minute beside me on a low sofa, and on my saying, "Do not let us interrupt what was going on," he immediately rose and begged Staffa to bid his boatman strike up again. "Will you then join in the circle with us?" he put the end of a silk handkerchief into my hand, and others into my sisters'; they held by these handkerchiefs all in their circle again, and the boatman began to roar out a Gaelic song, to which they all stamped in time and repeated the chorus which, as far as I could hear, sounded like "_At am Vaun! At am Vaun!_" frequently repeated with prodigious enthusiasm. In another I could make out no intelligible sound but "Bar! bar! bar!" But the boatman's dark eyes were ready to start out of his head with rapture as he sung and stamped, and shook the handkerchief on each side, and the circle imitated.

Lady Scott is so exactly what I had heard her described, that it seemed as if we had seen her before. She must have been very handsome--French dark large eyes; civil and good-natured. Supper at a round table, a family supper, with attention to us, just sufficient and no more. The impression left on my mind this night was, that Walter Scott is one of the best-bred men I ever saw, with all the exquisite politeness which he knows so well how to describe, which is of no particular school or country, but which is of all countries, the politeness which arises from good and quick sense and feeling, which seems to know by instinct the characters of others, to see what will please, and put all his guests at their ease. As I sat beside him at supper, I could not believe he was a stranger, and forgot he was a great man. Mr. Lockhart is very handsome, quite unlike his picture in _Peter's Letters_.

When we wakened in the morning, the whole scene of the preceding night seemed like a dream; 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. Seeming to enjoy it all as much as we could, he carried us to Parliament House--Advocates' Library, Castle, and Holyrood House. His conversation all the time better than anything we could see, full of _a-propos_ anecdote, historic, serious or comic, just as occasion called for it, and all with a _bon-homie_, and an ease that made us forget it was any trouble even to his lameness to mount flights of eternal stairs. Chantrey's statues of Lord Melville and President Blair are admirable. There is another by Roubillac, of Duncan Forbes, which is excellent. Scott is enthusiastic about the beauties of Edinburgh, and well he may be, the most magnificent as well as the most romantic of cities.