VIII
The Stories in The Parent’s Assistant (1845) are:—
Vol. I. Lazy Laurence; Tarlton; The False Key; The Birth-day Present; Simple Susan.
Vol. II. The Bracelets; The Little Merchants; Old Poz; The Mimic; Mademoiselle Panache.
Vol. III. The Basket Woman; The White Pigeon; The Orphans; Waste Not, Want Not; Forgive and Forget; The Barring Out; or, Party Spirit; Eton Montem.
A modern edition, with an introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie, was published by Macmillan in 1903; and a selection, Tales from Maria Edgeworth, with an introduction by Mr. Austin Dobson (Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co.), appeared in the same year.
Little Plays (1827) contains “The Grinding Organ” (written May, 1808); “Dumb Andy” (written in 1814) and “The Dame School Holiday”.
“Old Poz” and “Eton Montem” in The Parent’s Assistant, are also in dialogue form.
From the letter to Mrs. Ruxton (March 19, 1803), describing a visit to Madame de Genlis in Paris:
(a) “... She looked like the full-length picture of my great-great-grandmother Edgeworth you may have seen in the garret, very thin and melancholy, but her face not so handsome as my great-grandmother’s; 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 an appearance of fallen fortunes, worn-out health, and excessive, but guarded irritability.”
(b) From the same letter:
“... Forgive me, my dear Aunt Mary, you begged me to see her with favourable eyes, and I went to see her after seeing her ‘Rosière de Salency’” (a play in the Théâtre d’Education) “with the most favourable disposition, but I could not like her.”
At this time it would seem that the old countess was soured by neglect and disappointment.
The school stories in the P. A. are: “The Bracelets” (an early story of a girls’ school); “The Barring Out” and “Eton Montem”, both theoretic studies of schoolboys.
The four volumes of E. L. contain the following stories:
Vol. I. The Little Dog Trusty; The Cherry Orchard; Frank.
Vol. II. Rosamond; Harry and Lucy.
Vol. III. The Continuation of Frank and part of the Continuation of Rosamond.
Vol. IV. The Continuation of Rosamond and of Harry and Lucy.
These were followed by Rosamond: a Sequel to Rosamond in “Early Lessons”. 2 vols., 1821; and Frank: a Sequel to Frank in “Early Lessons”. 3 vols, 1822.
Dr. Darwin attempted to deal poetically with matter of Science; but his couplets show all the worst features of eighteenth century verse. The passage quoted in Frank (E. L., Vol. I.) runs thus:—
“Stay thy soft murmuring waters, gentle rill;
Hush, whispering winds; ye rustling leaves, be still;
Rest, silver butterflies, your quivering wings;
Alight, ye beetles, from your airy rings;
Ye painted moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl,
Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl;
Glitter, ye glow-worms, on your mossy beds;
Descend, ye spiders, on your lengthen’d threads;
Slide here, ye horned snails with varnish’d shells;
Ye bee nymphs, listen in your waxen cells.”
The lines, repeated to test Harry’s power of attention, are these:—
“So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. ‘What! No soap?’ So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.”
“The Great Panjandrum Himself” was later “pictured” as a schoolmaster in cap and gown, by Randolph Caldecott.
Children’s books recommended by Mr. Edgeworth in his “Address to Mothers” (E. L. Vol. III):—
“Fabulous Histories”; “Evenings at Home”; Berquin’s “Children’s Friend”; “Sandford and Merton”; “Little Jack”; “The Children’s Miscellany”; “Bob the Terrier”; “Dick the Pony”; “The Book of Trades”; “The Looking-glass, or History of a Young Artist”; “Robinson Crusoe”; “The Travels of Rolando”; “Mrs. Wakefield on Instinct”; parts of White’s Natural History of Selborne; and parts of Smellie’s Philosophy of Natural History.
The Dog of Knowledge; or Memoirs of Bob the Spotted Terrier (1801) and Dick the Pony were by the same author.
The Book of Trades is a modern equivalent of Dives Pragmaticus (see above—Introd:)
The Looking-glass, etc., by “Theo Marcliffe”, is the story of the early life of Mulready the painter, written by Godwin under this pseudonym.