The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Volume 2

by Maria Edgeworth

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET.

Mr. Napier brought me here by half after twelve.

I had a delightful drive with him in his little pony phaeton from Croydon to Forest Hill. Mr. and Mrs. Napier are more and more delightful to me in conversation and manners the more I see of them. A brother, Captain Napier, very conversable, and full of humour; he has a charming daughter, and has been in all parts of the world, and loves Ireland and the Irish.

To MRS. R. BUTLER.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, April 1841.

I must tell you now of my visit to Warfield Lodge. Henrietta and Wren met me at the station, and all the way, when they spoke, it seemed as if I had parted from them but yesterday. When I saw Miss O'Beirne, there was, opposite to me, that fine, full-coloured, full of life, speaking picture of Mrs. O'Beirne. The place is as pretty as ever, and it was impossible for the most hospitable luxury to do more for me, and with the most minute recollective attention to all my olden-times habits and ways. I would not for anything that could be given or done for me, not have paid this visit.

One evening Miss O'Beirne invited some friends I was particularly glad to see—three daughters of my dear Sir John Malcolm, all very fine young women, with fine souls, and vast energy and benevolence, worthy of him.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Sept. 27.

I send you some Spanish books which I bought, with one eye upon you and one upon Rosa. I sat up till past one o'clock a few nights ago, and caught cold, looking through the whole of Hudibras, for what at last could not be found in it, though I still am confident it is there—

Murder is lawful made by the excess.

In the middle of my hunt my mind misgave me that it was in the Fable of the Bees, and I went through it line by line, and for my pains can swear it is not there. It is wonderful that, at seventy-four, I can be so ardent in the chase, certainly not for the worth of the game, nor yet for the triumph of finding; for I care not whether I am the person to find it or not, so it is found. Pray find it for me.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 10, 1842.

We have been much entertained and interested in Macaulay's "Life of Hastings," in the Edinburgh; but some of it is too gaudily written, and mean gaudiness, unsuited to the subject—such as the dresses of the people at Westminster Hall; and I think Macaulay's indignation against Gleig for his adulation of Hastings, and his not feeling indignation against his crimes, is sometimes noble, and sometimes mean and vituperative.

To MRS. BEAUFORT.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 12.

Mr. Creed, my dear good Mr. Creed, has been most kind in taking into his employment one of the young Gerrards who behaved so gallantly in recovering their father's arms from robbers. The poor people are seldom rewarded when they do right, yet surely, in the government of human creatures, Hope and Reward are strong and elevating powers, while Fear and Punishment can at best only restrain from crime. Hope can produce the finest and most permanent springs of action.

We have not been able to go on with our reading for some days. The more I live I see more and more the misery of uncultivated minds, and the happiness of the cultivated, when they can keep themselves free from literary and scientific jealousies and party spirit.

To MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, March 1842.

I am surprised to find how much more history interests me now than when I was young, and how much more I am now interested in the same events recorded, and their causes and consequences shown, in this History of the French Revolution, and in all the History of Europe during the last quarter of a century, than I was when the news came fresh and fresh in the newspapers. I do not think I had sense enough to take in the relations and proportions of the events. It was like moving a magnifying glass over the parts of a beetle, and not taking in the whole.

To MISS MARGARET RUXTON, then residing at HYÈRES.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, April 16, 1842.

It seems such an immense time since I have heard from you, so now I sit down to earn a letter.

And first I have to tell you that, on the 14th, between the hours of eleven and twelve, a new cousin of yours was brought into this world, a monstrous large boy: Rosa doing well: house very full, [Footnote: All the family had assembled to meet Pakenham Edgeworth on his return, on leave, from India.] but all as quiet as mice. We breakfast in the study, to keep all noise from Rosa in the plume room.

It is time to tell you that Pakenham is here, and Fanny, and Honora, and Harriet, and Mary Anne, and Charlotte; and we are as happy as ever we can be. Pakenham's tastes are all domestic, yet he has the most perfect knowledge of business, great penetration of eye, and cool, self-possessed manners, like one used to judgment and command, yet not proud of doing either. He has brought with him such proofs of his industry as are quite astonishing; such collections of drawings, both botanical and sketches of country. How he found time to do all this, and spend six hours per day at Cucherry—all as one as sessions—and to write his journal of every day for eleven years, I really cannot comprehend; but so it is.

To MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, June 17, 1842.

It is now five o'clock, and Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall have not come. It is Lestock's last day, and he and Fanny and Lucy are so busy and so happy putting the transit instrument to rights, and setting black spotted and yellow backed spinning spiders at work to spin for the meridian lines. I have just succeeded in catching the right sort by descending to the infernal regions, and setting kitchenmaid and housemaid at work. I was glad Mr. and Mrs. Hall did not arrive just at the crisis of the operation—all completed now.

Ask Mr. Butler if there is any subscription necessary or expected from me, now that I have been so honourably made an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy? I would not for the world omit anything that ought to be done now that I am M.R.I.A.

July 8.

I am going literally to beg my bread and lodging at your door on my way to Dublin, and I do so sans phrase. I remember that, when I used to write to offer myself to Aunt Ruxton, I regularly added, "You know, my dear aunt, I can sleep in a drawer;" and she used to answer, "I know you can, my dear, and you are welcome; but write a day beforehand, that I may have the drawer ready."

To MRS. FRANCIS BEAUFORT.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Oct. 27, 1842.

Most kind and most judiciously kind Honora, you have written the very thing I had been thinking as I lay awake last night, I would write to you, but scrupled. I certainly will take your advice, and spend my Christmas at home with Pakenham, although I cannot, nor do I wish to, fill up his feeling of the blanks in this house. There is something mournful, yet pleasingly painful, in the sense of the ideal presence of the long-loved dead. Those images people and fill the mind with unselfish thoughts, and with the salutary feeling of responsibility and constant desire to be and to act in this world as the superior friend would have wished and approved.

There is such difficulty this season for the poor tenants to make up their rents; cattle, oats, butter, potatoes, all things have so sunk in price. In these circumstances it is not only humane, but absolutely necessary, that landlords should give more time than usual. Some cannot pay till after certain fairs in the beginning of November—that I must have stayed for, at all events. Indeed, they have shown so much consideration for me, and striven so to make up the money that they might not detain me, that I should be a brute and a tyrant if I did not do all I could on my part to accommodate them.

To MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 1842.

Mrs. Hall has sent to me her last number, in which she gives Edgeworthstown. All the world here are pleased with it, and so am I. I like the way in which she has mentioned my father particularly. There is an evident kindness of heart, and care to avoid everything that could hurt any of our feelings, and at the same time a warmth of affectionate feeling unaffectedly expressed, that we all like it, in spite of our dislike to "that sort of thing."

* * * * *

Mrs. S.C. Hall's is perhaps the best picture extant of the family life at Edgeworthstown. She says:

* * * * *

Our principal object, in Longford County, was to visit Edgeworthstown, and to spend some time in the society of Miss Edgeworth. We entered the neat, nice, and pretty town at evening; all around us bore—as we had anticipated—the aspect of comfort, cheerfulness, good order, prosperity, and their concomitant, contentment. There was no mistaking the fact that we were in the neighbourhood of a resident Irish family, with minds to devise, and hands to effect improvement everywhere within reach of their control.

Edgeworthstown may almost be regarded as public property. From this mansion has emanated so much practical good to Ireland, and not alone to Ireland, but the civilised world…. The demesne is judiciously and abundantly planted, and the dwelling-house of Edgeworthstown is large and commodious. We drove up the avenue at evening. It was cheerful to see the lights sparkle through the windows, and to feel the cold nose of the house-dog thrust into our hands as an earnest of welcome; it was pleasant to receive the warm greeting of Mrs. Edgeworth, and it was a high privilege to meet Miss Edgeworth in the library, the very room in which had been written the works that redeemed a character for Ireland, and have so largely promoted the truest welfare of human-kind. We had not seen her for some years—except for a few brief moments—and rejoiced to find her in nothing changed; her voice as light and happy, her laughter as full of gentle mirth, her eyes as bright and truthful, and her countenance as expressive of goodness and loving-kindness, as they have ever been.

Edgeworthstown was, and is, a large country mansion, to which additions have been from time to time made, but made judiciously. An avenue of venerable trees leads to it from the public road. It is distant about seven miles from the town of Longford. The only room I need specially refer to is the library; it belonged more peculiarly to Maria, although the general sitting-room of the family. It was the room in which she did nearly all her work; not only that which was to gratify and instruct the world, but that which, in a measure, regulated the household—the domestic duties that were subjects of her continual thought: for the desk at which she usually sat was never without memoranda of matters from which she might have pleaded a right to be held exempt. It is by no means a stately, solitary room, but large, spacious, and lofty, well stored with books, and furnished with suggestive engravings. Seen through the window is the lawn, embellished by groups of trees. If you look at the oblong table in the centre, you will see the rallying-point of the family, who are usually around it, reading, writing, or working; while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious that the inmates of the house shall each do exactly as he or she pleases, sits in her own peculiar corner on the sofa; a pen, given her by Sir Walter Scott while a guest at Edgeworthstown (in 1825), is placed before her on a little, quaint, unassuming table, constructed, and added to, for convenience. She had a singular power of abstraction, apparently hearing all that was said, and occasionally taking part in the conversation, while pursuing her own occupation, and seemingly attending only to it. In that corner, and on that table, she had written nearly all her works. Now and then she would rise and leave the room, perhaps to procure a toy for one of the children, to mount the ladder and bring down a book that could explain or illustrate some topic on which some one was conversing; immediately she would resume her pen, and continue to write as if the thought had been unbroken for an instant. I expressed to Mrs. Edgeworth surprise at this faculty, so opposed to my own habit. "Maria," she said, "was always the same; her mind was so rightly balanced, everything so honestly weighed, that she suffered no inconvenience from what would disturb and distract an ordinary writer."

She was an early riser, and had much work done before breakfast. Every morning during our stay at Edgeworthstown she had gathered a bouquet of roses, which she placed beside my plate on the table, while she was always careful to refresh the vase that stood in our chamber; and she invariably examined my feet after a walk, to see that damp had not induced danger; popping in and out of our room with some kind inquiry, some thoughtful suggestion, or to show some object that she knew would give pleasure. Maria Edgeworth never seemed weary of thought that could make those about her happy.

A wet day was a "god-send" to us. She would enter our sitting-room and converse freely of persons whose names are histories; and once she brought us a large box full of letters—her correspondence with many great men and women, extending over more than fifty years, authors, artists, men of science, social reformers, statesmen, of all the countries of Europe, and especially of America, a country of which she spoke and wrote in terms of the highest respect and affection.

Although we had known Miss Edgeworth in London, it will be readily understood how much more to advantage she was seen in her own house; she was the very gentlest of lions, the most unexacting, apparently the least conscious of her right to prominence. In London she did not reject, yet she seemed averse to the homage accorded her. At home she was emphatically at home!

In person she was very small—she was "lost in a crowd!" Her face was pale and thin, her features irregular; they may have been considered plain, even in youth, but her expression was so benevolent, her manners were so perfectly well-bred, partaking of English dignity and Irish frankness, that one never thought of her with reference either to beauty or plainness. She ever occupied, without claiming attention, charming continually by her singularly pleasant voice, while the earnestness and truth that beamed from her bright blue—very blue—eyes increased the value of every word she uttered. She knew how to listen as well as to talk, and gathered information in a manner highly complimentary to those from whom she sought it; her attention seemed far more the effect of respect than of curiosity. Her sentences were frequently epigrammatic; she more than once suggested to me the story of the good fairy from whose lips dropped diamonds and pearls whenever they were opened. She was ever neat and particular in her dress, her feet and hands were so delicate and small as to be almost childlike. In a word, Maria Edgeworth was one of those women who do not seem to require beauty.

Miss Edgeworth has been called "cold"; but those who have so deemed her have never seen, as I have, the tears gather in her eyes at a tale of suffering or sorrow, nor heard the genuine, hearty laugh that followed the relation of a pleasant story. Never, so long as I live, can I forget the evenings spent in her library in the midst of a family highly educated and self-thinking, in conversation unrestrained, yet pregnant with instructive thought.

* * * * *

In January 1843 Miss Edgeworth was dangerously ill with a fever.
Afterwards she wrote to a friend:

* * * * *

And, now that it is over, I thank God not only for my recovery, but for my illness. In very truth, and without the least exaggeration or affectation or sentiment, I declare that, on the whole, my illness was a source of more pleasure than pain to me, and that I would willingly go through all the fever and weakness to have the delight of the feelings of warm affection, and the consequent unspeakable sensations of gratitude. When I felt that it was more than probable that I should not recover, with a pulse above a hundred and twenty, and at the entrance of my seventy-sixth year, I was not alarmed. I felt ready to rise tranquil from the banquet of life, where I had been a happy guest; I confidently relied on the goodness of my Creator.

MARIA to MISS MARGARET RUXTON at HYÈRES.

TRIM, March 20, 1843.

Thank you, thank you, my dear Margaret, for all your anxiety about me. [Footnote: In her severe illness during January.] I am strengthening. We have no news or events; we live very happily here. On Friday last, being St. Patrick's Day, there were great doings here, and not drunken doings, not drowning the shamrock in whisky, but honouring the shamrock with temperance rejoicings and music, that maketh the heart glad without making the head giddy or raising the hand against law or fellow-creatures. Leave was asked by the Temperance Band and company to come into Mr. Butler's lawn to play a tune or two, as they were pleased to express it, for Miss Edgeworth. The gates were thrown open, and in came the band, a brass band, with glittering horns, etc., preceded by Priest Halligan, whom you may recollect, in a blue and white scarf floating graceful, and a standard flag in his hand. A numerous crowd of men, women, and children came flocking after, kept in order by some Temperance Society staff officers with blue ensigns.

I, an invalid, was not permitted to go out to welcome them, but I stood at my own window, which I threw open, and thanked them as loud as I could, and curtseyed as low as my littleness and my weakness would allow, and was bowed to as low as saddle-bow by priests on horseback and musicians and audience on foot: Harriet on the steps welcoming and sympathising with these poor people; and delightful it was to see Mr. Butler bareheaded shaking hands with the priest, who almost threw himself from his horse to give him his hand.

Mr. Tuite, that dear good old gentleman, died a few days ago at Sonna, in his ninety-seventh year; his good son, in his note to my mother announcing the event, says, "It is a comfort to think that to the very last he had all the comfort, spiritual and earthly, that he could need or desire."

Miss Bremer, of Stockholm, has published a novel, translated by Mary Howitt, which is one of the most interesting, new, and truly original books I have seen this quarter-century. Its title does not do it justice. Our Neighbours: which might lead you to expect a gossiping book, or at best something like Annals of my Parish—tout au contraire; it is sketches of family life, a romantic family, admirably drawn—some characters perhaps a little overstrained, but in the convulsions of the overstraining giving evidence of great strength—beg, buy, or borrow it, if you can, and if not, envy us who have it.

Envy us, also, La Vie du Grand Condé, written in French, by Lord Mahon, not published, only a hundred copies struck off, and he has honoured me with a present of a copy. Of the style and correctness of the French I am not so presumptuous as to pretend to be a competent judge, but I can say that in reading it I quite forgot it was by an Englishman, and never stopped to consider this or that expression, and I wish, dear Margaret, that you had the satisfaction of reading this most interesting, entertaining book.

Dickens's America is a failure; never trouble yourself to read it; nevertheless, though the book is good for little, it gives me the conviction that the man is good for much more than I gave him credit for; a real desire for the improvement of the lower classes, and this reality of feeling is, I take it, the secret, joined to his great power of humour, of his ascendant popularity.

To MISS BANNATYNE.

TRIM, April 1843.

I am eager, with my own hand, to assure you that I am quite recovered. I have been so nursed and tended by all my friends that I really can think of nothing but myself; nevertheless, I am sometimes able to think of other things and persons. During my convalescence Harriet has read to me many entertaining and interesting books: none to me so interesting, so charming, as the Life and Letters of your countryman, that honour to your country and to all Britain, and to human nature—Francis Horner: a more noble, disinterested character could not be; in the midst of temptations with such firm integrity, in the midst of party spirit as much superior to its influence as mortal man could be! and if sympathy with his friends, and the sense that public men must pull together to effect any purpose may, as Lord Webb Seymour asserts, have swayed Horner, or biased him a little from his original theoretic course, still it never was from any selfish or in the slightest degree corrupt or unworthy motive. I much admire Lord Webb Seymour's letter to Horner, and not less Horner's candid, honest, and temperate answer. What friends he made for himself of the best and most able of the land, not only admired but trusted and consulted by them all, and not only trusted and consulted, but beloved. This book really makes one think better of human nature. Of all his friends I think more highly than I ever thought or knew before I read his letters to them and theirs to him. There never was such a unanimous tribute to integrity in a statesman as was paid to Horner by the British Senate at his death: I remember it at the time, and I am glad to see it recorded in this book. It will waken or keep alive the spirit of public and private virtue in many a youthful mind. I see with pleasure your father's name in the book, and the names and characters of many of our dear Scotch friends. My head and heart are so full of it that I really know not how to stop in speaking of it.

I am just going to write to Lady Lansdowne how much I was delighted by seeing her and Lord Henry Petty, but especially herself, mentioned exactly in the manner in which I thought of her and of him, when we first became acquainted with them, which was just at the very time of which Mr. Horner speaks. Lady Lansdowne gave me a drawing of Little Bounds, which is now hanging up in our library unfaded. It is a gratification to me to feel that I appreciated both her talents and her character as Horner did, before all the world found out that she was a SUPERIOR person.

My brother Pakenham was delighted with his tour in Scotland, and with his renewal of personal intercourse with his dear Scotch friends: all steady as Scotch friends ever are and kind and warm—the warmth once raised in them never cooling—anthracite coal—layer after layer, hot to the very inside kernel. Pakenham is now in London with my sisters Fanny and Honora—Fanny has wonderfully recovered her health. She has several Scotch friends in London, of whom she is very fond, from Joanna Baillie to her young friends, Mrs. Andrews and her sisters. Mr. Andrews is a very agreeable, sensible, conversable man; I saw something of him when I was last in London, and hope to see more when I return there. If I continue as well as I am now I intend, please God, to make my promised visit to London some time this autumn, when the hurly-burly of the fashionable season is over.

* * * * *

While at Trim, Maria received the announcement of her youngest sister Lucy's engagement to Dr. Robinson, which gave her exquisite pleasure: "never," as she wrote at the time, "never was a marriage hailed with more family acclaim of universal joy." The marriage took place on June 8.

* * * * *

MARIA to MRS. R. BUTLER.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, August 1, 1843.

I have just wakened and risen from the sofa rejoicing, like a dwarf, "to run my course." I was put to sleep, not by magnetism, but by the agreeable buzz of dear Pakenham's voice reading out a man's peregrinations from Egypt to Australia—"the way was long, the road was dark," and the reader declares I was asleep before we got to Egypt.

Mr. Maltby is wondrous tall, and Pakenham has had the diversion long-looked-for of seeing "Maltby hand Maria in to dinner." Mr. Maltby is a very gentlemanlike man, every inch of him, many as they are, and very conversable—really conversable, he both hears and talks, and follows and leads.

To MRS. BEAUFORT.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Sept. 14, 1843. "_Choisissez, mon enfant, mais prenez du veau." Choose, my dear Honora, whichever pattern you please, but take this which I enclose. We have had a very pleasant visit to Newcastle, where we met Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Gray, and I liked both very much. I thought her perfectly unpretending and unaffected; slight figure, a delicate woman, pretty dark hair and dark eyes, and pleasing expression of countenance. I never should have suspected her of being so learned or so laborious and persevering as she is.

* * * * *

In November 1843 Miss Edgeworth went to London, and spent the winter with her sister Harriet, Mrs. Wilson.

* * * * *

MARIA to MRS. R. BUTLER.

NORTH AUDLEY STREET, Dec. 3, 1843.

We dined at Dr. Lushington's last Thursday—the dinner was very merry and good-humoured. Mr. Richardson was there, and delighted I was to see him, and he talked so affectionately of Sir Walter and auld lang syne times; and Mr. Bentham, the botanist, too, was there, Pakenham's friend, a very agreeable man. After dinner too was to me very entertaining, for I found that a lady, introduced to me as Mrs. Hawse, was daughter to Brunel, and she told me all the truth of her brother and the half-guinea in his throat, and the incision in his windpipe, and his coughing it up at last, and Brodie seeing and snatching it from between his teeth, and driving over all London to show it.

And now we are going to tea at Dr. Holland's.

Monday morning.

That we had a very pleasant evening I need scarcely say, but to Boswell Sydney Smith would out-Boswell Boswell. He talked of course of Ireland and the Priests, and I gave good, and I trust true testimony to their being, before they took to politics—excellent parish priests, and he talked of Bishop Higgins and Repeal agitations, and I told him of "Don't be anticipating," and laughing at brogue (how easy!) led him to tell me of a conversation of his with Bishop Doyle in former days—beginning with "My lord," propitiously and propitiatingly, "My lord, don't you think it would be a good plan to have your clergy paid by the State?"

Bishop Doyle assured him it would never be accepted. "But, suppose every one of your clergy found, £150 lodged in the bank for them, and at 5 per cent for arrears?"

"Ah! Mr. Smith, you have a way of putting things!"

* * * * *

Sydney Smith, on his side, was enchanted with Maria Edgeworth—"Miss Edgeworth was delightful, so clever and sensible. She does not say witty things, but there is such a perfume of wit runs through all her conversation as makes it very brilliant."

* * * * *

MISS EDGEWORTH to MRS. R. BUTLER.

Christmas Day.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

With the addition which Lestock has just been telling to Waller—

With your pockets full of money and your cellars full of beer.

Yesterday, Sunday, your kind friends, the Andrews', took Waller with us to the Temple church—it has been, you know, all new painted and dressed since I saw it last, and the knights in dark bronze-coloured marble repaired. The tiled floor is too new, not like Mr. Butler's most respectable reverend old tiles. Mr. Andrews took us all over the church after service, and in particular pointed out one old window of painted glass, in which the bright red colour is so bright in such full freshness as is inimitable in modern art.

We went from church to luncheon at Mrs. Andrews', and such a luncheon; I refrain from a whole page which might be spent on it. Then Mrs. Andrews took Waller and me a drive three times round the park, a most pleasant drive in such a bright sunshiny day. So many happy little children under the trees and on the pathways.

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, Jan. 1844.

Thank you, and pray do you thank for me all the dear kind brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, all round you, their centre and spring of good, for all the pleasure they, on my seventy-seventh birthday, from Barry's to dear little Mary's, all gave me—pleasure such as cannot be bought for money. Who would not like to live to be old if they could be so happy in friends as I am? I cannot help enclosing to you Lucy's and Dr. Robinson's greeting, as you will feel with me the pleasure both gave me.

Dumb Francis was here on that happy first of January and assured me on his slate that he was very happy and grateful. I never see him without my Francis's sonnet repeating itself, "The soul of honour," etc.

To MRS. R. BUTLER.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, Jan. 5, 1844.

I have been reading and am reading Bentham's Memoirs; he could write plain English before he invented his strange lingo, and the account of his childhood and youth is exceedingly entertaining. Fanny reads to us at night, much to Waller's interest and entertainment, Lieutenant Eyre's account of that horrid Cabul expedition—what a disgrace to the British arms and name in India. Mr. Pakenham and his nice wife came in while I was writing this, and when I asked him if the prestige of British superiority would be destroyed in India, he said, "No: we have redeemed ourselves so nobly."

Waller is occupied every spare moment perfecting a Leyden phial, coated and chained properly, and giving quite large and grand sparks and pretty sharp shocks.

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.

1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET, Jan. 1844.

The day before yesterday Fanny and I walked to see Mrs. Napier, all in black for Lady Clare—the suddenness of whose death, scarcely a moment's interval between the bright flash of life and the dark silence of death, was most striking and awful.

Yesterday we went to see dear Lady Elizabeth Whitbread, all as it used to be, beautiful camellias, but she herself so sad—Miss Grant is dying. Nothing can surpass her true tenderness to this faithful, gentle, sincere old friend. All these illnesses and deaths are the more striking I think in a bustling capital city, than they would be in the country surrounded by one's family. There is something shocking in seeing the bustling, struggling crowd who care nothing for one another dead or alive: and they may say, so much the better, we are spared unavailing thought and anguish, and yet I would rather have the thought and even the anguish—for without pain there is no pleasure for the heart no prayer for Indifference for me! Every memento mori comes with some force to me at seventy-seven, and I do pray most earnestly and devoutly to God, as my father did before me, that my body may not survive my mind, and that I may leave a tender not unpleasing recollection in their hearts.

Though I have written this, my dear mother, and feel it truly, I am not the least melancholy, or apprehensive or afraid of dying, and as to the rest I am truly resigned, and trust to the goodness of my Creator living or dying.

Jan. 13.

Thursday evening at Rogers's—the party was made for us and as small as possible, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Davy, Mr. and Mrs. Empson, and Mr. Compton and Lord Northampton. Mr. Empson is very little altered in twelve years: the same affectionate heart and the same excellent head. Lord Northampton is very conversable; and Mr. Compton brought me sugared words from troops of children.