Mrs. Leicester's School.—A Removal.—Poetry for Children.
1807-9.—Æt. 43-45.
The Tales from Shakespeare were no sooner finished than Mary began, as her letters show, to cast about for some new scheme which should realise an equally felicitous and profitable result. This time she drew upon her own invention: and in about a year a little volume of tales for children was written, called Mrs. Leicester's School, to which Charles also contributed. The stories, ten in number, seven by Mary and three by her brother, are strung on a connecting thread by means of an introductory Dedication to the Young Ladies at Amwell School, who are supposed to beguile the dreariness of the first evening at a new school by each telling the story of her own life, at the suggestion of a friendly governess who constitutes herself their "historiographer."
There is little or no invention in these tales; but a "tenderness of feeling and a delicacy of taste"—the praise is Coleridge's—which lift them quite above the ordinary level of children's stories. And in no way are these qualities shown more than in the treatment of the lights and shades—the failings and the virtues—of the little folk, which appear in due and natural proportion; but the faults are treated in a kindly, indulgent spirit, not spitefully enhanced as foils to shining virtue, after the manner of some even of the best writers for children. There are no unlovely impersonations of naughtiness pure and simple, nor any equally unloveable patterns of priggish perfection. But the sweetest touches are in the portrayal of the attitude of a very young mind towards death, affecting from its very incapacity for grief, or indeed for any kind of realisation, as in this story of Elizabeth Villiers for instance:—
"The first thing I can remember was my father teaching me the alphabet from the letters on a tombstone that stood at the head of my mother's grave. I used to tap at my father's study door: I think I now hear him say, 'Who is there? What do you want, little girl?' 'Go and see mamma. Go and learn pretty letters.' Many times in the day would my father lay aside his books and his papers to lead me to this spot, and make me point to the letters, and then set me to spell syllables and words: in this manner, the epitaph on my mother's tomb being my primer and my spelling-book, I learned to read.
"I was one day sitting on a step placed across the churchyard stile, when a gentleman passing by heard me distinctly repeat the letters which formed my mother's name and then say Elizabeth Villiers with a firm tone as if I had performed some great matter. This gentleman was my Uncle James, my mother's brother: he was a lieutenant in the navy, and had left England a few weeks after the marriage of my father and mother, and now returned home from a long sea-voyage, he was coming to visit my mother—no tidings of her decease having reached him, though she had been dead more than a twelvemonth.
"When my uncle saw me sitting on the stile, and heard me pronounce my mother's name, he looked earnestly in my face and began to fancy a resemblance to his sister, and to think I might be her child. I was too intent on my employment to notice him, and went spelling on. 'Who has taught you to spell so prettily, my little maid?' said my uncle. 'Mamma,' I replied; for I had an idea that the words on the tombstone were somehow a part of mamma, and that she had taught me. 'And who is mamma?' asked my uncle. 'Elizabeth Villiers,' I replied; and then my uncle called me his dear little niece and said he would go with me to mamma: he took hold of my hand intending to lead me home, delighted that he had found out who I was, because he imagined it would be such a pleasant surprise to his sister to see her little daughter bringing home her long-lost sailor uncle.
"I agreed to take him to mamma, but we had a dispute about the way thither. My uncle was for going along the road which led directly up to our house: I pointed to the churchyard and said that was the way to mamma. Though impatient of any delay he was not willing to contest the point with his new relation; therefore he lifted me over the stile, and was then going to take me along the path to a gate he knew was at the end of our garden; but no, I would not go that way neither: letting go his hand I said, 'You do not know the way—I will show you'; and making what haste I could among the long grass and thistles, and jumping over the low graves, he said, as he followed what he called my wayward steps—
"'What a positive little soul this niece of mine is! I knew the way to your mother's house before you were born, child.' At last I stopped at my mother's grave, and pointing to the tombstone said 'Here is mamma!' in a voice of exultation as if I had now convinced him I knew the way best. I looked up in his face to see him acknowledge his mistake; but oh! what a face of sorrow did I see! I was so frightened that I have but an imperfect recollection of what followed. I remember I pulled his coat, and cried 'Sir! sir!' and tried to move him. I knew not what to do. My mind was in a strange confusion; I thought I had done something wrong in bringing the gentleman to mamma to make him cry so sadly, but what it was I could not tell. This grave had always been a scene of delight to me. In the house my father would often be weary of my prattle and send me from him; but here he was all my own. I might say anything and be as frolicsome as I pleased here; all was cheerfulness and good humour in our visits to mamma, as we called it. My father would tell me how quietly mamma slept there, and that he and his little Betsy would one day sleep beside mamma in that grave; and when I went to bed, as I laid my little head on the pillow I used to wish I was sleeping in the grave with my papa and mamma, and in my childish dreams I used to fancy myself there; and it was a place within the ground, all smooth and soft and green. I never made out any figure of mamma, but still it was the tombstone and papa and the smooth green grass, and my head resting on the elbow of my father."….