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 am going on in the old way, writing stories,' says Maria Edgeworth, writing in 1798. 'I cannot be a captain of dragoons, and sitting with my hands before me would not make any one of us one degree safer…. Simple Susan went to Foxhall a few days ago for Lady Anne to carry her to England.'… 'My father has made our little rooms so nice for us,' she continues; 'they are all fresh painted and papered. Oh! rebels, oh! French spare them. We have never injured you, and all we wish is to see everybody as happy as ourselves.'
On August 29 we find from Miss Edgeworth's letter to her cousin that the French have got to Castlebar. 'The Lord-Lieutenant is now at Athlone, and it is supposed it will be their next object of attack. My father's corps of yeomanry are extremely attached to him and seem fully in earnest; but, alas! by some strange negligence, their arms have not yet arrived from Dublin…. We, who are so near the scene of action, cannot by any means discover what number of the French actually landed; some say 800, some 1,800, some 18,000.'
The family had a narrow escape that day, for two officers, who were in charge of some ammunition, offered to take them under their protection as far as Longford. Mr. Edgeworth most fortunately detained them. 'Half an 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 thunder which 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 burnt half-way on the road to Longford. The man who drove the cart was blown to 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 from the spot…. If we had gone with this ammunition cart, we must have been killed. An hour or two afterwards we were obliged to fly from Edgeworthtown. The pikemen, 300 in number, were within a mile of the town; my mother and Charlotte and I rode; passed the trunk of the dead man, bloody limbs of horses, and two dead horses, by the help of men who 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,' says Mrs. Edgeworth, 'Mr. Edgeworth suddenly recollected that he had left on the table in his study a list of the yeomanry corps which he feared might endanger the poor fellows and their families if it fell into the hands of the rebels. He galloped back for it. It was at the hazard of his life; but the rebels had not yet appeared. He burned the paper, and rejoined us safely.' The Memoirs give a most interesting and spirited account 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 all was safe for their return, and the account of their coming home, as it is 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 the times 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 that he was offered 3,000 guineas for his seat for the few remaining weeks of the session, which, needless to say, he refused, not thinking it well, as he says, 'to quarrel with myself.' He also adds that Maria continues writing for children under the persuasion that she cannot be more serviceably employed; and he sends (with his usual perspicuity) affectionate messages to the Doctor's 'good amiable lady and his giant brood.' But this long friendly correspondence was coming to an end. The Doctor's letters, so quietly humorous and to the point, Mr. Edgeworth's answers with all their characteristic and lively variety, were nearly at an end.
It was in 1800 that Maria had achieved her great success, and published 'Castle Rackrent,' a book—not for children this time—which made everybody talk who read, and those read who had only talked before. This work was published anonymously, and so great was its reputation that some one was at the pains to copy out the whole of the story with erasures and different signs of authenticity, and assume the authorship.
One very distinctive mark of Maria Edgeworth's mind is the honest candour and genuine critical faculty which is hers. Her appreciation of her own work and that of others is unaffected and really discriminating, whether it is 'Corinne' or a simple story which she is reading, or Scott's new novel the 'Pirate,' or one of her own manuscripts which she estimates 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 the genius, provoked by the absurdities, and in admiration of the taste and critical judgment of Italian literature displayed throughout the whole work: but I will not dilate upon it in a letter. I could talk for three hours 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 whom Mr. Edgeworth and his daughter had a very great regard and admiration, was Mrs. Barbauld, who in all the heavy trials and sorrows of her later life found no little help and comfort in the friendship and constancy of Maria Edgeworth. Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, upon Mr. Edgeworth's invitation, paid him a visit at Clifton, where he was again staying in 1799, and where the last Mrs. Edgeworth's eldest child was born. There is a little anecdote of domestic life at this time in the Memoirs which gives one a glimpse, not of an authoress, but of a very sympathising and impressionable person. 'Maria took her little sister to bring down to her 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 on the stairs afraid she should drop the child, afraid that its head would come off, and afraid that her father would find her sitting there and laugh at her, till seeing the footman passing she called "Samuel" in a terrified voice, and made him walk before her backwards down the stairs till she safely reached the sitting-room.' For all these younger children Maria seems to have had a most tender and motherly regard, as indeed for all her young brothers and sisters of the different families. Many of them were the heroines of her various stories, and few heroines are more charming than some of Miss Edgeworth's. Rosamund is said by some to have been Maria herself, impulsive, warm-hearted, timid, and yet full of spirit and animation.
In his last letter to Mr. Edgeworth Dr. Darwin writes kindly of the authoress, 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 of the troubles of Ireland;' and the Doctor goes on to ask his friend to come and pay a visit to the Priory, and describes the pleasant house with the garden, the ponds full of fish, the deep umbrageous valley, with the talkative stream running down it, and Derby tower in the distance. The letter, so kind, so playful in its tone, was never finished. Dr. Darwin was writing as he was seized with what seemed a fainting fit, and he died within an hour. Miss Edgeworth writes of the shock 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 this letter of Dr. Darwin's.
No wonder this generous outspoken man was esteemed in his own time. To us, in ours, it has been given still more to know the noble son of 'that giant brood,' whose name will be loved and held in honour as long as people live to honour nobleness, simplicity, and genius; those things which give life to life itself.
VIII.