Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs

by Richard Lovell Edgeworth; Maria Edgeworth

Maria ends this exciting chapter of the Memoirs with these moral reflections: 'At all times it is disadvantageous to those who have the reputation of being men of superior abilities, to seclude themselves from the world. It raises a belief that they despise those with whom they do not associate; and this supposed contempt creates real aversion. The being accused of pride or singularity may not, perhaps, in the estimation of some lofty spirits and independent characters, appear too great a price to pay for liberty and leisure; they will care little if they be misunderstood or misrepresented by the vulgar; they will trust to truth and time to do them justice. This may be all well in ordinary life, and in peaceable days; but in civil commotions the best and the wisest, if he have not made himself publicly known, so as to connect himself with the interests and feelings of his neighbours, will find none to answer for his character if it be attacked, or to warn him of the secret machinations of his enemies; none who on any sudden emergency will risk their own safety in his defence: he may fall and be trampled upon by numbers, simply because it is nobody's business or pleasure to rally to his aid. Time and reason right his character, and may bring all who have injured, or all who have mistaken him, to repentance and shame, but in the interval he must suffer—he may perish.'

Chapter 9.

The British Government seem to have thought it best at this time to pursue a laissez faire policy in Ireland, in order to convince the Irish of their weakness, and to show them that, although a bundle of sticks when loosened allows each stick to be used for beating, and it may therefore be argued that sticks, being meant for fighting, should never be bound in a bundle, yet each single stick may easily get broken. Of course the Government intended to intervene before it was too late, and to suggest to the Irish that it was time to think of a union with their stronger neighbours.

On this subject, Maria remarks: 'It is certain that the combinations of the disaffected at home and the advance of foreign invaders, were not checked till the peril became imminent, and till the purpose of creating universal alarm had been fully effected. As soon as the Commander-in-Chief and the Lord-Lieutenant (at the time joined in the same person) exerted his full military and civil power, the invaders were defeated, and the rebellion was extinguished. The petty magisterial tyrants, who had been worse than vain of their little brief authority, were put down, or rather, being no longer upheld, sank to their original and natural insignificance. The laws returned to their due course; and, with justice, security and tranquillity, were restored.

'My father honestly, not ostentatiously, used his utmost endeavours to obliterate all that could tend to perpetuate ill-will in the country. Among the lower classes in his neighbourhood he endeavoured to discourage that spirit of recrimination and retaliation which the lower Irish are too prone to cherish, and of which they are proud. "Revenge is sweet, and I'll have it" were words which an old beggar-woman was overheard muttering to herself as she tottered along the road. . . .

'The lower Irish are such acute observers that there is no deceiving them as to the state of the real feelings of their superiors. . . .

'It was soon seen by all of those who had any connection with him, that my father was sincere in his disdain of vengeance—of this they had convincing proof in his refusing to listen to the tales of slander, which so many were ready to pour into his ear, against those who had appeared to be his enemies.

'They saw that he determined to have a public trial of the man who had instigated the Longford mob, but that, for the sake of justice, and to record what his own conduct had been, he did not seek this trial from any petty motives of personal resentment.

'During the course of the trial, it appeared that the sergeant was a mere ignorant enthusiast, who had been worked up to frenzy by some, more designing than himself. Having accomplished his own object of publicly proving every fact that concerned his own honour and character, my father felt desirous that the poor culprit, who was now ashamed and penitent, should not be punished. The evidence was not pressed against him, and he was acquitted. As they were leaving the courthouse my father saw, and spoke in a playful tone to the penitent sergeant, who, among his other weaknesses, happened to be much afraid of ghosts. "Sergeant, I congratulate you," said he, "upon my being alive here before you—I believe you would rather meet me than my ghost!" Then cheering up the man with the assurance of his perfect forgiveness, he passed on.

'The malevolent passions' my father always considered as the greatest foes to human felicity—they would not stay in his mind—he was of too good and too happy a nature. He forgot all, but the moral which he drew for his private use from this Longford business. He kept ever afterwards the resolution he had made, to mix more with general society.