Part 4 (2/2)

'We were lately in a sad state here--the sans culottes (literally so) took a very effectual way of obtaining power; they robbed of arms all the houses in the country, thus arming themselves and disarming their opponents. By waking the bodies of their friends, the human corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of Ireland, but is a.s.sociated with pleasure in their minds by the festivity of these nocturnal orgies. An insurrection of such people, who have been much oppressed, must be infinitely more horrid than anything that has happened in France; for no hired executioners need be sought from the prisons or the galleys. And yet the people here are altogether better than in England. . . . The peasants, though cruel, are generally docile, and of the strongest powers, both of body and mind.

'A good government may make this a great country, because the raw material is good and simple. In England, to make a carte-blanche fit to receive a proper impression, you must grind down all the old rags to purify them.'

His daughter adds: 'The disturbances in the county of Longford were quieted for a time by the military; but again in the autumn of the ensuing year (September 1796), rumours of an invasion prevailed, and spread with redoubled force through Ireland, disturbing commerce, and alarming all ranks of well-disposed subjects.'

CHAPTER 8

It was in 1797 that sorrow again visited the happy circle at Edgeworth Town, and Edgeworth wrote thus of his wife to Dr. Darwin: 'She declines rapidly. But her mind suffers as little as possible. I am convinced from all that I have seen, that good sense diminishes all the evils of life, and alleviates even the inevitable pain of declining health. By good sense, I mean that habit of the understanding which employs itself in forming just estimates of every object that lies before it, and in regulating the temper and conduct. Mrs. Edgeworth, ever since I knew her, has carefully improved and cultivated this faculty; and I do not think I ever saw any person extract more good, and suffer less evil, than she has, from the events of life. . . .'

Mrs. Edgeworth died in the autumn of the year 1797. Maria adds: 'I have heard my father say, that during the seventeen years of his marriage with this lady, he never once saw her out of temper, and never received from her an unkind word or an angry look,'

Edgeworth paid the same compliment to his third wife which he had done to his second--he quickly replaced her. His fourth wife was the daughter of Dr. Beaufort, a highly qultivated man, whose family were great friends of Mrs. Ruxton, Edgeworth's sister. Edgeworth wrote a long letter about scientific matters to Darwin, and kept his most important news to the last: 'I am going to be married to a young lady of small fortune and large accomplishments,--compared with my age, much youth (not quite thirty), and more prudence--some beauty, more sense--uncommon talents, more uncommon temper,--liked by my family, loved by me. If I can say all this three years hence, shall not I have been a fortunate, not to say a wise man?'

Maria adds: 'A few days after the preceding letter was written, we heard that a conspiracy had been discovered in Dublin, that the city was under arms, and its inhabitants in the greatest terror. Dr.

Beaufort and his family were there; my father, who was at Edgeworth Town, set out immediately to join them.

'On his way he met an intimate friend of his; one stage they travelled together, and a singular conversation pa.s.sed. This friend, who as yet knew nothing of my father's intentions, began to speak of the marriage of some other person, and to exclaim against the folly and imprudence of any man's marrying in such disturbed times. ”No man of honour, sense or feeling, would inc.u.mber himself with a wife at such a time!” My father urged that this was just the time when a man of honour, sense, or feeling would wish, if he loved a woman, to unite his fate with hers, to acquire the right of being her protector.

'The conversation dropped there. But presently they talked of public affairs--of the important measure expected to be proposed, of a union between England and Ireland--of what would probably be said and done in the next session of Parliament: my father, foreseeing that this important national question would probably come on, had just obtained a seat in Parliament. His friend, not knowing or recollecting this, began to speak of the imprudence of commencing a political career late in life.

'”No man, you know,” said he, ”but a fool, would venture to make a first speech in Parliament, or to marry, after he was fifty.”

'My father laughed, and surrendering all t.i.tle to wisdom, declared that, though he was past fifty, he was actually going in a few days, as he hoped, to be married, and in a few months would probably make his ”first speech in Parliament.”

'He found Dublin as it had been described to him under arms, in dreadful expectation. The timely apprehension of the heads of the conspiracy at this crisis prevented a revolution, and saved the capital. But the danger for the country seemed by no means over, --insurrections, which were to have been general and simultaneous, broke out in different parts of the kingdom. The confessions of a conspirator, who had turned informer, and the papers seized and published, proved that there existed in the country a deep and widely spread spirit of rebellion. . . .

'Instead of delaying his marriage, which some would have advised, my father urged for an immediate day. On the 31st of May he was married to Miss Beaufort, by her brother, the Rev. William Beaufort, at St. Anne's Church in Dublin. They came down to Edgeworth Town immediately, through a part of the country that was in actual insurrection. Late in the evening they arrived safe at home, and my father presented his bride to his expecting, anxious family.

'Of her first entrance and appearance that evening I can recollect only the general impression, that it was quite natural, without effort or pretension. The chief thing remarkable was, that she, of whom we were all thinking so much, seemed to think so little of herself. . . .

'The sisters of the late Mrs. Edgeworth, those excellent aunts (Mrs.

Mary and Charlotte Sneyd), instead of returning to their English friends and relations, remained at Edgeworth Town. This was an auspicious omen to the common people in our neighbourhood, by whom they were universally beloved--it spoke well, they said, for the new lady. In his own family, the union and happiness she would secure were soon felt, but her superior qualities, her accurate knowledge, judgment, and abilities, in decision and in action, appeared only as occasions arose and called for them. She was found always equal to the occasion, and superior to the expectation.'

Maria had not at first been in favour of her father's marrying Miss Beaufort, but she soon changed her opinion after becoming intimate with her, and writing of her father's choice of a wife says: 'He did not late in life marry merely to please his own fancy, but he chose a companion suited to himself, and a mother fit for his family.

This, of all the blessings we owe to him, has proved the greatest.'

The family at Edgeworth Town pa.s.sed the summer quietly and happily, but (Maria continues) 'towards the autumn of the year 1798, this country became in such a state that the necessity of resorting to the sword seemed imminent. Even in the county of Longford, which had so long remained quiet, alarming symptoms appeared, not immediately in our neighbourhood, but within six or seven miles of us, near Granard. The people were leagued in secret rebellion, and waited only for the expected arrival of the French army to break 'out. In the adjacent counties military law had been proclaimed, and our village was within a mile of the bounds of the disturbed county of Westmeath. Though his own tenantry, and all in whom he put trust, were as quiet, and, as far as he could judge, as well-disposed as ever, yet my father was aware, from information of too good authority to be doubted, that there were disaffected persons in the vicinity.

'Numbers held themselves in abeyance, not so much from disloyalty, as from fear that they should be ultimately the conquered party.

Those who were really and actually engaged, and in communication with the rebels and with the foreign enemy, were so secret and cunning that no proofs could be obtained against them.

'One instance may be given. A Mr. Pallas, who lived at Growse Hall, lately received information that a certain offender was to be found in a lone house, which was described to him. He took a party of men with him in the night, and he got to the house very early in the morning. It was scarcely light. The soldiers searched, but no man was to be found. Mr. Pallas ordered them to search again, for that he was certain the man was in the house; they searched again, but in vain; they gave up the point, and were preparing to mount their horses, when one man, who had stayed a little behind his companions, saw, or thought he saw, something move at the end of the garden behind the house. He looked, and beheld a man's arm come out of the ground: he ran to the spot and called to his companions; but the arm disappeared; they searched, but nothing was to be seen; and though the soldier still persisted in his story, he was not believed ”Come,” cries one of the party, ”don't waste your time here looking for an apparition among these cabbage-stalks--go back once more to the house!” They went to the house, and lo! there stood the man they were in search of in the middle of the kitchen.

'Upon examination it was found that from his garden to his house there had been practiced a secret pa.s.sage underground: a large meal-chest in the kitchen had a false bottom, which lifted up and down at pleasure, to let him into his subterraneous dwelling.

'Whenever he expected the house to be searched, down he went; the moment the search was over, up he came; and had practised this with success, till he grew rash, and returned one moment too soon. . . .

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