Part 4 (1/2)

”Emam tua carmina sa.n.u.s?”--MARTIAL.

F. OF H. I want a verse. It gives you little pains;-- You just sit down, and draw upon your brains.

Come, now, be amiable.

R. To hear you talk, You'd make it easier to fly than walk.

You seem to think that rhyming is a thing You can produce if you but touch a spring;

That fancy, fervour, pa.s.sion--and what not,

Are just a case of ”penny in the slot.”

You should reflect that no evasive bird Is half so shy as is your fittest word; And even similes, however wrought, Like hares, before you cook them, must be caught;--

Impromptus, too, require elaboration, And (unlike eggs) grow fresh by incubation; Then,--as to epigrams,..

F. of H. Nay, nay, I've done.

I did but make pet.i.tion. You make fun.

R. Stay. I am grave. Forgive me if I ramble: But, then, a negative needs some preamble To break the blow. I feel with you, in truth, These complex miseries of Age and Youth; I feel with you--and none can feel it more Than I--this burning Problem of the Poor; The Want that grinds, the Mystery of Pain, The Hearts that sink, and never rise again;-- How shall I set this to some careless screed, Or jigging stave, when Help is what you need, Help, Help,--more Help?

F. of H. I fancied that with ease You'd scribble off some verses that might please, And so give help to us.

R. Why then--TAKE THESE!

THE PARENT'S a.s.sISTANT

One of the things that perplexes the dreamer--for, in spite of the realists, there are dreamers still--is the almost complete extinction of the early editions of certain popular works. The pompous, respectable, full-wigged folios, with their long lists of subscribers, and their magniloquent dedications, find their permanent abiding-places in n.o.blemen's collections, where, unless--with the _Chrysostom_ in Pope's verses--they are used for the smoothing of bands or the pressing of flowers, no one ever disturbs their drowsy diuturnity. Their bulk makes them sacred: like the regimental big drum, they are too large to be mislaid. But where are all the first copies of that little octavo of 246 pages, price eighteenpence, ”Printed by T. Maxey for Rich. Marriot, in S. Dunstans Church-yard, Fleetstreet” in 1653, which const.i.tutes the _editio princeps_ of Walton's _Angler_. Probably they were worn out in the pockets of Honest Izaak's ”brothers of the Angle,” or left to bake and c.o.c.kle in the sunny corners of wasp-haunted alehouse windows, or dropped in the deep gra.s.s by some casual owner, more careful for flies and caddis-worms, or possibly for the contents of a leathern bottle, than all the ”choicely-good” madrigals of Maudlin the milkmaid. In any case, there are very few of the little tomes, with their quaint ”coppers” of fishes, in existence now, nor is it silver that pays for them. And that other eighteenpenny book, put forth by ”_Nath. Ponder_ at the _Peac.o.c.k_ in the _Poultrey_ near _Cornhil_” five and twenty years later,--_The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That which is to come_,--why is it that there are only five known copies, none quite perfect, now extant, of which the best sold not long since for more than 1400? Of these five, the first that came to light had been preserved owing to its having taken sanctuary, almost upon publication, in a great library, where it was forgotten. But the others that pa.s.sed over Mr.

Ponder's counter in the Poultry,--were they all lost, thumbed and dog's-eared out of being? They are gone,--that is all you can say; and gone apparently beyond reach of recovery.

These remarks,--which scarcely rise to the dignity of reflections--have been suggested by the difficulty which the writer has experienced in obtaining particulars as to the earliest form of the _Parent's a.s.sistant_. As a matter of course, children's books are more liable to disappear than any others. They are sooner torn, soiled, dismembered, disintegratedsooner find their way to that mysterious unlocated limbo of lost things, which engulfs so much. Yet one scarcely expected that even the British Museum would not have possessed a copy of the first issue of Miss Edgeworth's book. Such, however, seems to be the case. According to the catalogue, there is nothing earlier at Bloomsbury than a portion of the second edition; and from the inexplicit and conjectural manner in which most of the author's biographers speak of the work, it can scarcely--outside private collections--be very easily accessible.

Fortunately the old _Monthly Review_ for September, 1796, with most exemplary forethought for posterity, gives, as a heading to its notice, a precise and very categorical account of the first impression. _The Parent's a.s.sistant; or, Stories for Children_ was, it appears, published in two parts, making three small duodecimo volumes. The price, bound, was six s.h.i.+llings. There was no author's name; but it was said to be ”by E.M.” (i.e. Edgeworth, Maria), and the publisher was Cowper's Dissenter publisher, Joseph Johnson of No. 72, St. Paul's Churchyard. Part I.

contained ”The Little Dog Trusty; or, The Liar and the Boy of Truth”; ”The Orange Man; or, the Honest Boy and the Thief”; ”Lazy Lawrence”; ”Tarleton”; and ”The False Key”; Part II., ”The Purple Jar,” ”The Bracelets,” ”Mademoiselle Panache,” ”The Birthday Present,” ”Old Poz,”

and ”The Mimic.” In the same year, 1796, a second edition appeared, apparently with, some supplementary stories, e.g.: ”Barring Out,” and in 1800 came a third edition in six volumes. In this the text was increased by ”Simple Susan,” ”The Little Merchants,” ”The Basket Woman,” ”The White Pigeon,” ”The Orphans,” ”Waste Not, Want Not,” ”Forgive and Forget,” and ”Eton Montem.” One story, ”The Purple Jar” at the beginning of Part II. of the first edition, was withdrawn, and afterwards included in another series, while the stories ent.i.tled respectively ”Little Dog Trusty” and ”The Orange Man” have disappeared from the collection, probably for the reason given in one of the first prefaces, namely, that they ”were written for a much earlier age than any of the others, and with such a perfect simplicity of expression as, to many, may appear insipid and ridiculous.” The six volumes of the third edition came out successively on the first day of the first six months of 1800. The Monthly Reviewer of the first edition, it may be added, was highly laudatory; and his commendations show that the early critics of the author were fully alive to her distinctive qualities, ”The moral and prudential lessons of these volumes,” says the writer, ”are judiciously chosen; and the stories are invented with great ingenuity, and are happily contrived to excite curiosity and awaken feeling without the aid of improbable fiction or extravagant adventure. The language is varied in its degree of simplicity, to suit the pieces to different ages, but is throughout neat and correct; and, without the least approach towards vulgarity or meanness, it is adapted with peculiar felicity to the understandings of children. The author's taste, in this cla.s.s of writing, appears to have been formed on the best models; and the work will not discredit a place on the same shelf with Berquin's _Child's Friend_, Mrs. Barbauld's _Lessons for Children_, and Dr. Aikin's _Evenings at Home_. The story of 'Lazy Lawrence'”--the notice goes on--”is one of the best lectures on industry which we have ever read.

”The _Critical Review_, which also gave a short account of the _Parent's a.s.sistant_ in its number for January 1797, does not rehea.r.s.e the contents. But it confirms the t.i.tle, etc., adding that the price, in boards, was 4s. 6d.; and its praise, though brief, is very much to the point. ”The present production is particularly sensible and judicious; the stories are well written, simple, and affecting; calculated, not only for moral improvement, but to exercise the best affections of the human heart.”

With one of the books mentioned by the _Monthly Review_--_Evenings at Home_--Miss Edgeworth was fully prepared, at all events as regards format, to a.s.sociate herself. ”The stories,” she says in a letter to her cousin, Miss Sophy Ruxton, ”are printed and bound the same size as _Evenings at Home_, and I am afraid you will dislike the t.i.tle.” Her father had sent the book to press as the _Parent's Friend_, a name no doubt suggested by the _Ami des Enfants_ of Berquin; but ”Mr. Johnson [the publisher],” continues Miss Edgeworth, ”has degraded it into _The Parent's a.s.sistant_, which I dislike particularly, from a.s.sociation with an old book of arithmetic called The _Tutor's a.s.sistant_.” The ground of objection is not very formidable; but the _Parent's a.s.sistant_ is certainly an infelicitous name. From some other of the author's letters we are able to trace the gradual growth of the work. Mr. Edgeworth, her father, an utilitarian of much restless energy, and many projects, was greatly interested in education,--or, as he would have termed it, practical education,--and long before this date, as early, indeed, as May 1780, he had desired his daughter, while she was still a girl at a London school, to write him a tale about the length of a _Spectator_; upon the topic of ”Generosity,” to be taken from history or romance.

This was her first essay in fiction; and it was p.r.o.nounced by the judge to whom it was submitted,--in compet.i.tion with a rival production by a young gentleman from Oxford,--to be an excellent story, and extremely well written, although with this commendation was coupled the somewhat damaging inquiry,--”But where's the Generosity?” The question cannot be answered now, as the ma.n.u.script has not been preserved, though the inconvenient query, we are told, became a kind of personal proverb with the young author, who was wont to add that this first effort contained ”a sentence of inextricable confusion between a saddle, a man, and his horse.” This was a defect from which she must have speedily freed herself, since her style, as her first reviewer allowed, is conspicuously direct and clear. Accuracy in speaking and writing had, indeed, been early impressed upon her. Her father's doctrinaire ally and co-disciplinarian, Mr. Thomas Day, later the author of _Sandford and Merton_, and apparently the first person of whom it is affirmed that ”he talked like a book,” had been indefatigable in bringing this home to his young friend, when she visited him in her London school-days. Not content alone to dose her copiously with Bishop Berkeley's Tar Water--the chosen beverage of Young and Richardson--he was unwearied in ministering to her understanding. ”His severe reasoning and uncompromising love of truth awakened her powers, and the questions he put to her, the necessity of perfect accuracy in her answers, suited the bent of her mind. Though such strictness was not always agreeable, she even then perceived its advantages, and in after life was deeply grateful to Mr. Day.”[22]

Note:

[22] _Maria Edgeworth_, by Helen Zimmern, 1888, p. 13.