The Edgeworths
The Black Book of Edgeworthstown and other Edgeworth Memories, 1585-4817. Edited by Harriet Jessie Butler and Harold Edgeworth Butler. (Faber and Gwyer. 18e.) MARIA ErmEwoirru is not .much more than a literary name to us nowadays, kept alive by matriculating students. But a few enthusiasts, such as Mr. Saintsbury or Sir Edmund Gosse, could tell us what we lose in neglecting the work- of this re- markable woman. It is true that she had much in common with the formidable blue-stockings of the eighteenth century, but she had also other qualities ; an Irish realism and matter- of-factness, and an experienced appreciation of the value of moral restraint and sobriety of thought and conduct. To use the term so inaptly coined for aristocratic families, she was gently born. That is to say, she was descended from a long line of uncontrolled, race-proud, gambling and swash-buckling daredevils, whose exploits and appetites had been affecting Irish history since the family left Edgware, Middlesex, at the end of the sixteenth century, to settle in a little Irish village which afterwards took their name, Edgeworthstown.
Maria, therefore, had freedom and sangfroid as a very grace- giving inheritance. It would have been impossible for this aristocratic woman to have betrayed her caste by succumbing to the romantic tendencies of the age. Like many provincial Tories; she had the mind of a rebel, an individualist who judged people on their merits, and not according to some doctrinaire and bureaucratic principle. Her mind was finely critical, and so we find in her work no grandiose plot-construction, but a. vivid and diverse series of character-studies, drawn by that most realistic of all methods, swift dialogue. Her pictures of the Irish peasant, by their fidelity and disillusionment, set an example which was followed by such widely different writers as Scott and Jane Austen. Dickens, too, must have read her with much profit.
This tempting discussion of the merits of Miss Edgeworth, however, leads us away from The Black Book of Edgereorthstoum, in which she plays only a small part amongst her ancestors. These appear to have been picturesque. people, each living with a strong personal gesture that gave him a grain of immor- tality. All had in common an ability to squander fortunes, and to recuperate by- a special family- process of re-marriage; or by indefatigable petitions at the-Royal Court. The Black Book is a manuscript which in the words of the present editors "gives a curious and vivid picture of the life of an Irish family from the close of the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century." All these Edgeworths, whether in godd or evil, had charm, colour, and sparkle ; and the expression Of - that family personality led again and again to dramatic incidents of permanent value. For instance, in 1690, a Captain Francis ' Edgeworth was ordered abroad under the command of the Earl of Danby. The troopships "fell down the river, but they were detained by contrary winds off the coast of Kent. Lord Danby and some of the officers went ashore to kill partridge and were accosted by a country gentleman, who in a very friendly manner invited them to stay at his house till the wind should change. During their stay Lord Danby commenced an intrigue with the gentleman's only daughter, and carried it so far as to get a promise from her to admit him to her chamber at night." The noble Lord, vain of his conquest, boasted about it to Captain Edgeworth. The latter said nothing, but waited until his -commander had retired for the night. Lord Danby had been but a few moments in his room when the Captain knocked at the door and told him that there was an uproar below, for one qf their troopers had stolen a large silver ladle. "Lord Denby on hearing this fell into an outrageous passion, cursed and damned at the ungrateful villains who had been so nobly entertained at the honest gen- tleman's house, and not content with that should steal his plate, and swore that if he discovered the thief he would have him hanged forthwith. After he had given way to his passion for a considerable time, Captain Edgeworth replied, "I am sorry to apply Nathan's expression to David to your Lord; ship ; for my Lord, thou art the man ! " That gift of the ready word remained in the family, for it was a famous Edgeworth, the saintly Abbe Henry &mei Edgeworth, who said to Louis XVI. of France on- the scaffold "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven." A magnificen1 phrase at Such a moment, for the confessor was likely at an# moment to- follow the King whose soul he had shrived. WO cannot close this scanty notice without congratulating the publishers on the beautiful plates and printing of this
handsome volume. .
Atoms.= _Cuunca-
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