Part 15

Maria and her father had published their joint book, _Practical Education_, in the very year (1798) of the exciting events just narrated. Elizabeth, the second step-mother, also had a hand in it; to her notes, we are told, may be traced the chapter on “Obedience.” In this chapter the original view is put forward that in order to form and firmly implant in little children the habit of obedience, their parents should be careful at first only to tell them to do what they like doing. The habit of unquestioning obedience thus formed will, it is thought, be sufficiently strong to bear the strain, when the time comes that the child is told to do things which it would rather not do. There is a considerable element of good sense in this method, as most people will agree who have tried it in the training and teaching of dogs. A much more doubtful theory put forward in the book is that children never should be in the society of servants. This appears to us, in these more democratic days, to savour very much of pride and conceit. It is quite true that parents cannot depute to a hired servant, however faithful, the responsibility of their own position. But to say that a child is on no account to speak to a servant, or to be spoken to by one, appears to us now as most unreasonable and mischievous. How valuable in bridging over the gulf that still separates class from class is the warm affection that often exists between children and their nurses! Many a nurse has vied with a mother in warm and self-sacrificing devotion for her little charges; and all this wholesome and healing affection would be lost if the plan advocated by the Edgeworths were carried out. It is satisfactory to hear that Mrs. Barbauld protested against this doctrine, and told Mr. Edgeworth that, besides the fact that it would foster pride and ingratitude, “one and twenty other good reasons could be alleged against it.” It may be hoped that Mr. Edgeworth acknowledged himself vanquished before this formidable battery opened fire.

One of the most delightful incidents of Miss Edgeworth’s later life was her friendship with Sir Walter Scott. When the first of the Waverley Novels appeared, the secret of its authorship had been so carefully kept that every one was in the dark on the subject. The publishers had sent a copy to Miss Edgeworth and her father. As soon as Mr. Edgeworth had finished reading it, he exclaimed, “Aut Scotus, aut Diabolus,” _i.e._ “either Scott or the Devil”; and Maria put these words at the top of the letter which she wrote thanking the publishers for the book. Scott was already known to the world by his poems, and to this must be attributed the ready wit of the good guess made by the Edgeworths; for up to this time neither father nor daughter had had the pleasure of meeting Scott. In 1823, however, they did meet, and the acquaintance soon ripened into a lifelong friendship. Scott acted as guide to Miss Edgeworth and her sisters in showing them the beauties and monuments of Edinburgh. They visited him at Abbotsford, and took a little tour together in the beautiful scenery of the Highlands. There are delightful descriptions in Miss Edgeworth’s letters of Scott and his wife; and we have a pretty little picture of Scott and Lady Scott driving out, he with his dog, Spicer, in his lap, and she with her dog, Ourisk, in hers.

When Maria arrived at Abbotsford, and was received by her host at his archway, she exclaimed, “Everything about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit enough to dream.” Two years later, Scott, accompanied by his daughter and other members of his family, paid a return visit to Edgeworthstown House. Lockhart, Scott’s biographer and son-in-law, was one of the party. In his _Life of Scott_ he tells how on one occasion he himself let fall some remark that poets and novelists probably regarded the whole of human life simply as providing them with the materials for their art. “A soft and pensive shade came over Scott’s face as he said, ‘I fear you have some very young ideas in your head. Are you not too apt to measure things by some reference to literature, to disbelieve that anybody can be worth much care, who has no knowledge of that sort of thing, or taste for it? God help us! What a poor world this would be if that were the true doctrine! I have read books enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, too, in my time; but I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends and neighbours, than I ever yet met with out of the pages of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect our true calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.’ Maria did not listen to this without some water in her eyes ... but she brushed her tears gaily aside, and said, ‘You see how it is. Dean Swift said he had written his books in order that people might learn to treat him like a great lord. Sir Walter writes his in order that he may be able to treat his people as a great lord ought to do.’”

The delightful friendship between the two authors continued without interruption till Scott’s death in the autumn of 1832. The clouds that overshadowed his later years were bitterly lamented by Maria. She wrote of the “poignant anguish” she felt from the thought that such a life had been shortened by care and trouble. She declined, with one exception, to allow Scott’s letters to herself to be published. If they are still in existence, the reasons which caused her to withhold them no longer exist, and judging from all we know of Scott and of her, it would be a great gain to the public to be afforded the opportunity of reading them.

Those who have read this series of short biographies will find a great many of the subjects of these sketches among Miss Edgeworth’s friends. She gives a delightful description of Mrs. Fry, whom she once accompanied to Newgate. “She opened the Bible,” wrote Miss Edgeworth, “and read in the most sweetly solemn, sedate voice I ever heard, slowly and distinctly, without anything in the manner that would detract attention from the matter.” The Herschels and Mrs. Somerville were also numbered among her friends. People sometimes seem to think that women who can write books, and have learnt to understand the wonders of science, will probably cease to care for feminine nicety in dress. It is therefore very pleasant to find that Mrs. Somerville, the author of _The Connection of the Physical Sciences_, and Miss Edgeworth had a conference about a blue crêpe turban.

Maria Edgeworth’s life did not pass without the romance of love. She received an offer of marriage from a Swedish gentleman, while she was staying in Paris with her family in 1803. She returned his affection, but refused to marry him, sacrificing herself and him to what she believed to be her duty to her father and family. Her third and last step-mother wrote that for years “the unexpected mention of his name, or even that of Sweden, in a book or newspaper, always moved her so much that the words and lines in the page became a mass of confusion before her eyes, and her voice lost all power.” Her suitor, M. Edelcrantz, never married. At the altar of filial piety she sacrificed much.

Nothing is more charming, in the character of Maria Edgeworth, than the sweetness with which she put her own feelings on one side, and welcomed one after another, her numerous step-mothers. The third and last, a Miss Beaufort, was considerably younger than Maria. The marriage with Mrs. Edgeworth No. 4 took place about six months after the death of Mrs. Edgeworth No. 3. No wonder that even the inexhaustible patience of the good daughter was rather tried by this rapidity. She owns that when she first heard of the attachment, she did not wish for the marriage; but her will was in all respects resolutely turned towards whatever would promote her father’s happiness. She did not permit her regret to last, and she welcomed the bride not only with unaffected cordiality, but with sincerest friendship.

Another pleasant characteristic of Maria was the cheery way in which she recognised and bore with the fact that she was the only plain member of her family. There is a nice old sister in _Silas Marner_ who says to some ladies who had not at all recognised their own want of beauty, “I don’t mind being ugly a bit, do you?” Maria was like this, except that she thought she possessed a pre-eminence of ugliness over all other competitors. “Nobody is ugly now,” she wrote in 1831, “but myself!” Impartial observers, however, state that the plainness of her features was redeemed by the sweetness and vivacity of her expression, and by the exquisite neatness of her tiny figure.

Many examples could be given of her practical good sense and benevolence. On receiving a legacy of some diamond ornaments, she sold them, and with the proceeds built a market-house for the village in Ireland where she lived. In 1826, nine years after her father’s death, she again undertook, this time for her brother, the management of the estates. She exerted herself with characteristic energy to alleviate the sufferings of her country during the terrible year of the Irish famine. She died very suddenly and painlessly, two years later, in the arms of her step-mother, on 22d May 1849, aged eighty-two. Macaulay considered her the second woman in Europe of her time, giving the first place to Madame de Staël. She does not seem to us now so great as this; but a variety of interests centre round her, and she well deserves to be remembered.

XVII

QUEEN LOUISA OF PRUSSIA.

“Sir, if a state submit At once, she may be blotted out at once And swallow’d in the conqueror’s chronicle. Whereas in wars of freedom and defence The glory and grief of battle won or lost, Solders a race together—yea—tho’ they fail, The names of those who fought and fell are like A bank’d-up fire that flashes out again From century to century, and at last May lead them on to victory.” “_The Cup._”—TENNYSON.

IT is very difficult for us now to go back in imagination to the time, between eighty and ninety years ago, when the whole of Europe was in danger of being crushed under the tyranny and rapacious cruelty of Napoleon Buonaparte.

This miraculous man, with his insatiable ambition, his almost more than human power and less than human unscrupulousness, had raised himself from a comparatively humble station, not only to be Emperor of France, but to be the conqueror of Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Germany. He dreamed that in his person was to be revived the ancient empire of Charlemagne, and that all the nations of Christendom were to be subject to his universal dominion. He crowned himself in the presence of the Pope, in Paris, in 1804, and the year following he had the iron crown of the kings of Lombardy placed on his head at Milan. Not content with the title of Emperor of France, he styled himself Emperor of the West, conceding for a time to the Czar of Russia the title of Emperor of the East.

No combination of the other Powers seemed capable of withstanding his wonderful military genius. Most of all his foes, he hated England; because, to the eternal honour of our country, be it remembered, England took the lead in rousing the other nations of Europe to resist him. England was the banker of almost every coalition that was formed against him. She supplied men, armies, and armed ships, where she could, and she supplied money to carry on war against Napoleon everywhere. Our great minister, William Pitt, threw himself and all the wealth and power of England into this great struggle against Napoleon. Again and again he revived the spirit of resistance among the other Powers. The rulers and representatives of other countries allowed themselves to be flattered and bribed and threatened into lending themselves to the objects of Napoleon’s inordinate ambition. The Czar consented to meet him on intimate and friendly terms; the Emperor of Austria, notwithstanding the cruel humiliations he had suffered, consented to give his daughter to take the place of the unjustly divorced wife of the Corsican upstart; the less important German princes cringed before him. The hostility of England alone was implacable and unceasing, and what made her even more hated, successful.

There is little doubt that Napoleon fully recognised that England was the main obstacle in the way of the fulfilment of his dream of universal dominion. His most darling project was to crush the power of England, and in 1804-5 he made preparations for the invasion of our country, assembling a vast army at Boulogne for that purpose. So fast did his ambition outrun the bounds of fact and common sense, that he actually had a medal struck to commemorate the conquest of England. On one side was his own head crowned with the laurel wreath of victory; on the other, was a representation of Hercules strangling a giant, with the lying inscription, “Struck in London, 1804.” He wrote to the admiral of the French fleet, which was destined about two months later to be completely destroyed by our great Nelson at Trafalgar: “Set out, lose not a moment, bring our united squadron into the Channel and _England is ours_.” It was at this moment of supreme suspense and danger that Wordsworth wrote that stirring sonnet to the men of Kent, the words of which vibrated through the nation like a trumpet call.

Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent, Ye children of a Soil that doth advance Her haughty brow against the coast of France, Now is the time to prove your hardiment! To France be words of invitation sent! They from their fields can see the countenance Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance, And hear you shouting forth your brave intent. Left single, in bold parley, ye, of yore, Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath; Confirmed the charters that were yours before;— No parleying now! in Britain is one breath; We all are with you now from shore to shore:— Ye men of Kent, ’tis victory or death!

England’s immediate relief from the danger of invasion did not come from Nelson’s great victory, but from Pitt once more rousing the powers of Austria and Russia to combine against Napoleon. Pitt insisted, in the spring of 1805, on pain of losing the subsidies promised by England, that Austria should at once declare war upon France; and Napoleon was thereupon obliged to withdraw the forces he had assembled in great numbers at Boulogne to meet the new combination that had been formed against him. It was now a question how strong that combination should be. The two great Powers of Austria and Russia had already joined it; the smaller German princes went, some on this side and some on that. The only important Power that showed indecision at this critical moment was Prussia. The King of Prussia, Frederick William III, was a grand-nephew of Frederick the Great; but he bore no resemblance to that sovereign. He was weak and undecided in character, wishing to strengthen and enlarge his kingdom, but without force of character sufficient to decide on a wise line of conduct and to adhere to it. He and his minister, Haugwitz, cast longing eyes upon Hanover, the Electorate of which was then united with the crown of England. The French had seized Hanover, and the possession of this coveted territory was skilfully dangled by Napoleon before the eyes of the King of Prussia. Frederick William III could not arrive at a decision whether he should serve his own interests best by joining the coalition or by remaining friends with Napoleon. While he was hesitating, Napoleon, with his customary disregard of all law, violated a neutral territory, belonging to the Kingdom of Prussia, by taking his army across it. It was like offering one hand in friendship, and boxing the ears of your friend with the other. Angry as the whole of Prussia was by the insult thus offered her, she did not bring herself boldly to join the coalition of England, Austria, and Russia against Napoleon. The vacillating character of the King and the intriguing diplomacy of Haugwitz stood in the way; but it must not be supposed that in the general body of the Prussian people there was not a feeling of shame, anger, and resentment at the policy that had been adopted by their Government.

The embodiment of this strong national feeling was found in the person of the beautiful young Queen Louisa, a princess of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Her character was a complete contrast to that of her husband. She had the decision, vivacity, and high courage which he so much lacked. The two were sincerely devoted to one another; but from the essential differences in their dispositions, they became respectively the heads of the two opposing parties in the State; the party who wished to join the coalition and resist Napoleon, and the party who wished merely to look on and try to reap some advantage from whichever side was favoured by the fortunes of war. It seemed at one time as if the Queen’s influence with her husband had prevailed, and that Prussia was going to join the alliance; but just at this time came the news of the first of Napoleon’s great victories in this campaign, the capitulation of Ulm, and all the fears of the timid party were renewed. Then came the great catastrophe of Austerlitz; Napoleon’s forces had completely crushed the combined armies of Russia and Austria, and Pitt’s last supreme effort against Napoleon had failed. Austerlitz is said to have killed Pitt. He was only forty-seven; but his health had long been feeble, and this last blow to all his hopes was fatal. He died a few weeks after the news reached him, on the 23d January 1806. He attributed the failure of the coalition to the indecision of Prussia. If he was right in this he had a terrible revenge. It is one of the most extraordinary episodes in history that Prussia, which had hesitated to join one of the most powerful alliances that had ever been formed against Napoleon, was destined within a few months to match itself against the conqueror almost single-handed.

Very soon after the battle of Austerlitz the Prussian minister, Haugwitz, waited upon Napoleon and renewed negotiations with him. Napoleon offered Prussia the choice between immediate war, or alliance and the possession of Hanover. A treaty was drawn up accepting the latter alternative; Haugwitz agreed to it, and carried it back to his master for ratification. When the terms of the treaty became known in Berlin, the anger of the patriotic party was unbounded. They felt they were bound by ties of blood and kindred to espouse the cause of their German brethren. They looked upon the proffered bribe of Hanover as hush-money, which was to close their lips from protesting against the oppression of Germany by Napoleon. When Haugwitz returned to Berlin he was treated with marked coldness by the Queen. On receiving the disastrous news of the defeat of Austerlitz, she had called to her side her two elder boys, the younger of whom became the late aged Emperor of Germany, and adjured them to think, from that time forth, only of avenging their unhappy brethren. The King’s brothers sympathised with the Queen’s views, as did also the patriotic statesmen Stein and Hardenburg, and a brave young prince, Louis Ferdinand, the King’s cousin. Miss Hudson, who has written a life of Queen Louisa, says in reference to her position at this crisis, “The Queen did not desire or endeavour to take a leading part, but she did not dissemble her feelings and aspirations, and her name was put foremost by popular report, on account of her superior rank. The Queen did not play any conspicuous part, but she was a constant incentive to the best of the nation to work for their country’s deliverance. It was what she was, not what she did, that made her name a watchword for the enemies of Napoleon.”

Haugwitz had never dreamed that his master would refuse to ratify the treaty; but the outburst of popular anger against it had been so marked, and the advantages it offered to Prussia were in fact so small, that the King declined to sign, and demanded modifications. His vacillation had placed him in a cleft stick. If he refused Napoleon’s terms, he would have to fight with the victorious French army; if he accepted them, and Hanover with them, he would have to fight with England; for it was not probable that the latter country would calmly allow Hanover to be appropriated by another Power without a struggle. While this was the situation of affairs, the King of Prussia, having sent back the treaty to Napoleon to ask for modifications, one of which was to obtain the consent of England to the cession of Hanover, the news came to all the world that Pitt, the most powerful and the most pertinacious of Napoleon’s enemies, was dead. England had lost Nelson and Pitt within a few months. It seemed as if they had been removed to make the pathway of ambition smooth for Napoleon.