< Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu
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VISIT TO LONDON..

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acquiring any taste for dissipation, or catching the rage for finery and fine people." In this one letter there are, unfortunately, none of those delightfully detailed descriptions of persons and events that she gave from France. Among the distinguished persons she met, Lord Byron is mentioned. Singularly enough she dismisses him with just the last remark that one would have expected concerning the poet, about whose good looks, at least, the world was unanimous: "Of Lord Byron, I can only tell you that his appearance is nothing that you would remark." He, on his part, was more favourably impressed. He writes in his journal:—

I had been the lion of 1812. Miss Edgeworth and Mine, de Staël with The Cossack, towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year. I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety elderly red complexion, but active, brisk, and restless. He was 70, but did not look 50, no, nor 48 even. I had seen poor Fitz-Patrick not very long before—a man of pleasure, wit and eloquence, all things. He tottered—but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly; Edgeworth bounced about and talked loud and long; but he seemed neither weakly nor decrepit, and hardly old.

Byron then remarks that he heard Mr. Edgeworth boast of having put down Dr. Parr, a boast which Byron took leave to think not true. He adds:

For the rest, he seemed intelligent, vehement, vivacious, and full of life. He bids fair for a hundred years. He was not much admired in London, and I remember a "ryghte merrie" and conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day—viz. a paper had been presented for the recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage, to which all men had been called to subscribe; whereupon Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did propose that a similar paper should be subscribed and circumscribed for the recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland! The fact was, everybody cared more about her. She was a nice little unassuming "Jeanie Deans" looking body, as we Scotch say, and if not handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One would never have guessed she could
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