THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

OCTOBER, 1865.

No. CCL.

ART. I. Extracts of the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry from the year 1783 to 1852. Edited by Lady THERESA LEWIS. 3 vols. London: 1865.

IN the autumn of 1788, Horace Walpole (afterwards Earl of

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Orford), then in the seventy-first year of his age and the height of his fastidiousness, was invited to meet a family, consisting of a father and two daughters, who had recently returned from the Continent with a high reputation for social graces and accomplishments. The first night I met them,' (he writes to Lady Ossory,) I would not be acquainted with them, having 'heard so much in their praise that I concluded they would be 'all pretension. The second time, in a very small company, I 'sat next to Mary, and found her an angel, both inside and out. Now, I do not know which I like best, except Mary's face, ' which is formed for a sentimental novel, but it is ten times fitter for a fifty times better thing-genteel comedy.' These young ladies were Mary and Agnes Berry, who formed the chief solace and interest of the remaining years of his life. They speedily became his neighbours at Twickenham, where he kept up a constant intercourse with them, and during their frequent absence in town or at country-houses, his letters succeeded each other with such unprecedented rapidity that an overtasked postmaster cried out. Although always writing with the fear of ridicule before his eyes, and almost ostentatiously parading his consciousness of being a septuagenarian adorer, he is prodigal of the most endearing epithets. They are his wives, children, loves, friends. If two negatives make an affirmative, why may not two ridicules compose one piece ' of sense? and, therefore, as I am in love with you both, I 'trust it is a proof of the goodsense of your devoted.'

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VOL. CXXII. NO. CCL.

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X

Mary, however, was in reality the object of his preference; and it is tolerably clear that he wished to marry her, rather with a view to the advantages she would enjoy as a widow, than from the hope or wish of binding her more closely to him by the tender obligations of a wife. Indeed, there is a tradition, handed down by Lord Lansdowne, that he was ready to go through the formal ceremony of marriage with either sister, to make sure of their society and confer rank and fortune on the family; as he had the power of charging the Orford estate with a jointure of 2000l. a year.

On his death in 1797, he bequeathed Little Strawberry Hill to the Miss Berrys, and a box marked O, containing manuscripts, to Mr. Berry and his daughters, with directions that Mr. Berry should undertake the care of a new edition of his works with the addition of the papers contained in the box; thus, as she felt and stated, making Mary his editor, without the necessary publicity attached to the name.' This association with his name and memory, no mean title to celebrity, would have constituted an excellent introduction in most European capitals, had these ladies needed one. But their social position was rather recognised and confirmed than strengthened by him. Go where they would, they seemed to have a natural affinity and attraction for the most cultivated and refined society of the place. Mary, especially, the loadstone of the house, seldom failed to draw into their circle the persons best worth knowing, as well as the celebrities, the hero, the orator, the author, the artist, the wit, the beauty of the hour; and this was done spontaneously as it were, and without an effort, by the quiet influence of purely personal qualities, by ready sympathy, frank appreciation, sense, varied information, and simplicity. It was they who sought her, not she them. The Iron Duke grows talkative when accidentally seated by her at a dinner-table; Lord Byron lays himself out to please her; Joanna Baillie is grateful for her critical approval; Canova approaches her with the strongest expressions of affection and esteem; the Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline) tries hard for the cover of her respectability; Sydney Smith looks over one of her proposed publications, and Mackintosh another; Madame Recamier eagerly solicits her friendship; and Madame de Stäel, after some preliminary coquetting and caprice, declares that she had loved her the best, and thought her by 'far the cleverest woman in England.'

Her correspondents, besides Lord Orford, comprise Playfair, Gell, the late Earl of Dudley, Joanna Baillie, Canova, Madame de Staël, the Hon. Mrs. Damer (the sculptor), the

Hon. Keppel Craven, the late Duke of Devonshire, Queen Caroline, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lally Tollendal, Lord Jeffrey, Edward Everett, the late Countess of Morley, the Countess of Gifford (Lady Dufferin), and a host of others who had been in the way of seeing things worth telling and possessed the happy art of telling them effectively. The resulting value of the Journal and Letters now first published is not overstated by the editor:

'From the age of seventeen or eighteen to that of nearly ninety, Miss Berry and her sister Agnes (one year younger than herself) lived constantly in society both at home and abroad: they had seen Marie Antoinette in all her pride and beauty, and they lived to regret the fall of Louis-Philippe, for whose prudence and abilities Miss Berry had for many years conceived a high respect, and with whom she was personally acquainted. Born in the third year after the accession of George III., she lived to be privately presented to Queen Victoria a few months before her death.

In her early youth she gained the respect of her elders, and was well known to have engaged the devoted affection of one already far in the decline of life; in her own old age the loved and admired of the fastidious Horace Walpole won the hearts of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the friends of her youth, and will be affectionately remembered by some who still lingered in childhood at the time of her death.'

'The great age to which Miss Berry lived has given almost an historical interest to many trifling incidents in her journals; and changes and improvements, that steal imperceptibly on, in manners, in morals, in refinement, in general convenience, and in opinions, become more defined and more interesting, when brought before the rising generation by the notes and journals of one who, born above one hundred years ago, was so lately moving amongst the living in the full enjoyment of every faculty. They are as the stepping-stones that help us to remount the stream of Time, down which we often drift too fast to mark the ever-varying scenes which accompany our passage, or the objects which unconsciously determine its course.'

Miss Berry was unconsciously recommending her own literary remains by anticipation when, in justifying the fondness of the French for private letters and memoirs, she remarks, So 'entirely do time and distance hallow and render interesting 'minute details that, after a certain period, history becomes more or less valuable as it presents more or less lively pictures, 'not only of events, but of their effects on the minds and manners of cotemporaries.'

She bequeathed all her papers to the late Sir Frankland Lewis, and informed Lady Theresa Lewis that she had done so, adding that, in case of his death and of his not having had time to deal with them she wished Lady Theresa to take charge of

them. The high estimate formed by Miss Berry of Lady Theresa's Lives from the Clarendon Gallery' is supposed to have led to the expression of this wish; but her practised discrimination must have been unaccountably at fault, if, independently of this undeniable proof of the required knowledge and ability, she had failed to foresee what her posthumous reputation was likely to gain from the guardianship of a lady whose cast of mind, habits of thought, range of reading, social relations, and intellectual tastes agree in so many points, the most honourable and the most distinctive, with her own.

The amount of anxious toil obviously bestowed on this compilation proves that the task of editorship was undertaken with no common sense of responsibility. The materials have been carefully selected from the contents of two large trunks filled to the brim; and although we were somewhat startled at the first sight of three bulky octavos, mostly made up of journal, we should be puzzled to say how the work could be materially abridged without marring its declared purpose or detracting from its utility. It comprises two-thirds of a century; it deals more or less with three or four generations; and there is hardly a letter or an entry that does not throw light on some pre-existing state of manners, morals, or opinion; on some question of politics, literature, or art; on the look, dress, language and demeanour of some person of historical importance; on the degree of preservation, at a given period, of a famous statue, picture, or building; on the first im pression left by books or men whose renown has since become world-wide, or by discoveries which have changed the entire complexion of society. There is no saying beforehand what passing allusion or reflection by such a woman may not afford a pregnant hint to the historian or economist; and we applaud the editor who prefers a place in standard literature to the ephemeral popularity of the circulating library or book club. At the same time, the amateur of what is termed light reading is little to be envied who cannot find amusement in Miss Berry's Journal. We should most of us have esteemed it a privilege to listen to her impressions at the end of a day's sight-seeing or a week's journey over historic ground, after the perusal of a new book by a rising author or an interview with one whose deeds or words have left their mark upon mankind. How, then, can a judicious selection from these self-same impressions prove other than interesting in print?

None but those who have attempted to annotate letters or diaries can form an adequate estimate of the extent of research and amount of application required for the purpose, when, as