A PERIOD CORRESPONDENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23108, 6 February 1937, Page 4

A PERIOD CORRESPONDENCE

NINETEENTH CENTURY CELEBRITIES " Romilly-Edgeworth Letters, 1813-1813." Introduction and Notes by Samuel Henry Romilly. London: Murray. 9s 6d. Most of the 29 letters in this collection are from Anne Romilly to Maria Edgeworth, that vivacious stylist among novelists of the early nineteenth century, whom Scott openly acknowledged as his model in his early work on " Waverley," and whom Macaulay thought so much of as to grant her the singular honour of giving her mention in a laudatory footnote in his " History." Anne Romilly had charm and wit and generosity. Samuel' Romilly, a power in the law and politics of the day,' was devoted to her through a long married life, as she was to him. They died within a few days of each other. Maria's father, Lovell Edgeworth, was a remarkable educationist, and took the fourth important place in this quartet of letter writers. Moving as they did among the best society of their time, they were able to givewitty ana admirable sketches of some of its chief figures. Anne Romilly's letters are especially charming. She writes with dignity and intelligence, and knew how to shape her native tongue, one suspects, as well as her versatile friend Maria. There is much to be said in intimate fashion about Mme. De Stael, the French literary genius of the day, of Lord Byron and his degeneration of love and poetry (or so they thought), of Shelley's unhappy career and the harsh distaste he earned at that time, of Jeremy Bentham, and even John Stewart Mill at eleven, the precocious eldest of six children, all stuffed and nurtured with knowledge to produce further geniuses. The youngest at four, if his remarks were questioned, would assure one " that the authorities will not bear you out in what you have asserted/* F. H. H.