BOOKS.
MARIA. JOSEPHA, LADY STANLEY.*
THESE letters are charming. They make the reader intimate with several delightful people, and show him a passed-away state of things,—a state of things by no means ideal, but one with which the passed-away generation was strangely content. The letters cover about twenty-three years, beginning in 1797, when Maria Josepha Holroyd married Sir John (then Mr.) Stanley. She was much in love with her husband, of whom she speaks in her letters as "The Man." He introduces himself to the reader in several chapters of recollections referring to the time before his marriage. The dreamy, dis- proportionate remembrances of childhood are set before as with something of poetry and romance, and the more definite pictures of his school life and his travels with his tutor are amusing. As a very small boy he went to a new preparatory school, "established on a scale of show and expense exceed- ing any other then existing." Master Stanley's bill for the year ending March, 1775, was £53 lls. This included board, tuition, and five pairs of shoes. Later on he went to study German in Brunswick, and fell in love with the Princess Caroline, afterwards the wife of George IV. He was then sixteen, and he tells us he dreamed of her day and night for a year after he left the Brunswick Court. In these early recollections we hear a good deal of Sir John's mother, for whom be had no great affection. She continually interfered with his pleasures and his education by recalling him to her side, where he was very dull. She was a great deal abroad for the sake of her health, and her son, who went abroad to see the world, did not like being tied to her, for she would allow him no companionship lest her own influence should be interfered with. He hated being deprived of society and "the insignificance of the life he was forced to lead." Years later, in middle life, he announces to his wife his mother's death in terms of quaint propriety and coldness. "My duties as a son are over," he writes; "con- science must determine whether I have done them well or ill, whether I have failed or succeeded in this portion of my trial here on earth." "The Man" of Maria Josepha's letters and the Mr. Stanley of the recollections are two rather different people, or else in later life something of his mother's tem- perament came out in him, for he, too, disliked society, loved to live as a country gentleman, to read poetry to his wife in the evening—when the headaches from which he suffered did not prevent—and never sighed again for a more significant life. As to "The Man," says Maria, "he is such a fixture that I do not think any of the trees are more rooted in the Alderley soil."
The first part of the Stanleys' married life at Alderley was very simple. Alderley Hall was burnt down in Sir John's childhood, and the family moved to what was called Park House, which had been formerly occupied by their steward. "It was a fair specimen of the dwellings of rich yeomen or email squires of Cheshire." Sir John's father let the land around it, for "it was a favourite expression of his that he hated the occupation of a field, even to having a cow." Sir John's sister prepared the house for the newly married couple. She writes to Maria to tell her that she will find "two she-servants in the house," one getting £12 a year and one £6; and two spaniel dogs. The furniture she declares to be not very comfortable; and though the drawing-room contains a Broadwood piano, there is no " modern " sofa.
• The Early 2/arricel Life of Maria,Josepha, Lady &unity. Edited by J. H. Adeane. London : Longrnane and Co. [18a)
Here the two settled down to a country life wholly to the taste of "The Man" but not wholly to that of Maria Josepha. Not that she was not happy ; her letters overflow with happiness. And so do the not less charming replies of Serena Holroyd, the aunt who brought up Maria, and sister of Lord Sheffield, her father, the friend of Gibbon. The letters between these two are intimate, and contain a good deal of self-revelation. Many of them might have been written to-day, but the absence of morbidness and self.pity strikes an old-fashioned note. Courage was the fashion, and to speak, indeed to boast, of one's good fortune was thought right. Apprehension, anxiety, what Maria calls "the enjoyment of grief beforehand," were considered signs of an ill-regulated mind. "My dear Maria," says her aunt in one of her tender letters fall of admiration and advice, "be sure of happiness and you will find it wherever you go." Certainly Maria did appear to find it. After all, there was something in the old idea of regulating the mind. We have ceased to believe in the system, not entirely perhaps to our advantage. We pack life as full as it will hold. Heaven knows, it is a small enough receptacle ! but out of all our wares we do not get the happiness that Maria got out of her smaller stock, by the determination to consider only those which pleased her. The Marias and Serenas of to-day have more to make life agreeable than their grandmothers had. They are less likely to die early than their grandmothers were, less likely to be marked with small-pox, less likely to have the whole of their households, upstairs and downstairs, drunk upon any given occasion, as Serena's household was upon the day that Maria's son was born. If they like society —Maria loved it—and if they have as good an income as she had, they can have it wherever they live. In Maria's day a country house was really in the country. She lived among her few neighbours, who were or were not sympathetic, as the case might be. Visitors came at rare intervals for long stays,—too long to be regarded as holidays. London did not come to the country from Saturdays to Mondays a hundred years ago. No doubt they had time to make friends with their staying company,—and enemies too. We can only think of one cause for thankfulness which a past generation enjoyed, and of which the spirit of the age has deprived this, and that is the thankfulness produced by the thought that there are so many people worse off than ourselves. Our grandfathers enjoyed this thought, which now may embitter our happiness, but cannot console our griefs. Perhaps this is the reason why the world as a whole is happier, but the educated classes at least imagine themselves less happy than they were.
One reason that Maria's letters are so entertaining is that they formed an outlet for her love of society. "The Man," however adorable, suffered from headaches, and could not always read ; besides, he was outdoors all day, being an excellent landlord, and a lover of tree-planting. Maria talks on paper to Serena about books, politics, neighbours, and children. She was quite fall of talent. The publication of her girlish letters a short time ago proved that. It is now believed that we owe the form in which Gibbon's Auto- biography was given to the world to "the sprightly Maria," of whom he wrote with so much affection ; yet she never desired applause, but put the best she had to say on every subject into her letters with no idea that any but the receiver would see them. Of children she had quite a confusing amount, hurrying on the large total by twins. The twins were boys, and coming after four disappointments in the shape of girls, the rejoicings at their christening among the neighbours, tenants, and labourers were greater than on the four previous occasions. "All the guests," says Maria, "were as drunk as I ever had the pleasure of seeing any one." Among the labourers, however, "that extent of intoxication was not reached which causes men to be swine." Lady Sheffield, who received this account of the festivities, replies : "I would have given a great deal to be present ; there is nothing I love so much as such sort of festivities where one has the satisfaction of knowing that one makes one's friends happy as well as drunk." In London, she declares, "when you give a ball you affront many people, please a few, make many drunk, and yourself miser- able." Certainly this was a rougher age than ours. We wonder how such refined women endured these drunken men. Yet the sexes had not begun to bicker in I800,—perhaps because they were further apart. Maria, however, still loves London in spite of the greater happiness procurable by country hospitality. We quote a delightful letter written to Serena when, some years after her marriage, she returned to Alderley after a short visit to London :— " Do you know, I found an old friend towards the month of May P-9 Miss Holroyd, from whom I had been so long separated that I bad almost lost sight and remembrance of her, but some- how as the season advanced we almost confounded our identity, and, if you remember, she was a very giddy person, and her bead was apt to be turned a little in London, and I, when I was her, might easily forget what you wrote. I am happy to inform you that Alderley air has restored Lady Stanley to herself, and she feels very much at home again amongst the vulgar cares of the country, and will be extremely happy to hear from you as often as ever you please, and will try to recollect what you say better than she did in London."
To "Mrs. Aunt Serena," Maria, whether as Miss Holroyd or as Lady Stanley, is always perfection. She only reproaches her with not writing often enough, while she herself writes to them all continually, even to a baby of six weeks old. She puts her reproof very prettily. "It is certain," she writes "that the less you write the more you will dislike it, and you must remember your poor old aunt can't give it up, and when she is gone to Heaven you will say I wish I had gone on writing a little longer not to deprive her of her little affec- tionate enjoyments." Space forbids us to quote more. We advise our readers to get the book and to amuse themselves with Maria's views upon education, and with her accounts of the boy's tutor who had the "unexpected advantage of knowing French, and of being willing in some degree to associate with the servants." By the bye, he got 250 a year for his services, while his sister, who was governess to the girls and had no unexpected advantage, got 260.
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