52 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, iv 



quite unspoiled by mines and manufactories. My father 

 wrote in his Autobiography : ' In the summer the whole 

 family used often to sit on the steps of the old portico 

 with the flower-garden in front, and with the steep wooded 

 bank opposite the house reflected in the lake, with here 

 and there a fish rising or a water bird paddling about. 

 Nothing has left a more vivid picture on my mind than 

 these evenings at Maer." I can remember his description 

 of these enchanting evenings, and his happy look and sigh 

 of reminiscence, as he recalled the past, and told how 

 nothing else was ever like it what good talk there was, 

 not the mere personal gossip which such family talk is apt 

 to become, and how delightfully Charlotte sang, the elder 

 cousin for whom he had a boy's adoration. 



The household at Maer was kept up without any display, 

 but there was every comfort that an ordinary squire's 

 household would have at the time. The garden was the 

 special province of Elizabeth, the eldest daughter. A 

 number of horses were kept, chiefly for riding. These 

 were turned out to grass in the summer and taken up as 

 they were wanted, but apparently they had no pair of 

 carriage horses in the earlier time, and when the large 

 carriage was used posters were hired. 



Maer Hall was the centre of attraction to different mem- 

 bers of the family, who at one time or another settled 

 in the neighbourhood. Parkfields, where Mrs Wedgwood 

 senior and her daughters Kitty and Sarah lived, was not 

 far off, and as the sons from Maer married, all but one 

 came to live near their father's home. 



Bessy's hospitality kept Maer constantly full of relations 

 and old friends. My father speaks in one of his letters to 

 my mother before they were married, of his fear of her 

 rinding their quiet evenings dull, after living all her life 

 with such large and agreeable parties " as only Maer can 

 boast of." Besides these gatherings of relations and friends, 

 their society chiefly consisted in frequent intercourse with 

 two or three families within easy riding distance, although 

 they mixed in the county society and went to the Race 

 balls and other county functions. Mr Toilet of Betley 

 Hall, a liberal squire and experimenter in agriculture, and 

 his daughters, a group of clever, spirited girls, were among 

 their best friends. Betley was about eight miles from 

 Maer, and my mother told me she felt as if she knew every 

 stock and stone on the road. The Mount, Shrewsbury, 

 the home of Dr Robert Darwin and his wife Susannah, 



