Honora had advised her husband to marry again, and had formed an idea that her sister, Elizabeth, was suited to him. They were accordingly united, on Christmas-day, 1780, and a little time afterward they visited London; when Mr. Edgeworth was invited by Sir Joseph Banks to become a member of the Royal Society, and he contributed to its Transactions a paper on the resistance of the air to bodies of different shapes.

In the second volume of Mr. Edgeworth's Memoirs, commencing with the year 1782, the narrative is continued by his daughter. In that year, he again returned to Ireland, ' with a firm determination to dedicate the remainder of his life to the improvement of his estate, and the education of his children; and farther, with the sincere hope of contributing to the melioration of the inhabitants of the country from which he drew his subsistence.' Hitherto, his life had been rather that of a man of the world, attached to its gay amusements, and contributing his share towards them, than of a citizen studying the welfare of the community: - but, when he settled in the midst of his own tenantry, and became an inhabitant of a country which at that period stood so much in need of men of firmness and patriotism, the sphere of his utility was enlarged, and the energy and exertion of character which he displayed were equal to the increased calls made on him by circumstances.

The state of his domestic affairs first attracted his attention on his arrival. Followers, petitioners, tenants, undertenants, drivers, agents, and sub-agents, were all to have audience; and the catalogue of grievances, which greeted his eyes on his arrival, was sufficient to have driven him back. Mr. Edgeworth, however, had a quick insight into the Irish character; and his tenants soon discovered that they had to deal with one who would be neither a tyrant nor a dupe. Of the system which he adopted in managing this unmanageable people, his daughter gives a long and valuable but rather tedious account. He became his own agent, and took away all discretionary power from his drivers, petty tyrants who exercised the power of distress on the goods of the tenants. He made merit the sole claim to preference; and the mere plea, "I have lived under your honour, or your honour's father, or grandfather," was by him disregarded. He did not choose his tenants from their being substantial persons, but by the excellence of their character; and religious or political prejudice had no weight in his decision. To his repute as a good landlord, it was soon added that he was a real gentleman; and this phrase, pronounced with wellknown

known emphasis, comprizes a great deal in the opinion of the lower Irish. He tempered authority with mildness; and the poor soon found that they might expect from him what in other quarters was frequently denied to them, — justice. His system of reform was not a rash plan; he suggested rather than commanded; and he had the wisdom to make use of the prejudices of the people as a means of their improvement.

It was about this period, also, that he began to take an active part in political life. When he returned to his native country, the Irish volunteers were in force; and, on his landing at Dublin, one of the first occurrences that he witnessed was well calculated to inspire him with patriotic sentiments: he was present in the Irish House of Commons when the vote of fifty thousand pounds to Mr. Grattan-the bounty of a grateful country to her most faithful servant was passed. In the honourable zeal of the moment, he addressed a letter of congratulation and advice to the associated volunteercorps of the county of Longford; and at a county-meeting he proposed and carried a series of resolutions, with a petition for parliamentary reform; - the first resolutions and the first petition on that subject in Ireland. At length, the convention, consisting of one hundred and sixty delegates from the volunteer-corps, met in Dublin on the 9th of November, 1783, for the purpose of seeking a reform through the intervention of parliament, which was then sitting. In the heat of debate, it was proposed that the petition should be carried to the bar of the house by the whole body of delegates, in their uniforms; - a most rash and dangerous project, which Mr. Edgeworth was the first person who ventured distinctly to oppose. The hopes of the friends of freedom ended at last in disappointment; and from this period, until he became a member of the Irish parliament, many years afterward, Mr. E. took no farther part in public affairs.

During this interval, his time was fully occupied in the education of his children, and in his own literary and scientific employments. His name appears as one of the founders of the Royal Irish Academy; and he also paid considerable attention to agriculture, and profitably improved very large tracts of mountainous land and of bog. He made great exertions to establish an iron rail-way for the convenience of the public works in Ireland, till he at last discovered that they had little to carry, and nothing to pay.

The sudden death of Mr. Day, who was killed by a fall from a young horse which he was training, was a severe shock to Mr. Edgeworth; and he experienced a still greater

misfor

misfortune in the death of his daughter Honora. He had made considerable progress in writing the life of his friend Day, when he relinquished it, in consequence of hearing that Mr. Keir was engaged in a similar undertaking. *

In 1792, in consequence of the ill health of one of his children, Mr. E. again visited England, and resided there for two years, mostly at Clifton, near Bristol. Occasionally, he made several journeys to London, and renewed his acquaintance with his various literary and scientific friends; among whom he reckoned Watt, Darwin, Keir, and Wedgwood. He also became acquainted with the celebrated Dr. Beddoes, who afterward married his sister, Miss Anna Edgeworth.

Various accounts of the disturbed state of Ireland having reached the ears of Mr. Edgeworth, he deemed it his duty immediately to return home; and accordingly, in the autumn of 1793, he left England. The state of affairs, however, was not so alarming as it had been represented, and he turned his attention chiefly to the establishment of a line of telegraphs for the information of government. To accomplish this object he visited Dublin, where he met with nothing but delay, vexation, and neglect. In the year 1796, he canvassed the county of Longford; and though at that time he found it necessary to relinquish the contest, he met with sufficient encouragement to induce him to press his claims on a future

occasion.

Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth died in the autumn of the year 1797; and in 1798 Mr. E. " took unto himself” a fourth wife, in the person of Miss Beaufort, the daughter of Dr. B. He was not made, it appears, to enjoy happiness alone. — At the close of this year, the storm of discontent burst forth over almost all Ireland. The spirit of rebellion existed in great strength in the county of Longford, in which Mr. Edgeworth resided; and many of the neighbouring gentlemen had raised corps of yeomanry. Mr. E. wished to delay this sort of appeal to the sword as long as it was possible: but he at length perceived that he could not, in justice to his own tenants, prevent them from having the same protection which others enjoyed. He therefore embodied a corps of infantry, into which he admitted Catholics as well as Protestants; and, although he was scouted and suspected for this display of liberality, he found in the moment of imminent peril that he had no reason to repent of his determination. On the news of the approach of the rebels, the family

* A report of this publication will be found in our vith Vol. N.S. p. 59.

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of Mr. Edgeworth were compelled to quit their house, and seek safety in the town of Longford. It is gratifying to discover, at times when the hottest passions of the soul are excited, that the best and kindest affections of the heart are not asleep. The housekeeper had been left at home to follow the family as soon as she could, but towards evening a large body of rebels entered the village: she heard them at the gate, and expected it would be immediately broken open. Their leader, however, with a pike in his hand, set his back against the gate, and swore that "if he was to die for it the next minute, he would have the life of the first man who should open that gate, or set enemy's foot withinside of that place." He said that "the housekeeper who was left in it was a good gentlewoman, and had done him a service though she did not know him, or he know her. He had never seen her face but she had, in the year before, lent his wife, when in distress, 16s., the rent of flax-ground, and he would stand her friend now." He did so he mounted guard at the gate all night, and bade her not be frighted, "for that no harm should happen to her, or any belonging to her; not a soul should get leave to go into her master's house; not a twig should be touched, not a leaf harmed." His companions huzzaed and passed on, and the house was saved by the gratitude of a single individual.

Mr. Edgeworth's parliamentary career now commenced; and his speech on the great question of the Union, in which he seems to have weighed the advantages on both sides very accurately, excited much curiosity. He voted against that measure: but not so much through a conviction of its inexpediency, as from a belief that it was contrary to the wishes of the majority of the sense and property of the nation. During the same session, he directed the attention of the House to that most important question, the education of the poor; and by his exertions a committee was appointed, and resolutions were adopted which were prepared by him. His speeches in parliament are said to have made a considerable impression on the House. While he was thus occupied in the senate, he spent two winters in Dublin, and in the spring of the year 1799 he came to England.

In 1802, Mr. E. and several of his family, passing through England, proceeded to France, where his literary and scientific acquirements appear to have been highly estimated. While in Paris, he gave what may be deemed rather a superfluous proof of his attachment to the cause of liberty. He had a great desire to see Bonaparte, and had accordingly made the necessary arrangements for being presented: but,

soon

soon after his arrival, having learned that the First Consul had been preparing the way for becoming Emperor, he declared that he would not go to the court of an usurper.

The system of espionage, that indelible disgrace to any country which pretends to the shadow of freedom, was now in high perfection in France, and Mr. Edgeworth experienced a little of the tyrannical folly which it produces. Though he had always been prudent in conversation, and had never meddled with politics, he was one morning surprized by an order to quit Paris in twenty-four hours, and the French territories in fifteen days. By the interest of his friends, a revocation of this decree was obtained, but the real cause of its promulgation is still involved in doubt. The circumstance, however, determined him to depart from France.

On the return of Mr. E. and his family from the continent, they visited Edinburgh, and in the latter end of 1804 again reached Edgeworth-Town. Notwithstanding the insulting disappointments which he had experienced on his former attempt to establish a telegraph in Ireland, he did not allow personal feeling to interfere with his duty to the community; and during the lieutenancy of Lord Hardwicke, he and his brother-in-law, Capt. Beaufort, of the navy, succeeded in establishing a line of telegraphs from Dublin to Galway. In 1806, another opportunity was presented of usefully employing himself in the service of the public, and the value of such services was duly appreciated by government: he was appointed, without solicitation, one of the commissioners of a board of education, an office for which he was peculiarly qualified. He had also the resolution to undertake a much more laborious, and painful duty. Commissioners had been nominated to examine into the nature and extent of the bogs of Ireland, and to determine whether they could or could not be reclaimed; and under their authority he took the charge of a district containing above 34,500 acres; which, according to his instructions, were "to be surveyed, levelled, and bored to the hard ground, at lines parallel to each other, at the distance of a quarter of a mile." For nearly twelve months, and when his health was by no means strong, he persevered in this undertaking; being usually out from day-break till sun-set, and frequently passing fifteen hours without food, when he was in his 65th year. The fact serves to shew what unusual activity both of mind and body he possessed at that age.

In the latter years of Mr. Edgeworth's life, few material circumstances seem to have occurred on which the pen of his

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