after Lord Longford was no
more, his example and opinions seemed constantly present to him; he
delighted in the recollection of instances of his friend's sound
judgment, honour, and generosity; these he applied in his own
conduct, and held up to the emulation of his children.'

Doubtless Edgeworth felt, as Charles Lamb expresses it: 'Deaths
overset one, and put one out long after the recent grief. Two or
three have died within the last two twelvemonths, and so many parts
of me have been numbed. One sees a picture, reads an anecdote,
starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this person in
preference to every other; the person is gone whom it would have
peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every departure destroys
a class of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! What fun has
whist now? What matters it what you lead if you can no longer fancy
him looking over you? One never hears anything but the image of the
particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would care to
share the intelligence. Thus one distributes oneself about, and now
for so many parts of me I have lost the market.'

The departure of Edgeworth and his family from Clifton in the autumn
of 1793 was hastened by the news that disturbances were breaking out
in Ireland. Dr. Beddoes of Clifton, who was courting Edgeworth's
daughter Anna, had to console himself with the permission to follow
her to Ireland in the spring, where they were married at Edgeworth
Town in April 1794.

It was not till the autumn of 1794 that the disturbances in Ireland
became alarming; and in a letter to Dr. Darwin, Edgeworth writes:
'Just recovering from the alarm occasioned by a sudden irruption of
defenders into this neighbourhood, and from the business of a county
meeting, and the glory of commanding a squadron of horse, and from
the exertion requisite to treat with proper indifference an
anonymous letter sent by persons who have sworn to assassinate me; I
received the peaceful philosophy of Zoonomia; and though it has been
in my hands not many minutes, I found much to delight and instruct
me. . . .

'We were lately in a sad state here--the sans culottes (literally
so) took a very effectual way of obtaining power; they robbed of
arms all the houses in the country, thus arming themselves and
disarming their opponents. By waking the bodies of their friends,
the human corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of
Ireland, but is associated with p