leasure in their minds by the
festivity of these nocturnal orgies. An insurrection of such people,
who have been much oppressed, must be infinitely more horrid than
anything that has happened in France; for no hired executioners need
be sought from the prisons or the galleys. And yet the people here
are altogether better than in England. . . . The peasants, though
cruel, are generally docile, and of the strongest powers, both of
body and mind.

'A good government may make this a great country, because the raw
material is good and simple. In England, to make a carte-blanche fit
to receive a proper impression, you must grind down all the old rags
to purify them.'

His daughter adds: 'The disturbances in the county of Longford were
quieted for a time by the military; but again in the autumn of the
ensuing year (September 1796), rumours of an invasion prevailed, and
spread with redoubled force through Ireland, disturbing commerce,
and alarming all ranks of well-disposed subjects.'

CHAPTER 8

It was in 1797 that sorrow again visited the happy circle at
Edgeworth Town, and Edgeworth wrote thus of his wife to Dr. Darwin:
'She declines rapidly. But her mind suffers as little as possible. I
am convinced from all that I have seen, that good sense diminishes
all the evils of life, and alleviates even the inevitable pain of
declining health. By good sense, I mean that habit of the
understanding which employs itself in forming just estimates of
every object that lies before it, and in regulating the temper and
conduct. Mrs. Edgeworth, ever since I knew her, has carefully
improved and cultivated this faculty; and I do not think I ever saw
any person extract more good, and suffer less evil, than she has,
from the events of life. . . .'

Mrs. Edgeworth died in the autumn of the year 1797. Maria adds: 'I
have heard my father say, that during the seventeen years of his
marriage with this lady, he never once saw her out of temper, and
never received from her an unkind word or an angry look,'

Edgeworth paid the same compliment to his third wife which he had
done to his second--he quickly replaced her. His fourth wife was
the daughter of Dr. Beaufort, a highly qultivated man, whose family
were great friends of Mrs. Ruxton, Edgeworth's sister. Edgeworth
wrote a long letter about scientific matters to Darwin, and kept his
most important news to the last: 'I am going to be married to a
young lady of small fortune and large accom