ajority.

'He went in the spring of 1799 to England, and visited his old
friends, Mr. Keir, Mr. Watt, Dr. Darwin, and Mr. William Strutt of
Derby. In passing through different parts of the country he saw, and
delighted in showing us, everything curious and interesting in art
and nature. Travelling, he used to say, was from time to time
necessary, to change the course of ideas, and to prevent the growth
of local prejudices.

'He went to London, and paid his respects to his friend Sir Joseph
Banks, attended the meetings of the Royal Society, and met various
old acquaintances whom he had formerly known abroad.'

Maria writes:--'In his own account of his earlier life he has never
failed to mark the time and manner of the commencement of valuable
friendships with the same care and vividness of recollection With
which some men mark the date of their obtaining promotion, places,
or titles. I follow the example he has set me.

'My father's and Mrs. Edgeworth's families were both numerous, and
among such numbers, even granting the dispositions to be excellent
and the understandings cultivated, the chances were against their
suiting; but, happily, all the individuals of the two families,
though of various talents, ages, and characters, did, from their
first acquaintance, coalesce. . . . After he had lost such a friend
as Mr. Day . . . who could have dared to hope that he should ever
have found another equally deserving to possess his whole confidence
and affection? Yet such a one it pleased God to give him--and to
give him in the brother of his wife. And never man felt more
strongly grateful for the double blessing. To Captain Beaufort he
became as much attached as he had ever been to Lord Longford or to
Mr. Day.

'His father-in-law, Dr. Beaufort, was also particularly agreeable
to him as a companion, and helpful as a friend.'

Consumption again carried off one of Edgeworth's family: his
daughter Elizabeth died at Clifton in August 1800.

The Continent, which had been practically closed for some years to
travellers, was open in 1802 at the time of the short peace, and
Edgeworth gladly availed himself of the opportunity of mixing in the
literary and scientific society in Paris, and of showing his wife
the treasures of the Louvre--treasures increased by the spoil of
other countries. The tour was arranged for the autumn, and Edgeworth
was looking forward to visiting Dr. Darwin on the way, when he
received a letter begun by