e. When Richard's father heard of this mock marriage
he was so alarmed that he treated it seriously, and sued and got a
divorce for his son in the ecclesiastical court.

It was while visiting Dr. Darwin at Lichfield that Edgeworth made
some friendships which influenced his whole life. At the Bishop's
Palace, where Canon Seward lived, he first met Miss Honora Sneyd,
who was brought up as a daughter by Mrs. Seward. He was much struck
by her beauty and by her mental gifts, and says: 'Now for the first
time in my life, I saw a woman that equalled the picture of
perfection which existed in my imagination. I had long suffered much
from the want of that cheerfulness in a wife, without which marriage
could not be agreeable to a man with such a temper as mine. I had
borne this evil, I believe, with patience; but my not being happy at
home exposed me to the danger of being too happy elsewhere.' He
describes in another place his first wife as 'prudent, domestic, and
affectionate; but she was not of a cheerful temper. She lamented
about trifles; and the lamenting of a female with whom we live does
not render home delightful.'

His friend, Mr. Day,* was also intimate at the Palace, but did not
admire Honora at that time (1770) as much as Edgeworth did. Mr. Day
thought 'she danced too well; she had too much an air of fashion in
her dress and manners; and her arms were not sufficiently round and
white to please him.'

* The author of Sandford and Merton.

He was at this time much preoccupied with an orphan, Sabrina Sydney,
whom he had taken from the Foundling Hospital, and whom he was
educating with the idea of marrying her ultimately. Honora, on the
other hand, had received the addresses of Mr. Andre, afterwards
Major Andre, who was shot as a spy during the American War. But want
of fortune caused the parents on both sides to discourage this
attachment, and it was broken off.

It was in 1771 that Mr. Day, having placed Sabrina at a
boarding-school, became conscious of Honora's attractions, and began
to think of marrying her. 'He wrote me one of the most eloquent
letters I ever read,' says Edgeworth, 'to point out to me the folly
and meanness of indulging a hopeless passion for any woman, let her
merit be what it might; declaring at the same time that he "never
would marry so as to divide himself from his chosen friend. Tell
me," said he, "have you sufficient strength of mind totally to
subdue love that cannot be indulged with