party, and especially to
a little boy called William, Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest boy, who grew up
to be a fine young man, but who died young of the cruel family complaint.
Mrs. Edgeworth's health was also failing all this time--'Though she
makes epigrams she is far from well,' says Maria; but they, none of them
seem seriously alarmed. Mr. Edgeworth, in the intervals of politics, is
absorbed in a telegraph, which, with the help of his sons, he is trying
to establish. It is one which will act by night as well as by day.

It was a time of change and stir for Ireland, disaffection growing and
put down for a time by the soldiers; armed bands going about 'defending'
the country and breaking its windows. In 1794 threats of a French
invasion had alarmed everybody, and now again in 1796 came rumours of
every description, and Mr. Edgeworth was very much disappointed that his
proposal for establishing a telegraph across the water to England was
rejected by Government. He also writes to Dr. Darwin that he had offered
himself as a candidate for the county, and been obliged to relinquish
at the last moment; but these minor disappointments were lost in the
trouble which fell upon the household in the following year--the death
of the mother of the family, who sank rapidly and died of consumption in
1797.

VII.

When Mr. Edgeworth himself died (not, as we may be sure, without many
active post-mortem wishes and directions) he left his entertaining
Memoirs half finished, and he desired his daughter Maria in the most
emphatic way to complete them, and to publish them without changing
or altering anything that he had written. People reading them were
surprised by the contents; many blamed Miss Edgeworth for making them
public, not knowing how solemn and binding these dying commands of her
father's had been, says Mrs. Leadbeater, writing at the time to Mrs.
Trench. Many severe and wounding reviews appeared, and this may have
influenced Miss Edgeworth in her own objection to having her Memoirs
published by her family.

Mr. Edgeworth's life was most extraordinary, comprising in fact three or
four lives in the place of that one usually allowed to most people, some
of us having to be moderately content with a half or three-quarters of
existence. But his versatility of mind was no less remarkable than his
tenacity of purpose and strength of affection, though some measure of
sentiment must have certainly been wanting, and his fourth marriage