ural rigidity, to dance and fence, and manage
the _great horse_. To perform his promise to Miss E. Sneyd
honourably, he gave up seven or eight hours of the day to these
exercises, for which he had not the slightest taste, and for
which, except horsemanship, he manifested the most sovereign
contempt. It was astonishing to behold the energy with which he
persevered in these pursuits. I have seen him stand between two
boards which reached from the ground higher than his knees: these
boards were adjusted with screws so as barely to permit him to
bend his knees, and to rise up and sink down. By these means Mr.
Huise proposed to force Mr. Day's knees outwards; but screwing was
in vain. He succeeded in torturing his patient; but original
formation and inveterate habit resisted all his endeavours at
personal improvement. I could not help pitying my philosophic
friend, pent up in durance vile for hours together, with his feet
in the stocks, a book in his hand, and contempt in his heart.

Mr. Edgeworth meanwhile lodged himself 'in excellent and agreeable
apartments,' and occupied himself with engineering. He is certainly
curiously outspoken in his memoirs; and explains that the first Mrs.
Edgeworth, Maria's mother, with many merits, was of a complaining
disposition, and did not make him so happy at home as a woman of a more
lively temper might have succeeded in doing. He was tempted, he said, to
look for happiness elsewhere than in his home. Perhaps domestic affairs
may have been complicated by a warm-hearted but troublesome little son,
who at Day's suggestion had been brought up upon the Rousseau system,
and was in consequence quite unmanageable, and a worry to everybody.
Poor Mrs. Edgeworth's complainings were not to last very long. She
joined her husband at Lyons, and after a time, having a dread of
lying-in abroad, returned home to die in her confinement, leaving four
little children. Maria could remember being taken into her mother's room
to see her for the last time.

Mr. Edgeworth hurried back to England, and was met by his friend Thomas
Day, who had preceded him, and whose own suit does not seem to have
prospered meanwhile. But though notwithstanding all his efforts Thomas
Day had not been fortunate in securing Elizabeth Sneyd's affections, he
could still feel for his friend. His first words were to tell Edgeworth
that Honora was still free, more beautiful than