Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs

ren a curious meeting which he had in a coffee-house with an old acquaintance whom he had not seen for thirty years: He obs

am,

I sat down upon the ground, and burst out a-crying; he could actually complete an entrechat of ten distinct beats, which I could not accomplish! However, I was well consoled by him; for he invented, for Aldridge's benefit, The Tambourine Dance, which had uncommon success. The dresses were Chinese. Twelve assistants held small drums furnished with bells; these were struck in th

was not to boast of a frivolous excellence that he told this anecdote to his children; it was to express his satisfaction at having, after the first effervescence of boyish spirit

Watt, Darwin, Keir, and Wedgwood; and it was now that his friendship began with M

years, continued to influence his family, and all who had the honour of his friendship. The permanence of this influence after death is a stronger proof of the sincerity of the esteem and admiration felt for the character of the individual than any which can be given during his lifetime. I can bear witness that, in one instance, it never ceased to operate. I know that o

, and thinks to tell of it to this person in preference to every other; the person is gone whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every departure destroys a class of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! What fun has whist now? What matters it what you l

were breaking out in Ireland. Dr. Beddoes of Clifton, who was courting Edgeworth's daughter Anna, had to console himse

fenders into this neighbourhood, and from the business of a county meeting, and the glory of commanding a squadron of horse, and from the exertion requisite to treat with proper indifference an anonymous

corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of Ireland, but is associated with pleasure 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 tha

l is good and simple. In England, to make a carte-blanche fit to receive

t again in the autumn of the ensuing year (September 1796), rumours of an invasion prevailed, and spread w