Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs

ttle as possible. I am convinced from all that I have seen, that good sense diminishes all the evils of life, and alleviates even the inevitable pain of declining health. By good

this faculty; and I do not think I ever saw any person extract more go

er say, that during the seventeen years of his marriage with this lady, he never once

rth's sister. Edgeworth wrote a long letter about scientific matters to Darwin, and kept his most important news to the last: 'I am going to be married to a young lady of small fortune and large accomplishments,-compared with my age, much

scovered in Dublin, that the city was under arms, and its inhabitants in the greatest terror. Dr. Beau

marriage of some other person, and to exclaim against the folly and imprudence of any man's marrying in such disturbed times. "No man of honour, sense or feeling, would incumber himself with a wife at

nd-of what would probably be said and done in the next session of Parliament: my father, foreseeing that this important national question would probably come on, h

would venture to make a first speech in P

he was past fifty, he was actually going in a few days, as he hoped, to be mar

ved the capital. But the danger for the country seemed by no means over, -insurrections, which were to have been general and simultaneous, broke out in different parts of the kingdom. Th

ort, by her brother, the Rev. William Beaufort, at St. Anne's Church in Dublin. They came down to Edgeworth Town immediately, through a part of the cou

on, that it was quite natural, without effort or pretension. The chief thing remarkable was,

the common people in our neighbourhood, by whom they were universally beloved-it spoke well, they said, for the new lady. In his own family, the union and happiness she would secure were soon felt, but her superior q

with her, and writing of her father's choice of a wife says: 'He did not late in life marry merely to please his own fancy, but he ch

appeared, not immediately in our neighbourhood, but within six or seven miles of us, near Granard. The people were leagued in secret rebellion, and waited only for the expected arrival of the French army to break out. In the adjacent counties military law had been proclaimed, and our village was within a mile

mately the conquered party. Those who were really and actually engaged, and in communication with the re

or that he was certain the man was in the house; they searched again, but in vain; they gave up the point, and were preparing to mount their horses, when one man, who had stayed a little behind his companions, saw, or thought he saw, something move at the end of the garden behind the house. He looked, and beheld a man's arm come out of the ground: he ran to the spot and called to his compani

iced a secret passage underground: a large meal-chest in the kitchen had a false bott

oment the search was over, up he came; and had practised this with

ad seen too many recent examples. However, it now became necessary, even for the sake of justice to his own tenantry, that they should be put upon a footing with others, have equal security of protection, and an opportunity of evincing their loyal dispositions. He raised a corps of infantry, into

me mistake of the ordnance officer, delayed. The anxiety for their arrival

rs-in-law, the Mrs. Sneyd, to their friends in England, but this offer they refused. Of the domestics, three men were English and Protestant, two Irish and Catholic; the women were all Irish and Catholic excepting the hou

real forms. In some faces joy struggled for a moment with feigned sorrow, and then, encouraged by sympathy, yielded to the natural expression. Still my father had no reason to distrust those in whom he had placed confidence; his tenants were steady; he saw no

own all seemed quiet; but early next morning, September 4th, a report reached us that the rebels we

this uncertainty, when an escort with an ammunition cart passed through the village on its way to Longford. It contained several barrels of powder, intended to blow up the bridges, and to stop the progress of the enemy. One of the officers of the party rode up to our house and offered to let us ha

dgeworth went immediately to give her assistance; she left her carriage for the use of the wounded gentleman, and rode back. At the entrance of the village she was stopped by a gentleman in great terror, who, taking hold of the bridle of her horse, begged her not to attempt to go farther, assuring her that the rebels were coming into the town. But she answered that she must and would return to her family. She rode on, and found us waiting anxiously for her. No assistance could be afforded from Longford; the rebels were reassembling, and advancing towards the village; and there was no alternative but to leave our house as fast as possible. One of our carri

could behave better than they did at this first moment of trial. Not one absented himself, though many,

march to Longford.

agreeable to many of t

ce shown, however, by

those who called t

er containing a list of his corps, and that, if this should come into the hands of the rebels, it might be of dangerous consequence to his men; it would serve to point out their houses for pillage, and th

nd. We heard nothing of our housekeeper all night, and were exceedingly alarmed; but early the next morning, to our great joy, she arrived. She told us that, after we had left her, she waited hour after hour for the carriage; she could hear nothing of it, as it had gone to Longford with the wounded officer. Towards evening, a large body of rebels entered the village; she heard them at the gate, and expected that they would have broken in the next instant; but one, who seemed to be a leader, with a pike in his

r to say if she remembered him. "No," to her knowledge she had never seen his face. He asked if she remembered having lent a woman money to pay her rent of flaxground the year before. "Yes," she remembered that, and named the woman, the time, and the sum. His companions were thus satisfied of the truth of what he had asserted. He bid he

g some old family portraits, happened to be in the street at that instant, and called out to the mob, "Gentlemen, it is yellow! Gentlemen, it is not orange!" In consequence of this happy distinction they let go the coachman; and the same man who had mounted guard at the gate, came up with his friends, rescued the carriage, and surrounding the coach

's corps appeared every hour more strong. He saw the consequences that might arise from the slightest breaking out of quarrel. It was not possible for him to send his men, unarmed as they still were, to their homes, lest they should be destroyed by the rebels; yet the officers of the other corps wished to have them se

the enemy might be stopped. He urged that a stand might be made there till the King's army should come up. The offer was gladly accepted-men, arms, and ammunition, all he could want or desire, were placed at his disposal. He slept that night in the gaol, with everything prepared for its defence; but the next morning fresh news came, that the French had turned off from the Longford Road, and were going towards Granard; of this, however, there was no certainty. My father, by the desire of the commanding officer, rode out to reconnoitre, and my brother went to the top of the

in silence round one man, who spoke with angry vehemence and gesticulation, stamping, and frequently wiping his forehead. We thought he was a mountebank haranguing the populace, till we saw that he wore a uniform. Listening with curiosity to hear what he was saying, we observed that he loo

o the room, so much terrif

ll tear him to pieces, if they catch hold of him. They say he 's a t

by the light of which he had been reading the newspaper late the preceding night. These, however, were said to be signals for the enemy. The absurdity of the whol

able to do anything. We wrote instantly, and with difficulty found a man who undertook to convey the note. It was to be carried to meet him on one road, and Mrs. Edgeworth and I determined to drive out to meet him on the other. We made our way down a back staircase into the inn yard, where the carriage was ready. Several gentlemen spoke to us as we got into the carriage, begging us not to be alarmed: Mrs. Edgeworth answered that she was more surprised than alarmed. The commanding officer and the sovereign of Longford walked by the side of the carriage through the town; and as the mob believed that we were going away not to re

d again doubted the reality of the danger, more especially a

approach of some of Lord Cornwallis's suite, or of troops who were to bring in the French prisoners, would prevent all probability of disturbance. In the evening the prisoners arrived at the inn; a crowd followed them, but quietly. A sun-burnt, coarse-looking man, in a

y this time Colonel Handfield, Major Cannon, and some other officers, had arrived, and they were at the inn at dinner in a parlour on the ground-floor, under our room. It being hot weather, the windows were open. Nothing now seemed

and my father from the barracks. The Major being this evening in coloured clothes, the people no longer knew him to be an officer, nor conceived, as they had done before, that Mr. Edgeworth was his prisoner. The mob had not contented themselves with the horrid yells that they heard, but had been pelting them with hard turf, stones, and brickbats. From one of these my father received a blow on the side

be only drunken rejoicings, immediately ran out and rescued Major Eustace and my father. At the sigh

ll the panes of our windows in the front room were in a blaze of light by the time

returned homewards, all danger from rebels being now over,

lly "not a twig touched, nor a leaf harmed." Within the house everything was as we had left it-a map that we had been consulting was still open upon the library table, with pencils, and slips of paper containing the first lessons in arithmetic, in which some of the young people had been engaged the morning we had driven from home; a pansy, in a glass of water, which one of the children had been copying, was still on the chimney-piece. These trivial circumstances, marking repose and tranquillity, struck us at this moment with an unreasonable sort o

to examine what damage had been done by the rebels, and to order that repairs of all his tenants' houses should be made at his expense. A few days after our return, Government ordered that the arms of the Edgeworth Town infantry should be forwarded by the commanding-o

e in open rebellion, or at least, in their own phrase, organised for insurrection; but to their dismay they found only ragamuffins, as they called them, who, in joining their standard, did them infinitely more harm than good. It is a pity that the lower Irish could not hear the contemptuous manner in which the French, both officers and soldiers, spoke of them and of their country. The generals described the stratagems which had been practised upon them by their good allies-the same rebels frequently returning with different tones and new stories, to obtain double and treble provisions of arms, ammunition

characters, appear too great a price to pay for liberty and leisure; they will care little if they be misunderstood or misrepresented by the vulgar; they will trust to truth and time to do them justice. This may be all well in ordinary life, and in peaceable days; but in civil commotions the best and the wisest, if he have not made himself publicly known, so as to connect himself with the interests and feelings of his neighbours, will find none to answer fo