Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs

om a scaffolding, the result of which was, as his

les, and who, as it was court politeness that nothing unfortunate should ever be mentioned in the King's presence, replied to His Majesty's inquiry i

e possessed the virtues and mental endowments which claim the general love and admiration of mankind.' This biography, however, was never finished, as Edgeworth found another friend, Mr. Keir, had undertaken it; he therefore sent the materials to him, but some of them are incorporated in the Memoirs, Sabrina, whom Mr. Day had educated, and intended to marry (though he gave up the idea when he doubted her docility and power of adaptiveness to his strange theories of life), ultimately married his friend, Mr. Bicknel, while Mr. Day married Miss Milne, a clever and accomplished lady, who had sufficient tact to fall in with his wishes, and a wifely devotion which made up to her for their

this in the will; he left almost everything to Mrs. Day. She, however, hearing of Mr. Day's promise, offered his lib

y, and left me only that. My ideas of him are so much associated with his books, that to part with them would be, as it were, breaking some of the last ties which still connect me with so beloved an object. The being in the midst

self, always distinguished in my father the same generosity of disposition. She had, she said, ev

a, and he had taken great pleasure in guiding her studies and watching the development of her character. Ever since he had settled in his Irish home one of Edgewor

ugh the air so as to produce a surf

ered, 'A

s then

space of the length of one of its own sides, what figure wi

es' silence she a

oetry and fiction, and read aloud well, and his daughter writes: 'From the Arabian Tales to Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, and the Greek

om the best translations of the ancient tragedies he selected for reading aloud the most striking passa

n of his childhood, and from her he received all the consolation that affectionate sympathy could give;

posed whatever he thought was faulty in his friend's poem. Dr. Darwin had formed a false theory, that poetry is painting to the eye; this led him to confine his attention to the language of description, or to the representation of that which

s." The ancient gems would have afforded a subject eminently suited to his descriptive powers. . . . The description of Medea, and of some of the labours of Hercules, etc., which he has introduced into his "Botanic

t it ever will, 'that in future times some critic will arise, who shall r

subject for his next poem; nor did Edgeworth do what his friend

d instruction some of his conversation-lessons, as we may call them, with his questions and explanations, and the answers of the children. . . . To all who ever reflected upon education it must have occurred that facts and experiments were wanting in this department of knowledge, while assertions and theories abounded. I claim for my father the merit of having been the first to recommend, both by example and precept, what Bacon would call the experimental method in education. If I were obliged to rest on any single point my father's credit as a lover of truth, and his utility as a philanthropist and as a philosophical writer, it should be on his having made this first record of experiments in education. ... In noting anecdotes of children, the g

ip, which for so many years was the pride and joy of my life.' We who were born in the first half of the nineteenth century can remember the d

The tranquillising effect of this patience was of great advantage. The pupil's mind became secure, not only of the point in question, but steady in the confidence of its future powers. It was his principle to excite the attention fully and strongly for a short time, and never to go to the point of fatigue. ... In the education of the heart, his warmth of approbation and strength of indignation had powerful and salutary influence in touching and devel

the case, wherever any sort of deception has been used. My father never used any artifice of this kind, and consequently he always possessed

was of interest, and to rouse their powers of observation. And in the same manner Edgeworth, 'at the time when he was building or carrying on experiments, or work of any sort, consta

reflection or to philosophical inquiries, suited to others in the family of more advanced age and knowledge. The animation spread through the house by connecting children with all that is going on, an

groom, or a stable-boy are to some youths. I am every day more convinced of the advantages of good education.' He adds: 'One of my younger boys is what is called a genius-that is to say, he has vivacity, attention, a

to the world, highly characteristic of the warmth of my father's affections, and of the strength of his mind. . . . The conviction is full and strong on my own mind, that a father's confiding kindness, and plain sincerity to a young man, when he first sets out in the world, make an impression the most salutary and indelible. When his sons first quitted the paternal roof, they were all completely at liberty; he never took any indirect means to watch over

le in Ireland. . . . He excelled in imitating the Irish, because he never overstepped the modesty or the assurance of nature. He marked exquisitely the happy confidence, the shrewd wit of the people, without condescending to produce effect by caricature. He knew not only their comic talents, but their powers of pathos; and often when he had just heard from them some pathetic complaint,

Eloquence. It was supposed by him to have been a quotation from a fictitious narrative, but, on the contrary, it is an unembellished fact. My father was the magistrate before whom the widow and her landlord app

l could have induced any man of talents to choose such inglorious labours; but he thought no labour, however humble, beneath him, if it promised improvement in education. . . . His principle of always giving distinct marks for each different sound of the vowels has been since brought into more g

affairs of a relation; he had some difficulties with the creditors, but in trying to

entlemen tenants-the worst tenants in the world -middlemen, who relet the lan

ing that 'he considered himself used in an ungentlemanlike manner;' and ended by offering to give, instead of the value of his bond or promise, 'the satisfaction of a gentleman, at any hour or place. . . . My father,' says Maria, 'has often since rejoiced in the recollection of his steadiness at this per