Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection From His Memoirs

by Richard Lovell Edgeworth; Maria Edgeworth

In his seventy-first year Edgeworth had a dangerous illness, and though he seemed to recover from it for a time, he never regained his former strength. One great privation was that, from the failure of his sight, he became dependent on others to read and write for him. But his cheerful fortitude did not fail, though he felt that his days were numbered. He had promised to try some private experiments for the Dublin Society, and with the help of his son William he carried out a set of experiments on wheel carriages in April 1815 and in May 1816.

Almost his last literary effort was to dictate some pages which he contributed to his daughter Maria's novel Ormond, and he delighted in having the proofsheets read to him and in correcting them. Mrs. Ritchie has given some touching details of his last days in her Introduction to a new edition of Ormond.

Maria writes:—'The whole of Moriaty's history, and his escape from prison, were dictated without any alteration, or hesitation of a word, to Honora and me. This history Mr. Edgeworth heard from the actual hero of it, Michael Dunne, whom he chanced to meet in the town of Navan, where he was living respectably. He kept a shop where Mr. Edgeworth went to purchase some boards, and observing something very remarkable about the man's countenance, he questioned him as they were looking at the lumber in his yard, and Dunne readily told his tale almost in the very words used by Moriaty. . . . Mr. Edgeworth also wrote the meeting between Moriaty and his wife when he jumps out of the carriage the moment he hears her voice.'

Edgeworth kept his intellectual faculties to the last. 'To the last they continued clear, vigorous, energetic; and to the last were exerted in doing good, and in fulfilling every duty, public and private. . . .

'In the closing hours of his life his bodily sufferings subsided, and in the most serene and happy state, he said, before he sank to that sleep from which he never wakened:

'"I die with the soft feeling of gratitude to my friends and submission to the God who made me."'

He died the 13th of June 1817.

It may be thought to be an easy task to make an abridgment of a biography, but in some ways it is almost as difficult as it is for the sketcher to choose what he will put into his picture and yet preserve a due proportion and give a faithful idea of the whole scene before him. I have tried to give such portions of the Memoirs as will present the many-sided character of R. L. Edgeworth in relation to his scientific, literary, and educational work, and in relation to his position as a landlord, a father, and a friend. He was a singular instance of great mental activity with little ambition; of a genial nature in his own family circle and among his friends, he withdrew from the multitude, and refused to lower his standard of cultivated intercourse in order to win favour with coarser natures. He is chiefly remembered now as an educational reformer and as the guide of Maria Edgeworth in the earlier stages of her literary career. What she achieved was in great part due to her father's judicious training and encouragement.

A little more ambition and the spur of poverty might have made Edgeworth better known as an inventor of useful machines: it is curious to remark how nearly he invented the bicycle. He saw the advantage that light railways would be to Ireland, but the breath of mechanical life, steam, as a power, he did not foresee.

He might have written a book on 'The Domestic Life,' so fully had he mastered the secrets of a happy home. He was naturally passionate, but had trained himself to be on his guard against his temper, and was always anxious to improve and to correct any bad habit or fault: even in old age he was constantly on the watch lest bodily infirmities should lead to moral deterioration. He was not too proud to own when he had made mistakes, but used the experience he had gained, and carefully studied his own character and the circumstances which had been most beneficial in forming it. He controlled his expenses as prudently as his temper, and would not allow his inventive faculties to lead him into unjustifiable outlays. His daughter mentions that 'when he was a youth of nineteen, an old gentleman, who saw him passing by his window, said of him, judging by the liveliness of his manner and appearance, "There goes a young fellow who will in a few years dissipate all the fortune his prudent father has been nursing for him his whole life."