The second (and we shall be but too often obliged to revert to it) is, that Mr. Edgeworth's anecdotes do not always seem to bear that character of strict authenticity which makes the whole charm of family history or of autobiography; for instance, the story of the barrel of gunpowder is one which we have ourselves heard told of many persons, with some slight variation of circumstances, but never, we think, with so many marks of improbability as in this instance. A barrel of gunpowder, so large, and standing high enough to serve to stick a candle in, is no very likely part of the furniture of the garret of a country-house-then, that a servant girl should be so ignorant as not to know gunpowder from black saltthat she should stick the candle into the very barrel where her mistress was at work-that they should come away and lock the door in the dark, and get half way down stairs, still in the dark, before they remembered the light-are all, and particularly the latter, incredible, not to say impossible circumstances.

Of the same character is a story of the preservation of this lady's husband, when an infant, in the Irish rebellion, by the fidelity of a poor servant, who hid the child in a pannier, and conveyed him, covered and concealed by eggs and chickens, through the rebel camp safely to Dublin. The notion of evading the vigilance of a camp of hungry rebels, by hiding the infant under articles so little likely to be examined or plundered as eggs and chickens, is a happy idea, which could only occur to an Irish servant; but, unluckily, this story too is of pretty general currency in Ireland, but with the more credible change of eggs and chickens into hay or straw; and if we are not very much mistaken, old Macklin used to give some such account of his being conveyed into Drogheda in this way during the hostilities in that neighbourhood between William and James the Second.

These would be hardly worthy Mr. Edgeworth's relation, even if they were facts, but they become worth noticing as affecting in some degree our confidence in Mr. Edgeworth's veracity, or at least in his judgment. It is indeed ridiculous enough to see him giving such trifles all the pomp of history-carrying on a running date-1593-1641-1680-at the head of the page in which they are recorded. Nor are these the only instances we could quote, but they are enough, perhaps more than enough, and they certainly diminish the regret which we should otherwise feel at the following passage.

'These anecdotes were told to my father by Lady Edgeworth, that widow of Sir John, who lived till ninety, and who related to him many curious anecdotes of the five reigns during which she flourished. From her traditions, and from letters and papers, now in my possession, my father compiled some manuscript memoirs, from which I was tempted

here

here to make further extracts illustrative of the manners of the times. Thinking, however, that they would take up more room than could properly be spared in this narrative, I omit all which do not immediately relate to my own family.'-vol i. p. 19, 20.

There is nothing whatsoever in Mr. Edgeworth's childhood worth notice; and considering the minute facts which he condescends to record of his infancy, it is surprising that there should be so little to distinguish him from the herd of boys.

In one particular, however, he certainly seems to have been somewhat singular; he was, it appears, very religious, and wept bitterly before he was eight years old because he had no opportunity of being a martyr, and yet at the same time, says he, "I ventured to think for myself;" and these thoughts appear to have been considerations upon revelation, free will, original sin, and topics of this nature, which he treated, it would seem, with as bold and infidel a spirit as Voltaire himself could have done at thrice his age. The example which he gives of this original thinking is thus stated.

My father was about this time enclosing a garden; part of the wall in its progress afforded means for climbing to the top of it, which I soon effected. My father reprimanded me severely, and as no fruit was at that time ripe, he could not readily conceive what motive I could have, for taking so much trouble, and running so great a risk. I told him truly, that I had no motive but the pleasure of climbing. I added, that if the garden were full of ripe peaches, it would be a much greater temptation; and that unless he should be certain that nobody would climb over the wall, he ought not to have peaches in the garden. After having talked to me for some time, he discovered that Į had reasoned thus: if my father knows beforehand, that the temptation of peaches will necessarily induce me to climb over the garden wall ; and that if I do, it is more than probable that I shall break my neck, I shall not be guilty of any crime, but my father will be the cause of my breaking my neck. This I applied to Adam, without at the time being able to perceive the great difference between things human and divine. My father, feeling that he was not prepared to give me a satisfactory answer to this difficulty, judiciously declined the contest, and desired me not to meddle with what was above my comprehension. I mention this, because all parents, who encourage their children to speak freely, often hear from them puzzling questions and observations; and I wish to point out, that on such occasions children should not be discouraged, but on the contrary, according to the advice of Rousseau, parents should fairly and truly confess their ignorance.'vol. i. p. 33-35.

Here again we hesitate. That he climbed the wall may be true enough, but that he could apply his reasoning to Adam we disbelieve for two reasons; the first is, that he does not seem even when he wrote this account to understand his argument, which is (to say nothing of its fallacy) obviously too abstruse for an infant; and, se

condly

Condly, because it is out of all nature, that facts so different from Adam's case should have reminded him of that case, and that he should have argued upon the spirit and recondite principles to be derived from the true stories, when the sensible and external objects were so different. If he had been permitted to play in a fruit garden under a prohibition of touching any thing, and had (as he naturally might) yielded to temptation and been punished, a clever boy might have likened himself to Adam; but that, because, disobeying no prohibition, he climbed, for climbing-sake, over a wall into a garden where there was no fruit, and where there was neither offence nor punishment, he should have extravagated into the discussions that perplexed Milton's devils, we can still less believe than we do the stories of the black salt and the eggs and chickens.

This may serve to explain, in some degree, a fact which we have on a former occasion noticed with regret, that a belief in Chris tianity formed no part of the system of Mr. Edgeworth's works, nor, as we fear from the perusal of this work, of the principles of his life: but of this hereafter.

We pass over his school adventures, his knavery and pleasantry,' as honest Tully has it, to arrive at an affair which Mr. Edgeworth treats as a pleasantry, but which it seems evident that he misrepresents in a considerable degree.

'My favourite partner among the young ladies at these wedding dances was the daughter of the curate from whom I learned my accidence.

'One night after the dancing had ceased, the young people retired to what was then called a raking pot of tea. A description of this Hibernian amusement I have given in another place. It is here sufficient to say, that it is a potation of strong tea, taken at an early hour in the morning, to refresh the spirits of those who have sat up all night. We were all very young and gay, and it was proposed by one of my companions, who had put a white cloak round his shoulders to represent a surplice, that he should marry me to the lady with whom I had danced.

The key of the door served for a ring, and a few words of the ceremony, with much laughter and playfulness, were gabbled over. My father heard of this mock-marriage, and it excited great alarm in his mind. He was induced by his paternal fears to treat the matter too seriously, and he instigated a suit of jactitalion of marriage in the ecclesiastical court, to annul these imaginary nuptials. The truth was ap parent to every body who knew us No suspicion even was entertained of the young lady's having any design on my heart, or of my having obtained any influence in her's. All the publicity that was given to this childish affair was fortunately of no disadvantage to her; on the contrary, it brought her into notice among persons with whom she might not otherwise have been acquainted, and she was afterwards suitably married in her own neighbourhood. It was before I was sixteen, that I was thus married and divorced. I say MARRIED, bc

cause

cause in the proceedings in this strange suit it was necessary to show that a marriage had been solemnized, or else there could have been no DIVORCE. — pp. 70. 71.

Now Mr. Edgeworth's father seems to have been a man of common sense, whatever the son was, and surely no father would have thought it necessary to institute legal proceedings, and no court would have entertained such proceedings founded on a marriage performed by a lad in a white cloak to represent a surplice, with the key of the door, at four o'clock in the morning, after or in the midst of a ball, and only a few words of the ceremony gabbled over with much mirth and playfulness, and when the truth of this farce was apparent to every body.'

But it must not be forgotten that Mr. Edgeworth's disposition and habits concur with the evidence of the solemnity of the legal proceeding to shew that there was something more serious in this matter than he thinks fit to represent. Exclusive of this mock ceremony, he was married four times; and if this his first marriage was performed before he was sixteen, the second took place when he was about nineteen, and the last when he was near sixty; the intermediate marriages too were both accompanied by circumstances of some degree of peculiarity: we, therefore, are obliged, on even a first view of the transaction, to refuse our assent to the farcical representation given of this affair by Mr. Edgeworth; and one of the strangest assertions we ever read, and which shews that he had no very nice delicacy on such points, is his assertion, that the unhappy publicity given to this affair was of no disadvantage to the poor young woman; but, on the contrary, brought her into notice amongst a better class of society!

But out of Mr. Edgeworth's own mouth we can convict him of ■ downright untruth in his account of this matter-he says, 'I say married, because in the proceedings in this strange suit it was necessary to shew that a marriage had been solemnized, or else there could have been no divorce;'-but Mr. Edgeworth forgot that he had just told us that the suit was one of jactitation of marriage and not for a divorce. In a suit for a divorce, it is necessary to prove that there has been a previous marriage; but in a suit for jactitation to annul imaginary nuptials' it is, on the contrary, necessary to shew that there had been no previous ceremony. This is quite conclusive against Mr. Edgeworth, and saves us the trouble of supplying, from private sources, proofs of his wilful misrepresentation of an affair so important to his history, and justifies us in calling this his first marriage.

Immediately after my farcical marriage, and more farcical divorce, I entered Trinity College Dublin 26th April, 1760. My tutor was the Rev. Patrick Palmer, a gentlemanlike and worthy man ; but it

was

was not the fashion in those days to plague fellow-commoners with lectures. My class fellows, except William Foster, my competitor gave me so little motive for emulation, that I did not trouble myself much with study. In competition with him I was obliged to exert myself strenuously. After a hard fought examination, he obtained from me the premium, which he generously acknowledged to be my right. At the next public examination I was audaciously and shamefully careless, I went into the hall to translate six books of Homer, of the greatest part of which I had never read one word. A stupid young man succeeded against me, though I certainly answered better than he did; but the examiner, the celebrated Dr. Duigenan, suspecting from my manner, that I had not taken much previous pains, plainly asked me, how often I had read these books of Homer. I told him "never." "Then Sir," said he, "though you have answered better than your antagonist, I will not give you the premium, which is intended as a reward for diligence, and not as an encouragement for idleness and presumption."'-pp. 74, 75.

Again we are sorry to be obliged to charge Mr. Edgeworth with more than inaccuracy, and with a degree of vanity which would be offensive even if founded in truth.

In the first place, the story of Doctor Duigenan's having deprived him, as a punishment for idleness, of a prize he had deserved, must be false; as it appears from the books of the University, that Doctor Duigenan did not become a fellow, a master, or an examiner, till the year after Mr. Edgeworth had quitted the University, and that, therefore, the learned doctor never could have examined the hopeful pupil. If it be said that Mr. Edgeworth may have only mistaken the name of the examiner, but that the fact may be otherwise true, then we must observe, that the person of the man was the thing most likely to stick to his memory, and that when we find him erroneous in that plain particular, we may well be allowed to doubt his recollection of the minor parts of the transaction; but there is other evidence to shew that Mr. Edgeworth's claim to superior merit is wholly unfounded. He had forgotten, perhaps, that the mode of reward at the University of Dublin is this.-There are four examinations in the year. At the first the best answerer gets a prize, or premium as Mr. Edgeworth calls it; at the second, if the same person is still successful, he gets, not the prize, but, a certificate that he deserves it, while the prize itself passes to the next best answerer, and so on in the two other examinations of the year; so that four persons, at least, in each class, which consists on the average of about fifteen or twenty persons, must be annually rewarded with prizes. Now if Mr. Edgeworth was unjustly deprived by Foster of the first premium, why did he not get the second, and if the imaginary Doctor Duigenan was so illatured as to deprive him of that, why, if his competitors gave him so little room for emulation,' did he not

persist