herself. From the time of Queen Elizabeth, the Edgeworths had this estate in Longford. Another brother gave the name of Edgeware to a district in London, which is still preserved in Edgeware road. And the Abbe Edgeworth, who attended the luckless Louis XVI. to the guillotine, was a connection of the Irish Edgeworths. Energy was a dominating characteristic of the race. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the father of Maria, was sent, when a very young man, to Oxford. He had an introduction to a family of Elers, who lived at Black Bourton, in Oxfordshire. There were four pretty daughters, and young Edgeworth, then only nineteen, was captivated by one of them. The young couple took matters into their own hands, and eloped to Gretna Green. Young Edgeworth's father, though violently opposed to the match, very sensibly gave in to the inevitable, and had his son married again by licence. The youthful bridegroom wrote—"I soon found the inconveniences of an early and hasty marriage, but though I heartily repented my folly, I determined to bear with firmness and temper the evils which I had brought on myself."
A son, Richard, was born before the young father was twenty, and a daughter, Maria, the future authoress, was born four years afterwards. Her birth took place at her grandfather's house, Black Bourton, on January 1, 1767. Mr.
