Miss Edgeworth adds:  ’I have heard my father say that he ever afterwards rejoiced in the share he had in preserving one of the chiefs of this volunteer convention from a desperate resolution, and in determining the assembly to a temperate termination.’

Writing of this convention many years afterwards, Edgeworth says:  ’There never was any assembly in the British empire more in earnest in the business on which they were convened, or less influenced by courtly interference or cabal But the object was in itself unattainable.

’The idea of admitting Roman Catholics to the right of voting for representatives was not urged even by the most liberal and most enlightened members of the convention; and the number, and wealth, and knowledge of Protestant voters in Ireland could not decently be considered as sufficient to elect an adequate and fair representation of the people.’

The reforms were never carried, though fresh efforts, equally unsuccessful, were made when Pitt became minister.

CHAPTER 5

It was in 1786 that Edgeworth had a severe fall from a scaffolding, the result of which was, as his friend Dr Darwin prophesied, an attack of jaundice.  When the workmen brought him home, he tried to reassure his family by telling them the story of a French Marquis,’ who fell from a balcony at Versailles, 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 if he wasn’t hurt by his fall, “Tout au contraire, Sire"’ To all our inquiries whether he was hurt, my father replied, ‘Tout au contraire, mes aimes.’

His friendship for Mr. Day, which had existed for many years, was now interrupted by Mr. Day’s sudden death from a fall from his horse in 1789.  Edgeworth thought of writing his life, as he considered him to have been a man of such’original an and noble character as to deserve a public eulogium.  He goes on to say:  ’To preserve a portrait to posterity, it must either be the likeness of some celebrated individual, or it must represent a face which, independently of peculiar associations, corresponds with the universal ideas of beauty.  So the pen of the biographer should portray only those who by their public have interested us in their private characters; or who, in a superior degree, have 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