Edgeworth paid the same compliment to his third wife which he had done to his second—­he quickly replaced her.  His fourth wife was the daughter of Dr. Beaufort, a highly qultivated man, whose family were great friends of Mrs. Ruxton, Edgeworth’s sister.  Edgeworth wrote a long letter about scientific matters to Darwin, and kept his most important news to the last:  ’I am going to be married to a young lady of small fortune and large accomplishments,—­compared with my age, much youth (not quite thirty), and more prudence—­some beauty, more sense—­uncommon talents, more uncommon temper,—­liked by my family, loved by me.  If I can say all this three years hence, shall not I have been a fortunate, not to say a wise man?’

Maria adds:  ’A few days after the preceding letter was written, we heard that a conspiracy had been discovered in Dublin, that the city was under arms, and its inhabitants in the greatest terror.  Dr. Beaufort and his family were there; my father, who was at Edgeworth Town, set out immediately to join them.

’On his way he met an intimate friend of his; one stage they travelled together, and a singular conversation passed.  This friend, who as yet knew nothing of my father’s intentions, began to speak of the marriage of some other person, and to exclaim against the folly and imprudence of any man’s marrying in such disturbed times.  “No man of honour, sense or feeling, would incumber himself with a wife at such a time!” My father urged that this was just the time when a man of honour, sense, or feeling would wish, if he loved a woman, to unite his fate with hers, to acquire the right of being her protector.

’The conversation dropped there.  But presently they talked of public affairs—­of the important measure expected to be proposed, of a union between England and Ireland—­of what would probably be said and done in the next session of Parliament:  my father, foreseeing that this important national question would probably come on, had just obtained a seat in Parliament.  His friend, not knowing or recollecting this, began to speak of the imprudence of commencing a political career late in life.

’"No man, you know,” said he, “but a fool, would venture to make a first speech in Parliament, or to marry, after he was fifty.”

’My father laughed, and surrendering all title to wisdom, declared that, though he was past fifty, he was actually going in a few days, as he hoped, to be married, and in a few months would probably make his “first speech in Parliament.”

’He found Dublin as it had been described to him under arms, in dreadful expectation.  The timely apprehension of the heads of the conspiracy at this crisis prevented a revolution, and saved the capital.  But the danger for the country seemed by no means over, —­insurrections, which were to have been general and simultaneous, broke out in different parts of the kingdom.  The confessions of a conspirator, who had turned informer, and the papers seized and published, proved that there existed in the country a deep and widely spread spirit of rebellion. . . .