Edgeworthstown on account of Mrs. Honora Edgeworth's health; he now
returned in patriarchal fashion with Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth, his third
wife, with his children by his first, second, and third marriages,
and with two sisters-in-law who had made their home in his family. For
thirty-five years he continued to live on in the pretty old home which
he now adapted to his large family, and which, notwithstanding Miss
Edgeworth's objections, would have seemed so well fitted for its various
requirements. The daughter's description of his life there, of his
work among his tenants, of his paternal and spirited rule, is vivid and
interesting. When the present owner of Edgeworthstown talked to us of
his grandfather, one felt that, with all his eccentricities, he must
have been a man of a far-seeing mind and observation. Mr. Erroles
Edgeworth said that he was himself still reaping the benefit of his
grandfather's admirable organisation and arrangements on the estate,
and that when people all around met with endless difficulties and
complications, he had scarcely known any. Would that there had been more
Mr. Edgeworths in Ireland!

Whatever business he had to do, his daughter tells us, was done in the
midst of his family. Maria copied his letters of business and helped
him to receive his rents. 'On most Irish estates,' says Miss Edgeworth,
'there is, or there was, a personage commonly called a driver,--a person
who drives and impounds cattle for rent and arrears.' The drivers are,
alas! from time to time too necessary in collecting Irish rents. Mr.
Edgeworth desired that none of his tenants should pay rent to any
one but himself; thus taking away subordinate interference, he became
individually acquainted with his tenantry. He also made himself
acquainted with the different value of land on his estate. In every
case where the tenant had improved the land his claim to preference over
every new proposer was admitted. The mere plea, 'I have been on