Two years later Mr. Fitzgerald is again there and writing to Frederick
Tennyson: 'I set sail from Dublin to-morrow night, bearing the heartfelt
regrets of all the people of Ireland with me.' Then comes a flash of his
kind searching lantern: 'I had a pleasant week with Edgeworth. He farms
and is a justice, and goes to sleep on the sofa of evenings. At odd
moments he looks into Spinoza and Petrarch. People respect him very much
in these parts.' Edward Fitzgerald seems to have had a great regard for
his host; the more he knows him the more he cares for him; he describes
him 'firing away about the odes of Pindar.' They fired noble broadsides
those men of the early Victorian times, and when we listen we still seem
to hear their echoes rolling into the far distance. Mr. Fitzgerald
ends his letter with a foreboding too soon to be realised: 'Old Miss
Edgeworth is wearing away. She has a capital bright soul, which even now
shines quite youthfully through her faded carcase.' It was in May 1849
that Maria Edgeworth went to her rest. She died almost suddenly, with no
long suffering, in the arms of her faithful friend and step-mother.





NOTES ON 'CASTLE RACKRENT'

In 1799, When Maria was in London, she and her father went to call upon
Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, who was then imprisoned in the King's
Bench for a publication which was considered to be treasonable, and they
probably then and there arranged with him for the publication of CASTLE
RACKRENT, for in January 1800, writing to her cousin, Miss Ruxton, Maria
says, 'Will you tell me what means you have of getting parcels from