extravagant, each generation of the Edgeworth family afterwards had its
own picturesque story, till Richard Edgeworth repaired the broken
fortunes of his house, partly by success as a lawyer, partly by his
marriage, in 1732, with Jane Lovell, daughter of a Welsh judge.

Their eldest son, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, was born in 1744, and
educated in his boyhood at Drogheda School and Dublin University.
Strong, handsome, clever, ingenious, and devoted to sports of every
kind, he was a general favourite. But his high spirits often led him
into scrapes. The most serious of these occurred during the festivities
attendant on his eldest sister's marriage with Mr. Fox of Fox Hall, at
which he played at being married to a young lady who was present, by one
of the guests dressed up in a white cloak, with a door-key for a ring.
This foolish escapade would not deserve the faintest notice, if it had
not been seriously treated as an actual marriage by a writer in the
_Quarterly Review._

In 1761 Richard Edgeworth was removed from Dublin to Corpus Christi
College at Oxford. There he arrived, regretting the gaieties of Dublin,
and anxious to make the most of any little excitements which his new
life could offer. Amongst the introductions he brought with him was one
to Mr. Paul Elers, who, himself of German extraction, had made a
romantic marriage with Miss Hungerford, the heiress of Black Bourton in
Oxfordshire. Mr. Elers honourably warned Mr. Edgeworth, who was an old
friend of his, that he had four daughters who were very pretty, and that
his friend had better be careful, as their small fortunes would scarcely
fit one of them to be the wife of his son. But the elder Mr. Edgeworth
took no notice--Richard was constantly at Black Bourton; and in 1763,
being then only nineteen, he fled with Miss Anna Maria Elers to Gretna
Green, where they were married. Great as was Mr. Edgeworth's