displeasure, he wisely afterwards had the young couple remarried by
license.

The union turned out unhappily. "I soon felt the inconveniences of an
early and hasty marriage," wrote the bridegroom; "but, though I heartily
repented my folly, I determined to bear with firmness and temper the
evil which I had brought on myself." His eldest child, Richard, was born
before he was twenty; his second, Maria, when he was twenty-four. Though
he became master of Edgeworthstown by the death of his father in 1769,
he for some years lived chiefly at Hare Hatch, near Maidenhead. Here he
already began to distract his attention from an ungenial home by the
endless plans for progress in agriculture and industry, and the
disinterested schemes for the good of Ireland, which always continued to
be the chief occupation of his life. It was his inventive genius which
led to his paying a long visit to Lichfield to see Dr. Darwin. There he
lingered long in pleasant intimacy with the doctor and his wife, with
Mr. Wedgwood, Miss Anna Seward--"the Swan of Lichfield"--and still more,
with the eccentric Thomas Day, author of _Sandford and Merton_, who
became his most intimate friend, and who wished to marry his favourite
sister Margaret, though she could not make up her mind to accept him,
and eventually became the wife of Mr. Ruxton of Black Castle. With Mrs.
Seward and her daughters lived at that time--partly for educational
purposes--Honora Sneyd, a beautiful and gifted girl, who had rejected
the addresses of the afterwards famous Major Andre, and who now also
refused those of Mr. Day. "In Honora Sneyd," wrote Mr. Edgeworth, "I saw
for the first time in my life a woman that equalled the picture of
perfection existing in my imagination. And then my not being happy at
home exposed me to the danger of being too happy elsewhere." When he
began to feel as if the sunshine of his life emanated from his
friendship with Miss Sneyd, he was certain flight was the only safety.