At the Bishop's Palace, where Canon Seward lived, he first met Miss Honora Sneyd, who was brought up as a daughter by Mrs.Seward.He was much struck by her beauty and by her mental gifts, and says: 'Now for the first time in my life, I saw a woman that equalled the picture of perfection which existed in my imagination.

I had long suffered much from the want of that cheerfulness in a wife, without which marriage could not be agreeable to a man with such a temper as mine.

I had borne this evil, I believe, with patience; but my not being happy at home exposed me to the danger of being too happy elsewhere.' He describes in another place his first wife as 'prudent, domestic, and affectionate; but she was not of a cheerful temper.

She lamented about trifles; and the lamenting of a female with whom we live does not render home delightful.' His friend, Mr.Day,* was also intimate at the Palace, but did not admire Honora at that time (1770) as much as Edgeworth did.

Mr.Day thought 'she danced too well; she had too much an air of fashion in her dress and manners; and her arms were not sufficiently round and white to please him.' * The author of Sandford and Merton.
He was at this time much preoccupied with an orphan, Sabrina Sydney, whom he had taken from the Foundling Hospital, and whom he was educating with the idea of marrying her ultimately.