My father was the magistrate before whom the widow and her landlord appeared, and made that complaint and defence, which he repeated, and I may say acted, for me.

The speeches I instantly wrote word for word, and the whole was described exactly from the life of his representation.' Edgeworth was anxious that his children should have no unpleasant associations with their first steps in reading; he therefore took great pains to find out the easiest way of teaching them to read, and wrote for this purpose A Rational Primer.

Maria adds: 'Nothing but the true desire to be useful could have induced any man of talents to choose such inglorious labours; but he thought no labour, however humble, beneath him, if it promised improvement in education.

.

.