work had been planned for her by her father, and that, in settling down to it, she was obeying his commands.
It had been not only his darling wish, but his dying injunction, that she should complete the memoir of his life which he had begun and abandoned ten years previously. Why Mr. Edgeworth had written his life is not made clear, even by the preface in which he attempts to explain the reasons that impelled him. The real reason was probably the excessive importance he attached to himself and his actions. It had always been his intention that Miss Edgeworth should revise and complete this memoir ; but, when lie was dying, he emphatically enjoined that it should be published without any change. This complicated her task, which she felt a heavy one. Excepting a few passages, he had never shown what he had written even to his own family; and, when he was urged by them to continue it, he used to say, "he would leave the rest to be finished by his daughter Maria." Almost before her eyes were recovered she set to work upon her pious duty. Her anxiety lest she should not do justice to the theme weighed upon her so greatly that she could hardly speak of the memoirs even to her most intimate friends. It is reflected in the touchingly helpless preface she prefixed to the second volume :—
Till now I have never on any occasion addressed myself to the public alone, and Bpeaking in the first person. This egotism is not only repugnant to my habits, but most painful and melancholy. Formerly I had always a friend and father who spoke and wrote for me ; one who exerted for me all the powers of his strong mind, even tn the very last. Far more than his protecting kindness I regret, at this moment, the want of his guiding judgment now when it is most important to me — where his fame is at stake.
To save her eye-sight, her sisters assisted her in copying, or in writing from her dictation; but, even so
