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 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. So leaving Mrs. Edgeworth and her little girls with her mother, he made his escape to France, only taking with him his boy, whom he determined to educate according to the system of Rousseau. Then, for two years, he remained at Lyons, employing his inventive and mechanical powers in building bridges.