Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 64

To MISS SOPHY RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, July 12, 1806.

This is the third sheet of paper in the smallest hand I could write I have had the honour within these three days to spoil in your service, stuffed full of geological and chemical facts, which we learned from our two philosophical travellers, Davy and Greenough; but when finished I persuaded myself they were not worth sending. Many of the facts I find you have in Thomson and Nicholson, which, "owing to my ignorance," as poor Sir Hugh Tyrold would say, "I did not rightly know."

Our travellers have just left us, and my head is in great danger of bursting from the multifarious treasures that have been stowed and crammed into it in the course of one week. Mr. Davy is wonderfully improved since you saw him at Bristol: he has an amazing fund of knowledge upon all subjects, and a great deal of genius. Mr. Greenough has not, at first sight, a very intelligent countenance, yet he is very intelligent, and has a good deal of literature and anecdote, foreign and domestic, and a taste for wit and humour. He has travelled a great deal, and relates well. Dr. Beddoes is much better, but my father does not think his health safe. I am very well, but shamefully idle: indeed, I have done nothing but hear; and if I had had a dozen pair extraordinary of ears, and as many heads, I do not think I could have heard or held all that was said.