Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 53

To MRS. STARK.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Nov. 27, 1825.

Our two boys were at home in August, and the happiest of the happy with two ponies and four sisters. Francis's poem of "Saul" won a medal, and Pakenham's "Jacob," a miniature Horace.

You may have seen in the papers the account of the burning of Castle Forbes, in the county of Longford. Lord Forbes was wakened by his dog, or he would have been suffocated and burned in his bed. He showed great presence of mind: carried out, first, a quantity of gunpowder which was in a closet into which the flames were entering; and next, the family papers and pictures. A valuable collection of prints and books were lost: key not to be found in the scuffle, and servants and other ignoramuses, conceiving the biggest volumes must be the most valuable, wasted their energies upon folios of Irish House of Commons Journals and Statutes. The castle was in three hours' time reduced to the bare walls. I am forgetting a fact for which I began this story. A gentleman was, by the force of motive, endued with such extraordinary strength in the midst of that night's danger, that he wrenched from its iron spike and pedestal a fine marble bust of Cromwell, carried it downstairs, and threw it on the grass. Next morning he could not lift it! and no one man who tried could stir it.