Born, at Black Burton, Oxfordshire, Jan. 1, 1767. In Ireland with father, 1773–75. To School in Derby, 1775; in London, 1780. Home to Edgeworthstown, 1782. Began to write stories. To Clifton with parents, Dec. 1791; returned to Edgeworthstown, winter of 1793. Visit to France with father, Oct. 1802 to March 1803. Visit to London, spring of 1803; to Bowood, autumn of 1818; to London, 1819; to Paris and Switzerland, 1820 to March 1821. Returned to Edgeworthstown and lived there for rest of life. Occasional visits to London. Visit to Scotland, spring of 1823. Friendship with Sir Walter Scott; he visited her at Edgeworthstown, 1825. Active philanthropy during famine of 1846. Died, at Edgeworthstown, 22 May 1849. Works: “Letters to Literary Ladies,” 1795; “Parent’s Assistant” (anon.), pt. i., 1796; in 6 vols., 1800; “Practical Education,” 1798; “Castle Rackrent” (anon.), 1800; “Early Lessons,” 1801; “Belinda,” 1801; “Moral Tales,” 1801; “Irish Bulls,” 1802; “Popular Tales,” 1804; “Modern Griselda,” 1804; “Leonora,” 1806; “Tales from Fashionable Life,” 1809; 2nd series, 1812; “Patronage,” 1814; “Continuation of Early Lessons,” 1815; “Harington,” 1817; “Ormond,” 1817; “Comic Dramas,” 1817; vol. ii. of R. L. Edgeworth’s “Memoirs,” 1820; “Frank,” 1822; “Harry and Lucy, concluded,” 1825; “Garry Owen,” 1832; “Helen,” 1834. Collected Works: in 14 vols., 1825; in 18 vols., 1832–33; in 12 vols., 1893. Life: by H. Zimmern, 1883 (“Eminent Women” series); “Life and Letters,” ed. by Aug. Hare, 1894.

Personal

  I had persuaded myself that the author of the work on Education, and of other productions, useful as well as ornamental, would betray herself by a remarkable exterior. I was mistaken. A small figure, eyes nearly always lowered, a profoundly modest and reserved air, with expression in the features when not speaking: such was the result of my first survey. But when she spoke, which was too rarely for my taste, nothing could have been better thought, and nothing better said, though always timidly expressed.

  Mr., Mrs., and Miss Edgeworth are just come over from Ireland, and are the general objects of curiosity and attention. I passed some hours with them yesterday afternoon, under pretence of visiting the new Mint, which was a great object to them, as they are all proficients in mechanics. Miss Edgeworth is a most agreeable person, very natural, clever, and well informed, without the least pretensions of authorship. She had never been in a large society before, and she was followed and courted by all the persons of distinction in London, with an avidity almost without example. The court paid to her gave her an opportunity of showing her excellent understanding and character. She took every advantage of her situation, either for enjoyment or observation; but she remained perfectly unspoiled by the homage of the great.

  I went to Lady Davy’s in the evening. There were seventy or eighty people there: amongst others Miss Edgeworth, who was my object. She is very small, with a countenance which promises nothing at first sight, or as one sees her in society. She has very winning manners. She received with much warmth what I said of my desire to see the author of her works, and of all the obligations that I felt in common with all our sex towards one of her genius.

  She was a nice little unassuming “Jeanie Deans’-looking bodie” as we Scotch say—and if not handsome certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as herself. One could never have guessed that she could write her name; whereas her father talked, not as if he could write nothing else, but as if nothing else was worth writing.

  We saw, you will readily suppose, a great deal of Miss Edgeworth, and two very nice girls, her younger sisters. It is scarcely possible to say more of this very remarkable person, than that she not only completely answered, but exceeded the expectations which I had formed. I am particularly pleased with the naïveté and good-humoured ardour of mind which she unites with such formidable powers of acute observation. In external appearance, she is quite the fairy of our nursery-tale—the Whippity Stourie, if you remember such a sprite, who came flying through the window to work all sorts of marvels. I will never believe but what she has a wand in her pocket, and pulls it out to conjure a little before she begins those very striking pictures of manners.

  Miss Edgeworth, with all her cleverness, anything but agreeable. The moment any one begins to speak, off she starts too, seldom more than a sentence behind them, and in general continues to distance every speaker. Neither does what she says, though of course very sensible, at all make up for this over-activity of tongue.

  As we drove to the door Miss Edgeworth came out to meet us,—a small, short, spare lady of about sixty-seven, with extremely frank and kind manners, and who always looks straight into your face with a pair of mild, deep gray eyes, whenever she speaks to you…. Mrs. Edgeworth—who is of the Beaufort family—seems about the age of her more distinguished step-daughter, and is somewhat stout, but very active, intelligent, and accomplished, having apparently the whole care of the household, and adding materially, by her resources in the arts and in literature, to its agreeableness…. It is plain they make a harmonious whole, and by those who visited here when the family was much larger, and composed of the children of all the wives of Mr. Edgeworth, with their connections produced by marriage, so as to form the most heterogeneous relationships, I am told there was always the same very striking union and agreeable intercourse among them all, to the number sometimes of fifteen or twenty…. What has struck me most to-day in Miss Edgeworth herself, is her uncommon quickness of perception, her fertility of allusion, and the great resources of fact which a remarkable memory supplies to her, combined into a whole which I can call nothing else but extraordinary vivacity.

  The next month—August 1823—was one of the happiest in Scott’s life. Never did I see a brighter day at Abbotsford than that on which Miss Edgeworth first arrived there—never can I forget her look and accent when she was received by him at his archway, and exclaimed, “Everything about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit enough to dream!” The weather was beautiful, and the edifice, and its appurtenances, were all but complete; and day after day, so long as she could remain, her host had always some new plan of gayety. One day there was fishing on the Cauldshields Loch, and a dinner on the heathy bank. Another, the whole party feasted by Thomas the Rhymer’s waterfall in the glen—and the stone on which Maria that day sat was ever afterwards called Edgeworth’s stone.

  I am now writing in the Library here: and the great Authoress is as busy as a bee making a catalogue of her books beside me, chattering away. We are great friends. She is as lively, active, and cheerful as if she were but twenty; really a very entertaining person. We talk about Walter Scott whom she adores, and are merry all the day long.

  To have repeatedly met and listened to Miss Edgeworth, seated familiarly with her by the fireside, may seem to her admirers in America a sufficient payment for the hazards of crossing the Atlantic. Her conversation, like her writings, is varied, vivacious, and delightful. Her forgetfulness of self and happiness in making others happy are marked traits in her character. Her person is small and delicately proportioned, and her movements full of animation. The ill-health of the lovely sister, much younger than herself, at whose house in London she was passing the winter, called forth such deep anxiety, untiring attention, and fervent gratitude for every favourable symptom, as seemed to blend features of maternal tenderness with sisterly affection.

  Miss Edgeworth was delightful—so clever and sensible! She does not say witty things, but there is such a perfume of wit runs through all her conversation as makes it very brilliant.

  The fourth wife of Mr. Edgeworth was our hostess, and performed her part charmingly. She must have been very pretty, for, though short, fat, and forty, her appearance was very agreeable. Miss Edgeworth was shorter still, and carried herself very upright, with a dapper figure and quick movements. She was the remains of a blonde, with light eyes and hair; she was now gray, but wore a dark frizette, whilst the gray hair showed through her cap behind. She was so plain that she was never willing to sit for her portrait, and that is the reason why the public has never been made acquainted with her personal appearance. In conversation we found her delightful. She was full of anecdotes about remarkable people, and often spoke from her personal knowledge of them. Her memory, too, was stored with valuable information, and her manner of narrating was so animated, that it was difficult to realize her age.

  I attended with much interest to the conversation of this remarkable woman. She was little and possessed of no personal attractions; it was evident that the usual feminine objects had never interfered with her masculine understanding. Her conversation was chiefly remarkable for its acuteness, good sense and practical sagacity. She had little imagination and scarcely any enthusiasm. Solid sense, practical acquirement—the qualities which will lead to success in the world—were her great endowments, and they appeared at every turn in her conversation, as they do in her writings. This disposition of mind kept her free from the usual littlenesses of authors and raised her far above the ordinary vanity of women. She was simple and unaffected in her manners, entirely free from conceit or effort in her conversation, and kindly and benevolent in her judgment of others, as well as in her views of life and in her intercourse with all around her. But she had neither a profound knowledge of human nature nor the elevated mental qualities which give a lasting ascendency over mankind.

  Her face was pale and thin, her features irregular; they may have been considered plain, even in youth; but her expression was so benevolent, her manners were so perfectly well-bred, partaking of English dignity and Irish frankness, that one never thought of her with reference either to beauty or plainness. She ever occupied, without claiming, attention, charming continually by her singularly pleasant voice; while the earnestness and truth that beamed from her bright blue—very blue—eyes increased the value of every word she uttered…. She was ever neat and particular in her dress; her feet and hands were so delicate and small as to be almost childlike.

  Maria Edgeworth came frequently to see us when she was in England. She was one of my most intimate friends, warm-hearted and kind, a charming companion, with all the liveliness and originality of an Irishwoman…. The cleverness and animation, as well as affection of her letters I cannot express.

  Her personal appearance was that of a woman plain of dress, sedate in manners, and remarkably small of person…. There was a charm in all she looked and said and did. Incessant and yet genial activity was a marked feature of her nature. She seemed to be as nearly ubiquitous as a human creature can be, and always busy; not only as a teacher of her younger brothers and sisters (she was nearly fifty years older than one of them), but as the director and controller of the household. We could but liken her to the benevolent fairy from whose lips were perpetually dropping diamonds; there was so much of kindly wisdom in every sentence she uttered.

  Maria Edgeworth’s life did not pass without the romance of love. She received an offer of marriage from a Swedish gentleman, while she was staying in Paris with her family in 1803. She returned his affections, but refused to marry him, sacrificing herself and him to what she believed to be her duty to her father and family. Her third and last step-mother wrote that for years “the unexpected mention of his name, or even that of Sweden, in a book or newspaper, always moved her so much that the words and lines in the page became a mass of confusion before her eyes, and her voice lost all power.” Her suitor, M. Edelcrantz, never married. At the altar of filial piety she sacrificed much.

  Miss Edgeworth, too, seems to have been lifted from the sphere of matrimony by the unusual strength of her family affections. Her devotion to her father, to her two step-mothers, and to her nineteen brothers and sisters was of such an absorbing nature as to leave her little leisure or inclination for mere matters of sentiment. She was so busy too, so full of pleasant cares, and successful work, and a thousand-and-one delightful interests, above all, she clung so fondly to her home, and country, and the familiar faces she had known from babyhood, that love had no chance to storm her well-defended walls. When that handsome and earnest young Swede, he of the “superior understanding and mild manners,” came to woo, he found, alas! that the lady could not tear her heart away from Ireland and her beautiful young step-sisters to give it to his keeping. She acknowledged his merits, both his mildness and his superiority, she liked and admired him in every way; but marry and go to Sweden!—that she would not do, either for M. Edelcrantz or any other man.

  Her whole life, of eighty-three years, had been an aspiration after good.

Practical Education, 1798

  No one who has studied education in theory, or for the purpose of utilizing his information in teaching, should fail to read this book of the Edgeworths. There is a sincerity of purpose, and a direct, clear, and vivacious style, in “Practical Education,” which will attract and interest all who are engaged in instruction. Several of the chapters are admirable and brilliant treatises on the subjects they profess to explain.

  How induced, or why, I know not, I read when I was a boy Miss Edgeworth’s treatise on “Practical Education.” During many years, while I was officially connected with public schools, I was constantly giving to the teachers under my charge hints and maxims derived from that book, till I found that primary and infant schools in general were adopting as the fresh growth of recent times modes of instructions like those which Miss Edgeworth propounded to a non-receptive public almost a century ago.

Castle Rackrent, 1800

  The inimitable “Castle Rackrent” I consider as one of the very best productions of genius in the language, in its own way. I only lament that others are not as well qualified as I am to judge of the faithful drawing and vivid colouring of that admirable work. To do this, one must have lived in Ireland, or the West Highlands, which contain much rack-rent; but one must not have lived always there, as, in that case, the force of these odd characters would be lost in their familiarity.

  Miss Edgeworth’s “Castle Rackrent” and “Fashionable Tales” are incomparable in depicting truly several traits of the rather modern Irish character: they are perhaps on one point somewhat overcharged; but, for the most part, may be said to exceed Lady Morgan’s Irish novels. The fiction is less perceptible in them: they have a greater air of reality—of what I have myself often and often observed and noted in full progress and actual execution throughout my native country. The landlord, the agent, and the attorney, of “Castle Rackrent” (in fact, every person it describes) are neither fictitious nor even uncommon characters: and the changes of landed property in the country where I was born (where perhaps they have prevailed to the full as widely as in any other united Empire) owed, in nine cases out of ten, their origin, progress, and catastrophe, to incidents in no wise differing from those so accurately painted in Miss Edgeworth’s narrative.

  One of the most powerful and impressive of her books is devoted to the miserable story of improvidence, recklessness, and folly, by which so many families have been ruined, and which is linked with so much that is attractive in the way of generosity and hospitality and open-handedness, that the hardest critic is mollified unawares, and the sympathetic populace, which is no adept in moral criticism, admires with enthusiasm while he lasts, and pities, when he has fallen, the culprit who is emphatically nobody’s enemy but his own.

  Miss Edgeworth never surpassed this her first work of note, and in some respects did not again come up to it.

  A book with little interest of the strictly “novel” kind, but a wonderful picture of the varieties of recklessness and misconduct which in the course of a generation or two ruined or crippled most of the landlords of Ireland.

Belinda, 1801

  “Belinda,” too, though unequal and in some places absurd, contains more finely drawn and well sustained characters, more conversational wit, more salutary lessons against the abuse of wealth and talents, conveyed with equal facility and vivacity, and a more faithful delineation of modern manners, than any book of the kind that I know.

  There is no doubt that “Belinda” was much marred by the alterations made by Mr. Edgeworth, in whose wisdom and skill his far cleverer daughter had unlimited and touching confidence.

  In “Belinda,” for example, one of her tales of fashionable life, one of the most brilliantly drawn characters in fiction, Lady Delacour, is converted by the force of circumstances from a gay, heartless, daringly cynical leader of fashion into a model wife, and that, too, after years of outrageous frivolity.

Tales of Fashionable Life, 1809–12

  Despite her doctrines, her genius was too strong for her, and it is thanks to this that sundry of these tales from “Fashionable Life” are among her highest and most successful efforts. They are also as a whole more powerful and varied than any of her previous productions.

  A second series of “Tales of Fashionable Life” appeared in 1812. Of these “The Absentee” was a masterpiece, and contains one scene which Macaulay declared to be the best thing written of its kind since the opening of the twenty-second book of the “Odyssey.” Yet Mrs. Edgeworth tells that the greater part of “The Absentee” was “written under the torture of the toothache; it was only by keeping her mouth full of some strong lotion that Maria could allay the pain, and yet, though in this state of suffering, she never wrote with more spirit and rapidity.” Mr. Edgeworth advised the conclusion to be a Letter from Larry, the postillion: he wrote one, and she wrote another; he much preferred hers, which is the admirable finale to “The Absentee.”

Helen, 1834

  We know not when we have been more delighted, either as reviewers or as men, with any occurrence in the literary world, than with the opportunity of giving another welcome to Miss Edgeworth, the friend of our earlier years. And yet we must confess that our pleasure was mingled with many fears; for it was possible, that the recollection of the interest her writings used to inspire, might be stronger than the reality; there was a chance too, that during her long silence she might have lost something of her power, or that the public taste, so long used to the excitement of Scott’s romances, might be less disposed than formerly to relish that quiet and unassuming excellence, which distinguishes Miss Edgeworth’s writings. But whatever sentiments prevailed in our minds,—whether hopes or fears,—we believe that all intelligent readers will agree with us in the acknowledgement, that the fears were uncalled for, and the hopes have been exceeded. We remember her as the morning star, whose radiance was lost for a time in the excessive brightness of the rising sun; now we see her reappearing more beautiful than ever as the planet of evening, after that sun has left the sky.

  “Helen” shows some defects in the construction of its plot, but none in the execution of the details. There is an ease, lightness of touch, a certain air about it, which makes it as interesting as any of her novels, and far more agreeable than those which are weighted with so much effort to work out a moral. “Helen” is not wanting in a high tone; and the manner in which the untruthfulness of a society life is depicted, and the distress and suffering caused by one who evades or denies a fact, and makes an innocent friend the victim of a mistake of her own, is very interesting, and a valuable study.

  “Helen,” her last novel, which appeared after so long a silence, is in some respects the most charming of her tales—a fact doubtless due in some measure to the time that had elapsed since the cessation of her father’s active influence. The old brilliancy, the quick humor, the strong sense of justice and truth which is the moral backbone of her work, are there as before; but through the whole tale there breathes a new spirit of wider tenderness for weak, struggling human nature, and a gentleness towards its foibles, which her earlier writings lacked. Years had taught her a wider toleration, had shown her, too, how large a part quick, unreasoning instincts and impulses play in the lives of men and women, even of those whose constant struggle it is to subdue act and thought to the rule of duty…. “Helen” was suggested by Crabbe’s tale, “The Confidant,” but that feeling which is sinfully gratified and severely punished in Crabbe’s story becomes refined and reformed in Miss Edgeworth’s crucible. It is, however, interesting to compare her romance with the rapid sketch of the stern original. Another new feature in “Helen” is a tendency to describe natural objects…. Another feature of “Helen” is the lack of a didactic tone. Speaking of Scott’s novels, she remarks that his morality is not in purple patches, ostentatiously obtrusive, but woven in through the very texture of the stuff. She knew that her faults lay in the opposite direction, and it is evident she had striven to avoid them.

General

  As a writer of tales and novels, she has a very marked peculiarity. It is that of venturing to dispense common sense to her readers, and to bring them within the precincts of real life and natural feeling. She presents them with no incredible adventures, or inconceivable sentiments, no hyperbolical representations of uncommon character, or monstrous exhibitions of exaggerated passion. Without excluding love from her pages, she knows how to assign to it, its just limits. She neither degrades the sentiment from its true dignity, nor lifts it to a burlesque elevation. It takes its proper place among the other passions. Her heroes and heroines, if such they may be called, are never miraculously good, nor detestably wicked. They are such men and women as we see and converse with every day of our lives; with the same proportionate mixture in them of what is right and what is wrong, of what is great and what is little.

  Thinking as we do, that her writings are, beyond all comparison, the most useful of any that have come before us since the commencement of our critical career, it would be a point of conscience with us to give them all the notoriety that they can derive from our recommendation, even if their execution were in some measure liable to objection. In our opinion, however, they are as entertaining as instructive; and the genius, and wit, and imagination, they display, are at least as remarkable as the justness of the sentiments they so powerfully inculcate.

  Where, then, is Miss Edgeworth’s merit, her extraordinary merit, both as a moralist and a woman of genius? It consists in her having selected a class of virtues far more difficult to treat as the subject of fiction than others, and which had, therefore, been left by former writers to her. This is the merit both of originality and utility; but it never must be stated otherwise, unless we could doubt that superiority of the benevolent virtues over every other part of morals, which is not a subject of discussion, but an indisputable truth.

  Most of her characters are formed from the most genuine and ordinary materials of human nature,—with very little admixture of anything derived from heaven, or the garden of Eden, or the magnificent part of the regions of poetry. There is rarely anything to awaken for one moment the enthusiasm of an aspiring spirit, delighted to contemplate, and ardent to resemble, a model of ideal excellence…. She is very expert at contriving situations for bringing out all the qualities of her personages, for contrasting those personages with one another, for creating excellent amusement by their mutual reaction, and for rewarding or punishing their merits or faults. She appears intimately acquainted with the prevailing notions, prejudices, and habits of the different ranks and classes of society. She can imitate very satirically the peculiar diction and slang of each; and has contrived (but indeed it needed very little contrivance) to make the fashionable dialect of the upper ranks sound exceedingly silly. As far as she has had opportunities for observation, she has caught a very discriminative idea of national characters: that of the Irish is delineated with incomparable accuracy and spirit. It may be added, that our author, possessing a great deal of general knowledge, finds many lucky opportunities for producing it, in short arguments and happy allusions.

  A chat about Miss Edgeworth. Mrs. Aikin willing to find in her every excellence whilst I disputed her power of interesting in a long connected tale, and her possession of poetical imagination. In her numerous works she has certainly conceived and executed a number of forms, which, though not representatives of ideas, are excellent characters. Her sketches and her conceptions of ordinary life are full of good sense; but the tendency of her writings to check enthusiasm of every kind is of very problematical value.

  There are very few who have had the opportunities that have been presented to me, of knowing how very elevated is the admiration entertained by the Author of Waverley for the genius of Miss Edgeworth. From the intercourse that took place betwixt us while the work was going through my press, I know that the exquisite truth and power of your characters operated on his mind at once to excite and subdue it…. “If I could but hit Miss Edgeworth’s wonderful power of vivifying all her persons, and making them alive as beings in your mind, I should not be afraid:”—Often has the Author of Waverley used such language to me; and I know that I gratified him most when I could say,—“Positively this is equal to Miss Edgeworth.”

  Miss Edgeworth, with that vigour and originality which are among the principal characteristics of genius, has struck out a line of writing peculiar to herself—a line which it required considerable boldness to adopt, and no common talents to execute with effect…. Her pictures are all drawn in the soberest colours. She scarcely makes use of a single tint that is warmer than real life. No writer recurs so rarely, for the purpose of creating an interest, to the stronger and more impetuous feelings of our nature. Even love, the most powerful passion that acts within the sphere of domestic life—the presiding deity of the novel and the drama, is handled by her in a way very different from that in which we have been accustomed to see it treated in works of fiction…. Her favourite qualities are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant good sense, which, without checking the course of our kindly affections, exercises its influence at every moment, and surveys deliberately the motives and consequences of every action. Utility is her object, reason and experience her means. She makes vastly less allowance than has been usually made for those “amiable weaknesses,” “sudden impulses,” “uncontrolable emotions,” which cut so great a figure in the works of her predecessors. Her heroes and heroines are far more thinking, cautious, philosophizing persons than ever before were produced in that character.

  She is the author of works not to be forgotten; of works, which can never lose their standard value as “English classics,” and deserve that honourable name infinitely more than half the dull and licentious trash bound up in our libraries under that title…. Her novels always found an eager reception at a time when the poetry of Scott, of Campbell, and of Crabbe, was issuing in its freshness from the press, when the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, then splendid novelties, were to be duly read and studied, when Madame de Staël was at her zenith, and, in a word, when the competition of the noblest wits was only less keen, than at the present day.

  Two circumstances, in particular, recalled my recollection of the mislaid manuscript. The first was the extended and well-merited fame of Miss Edgeworth, whose Irish characters have gone so far to make the English familiar with the character of their gay and kindhearted neighbours of Ireland, that she may be truly said to have done more towards completing the Union than perhaps all the legislative enactments by which it has been followed up. Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact which pervade the works of my accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland—something which might introduce her natives to those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than they had been placed hitherto, and tend to procure sympathy for their virtues and indulgence for their foibles.

  Miss Edgeworth may claim the rare praise of having perfectly succeeded in the great purpose which she proposed, of enlightening and improving the age, by imparting to it new ideas on the subject of education, taken in its most extended sense. Thus, by means of the deep interest attaching to her sagacious and vivid portraiture of character, she has wrought greater results with fiction, than could have been accomplished by the most profound philosophical treatise.

  We owe also the popularity of the growing principle to the writings of Miss Edgeworth and of Scott, who sought their characters among the people, and who interested us by a picture of (and not a declamation upon) their life and its humble vicissitudes, their errors and their virtues.

  She excels in reducing a folly, or a false virtue, “ad absurdum;” she is truly Socratic in the manner by which she drives a fallacy to its last defences. She has invariably and perseveringly discountenanced all exaltation and enthusiasm, and this incessant attention to the real and practical, however it may sometimes diminish her glory as a great artist, undoubtedly increases her utility as a moral teacher. In one class of characters she is almost unrivalled: no author has, with so much sympathy, penetration and vivacity, exhibited the national peculiarities of the Irish—a nation which she has studied with peculiar interest and love.

  It is from the apex of the pyramid that men calculate its height, and the altitude of genius must be taken where it has attained its culminating point. Let those who wish to appreciate Miss Edgeworth, and derive the greatest amount of refining and elevating enjoyment from her works, pass over the prefaces, short as they are—never think of the moral excellent as it may be—be not over-critical touching the management of the story, but give themselves up to the charm of the dialogue, the scene-painting, the delineation and development of character, the happy blending of pathos and humour with the sobriety of truth. Let them do this, and they will cease to wonder at the proud position conceded to her by the dispassionate judgment of her most eminent contemporaries.

  Miss Edgeworth’s Irish tales gave the world of readers an interest in the impulsive people among whom the greatest portion of her life was spent. When she turned from Irish scenes to delineate fashionable people in London she did not attain the same degree of excellence. She sketched the Irish faithfully, because she had lived with them all her life and thoroughly understood all their virtues and all their weaknesses. She failed to draw her peers and peeresses with equal accuracy, because she had only a superficial acquaintance with London society. In Ireland she painted portraits, in London caricatures.

  She paints character as it presented itself to her view, sometimes well and sometimes ill, but her men and women have not a life in themselves. Her short tales are excellent, and superior to her novels, for the reason that the things required in a short tale are incident and moral point, not character. In the invention or adaption of incident she is very clever; she also has a large share of the faculty, most conspicuous in Defoe, of giving fiction the air of reality by minute elaboration of detail. She writes decidedly well, and often says witty or sparkling things, of which but few are to be found in Jane Austen.

  When the writer looks back upon her own childhood, it seems to her that she lived in company with a delightful host of little playmates, bright busy, clever children, whose cheerful presence remains more vividly in her mind than that of many of the real little boys and girls who used to appear and disappear disconnectedly as children do in childhood, when friendship and companionship depends almost entirely upon the convenience of grown-up people. Now and again came little cousins or friends to share our games, but day by day, constant and unchanging, ever to be relied upon, smiled our most lovable and friendly companions—simple Susan, lame Jervas, Talbot, the dear Little Merchants, Jem the widow’s son with his arms round old Lightfoot’s neck, the generous Ben, with his whipcord and his useful proverb of “waste not, want not”—all of these were there in the window corner waiting our pleasure…. People justly praised Miss Edgeworth’s admirable stories and novels, but from prejudice and early association these beloved childish histories seem unequalled still, and it is chiefly as a writer for children that we venture to consider her here. Some of the stories are indeed little idylls in their way. Walter Scott, who best knew how to write for the young so as to charm grandfathers as well as Hugh Littlejohn, Esq., and all the grandchildren, is said to have wiped his kind eyes as he put down “Simple Susan.”

  Her novels have been described as a sort of essence of common sense, and even more happily it has been said that it was her genius to be wise. We must content to take that which she can offer; and since she offers so much, why should we not be content? Miss Edgeworth wrote of ordinary human life, and not of tremendous catastrophes or highly romantic incidents. Hers was no heated fancy. She had no comprehension of those fiery passions, those sensibilities that burn like tinder at contact with the feeblest spark; she does not believe in chance, that favorite of so many novelists; neither does she deal in ruined castles, underground galleries nor spectres, as was the fashion in her day.

  It was the evil of the religious prejudices in which I was bred that all novels, except those with a ticketed moral, were put into the index. I read nearly all of Miss Edgeworth’s tales, but I do not remember one beneficial lesson derived from her commonplace minor moralities. To this day, however, I cannot cut the string in unwrapping a parcel without compunction, so strong was the impression made by her “Waste not, Want not.” I have saved a few feet of twine, and wasted time much more valuable in picking out knots.

  But the great stand-by of our early life, in those days, was in Miss Edgeworth’s books. I know perfectly well that it is impossible to make the young people of this generation read them, and I have no tears for their refusal. But I should like, if I could, to say to the authors of this day that they will do well if they study Miss Edgeworth’s “Practical Education” first, and make such a critical study as shall show them from what quarters she gained the notions or theories which made her, for more than one generation, the best writer for children. Some things must be changed as a generation goes by, but there is an eternal foundation of good sense and of a knowledge of childhood at the bottom of Miss Edgeworth’s success, which any person who is undertaking to write for children of this generation, or of the twentieth century, will be wise if he master. “Harry and Lucy” was, not to say is, an absolute text-book of mine. By this I mean the latter part of “Harry and Lucy,” what should have been called the “Sequel to Harry and Lucy,” if she had carried out the same nomenclature which she used in the naming the sequel of “Frank.” “Harry and Lucy” introduced us to the world of physics. It taught us the mysteries of the still young steam-engine, and inspired us with an enthusiastic desire for invention. It was included in the scanty library of our attic, which served at once as workshop, laboratory, theatre, library, study, and play-room, where it might always be found, among six or seven other books, as a constant resource, whether for amusement or for instruction. At the distance of fifty years, I suppose that if it were necessary (that is, if I found myself standing on a Pacific island with a hundred children who needed “Harry and Lucy”), I could substantially reproduce it on the leaves of any talipat-palm tree which they would furnish for writing.

  The didacticism of the stories for children has not prevented their permanent popularity. Her more ambitious efforts are injured by the same tendency. She has not the delicacy of touch of Miss Austen, more than the imaginative power of Scott. But the brightness of her style, her keen observation of character, and her shrewd sense and vigour make her novels still readable, in spite of obvious artistic defects. Though her puppets are apt to be wooden, they act their parts with spirit enough to make us forgive the perpetual moral lectures.

  Maria Edgeworth may be said to have invented the modern novel, which gives the traits, the speech, the manners, and the thoughts of a peasantry instead of moving only among the upper ten thousand. Sir Walter Scott, with his usual frankness and generosity, stated in his preface to the Waverly Novels that what really started him in his career as a novelist was the desire to do for Scotland and the Scottish peasantry what Miss Edgeworth had done for Ireland and the Irish peasantry…. Another of the leading writers of this century has acknowledged his indebtedness to Miss Edgeworth. The great Russian novelist, Ivan Tourgenieff, told a friend that when he was quite young he was unacquainted with the English language, but he used to hear his elder brother reading out to his friends translations of Miss Edgeworth’s Irish stories, and the hope rose in his mind that one day he would be able to do for Russia and her people what Miss Edgeworth had done for Ireland.

  She is sometimes accused of being too common-sensical, not sufficiently romantic and passionate. If this be a fault, she must certainly plead guilty to it. Self-restraint, truth in all things, were the moving principles of her soul. She has been classed with Jane Austen, but no two writers can be less alike. Miss Austen never wrote with a moral purpose, Miss Edgeworth never wrote without one, and her stories are generally made to fit the lessons she wishes to bring out. Miss Austen excels with common-place people, Miss Edgeworth utterly fails with them, but her Irish servants, her wits, and fops, are admirable. Miss Austen has a fine, delicate humour, while her sister authoress deals in broad, racy drollery, in dramatic scenes which are often extravagant and laughable. Miss Austen never seems to think about her plots, Miss Edgeworth takes pains to make hers as ingenious and complicated as possible. Miss Austen was the greater artist, but Miss Edgeworth was a much more useful and practical writer. The fame of Jane Austen rests on six novels, while Maria Edgeworth published forty-seven volumes, dealing with a variety of subjects, and showing an immense amount of reading and observation. She was emphatically the children’s friend. As time goes on, even “The Absentee” may rest on the dusty shelves of our libraries, but “Harry and Lucy” and “Simple Susan” will be thumbed in nurseries and schoolrooms as long as the world lasts.

  I suspect it would not be an easy task to bring young people, nowadays, to much enthusiasm about Miss Edgeworth and her books; and yet if I were to tell all that “we fellows” used to think about her when her “Popular Tales,” and her delightful “Parent’s Assistant,” with its stories exactly of the right length—about Lazy Lawrence, and Simple Susan, and the False Key, and Tarlton—were in vogue, I am afraid you would give me very little credit for critical sagacity. A most proper and interesting old lady we reckoned her, and do still.

  Her style is easy, pliant, and vigorous; timid, perhaps, in its avoidance of all eccentricities, and somewhat overburdened by imitation of accredited literary models, but always correct, and free from tawdriness and exaggeration. Like the other attributes of her work, it shows earnestness and thoroughness of care and attention: and we are not surprised, when we watch the result, to read in one of her father’s prefaces, that every page of her printed writing represents “twice as many pages as were written;” and yet not the least convincing proof of this care is that she has been able to avoid any obtrusive evidence of toil: and that if she spent much labor limæ she has given no sign of it in cumbrousness or pedantry of style.

  Those who have made acquaintance with “Castle Rackrent” and other works of Miss Edgeworth will hardly be disposed to assign to these sketches of Irish life and character, vivid, spirited, and amusing as they are, the place which Scott in his generosity claimed for them.

  In this effective contrast of manners, Miss Edgeworth is historically midway between Smollett and Henry James.

  In all she wrote a fine eye for character can be detected; but we cannot hold it as fine as Miss Austen’s, since not very infrequently we find the black and white laid on with too little care for the nice shades of tone which Miss Austen never neglected. The good people are sometimes unco guid, and are for that reason perilously like bores.