admirable portrait can form some notion of what King Corny's great-grandfather must have been."

Maria Edgeworth was born January 1, 1767, at Black Bourton in England. Her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, owned an estate at Edgeworthtown, Ireland, and when Maria was sixteen, the family went there to reside, and it was her home for the remainder of her life. Mr. Edgeworth was an eccentric person, of no marked intellectual power, but he was a most admirable father. The strongest bond of sympathy and affection existed between him and his oldest daughter, and throughout life they had a community of habits, affection and modes of thought. He possessed great talent as an educator, and he gave his daughter the most bracing kind of an education. He had many other children, for he was four times married, but Maria was his favorite. From all the accounts we have of him, he was a good husband, a good father, a good landlord, and a very excellent man. Byron mentions the Edgeworths in his journal. He says:

I had been the lion in 1812; Miss Edgeworth and Madame De Staël, with the Cossack, toward the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year. I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty-no, not forty-eight even."

Maria was early encouraged by her father to write essays and tales, chiefly for the amusement of her younger brothers and sisters. In 1796, the same year that saw the appearance of Miss Austen's first novel, the first volume of stories by Miss Edgeworth was also published. It was called "Parent's Assistant." I wonder if the young people of to-day still read those famous stories. That and Peter Parley's stories are among my first juvenile recollections, but that was before the days of Oliver Optic and Louisa Alcott. For three-quarters of a century, however, "Parent's Assistant" was the chief juvenile book in England and America, and if it is not in vogue now, it ought to be. John Ruskin, in writing to his young readers concerning dress and like topics, advises them to read "Parent's Assistant," and particularly the story of " Simple Susan."

"Castle Rackrent" was the first of Miss Edgeworth's novels, and was published in 1800. It is full of Irish humor and depicts the manners and habits of the Irish people in the eighteenth century. It has been translated into most of the European languages.

Novel after novel followed from her pen in swift succession, for she was a far more voluminous writer than Miss Austen, but those whose

names I have given above, are her chief works and her title to a place in English literature.

Unlike Miss Austen, Miss Edgeworth had one rather prim love affair toward middle life. It was with a Swedish gentleman, belonging to the diplomatic service, the Chevalier Edelcrantz, whom she met in Paris. He became deeply attached to her, and offered his hand. After some deliberation she refused him, being reluctant to leave her friends and country to live in Sweden. She never appears to have repented her decision. After a long and happy life she died in 1849, in her eighty-third year.

JANE PORTER.

(1776-1850.)

THERE are not many novel readers who have not wept over the misfortunes of Thaddeus of Warsaw or mourned over the sad but heroic fate of Sir William Wallace and his much-loved Marion. It is to be confessed that these famous works are not the highest literature, that they are at times unnecessarily minute in detail and that the heroes suffer themselves to become involved in difficulties that a few words of explanation might have averted; nevertheless, if we may judge from the returns of circulating libraries, they are as popular to-day as when first published, nearly a hundred years ago.

And there is this further to be said, that whatever they may be as literature, they are the first of the English historical novels. It is part of Miss Porter's fame that she "held the candle" for Sir Walter Scott. The Irish sketches of Miss Edgeworth first led him to think of portray

ing Scottish life and scenery, but "Thaddeus of Warsaw" suggested to him also the idea of interweaving history with them. It was therefore with no small pride that Miss Porter in the preface to the tenth edition of "Thaddeus," published in 1833-the first was published in 1803-spoke of Sir Walter Scott, "who did me the honor to adopt the style or class of novel of which Thaddeus of Warsaw' was the first, a class which, uniting the personages and facts of real history or biography with a combining and illustrative machinery of the imagination, formed a new species of writing in that day, and to which Mme. de Staél and others have given the appellation of an epic in prose."

The misfortunes of Poland are no longer very real to us, but in the times of our grandfathers they aroused the sympathy of the civilized world. When Miss Porter wrote, General Thaddeus Kosciuszko was the renowned hero of two hemispheres, for he had gained distinction in the American war for independence, and had later, with heroic bravery, been the leader in two revolts of Poland against Russia. Overwhelmed by superior forces, he became an exile, with thousands other of his countrymen, from his native land. In her girlhood Miss Porter saw many of these hapless