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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. ----PEABODY, Andrew P., 1888, Books That Have Helped Me, p. 43.

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.-GRANT, ANNE, 1809, To Mrs. Fletcher, July 6; Memoir and Correspondence, ed. Grant, vol. I, p. 214.

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. BARRINGTON, SIR JONAH, 1830, Personal Sketches of his Own Times, p. 375.

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.-OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1882, Literary History of England, XVIII-XIX Century, vol. III, p. 174.

Miss Edgeworth never surpassed this her first work of note, and in some respects did not again come up to it.—MINTO, WILLIAM, 1894, The Literature of the Georgian Era, ed. Knight, p. 277.

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.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 127.

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.-GRANT, ANNE, 1809, To Mrs. Fletcher, July 6; Memoir and Correspondence, ed. Grant, vol. I, p. 214.

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.-HARE, AUGUSTUS J. C., 1894, Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol. 1, p. 73, note.

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.-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1894, The Literature of the Georgian Era, ed. Knight, p. 278.

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.-Zimmern, HELEN, 1883, Maria Edgeworth (Famous Women), p. 122.

A second series of "Tales of Fashion

able 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 twentysecond 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." -HARE, AUGUSTUS J. C., 1894, Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol. I, p. 190.

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. -PEABODY, W. B. O., 1834, Helen, North American Review, vol. 39, .

p. 167.

"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. OLIVER, GRACE A., 1882, A Study of Maria Edgeworth, p. 448.

"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. -ZIMMERN, HELEN, 1883, Maria Edgeworth (Famous Women), pp. 260, 265, 266.

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.-GIFFORD, WILLIAM, 1809, Tales of Fashionable Life, Quarterly Review, vol. 2, p. 146. 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.-JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1809-44, Miss Edgeworth, Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. III, p. 408.

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.-MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1810, Letter to Mrs. Mackintosh.

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

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.-FOSTER, JOHN, 1810, The Morality of Works of Fiction; Critical Essays, ed. Ryland, vol. I, p. 427.

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

Her

of ideas, are excellent characters. 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.-ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB, 1812, Diary, Sept. 21; Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence, ed. Sadler, vol. I, p. 256.

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."-BALLANTYNE, JAMES, 1814, Letter to Miss Edgeworth, Nov. 11; Lockhart's Life of Scott, ch. xxxiii.

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

. Her

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.— DUDLEY, EARL OF? 1814, Miss Edgeworth's Patronage, Quarterly Review, vol. 10, pp. 303, 304.

In short, she was a walking calculation, Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their

covers.

BYRON, LORD, 1819-24, Don Juan, Canto i.

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. -EVERETT, EDWARD, 1823, Miss Edgeworth, North American Review, vol. 17, pp. 388, 389.

With

Two circumstances, in particular, recalled my recollection of the mislaid manuscript. The first was the extended and wellmerited 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. out 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. -SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1829, General Preface to the Waverley Novels.

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.-PRESCOTT, WILLIAM HICKLING, 1832, English Literature of the Nineteenth Century, North American Review, vol. 35, p. 187.

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. LYTTON, EDWARD BULWER LORD, 1833, Intellectual Spirit, England and the English, p. 132.

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. SHAW, THOMAS B., 1847, Outlines of Engglish Literature, p. 385.

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. -HAYWARD, ABRAHAM, 1867, Miss Edgeworth, Edinburgh Review, vol. 126, p. 498.

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.-WALPOLE, SPENCER, 1878, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815, vol. I, p. 376.

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. SMITH, GOLDWIN, 1883, Miss Edgeworth, The Nation, vol. 36, p. 322.

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.