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velop itself, which a more formal training might have discouraged. A girl has already gathered much, and felt more, ere she arrives at her teens; and though eighty-two years ago precocity was less common than it is in our time of electrically-diffused intelligence, it is not chimerical to presume that Imagination must even then have begun to stir,-nay, too, and taste to select have already awakened in one whose character throughout life has displayed a singular union of vivacity with temperance, of observation with reasoning power. Then, too, it may have been good for the authoress that Ireland, with its strange, pathetic, humorous life, came upon her as a contrast, not as a matter of course. She might otherwise hardly have so shrewdly noticed all the odd discrepancies and striking individualities of its Sir Condy Rackrents and its Sir Terence O'Fays; she might have treated that as natural, inevitable, and not worth the painting, which proved to be a vein of rare interest and peculiar nature.

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It was by her "Castle Rackrent" that Miss Edgeworth was first introduced to the public, and took at once her place in the foremost rank of female novelists. Though the eminent personages of her chronicle might very possibly not really be more individual than Miss Burney's Braughton's, or Madame Duval, or Briggs, or the "tonish" people (as the authoress called them) in Cecilia," they arrested English attention by their strange over-sea air. It was at once felt that we of Britain have nothing so charming, so savage, so humorous, so pathetic, so endearing, and so provoking, as the society and manners depicted. Most curious, too, is it now to read the apology of the Artist for offering such a picture, on the plea that Ireland must, owing to the Union, presently lose its identity, and that the Sir Kits and Thadys must become, like other British subjects, dull, thriving, country gentlemen, and tame followers. Most curious!-seeing that there is no more puzzling sign of the times-their intellectual enlargement and gracious benevolence consideredthan the revival, in every exasperated form, of all the obsolete prejudices and animosities of race,--than the cherishing prepense of all those jealousies, peculiarities, and barbarisms which keep asunder Saxon from Celt, Slave from German, the South from the North.

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of her delineations, or to give them an obsolete or washed-out air. And her Irish tales and characters are among her best-witness Ennui,"-witness "The Absentee,”-witness the persone of her Comic Dramas,--to whom we especially call attention because we think they have been unfairly overlooked. We have Sir Walter Scott's own warrant for saying, that it was the freshness and vivacity of their nationality, and the success of their characteristic dialogue, which led him to adventure those tales in the " language of Burns," which, (in spite of its being criticised, on its first utterance," as a dark dialect of Anglified Erse,") metamorphosed the Fiction of Europe. We have the warrant, too, of one of Mr. O'Connell's tail, Mr. O'Neill Daunt, for the assertion that the Liberator was aggrieved at the novelist, because she never directly espoused the cause of Catholic Emancipation. It is something to have shown the way to the genius of Scott, and to have been counted as a stumbling-block by the Arch-(let Orangeman or Repealer fill the blank each for himself) of Derrynane Abbey !

Once having begun and been acknowledged, Miss Edgeworth could not but proceed in her pleasure-giving labor, (for who gives so much pleasure as the Story Teller?) We by no means profess to enumerate her novels -but must mention the "Moral Tales," the "Popular Tales," the "Tales of Fashionable Life," the insulated stories, "Leonora," "Belinda," "Patronage," "Harrington and Ormond;" that inimitable sarcastic sketch

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The Modern Griselda ;" and the stories for children, which will never lose their hold. We are acquainted with wiser men than ourselves, and burdened, to boot, with graver burdens, (if that could be,) who are still glad of an excuse to read again "The Cherry Orchard," and "The Purple Jar," and "Simple Susan." There are few such books for children in any other language, as we English possess and that is one reason why there are few such men and women as English men and women!

For the pleasure of children of a larger growth, it would be hard to specify in the picture-gallery of men and manners which novelists have given, scenes of greater power and emotion, characters of more vivacity and variety, finer touches of humor, than exist in the Edgeworth Library. Let us mention But though-in part, because-Miss Edge- "Vivian," with its deep overmastering interworth's prophecy runs small chance of being est and exquisitely painful close,-"To-morfulfilled in our life-time, fifty years or more row," "Out of Debt out of Danger," as stohave done nothing to tarnish the brightnessries, the end of which is announced in the

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mon walks of men,-bound by our responsibilities, agitated by our cares: loving, fearing, sacrificing itself, serving others as we (should) do! But enough of aphorism,--and let us for a moment exclusively regard the light in which Miss Edgeworth was studied and ana

very titles thereof, without the interest and pain being thereby in the least lessened. Let us recall the post-boy Lanty's letter, winding up "The Absentee" with a veritable" trot for the Avenue," recollecting the while that the same hand wrote Sir Philip Baddeley's description of the fête at Frog-lyzed by a philosophical and refined critic. more, in "Belinda." Let us instance as masterly studies of foible in female form, (all how distinctly marked, all how different!) Almeria, Mrs. Somers in "Emilie de Coulanges," Mrs. Beaumont, the policizer in Manoeuvring," and the Frankland girls in "The Contrast," who rejoiced over their newly acquired wealth, because now "they could push Mrs. Craddock in the street." A brightness, a truth, and clearness animate these, and one hundred similar examples which could be collected-which, of themselves, would suffice to give the author her due rank with the initiated. As an artist in detail, whose hand has embraced a range of sub-of benevolence? Certainly not. Where, jects and characters, very nearly as wide as society, there are very few of either sex who have surpassed Miss Edgeworth.

Let us now consider the whole of which the above form merely parts. The taste and tendency of Miss Edgeworth's works have been too widely discussed for us also not to enter into the question a little diffusely, as the most important part of our task. While some of her panegyrists have, peradventure, exalted her too high as a moralist, another section of her critics has perversely considered her as a sort of teaching-machine, opposed to everything beautiful, fanciful, poetical, to all, in fact, which a Goethe loves to observe, as making up "eine Natur." No greater amount of short-sighted and wilful misconception has been perpetrated on any argument than this. Generally speaking, indeed, it has always seemed to us that the quarrel betwixt Utilitarianism and Imagination, is one of words rather than realities. For it will be owned as abstract propositions, that Beauty without discretion is, insomuch, Beauty without sympathy, and thus far, Beauty imperfect: that Vice hath as much coldness as warmth-as much cruelty as indulgence towards others. Again, it will be agreed that the power in passion theory (to coin words in the new-fashioned manner) bore with a tyrannic and extinguishing harshness upon the feeble, the delicate, the humbly-gifted, and those to whom Nature had denied pleasant attractions. Small is the imagination required to invent a monster: great and truthful the magic which can interest us in a heart, moving within the com

In my first enthusiasm of admiration," says Sir James Mackintosh, (following out a defence of the use of imagination, illustrated by a comparison of Raffaelle with Hogarth,) "I thought that Miss Edgeworth had first made fiction useful; but every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues, and the fictions which taught them were, therefore, of the highest, though not of unmixed utility. Miss Edgeworth inculcates prudence, and the many virtues of that family. Are these excellent virtues higher or more useful than those of fortitude,

then, is Miss Edgeworth's merit? Her merit, -her extraordinary merit, both as a moralist and as a woman of genius,-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."

Thus, then, it seems, according to the estimate of Mackintosh, that we are in Miss Edgeworth's case, also, dealing with a poetess working up materials which had been found by her predecessors hard to break and bend; and her title as such, therefore, unfairly questioned or misunderstood by those belonging to a different congregation. Question and misunderstanding were rendered critically and personally exclusive by the fact, that, shortly after Miss Edgeworth's success was established, arose that singular and fascinating school of writers, whose denunciation of the selfishness of Virtue (while, in reality, they were illustrating the selfishness of Vice,) so strangely for a time affected our literature. During the reign of the Poetry of Passion, it was totally forgotten-it was indignantly denied that self-restraint could have any poetry,-that there was any benevolence in sparing pain to others, by providing honestly for their happiness in one's own. No-the unfaithful wife was to be pitied; the husband she wronged, the children she demoralized, were both to be forgotten, forsooth, in the bitterness of her sufferings! The extravagant spendthrift was pardoned, and the wreck and ruin brought by him on a thousand homely and ungracious folks utterly forgotten, because of his charming smile, and

because "he wouldn't sell Uncle Oliver's picture!" The grandeur, the beauty, the mystery of crime, were to be dwelt upon as objects of allurement and sympathy, power and diseased passion combined, were to be pitied, because they could not rule the world; and "hardness," "selfishness," and other branding epithets, were flung about on those whom such a code of moral monstrosities revolted. It may be well for England that the end of this epidemic came many years ago!

The above granted, let us own that the assignment of an egotistic and mechanical spirit to Miss Edgeworth's works may be in part chargeable, not upon her peculiarities as a moralist, but upon her manner of working as an artist. This she has herself so pleasantly described in her "Memoirs of her Father," that it has naturally-necessarily a place here:

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My father wrote but little; but I may be permitted to say how much, as a critic, he did for me. Yet, indeed, this is out of my power fully to state to the public-only that small circle of our friends, who saw the manuscripts before and after they were corrected by him, can know or imagine how much they were improved by his critical taste and judgment.

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"Whenever I thought of writing anything, told him my first rough plans, and always, with the instinct of a good critic, he used to fix immediately upon that which would best answer the purpose. Sketch that, and show it to me.' These words, from the experience of his sagacity, never failed to inspire me with hope of success. It was then sketched. Sometimes, when I was fond of a particular part, I used to dilate upon it in the sketch; but to this he always objected:'I don't want any of your painting-none of your drapery! I can imagine all that; let me see the bare skeleton.'

"It seemed to me sometimes impossible that he could understand the very slight sketches I made, when, before I was conscious that I had expressed this doubt in my countenance, he always saw it. "Now my dear little daughter, I know, does

to write on.' His skill in cutting, his decision in
His
criticism, were peculiarly useful to me.
ready invention and infinite resource, when I had
failed to extricate me at my utmost need. It was
run myself into difficulties or absurdities, never
the happy experience of this, and my consequent
reliance on his ability, decision and taste, that re-
lieved me from the vacillation and anxiety to which
I was much subject. He enjoined me to finish
whatever I began; and such was his power over
my mind, that during his life nothing I began to
write was left unfinished; and in particular in-
stances where the subject was not happily chosen,
it was irksome to go on and complete the task.
Nor was the labor always paid by literary success.
Yet it was not labor in vain: it strengthened my
power of perseverance, nor did it prevent fresh

exertion.

*

*

hints for invention furnished me by the incidents "Were it worth while, I could point out many and characters which my father had met with in his youth."

Those who are curious whether as to character or the manner of working which distinguishes a Van Eyck from a Pietro Perugino, or a Teniers from a Wilkie, can hardly do better than compare the above passage with Miss Burney's revelations of the fevers of confidential modesty, in which she laid her "Cecilia," and a certain defunct comedy, before the Streatham Sanhedrim of wits and critics-the Thrales, the Johnsons, the Murphys, the Montagus-her more stubborn counsellor, Daddy Crisp of Chesington, historian of music and the biographer of and her animated, accomplished father, the Metastasio!

Now, it is hardly within nature and possibility that such a manner of writing as Miss Edgeworth reveals, should not produce a certain stiffness and over-anxious finish, because of which superficial or impulsive readers have been apt to rebuke the matter of her tales, and the argument of their purnot believe that I understand her.' Then he pose. Difficulties solved by the active ingewould, in his own words, fill up my sketch, paint nuity of another brain than the inventor'sthe description or represent the character intended, incidents clipped, dove-tailed, and chiselled, with such life, that I was quite convinced he not by a revising hand-subjects felt to be "unonly seized the ideas, but that he saw, with the happily chosen," which were still to be prophetic eye of taste, the utmost that could be wrought out for consistency's sake-these made of them. After a sketch had his approbation, he would not see the filling it up till it had phenomena can hardly consist with ease, been worked upon for a week or a fortnight, or and flow, and the appearance of inspiration. till the first thirty or forty pages were written. There must be also evident under such a disThen they were read to him, and if he thought pensation, a certain consciousness on the part them going on tolerably well, the pleasure in of the writer: a complacent and careful layhis eyes, the approving sound of his voice, even ing-out of plots and plans, of utilizing every without the praise he so warmly bestowed, were episodical incident and accessory figure:sufficient and delightful excitements to go on and and these are calculated to disturb, if finish. When he thought that there was spirit in what was written, but that it required, as it often not to distract, the reader, by drawdid, great correction, he would say, 'Leave that ing his attention from the beauty of the to me; it is my business to cut and correct-yours | fabric to the art of the machinery. Those

whom analysis interests will find an example | blotting out from her own recollection the of art carried to its extremity in "Patronage," the most ambitious, but the least interesting, of Miss Edgeworth's tales. We know that "Trifles make the sum of human things,"

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but in Patronage" every important affair turns upon some minute incident by way of a pivot. A broad-seal thoughtlessly given the direction of a letter casually recognized by the right person at the right moment-set a Minister to rights with his Monarch. A family artfully and progressively tried by every temptation which enables them to exhibit their independence, is reinstated, rewarded, with the mathematically apportioned bounty of (as it were) steam fairies. The phrase of poetical justice" acquires a new meaning from books like these; and not till we close them do we remind ourselves that (to quote a yet truer phrase) the best of mankind must be content with the poetry without the justice. But we repeat, the manner has a larger share in producing this impression, and provoking this repulsion, than the matter of Miss Edgeworth's tales.

We have dwelt on this distinction from not having seen it drawn in any other place; and because it is one, in every respect, important. But whether the peculiarity commented on, (or complained of as may be,) be here rightly estimated, or not: certain it is that the novel written by Miss Edgeworth alone and unassisted after her father's death, is so superior in ease, in play, in nature, and in poetry, to any of her earlier productions of similar extent, as to warrant us in fancying that filial affection overvalued the assistance of the monitor and guide, whose literary counsels she prized so highly. We allude to "Helen" as compared with "Belinda" or "Patronage." It has been impossible to return to this tale, after the pause of some years, without being surprised by its elegance, its vivacity, the skill of its invention, the shrewdness and sweetness of heart which it discloses; the knowledge of life, the sympathy with progress which it registers. Here, at least, those whom the very idea of the Schoolmistress scares, have not to complain of the prim presence or the ponderous pressure of the Pattern Woman. Helen's strength (upon which, and her sacrifice of herself for her friend, the story turns) is set in motion at the service of her weakness-her immoderate craving for love and sympathy. Cecilia's falsehood is not excused, but explained, by the deep and reverential affection she bears her husband, which makes her desirous of

thoughts of an earlier affection, such as she fears he would have disapproved. Lady Davenant's high-toned and intellectual character has a redeeming weakness. She can be credulous, too, as in the case of her page; she can have been womanish, and failing in her duties as a mother, as the early struggles for ascendency which her confessions reveal. And how admirably, as in life, are the strength and weakness of these three characters made to play into each other's hands and hearts! Then, for secondary characters, how highly finished are the persons of the scandalous coterie, and Churchill who hovers, like Mahomet's coffin, betwixt their poisonous world and "the diviner air" of better feeling! and Lady Bearcroft, with her liberality, and her vulgarity, and her cordiality, and her selfinterest. Capitally is the interest complicated; with exquisite neatness "the tow spun off the reel," (and how few novelists, now-adays, are competent to manage a close!) and the sprightliness, the grace, the depth, are unimpaired by the intrusion of any mechanical process which can be detected. Were we given to prophecy in these days, when the Comet is keeping away from us for the express purpose (of course) of rebuking arrogant prophecy, and when, at a moment's warning, literature may rise of form and scope as yet totally undreamed of-we should assert, with the confidence of those who know much and risk little, that the good days of "Helen's" right appreciation, and steady popularity as a classic, are only just set in, if not still to come.

We have written principally of the authoress; for to prowl about the private dwelling of a lady "pen in hand," does not altogether suit our humor. That Miss Edgeworth has taken her place with due distinction in the brightest worlds of London and Paris, cotemporary memoirs have already told. Byron looked out for her even when Byron's Gulnares and Zuleikas were the rage in May Fair. One of the happiest months ever known at Abbotsford (as Mr. Lockhart assures us,) was the one which followed her crossing of Scott's threshold. He wrote of her as a Good Fairy, tiny in stature, lively of eye, kind and gay in speech. Nor is the vivacity dimmed even now which has made Miss Edgeworth, throughout her long life and distinguished literary career, not merely "the observed" of mere lion-hunters, and "the discussed" of philosophers and poets, but also "the beloved" of a large and happilyunited domestic circle.

From the North British Review.

CHARLES LAMB AND HIS FRIENDS.

Final Memorials of Charles Lamb. By THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. 2 vols. London: 1848.

Ir sounds paradoxical, but is not so in a bad sense, to say, that in every literature of large compass some authors will be found to rest much of the interest which surrounds them on their essential non-popularity. They are good for the very reason that they are not in conformity to the current taste. They interest because to the world they are not interesting. They attract by means of their repulsion. Not as though it could separately furnish a reason for loving a book, that the majority of men had found it repulsive. Prima facie, it must suggest some presumption against a book, that it has failed to engaged public attention. To have roused hostility indeed, to have kindled a feud against its own principles or its temper, may happen to be a good sign. That argues power. Hatred may be promising. The deepest revolutions of mind sometimes begin in hatred. But simply to have left a reader unimpressed is in itself a neutral result, from which the inference is doubtful. Yet even that, even simple failure to impress, may happen at times to be a result from positive powers in a writer, from special originalities, such as rarely reflect themselves in the mirror of the ordinary understanding. It seems little to be perceived how much the great scriptural idea of the worldly and the unworldly is found to emerge in literature as well as in life. In reality the very same combinations of moral qualities, infinitely

*"Scriptural" we call it, because this element of thought, so indispensable to a profound philosophy of morals, is not simply more used in Scripture

than elsewhere, but is so exclusively significant or intelligible amidst the correlative ideas of Scripture, as to be absolutely insusceptible of translation into classical Greek or classical Latin. It is disgraceful that more reflection has not been directed to the vast causes and consequences of so pregnant a truth.

varied, which compose the harsh physiognomy of what we call worldliness in the living groups of life, must unavoidably present themselves in books. A library divides into sections of worldly and unworldly, even as a crowd of men divides into that same majority and minority. The world has an instinct for recognizing its own; and recoils from certain qualities when exemplified in books, with the same disgust or defective sympathy as would have governed it in real life. From qualities for instance of childlike simplicity, of shy profundity, or of inspired self-communion, the world does and must turn away its face towards grosser, bolder, more determined, or more intelligible expressions of character and intellect;-and not otherwise in literature, nor at all less in literature, than it does in the realities of life.

Charles Lamb, if any ever was, is amongst the class here contemplated; he, if any ever has, ranks amongst writers whose works are destined to be forever unpopular, and yet forever interesting; interesting, moreover, by means of those very qualities which guarantee their non-popularity. The same qualities which will be found forbidding to the worldly and the thoughtless, which will be found insipid to many even amongst robust and powerful minds, are exactly those which will continue to command a select audience in every generation. The prose essays under the signature of Elia form the most delightftl section amongst Lamb's works. They traverse a peculiar field of observation, sequestered from general interest; and they are composed in the ear of the noisy crowd, clamoring for a spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch strong sensations. But this retiring delicacy itself, the pensiveness chequered by gleams of the fanciful, and the humor that is touched with cross-lights of pathos, together with the picturesque quaintness of the objects casually

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