of moral instruction for the young, and published that work, which so many children both in England and America, have been happier and better for reading, namely, "Rosamond, a Sequel to Early Lessons." In 1825, "Harriet and Lucy," a continuation of the "Early Lessons," in four volumes, was issued.
In 1823, Miss Edgeworth visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. "Never," says Mr. Lockhart, "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 some new plan of gaiety. Miss Edgeworth remained a fortnight at Abbotsford. Two years afterwards, she had an opportunity of repaying the hospitalities of her entertainer, by receiving him at Edgeworthstown, where Sir Walter met with as cordial a welcome, and where he found, 'neither mud hovels nor naked peasantry, but snug cottages and smiling faces all about.' Literary fame had spoiled neither of these eminent persons, nor unfitted them for the common business and enjoyment of life. 'We shall never,' said Scott, 'learn to feel and respect our calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine compared with the education of the heart.' Maria did not listen to this without some water in her eyes; her tears were always ready when any generous string was touched—(for, as Pope says, "the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest;") but she brushed them gaily aside, and said, 'You see how it is; Dean Swift said he had written his books in order that people might learn to treat him like a great lord. Sir Walter writes his in order that he may be able to treat his people as a great lord ought to do.'"
In 1834, Miss Edgeworth made her last appearance as a novelist, with the exquisite story of "Helen," in three volumes. It is her best work of fiction, combining with truth and nature more of the warmth of fancy and pathos of feeling than she displayed in her earlier writings. As though the last beams from the sun of her genius had, like the departing rays of a long unclouded day, become softer in their brightness and beauty, while stealing away from the world they had blessed.
Miss Edgeworth wrought out her materials of thought into many forms, and coloured these with the rainbow tinting of her fancy, and ornamented them with the polished beauty of benevolent feeling; but the precious gold of truth, which she first essayed, makes the sterling worth of all her books. And what a number she has written! The term of her life was long, but measured by what she accomplished seems to comprise the two centuries in which she lived. So quiet and easy was her death, it seemed but a sweet sleep, after only a half-hour's illness. She died, May 21st., 1849, in her eighty-third year, ripe in good works, and in the "charity which never faileth."
EDITHA,
Daughter of Earl Godwin, and wife of Edward the Confessor, was an amiable and very learned lady. Ingulphus, the Saxon
