Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/676

654 EDGE WORTH the most distinguished of her contemporaries ; and countless tourists, who visited her, returned home charmed by her lively conversation and by the domestic virtues which brightened the home of which she was the centre. With Scott she was on terms of the closest inti macy ; Byron admired her works, in spite of his sarcastic reference to " Miss Edgeworth s novels stepping from their covers ;" and Lord Macaulay was one of her most enthusiastic worshippers. " Among all the incidents," says Mr Trevelyan, " connected with the publication of his History, nothing pleased Macaulay so much as the gratification that he contrived to give to Maria Edgeworth, as a small return for the enjoyment which, during more than forty years, he had derived from her charming writ ings." Macaulay mentions Miss Edgeworth s name in a note, in which he describes her delineation of King Corny, in Ormond, as " that admirable portrait." Miss Edgeworth, in a letter to Dr Holland, speaks of the " self-satisfaction, vanity, pride, surprise, I had in finding my own name in a note." Castle Rackrent, the first and one of the most character istic of her novels, is lit up throughout with sunny Irish humour, Sir Coudy complaining that he " was very ill used by the Government about a place that was promised him and never given, after his supporting them against his conscience very honourably" (1857 edition, p. 39). Leonora has a painful plot. It treats of the seduction of an attached husband by a professed friend of his wife. Leonora s forbearance, however, and her deep-seated love for her husband prove, in the end, too much for the hollow professions and vaunted " sensibility " of Olivia. The Tales of Fashionable Life include Ennui, The Dun, Manoeuvring, Almeria, Vivian, The Absentee, Madame de Fleury, and Emttie de Coulanges. Ennui is a powerful story, and relates how the earl of Glenthorn was cured of the disease which gives its name to the book. There are several fine character studies, including the Earl; M Leocl, the cool, but faithful, Scotch agent; witty Lady Geraldine; Christy, the blacksmith; and Ellinor, the Irish foster nurse, who said, on one occasion, that " if it plased God, she would like to die on a Christmas clay, of all days, becaase the gates of Heaven, they say, will be open all that day, and who knows but a body might slip in unknownst 1 " (1857 edition, p. 231). The Dun portrays, with a realism almost too painful, the dreadful privations undergone by the poor who are unable to get in the money justly their due. Manoeuvring depicts the efforts of Mrs Beaumont, a clever, scheming, deceitful woman, to marry her son and daughter contrary to their inclinations. For a while all seems to go well with Mrs Beaumont, until she is herself entangled in her net of white lies, and finally thoroughly outwitted. Her character, and that of Mr Palmer, a wealthy merchant from Jamaica,- are worthy of the author s high reputation. Almeria traces the rise of the worldly spirit in the breast of a young girl, and the debasing con sequences of a passionate pursuit of fashion for its own sake, unredeemed by any ennobling feature. Vivian is an admirably told story, and illustrates the terrible evils which sometimes arise from indecision of character. Vivian, the undecided, brilliant, young noble; Ilussell, the faithful tutor ; Wharton,the unscrupulous politician and voluptuary; self-willed Lord Glistonbury ; prim Lady Glistonbury ; and vivacious Lady Julia seem to start from the canvas. The Absentee, considered by many as Miss Edgeworth s master piece, is written to expose the misery entailed on the tenantry by the Irish gentry, who deserted their native country for London, and abandoned their affairs to be managed by unscrupulous agents. The characters are among the most life-like in the annals of fiction. Lady Clonbrony makes herself exquisitely ridiculous in her vain endeavours to act the fine English lady ; Lord Colambre, the hero of the novel, travels, under an assumed name, among his father s tenants in Ireland, finds out how rudely they have been oppressed, and champions their cause so skilfully as to win over even Lady Clonbrony ; Lady Dashfort and her daughter are wonderfully real representa tions of heartless women of fashion ; the sufferings of the Irish peasantry are drawn with a loving and masterly pencil ; and the general sadness of the work is relieved by such humorous sketches as Colonel Heathcock, Sir Terence O Fay, and Larry Brady, whose inimitable letter closes the book. Macaulay considered the scene in which Lord Colambre discovers himself to his father s tenantry the best passage of the kind since the beginning of the 22d book of the Odyssey. This is very high praise, especially when we remember that Macaulay seems to have read almost every novel so much was he fascinated by narrative composition. Madame de Fleury is the story of a French lady who set up a school in Paris for neglected girls. The school came to grief at the great Revolution; and its benevolent founder had to fly to England, where she was supported mainly by donations from the girls, who were instigated by Yictoire, the heroine of the book. Ultimately her return to France was secured by Basile, Victoire s lover, who had obtained influence with his general through his valuable engineering knowledge. Emilie de Coulanges describes the mortifica tions two French refugees had to undergo in living with Mrs Somers, an excessively ill-tempered English lady, who was generous enough with her money, but neglectful of kindness of a more delicate order. Mrs Somers s incessant outbursts of temper and reconciliations with Emilie, to be followed inevitably by fresh quarrels, are somewhat weari some reading. The Modern Griselda, a story treating of the attempts of a wife to bring her husband to abject submission, manifests fine satiric power, and great liveli ness thedialogue being particularly animated. Patronage, which is in the same vein as the Tales of Fashionable Life, rather disappointed the critics, who concluded that Mr Edgeworth had written considerable parts of it. This, however, is expressly denied by Miss Edgeworth (Memoirs,i. 323). Ormond is an Irish tale, and ranks among the best of Miss Edgeworth s works. It shows how a youth, whose education had been neglected, and whose temper was naturally impetuous, managed to reach true nobility of character. King Corny, Ormond, Sir Ulick O Shane. Moriarty Carroll, Dora, and Mademoiselle O Faley are masterly creations. There is a true Irish ring about the book, although it is composed in the purest English. Helen is a novel of thrilling interest, and displays greater passion and a finer insight into the more subtle moods of the human mind than any of Miss Edgeworth s previous works. The moral is that falsehood and deceit almost invariably bring misery in their train. Although on a more elaborate scale than her other books, Helen sur passes them all in grace, charm, and lightness of touch. Such powerfully conceived characters as Lady Davenant, Helen, Cecilia, Beauclerc, Churchill, and the Clarendons, leave an indelible impression on the memory. Miss Edgeworth s novels are distinguished by good sense, humour, and an easy flowing style. As the construction of a plot is not her strong point, she is generally more successful in talus than in lengthy novels. The vivacity of her dialogues is extraordinary ; and in them her characters reveal themselves in the most natural way possible. Her books are character-studies, rather than in tensely interesting narratives. Sobriety of judgment is seen throughout ; and passion, romance, and poetry rarely, if ever, shed their lustre on her pages. Three of her aims were to paint national manners, to enforce morality, and to teach fashionable society by satirizing the lives of the idle and worldly. She ex pressly calls some of her stories "Moral Tales"; but they all fall under this category. The two poles of thought in regard to the moral tendency of Miss Edgeworth s works are well represented by

Robert Hall, the eminent Baptist preacher, and Monsieur Taine