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and of the pleasant days of youth, which, like snow upon a river,' are melted away from our grasp, but which imagination still pictures to us in the most gay and vivid colours. A living author thus admirably displays the mighty power of past events over our present and future happiness,' warm from the heart and faithful to its fires,' in that 'longing, lingering look' which we cast back to the scenes of our youth. Ye woods that crown the clear lone brow of Norman Court, why do I revisit ye so oft, and feel a soothing consciousness of your presence, but that your high tops waving in the wind recal to me the hours and years that are for ever fled; that ye renew in ceaseless murmurs the story of long-cherished hopes and bitter disappointment; that in your solitudes and tangled wilds I can wander and lose myself, as I wander on and am lost in the solitude of my own heart; and that, as your rustling

branches give loud blast to the waste below, borne on the thoughts of other years, I can look down with patient anguish at the cheerless desolation which I feet within! Without that face pale as the primrose with hyacinthine locks, for ever shunning and for ever haunting me, mocking my waking thoughts as in a dream; without that smile which my heart could never turn to scorn; without those eyes dark with their own lustre, still bent on mine, and drawing the soul into their liquid mazes like a sea of love; without that name trembling in fancy's ear; without that form gliding before me like Oread or Dryad in fabled groves, what should I do, how pass away the listless leadenfooted hours? Then wave, wave on, ye woods of Tuderley, and lift your high tops in the air; my sighs and vows, uttered by your mystic voice, breathe into me my former being, and enable me to bear the thing I am!'

THE

HERE are some names in the republic of letters, as in the world of politics, which, from a variety of associations in the mind, seem to have a prescriptive title to public respect, even when all the members have not the fortune to be distinguished by particular pre-eminence over their contemporaries. Among this envied list is that of Edgeworth. And, their own specific merits out of the question, it would almost be a reflection on our taste were it not so, with the chosen friends and associates of Watt, Wedgwood, Darwin, Day, Beddoes, and so many other eminent names in science and literature. To the father of this lady they rendered the regard due to solid and useful acquirements. To herself something more. Her friends have been, not merely warm, but enthusiastic in her praise; and the public in general, sufficiently partial. Even those bulldogs of literature, the reviewers, who guard all the avenues to the temple of Fame with a vigilance that looks as if they thought none but themselves had

any right to enter there, have opened their wide and noisy throats to join in The coarsethe cry of applause. mouthed journal of Edinburgh, grown hoarse in abuse, has deigned to take her under its especial protection, and now flourishes the dulcet notes of eulogy over her volumes; the fact covers a multitude of its sins. Nor has the Quarterly ventured strongly to dispraise, though, like the opposite principles of electricity, these two always draw different ways. The British pursues its drowsy way with characteristic indifference. While all the monthly tribe, the mere dog-fish of criticism, with the form and appetites of the shark, without the same powers of doing mischief-let pass with impunity what their more voracious elder brethren are compelled to spare.

The truth is, she is above them all. She has had in an eminent degree, public opinion in her favour. And this, if it does not elevate an author out of the reach of unjust or petulant criticism, at least destroys much of its point, and all

its malice. Something is likewise due to coming out into the world under the wing of a father favourably distinguished in the walks of science and ingenuity; something to her wise exclusion of politics and political opinions from all her works:-something to their uniform aim-utility: most of all, to her undoubted talents as a theoretical teacher of education, as a general novelist, and as a faithful delineator of national

manners.

The genius of Miss Edgeworth is peculiar. If good sense can be said to be embodied in any one novel-writer's pen of the day, it is in her's. It is never on stilts-never runs away with her; but by a species of habitual caution, seems pinned down to the steady, the sober, and the practical. She never attempts to astonish or surprise us in the conduct of her stories, to excite the mind by extraordinary or violent means, in order to interest it to a painful degree, but seeks to win the attention by legitimate and more ordinary incidents; and these experience has proved both to require more power in the writer, and to possess more permanent effects on the mind of the reader. Following up this design, we find in her volumes so much of nature and general life, combined with that rational tone of feeling peculiarly her own, that we are often tempted to think her tales of fiction, actual truths. This very adherence to nature, may induce some to think her too tame; they want to see her give the reins to her imagination; to revel in the wild regions of improbability, without any check from reason or reality. We doubt much whether she has any taste for this. We doubt more whether she could accomplish it successfully even if so inclined. For tightly curbed as her genius evidently has been by paternal criticism and admonition, it might now require some whipping and spurring to plunge headlong into the abyss of romance.

With writers of this kind indeed she claims no kindred. All the stories of the marvellous, of apparitions, imprisoned ladies, vaulted castles, horrible ruffians, knights, tournaments, all the clap-traps of the circulating library, the

hack machinery which writers of inferior genius find it necessary to use, and which even the author of Waverley does not disdain, find no favour in the eyes of Miss Edgeworth. Like Fielding and Smollett, she draws largely from actual life; and her sketches being worked up with skill and effect, the finished painting as it is true, so is it likely to be permanent in public esteem. As her subject is modern life, so her great aim seems to be moral improvement. To this every thing else is subservient. And it is a high degree of praise, more perhaps than can be said of most of her contemporaries, who only teach incidentally what, with her, forms the chief design.

She seems to have surveyed mankind, so far as a woman's opportunities admit, with a keen and accurate eye; and in those points which seldom come under female remark, to have been well informed by the extensive knowledge of life and manners possessed by her father. It is not difficult to discover, what in reality she has admitted, that facts have mostly furnished her with models and materials. We might go farther and say, that passing occurrences have been on the instant carefully noted down, serving, like masses of ore, to form the rough materials from which the metal was afterwards to be extracted. This impression is so strong, that we never put down her volumes without feeling convinced we have gained something in experience of the world, as well as much in amusement.

Her Essays on Education are ingenious, and display great attention to detail, but they are not, perhaps, what will carry her name down to posterity. Many of her opinions, and her father's opinions, are controverted, and their conclusions denied. They have able and numerous competitors, equally acute, equally philosophical, equally practical in the process of unfolding the latent germ of the human understanding. Of all knowledge upon this extensive subject, that which is derived from experience is the best. We, therefore, question whether one family can furnish sufficient general deductions for the guidance of mankind upon what,

off his pages carelessly, seemingly secure of their being well received by the present generation, whatever they may be by the next; she appears to have her eye more steadily bent on futurity. He possesses greater powers of imagination and displays more stores of knowledge. He deals continually in the bold, the glowing, and the impassioned; but after all, the scenes incessantly trench on the improbable, and the characters, striking as they are, seem too highly coloured. We see in them something beyond the common qualifications of men-too brave, too witty, too learned, too shrewd, too adventurous, too wicked, too good-too much, in short, the characters of a novel to be mistaken for nature; yet all so admirably done, that it is difficult to find fault with what is productive of so much

amusement.

Miss Edgeworth, with a more cautious, perhaps less vigorous pen-and bold pens commonly get most into such scrapes-has in great measure avoided these extremes. She has not risked so much, and consequently failed less. Her personages are seldom overcharged in the drawing: they are less prurient, sometimes less entertaining, but certainly more chaste in the keeping, than those of the great master of Scottish manners. She has gone into the actual -not ideal, world, to sketch persons whom we have met with there in general intercourse, and know again immediately on seeing thus exhibited. Like some of the paintings of the Dutch masters, if they are in themselves somewhat ludicrous or singular, they are at least not caricatured.

The unknown author having tickled the public into singular admiration, and desirous (very justifiably) to pursue for profit what he perhaps commenced for amusement, has been compelled to seek other game. Being rather hard run for incidents and personages to furnish a good story for the supply of the market, he necessarily draws from

imagination what observation cannot supply. He takes a wider range in the worlds of fact and fiction, than any or all predecessors put together. He grasps greedily at characters and events past and present, public and private, real and unreal; at civil broils, mobs, pageants, and tiltings; at fanatics. rebels, smugglers, outlaws, fortune-tellers, rogues, of all kinds; in short, he leaves nothing unattempted by which the stronger passions of the mind are called into action; but the enthusiasm of the moment over, we revolt from improbabilities in every page.

The more subdued key of common life, chosen by our fair author, requires other and peculiar powers of delineation in order to make it interest as highly: much acquaintance with good society and its forms, long observance and nice discrimination of character, intimate knowledge of the human heart, are all necessary to the writer. In a romance, we must take upon trust what is given us, without looking much at proprieties or probabilities. On the contrary, we are fastidious in the details of dinner parties, drawing-rooms, and routs; but surrender our judgment at once to the painter of glens, caverns, inaccessible fastnesses, and impenetrable woods. To draw men skilfully, to give us the lights and shades of character, as we commonly meet with them in the world, possessing a mixture of vices and virtues, but the latter on the whole, preponderating, is a very arduous task. But to finish bold robbers, or heroes all perfection, requires only a few flourishes of the pen; the former demands the hand of the master artist, the latter may be done by his apprentice. Miss Edgeworth has succeeded admirably in what may be considered the more difficult department of novel writing. While it is remarkable that the Scottish writer has not once essayed his powers-and it would be literary heresy to doubt them-on the subject of genteel modern life.