corner on the sofa: her desk,-upon which was Sir Walter Scott's pen,

given to her by him, when in Ireland,-placed before her on a little

The Library at Edgeworthstown.

quaint, unassuming table, constructed and added to for convenience. Miss Edgeworth's abstractedness, and yet power of attention to what was going on, the one not seeming to interfere with the other,-puzzled us exceedingly. In that same corner, and upon that table, she had written nearly all that has enlightened and delighted the world; the novels that moved Sir Walter Scott to do for Scotland what Miss Edgeworth had done for Ireland;' the works in which she brought the elevated sensibilities and sound morality of maturer life to a level with the comprehension of childhood, and rendered knowledge, and virtue, and care, and order, the playthings and companions of the nursery ;-in that spot,-and while the numerous family were moving about and talking of the ordinary and everyday things of life, she remained, wrapt up, to all appearance, in her subject, yet knowing, by a sort of instinct, when she was really wanted in the conversation; and then, without laying down her pen, hardly looking up from her page,-she would, by a judicious sentence, wisely and kindly spoken, explain and illustrate, in a few words, so as to clear up any difficulty; or turn the conversation into a new and more pleasing current. She had the most harmonious way of throwing in explanations; informing, while entertaining, and that without embarrassing.

*

It was quite charming to see how Mr. Francis Edgeworth's children enjoyed the freedom of the library without abusing it; to set these little people right when they were wrong, to rise from her table to fetch them a toy, or even to save a servant a journey; to run up the high steps and

* We have mentioned more than once the beautiful harmony in which this family lived; two of the sisters of Mrs. Honora and Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth, the Misses Sneyd, were loved and cherished at Edgeworthstown long after their sisters' death; and when the fourth mistress of the house would have been supposed, in the usual progress of things, to have introduced a new dynasty, all went on as usual; a perfect spirit of Christian love and unity was practised, without being talked of; and it will be seen in the following extract that Miss Edgeworth spoke of Mrs. Mary Sneyd as an aunt of ours,' although she need not have acknowledged the relationship, being the child of a previous marriage!

We forgot whether we mentioned to you, that the Irish tale of "The Follower of the Family," pleased and delighted us peculiarly; they were some of the last works of fiction which were read to an aunt of ours, in very advanced age, and she enjoyed them with all the sensibility of youth, and with the fullest discrimination of their merits. read to Mrs. Mary Sneyd, in her ninetieth year, by our sister, and we

These tales were think you would

find a volume that escaped all eyes but her own; and having done all this, in less space of time than we have taken to write it, to hunt out the exact passage wanted or referred to-were the hourly employments of this unspoiled and admirable woman. She would then resume her pen, and continue writing, pausing sometimes to read a passage from an article or letter that pleased herself, and would please her still more if it excited the sympathy of those she loved. We expressed astonishment at this to Mrs. Edgeworth, who said that Maria was always the same; her mind was so rightly balanced, everything so honestly weighed, that she suf fered no inconvenience from what would disturb and distract an ordinary writer.' Perhaps to this habit, however, may be traced a want of closeness in her arguments; indeed, neither on paper nor in conversation was she argumentative. She would rush at a thing at once, rendering it sparkling and interesting by her playfulness, and informing by anecdote or illustration, and then start another subject. She spoke in eloquent sentences, and felt so truly what she said, that she made others instantly feel also.

Miss Edgeworth would sit in her usual corner, reading to herself, and quarrelling aloud with a French novel;* then interrupting her lamentations

have been gratified by the manner in which she read those tales; we are very much of opinion that

"Those best can read them, who can feel them most."

Miss Edgeworth sometimes expressed herself in the most graceful yet epigrammatic way possible: When you and Mr. Hall return to Ireland, you will find us at home, I may almost venture to be sure, some of us certainly, and we are all one and the same— and assuredly one and the same in the wish to see you.'

* Miss Edgeworth, in a letter dated April 23rd, 1838, thus expresses herself concerning French novels: All the fashionable French Novelists will soon be reduced to advertising for a NEW VICE, instead of, like the Roman Emperor, simply for a new pleasure. It seems to be with the Parisian novelists a first principle now, that there is no pleasure without vice, and no vice without pleasure; but that the old world vices having been exhausted, they must strain their genius to invent new; and so they do, in the most wonderful and approved bad manner, if I may judge from the few specimens I have looked at-M. de Balzac, for example, who certainly is a man of genius, and as certainly, "a de l'esprit comme un DEMON.' I should think that he had not the least idea of the difference between right and wrong, only that he does know the difference by his regularly preferring the wRONG, and crying up all the Ladies of Error, as Anges de tendresse. His pathos has always, as the Anti-Jacobin so

over the questionable morality of France, by an endeavour to make us comprehend the financial details of the Edgeworthstown Loan Fund, impressing on our mind how faithfully the people paid up,' and giving an admirable imitation of a poor woman who had come with sundry excuses and intreaties for A little more time, ye'r honour, sure it's the fault of the cows entirely, for the fresh-butter that brought sivenpence, will now only bring fivepence, and credit for that same. • Deed it's pay I will next week, sir." This Loan Fund lent two hundred pounds a week, and out of the profits an infant school, paying its mistress thirty pounds a year, was supported at Edgeworthstown. Then when other members of the family dropped in with their work or their writings, the progress of education was discussed, the various interests of the tenants or the poor talked over, so that relief was granted as soon as want was known. We regretted that so much of Miss Edgeworth's mind and attention was given to local matters, but the pleasure she herself derived from the improvement of every living thing around her, was delightful to witness. We thought ourself particularly good to be up and about at half-past seven in the morning; but early as it was, Miss Edgeworth had preceded us; and a table heaped with early roses, upon which

well said of certain German sentimentalists, and as the Duchess of Wellington aptly quoted to me, of a poetic genius of later days-his pathos has always

"A tear for poor guilt."

Vide" Père Goriot," who pays the gaming debts of his daughter's lover, provides a luxuriously furnished house of assignation, bath and boudoir for one of his "angel" daughter-sinners; and tells her he wishes he could strangle her husband for her with his own hands, having first married and sold her to said husband for his own vanity and purpose. If the force of vice and folly can farther go, look for it in another of M. de Balzac's most beautifully written immoralities, "Le Message," where the husband "gobbles " up the dinner, to the scandal of the child, while the wife is stifling in the barn, or screaming in despair for the death of her lover which had been communicated to her by the amiable gentleman-messenger, at the moment he is dining with the husband, who knows all about it, and goes on "gobbling," while the child exclaims, "Papa, you would not eat so, if mamma was here!!!!" Dear Mrs. Hall, notes of admiration are the only notes that can follow such pictures of French nature in man, woman, or child!'

We rejoiced beyond all telling at the morning calling together of the household for family worship: this was never omitted; there never was a more unfounded calumny than that which declared that the family at Edgeworthstown put away the consolations of

the dew was still moist, and a pair of gloves, too small for any hands but hers, told who was the early florist. She was passionately fond of flowers: she liked to grow them, and to give them; one of the most loved and cherished of our garden's rose-bushes, is a gift from Miss Edgeworth ; it is old now but it still pays us its annual tribute, and is still a happy and profitable memory of the past. There was a rose, or a little bouquet of her arranging always by each plate on the breakfast-table, and if she saw our bouquet faded, she was sure to tap at our door with a fresh one before dinner. And this from Maria Edgeworth-then between seventy and eighty-to us!! These small attentions enter the heart and remain there, when great services and great talents are regarded perhaps like great mountains,- distant and cold and ungenial. We linger over what we write, and yet feel we cannot portray her at all as we desire to do.

We enjoyed the wet days in that house far more than we did the fine ones, which we spent in the family coach - driving over the country. We fancied the long drives fatigued Miss Edgeworth; at least the after-dinner nap of the latter was much longer after visiting the lions of the neighbourhood, than when we passed the morning,-part in that beloved library, part in Miss Edgeworth's own particular flower-garden,— or, sweeter still, alone with her in our own bed-room; where she would come, dear, kind, old lady! to help off a shawl, or inquire if our feet were damp after a stroll on the lawn, or if we wanted anything, and then sit down and talk of those whom she had known, but whose names were history-a history, of which she herself is now so grand and so dear a part.

Her extensive correspondence was not confined to any clique, any country, or any particular order of talent. She seemed to have known everybody worth knowing, and to have taken pleasure all her life in writing. letters, when, as she observed, she had anything to say.' She never wearied of talking of Sir Walter Scott, and she seldom spoke of him

Christianity, or even the forms of the Protestant Church. We accompanied them on Sunday to the parish church; various members of the family are united to clergymen of the church; the Rev. Dr. Butler of Trim, the brother-in-law of Miss Edgeworth, being one of the most excellent as well as accomplished clergymen in Ireland.