Tales_ (1801) (which she
deliberately called after his[16]), the _Popular Tales_ of the same
kind, and (though Marmontel did not intentionally write for children)
the delightful _Parent's Assistant_ (1801) and _Frank_. In the two
first-named divisions, the narrative faculty just mentioned appears
admirably, together with another and still greater gift, that of
character-painting, and even a grasp of literary and social satire,
which might not be anticipated from some of her other books. The French
governess (_Mlle. Panache_) and the satire on romantic young-ladyism
(_Angelina_) are excellent examples of this. As for the pure child's
stories, generation after generation of competent criticism, childish
and adult, has voted them by acclamation into almost the highest place
possible: and the gain-sayers have for the most part been idle
paradoxers, ill-conditioned snarlers at things clean and sweet, or fools
pure and simple.

[16] The peculiar pedantic ignorance which critics sometimes
show has objected to this rendering of Marmontel's _Contes
Moraux_, urging that it should read "tales _of manners_." It
might be enough to remark that the Edgeworths, father and
daughter, were probably a good deal better acquainted both with
French and English than these cavillers. But there is a
rebutting argument which is less _ad hominem_. "Tales of
Manners" leaves out at least as much on one side as "Moral
Tales" does on the other: and the actual meaning is quite clear
to those who know that of the Latin _mores_ and the French
_moeurs_. It is scarcely worth while to attempt to help those
who do not know by means of paraphrases.

The "Irish brigade" of the work--_Castle Rackrent_ (1800), _Ormond_, and
_The Absentee_, with the non-narrative but closely-connected _Essay on
Irish Bulls_--have perhaps commanded the most unchequered applause. They
are not quite free from the sentimentality and the didacticism which
were both rampant in the novel of Miss Edgeworth's earlier time: but
these are atoned for by a quite new use of the "national" element. Even
Smollett and, following Smollett, Moore had chiefly availed themselves
of this for its farcical or semi-farcical opportunities. Miss Edgeworth
did not neglect these, but she did not confine herself to them: and such
characters as Corny the "King of the Black Isles" in _Ormond_ actually
add a new province and a new pleasure to fiction.

Her impo