hose in which that is the exclusive object of the maker. Every
additional movement is an obstacle to the original design. We do not
deny that we have learned much physic, and much law, from _Patronage_,
particularly the latter, for Miss Edgeworth's law is of a very original
kind; but it was not to learn law and physic that we took up the book,
and we suspect we should have been more pleased if we had been less
taught. With regard to the influence of religion, which is scarcely, if
at all, alluded to in Miss Edgeworth's novels, we would abstain from
pronouncing any decision which should apply to her personally. She may,
for aught we know, entertain opinions which would not permit her, with
consistency, to attribute more to it than she has done; in that case she
stands acquitted, in _foro conscientiae_, of wilfully suppressing any
thing which she acknowledges to be true and important; but, as a writer,
it must still be considered as a blemish, in the eyes at least of those
who think differently, that virtue should be studiously inculcated with
scarcely any reference to what they regard as the main spring of it;
that vice should be traced to every other source except the want of
religious principle; that the most radical change from worthlessness to
excellence should be represented as wholly independent of that agent
which they consider as the only one that can accomplish it; and that
consolation under affliction should be represented as derived from every
source except the one which they look to as the only true and sure one:
"is it not because there is no God in Israel that ye have sent to
inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron?"

Miss Austin has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being
evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on
the score of good taste, and of practical utility, by her religion being
not at all obtrusive. She might defy the most fastidious critic to call
any of her novels (as _Caelebs_ was designated, we will not say
altogether without reason), a "dramatic sermon." The subject is rather
alluded to, and that incidentally, than studiously brought forward and
dwelt upon. In fact she is more sparing of it than would be thought
desirable by some persons; perhaps even by herself, had she consulted
merely her own sentiments; but she probably introduced it as far as she
thought would be generally acceptable and profitable: for when the
purpose of inculcating a religious princi