nce I read Miss
Edgeworth's novels, and in conversing with Miss Honoria Vipont methinks
I confer with one of Miss Edgeworth's heroines--so rational, so prudent,
so well-behaved, so free from silly romantic notions, so replete with
solid information, moral philosophy and natural history; so sure to
regulate her watch and her heart to the precise moment, for the one to
strike and the other to throb, and to marry at last a respectable,
steady husband, whom she will win with dignity, and would love
with--decorum! a very superior girl indeed."[9]

There is also a certain family likeness in the good fathers of her
books. They are, as a rule, preternaturally wise, circumspect, and apt
to resemble Mr. Edgeworth. It has been well remarked that though we are
told that a just man sins seven times a day, Miss Edgeworth's just
heroes and heroines never fall. Undoubtedly there is a want of variety
as well as of human nature in her good characters, but not so in her
bad. There she ranges over so wide a field that we can but wonder whence
she gathered all this vast experience. She owned a perfect mine of
social satire, and the skill with which she drew upon it and shaped her
various characters, so as to give them a positive personal interest and
vitality, is astounding. She is equally happy in her villains, her
fools, her fops; indeed, in painting these latter species Miss Edgeworth
is unrivalled. She seemed to know every weakness and absurdity of which
human nature is capable. The manner in which she holds this up to view
is sometimes almost remorseless, as from the altitude of one who has
absolutely nothing in common with such creatures. In _Patronage_ we have
several such. Inimitable are the two Clays, brothers, men of large
fortunes, which they spend in all manner of extravagance and profligacy,
not from inclination, but merely to purchase admission into fine
company. They are known respectively as French and English Clay; the one
affecting a preference for all that is French; the other, a cold,
reserved, dull man, as affectedly denouncing everything foreign,
boasting loudly that everything about him is English, that only what is
English is worthy attention; "but whether this arises from love of his
country or contempt of his brother" does not appear. If there is
anything to choose between these two capital creations, English Clay is
perhaps the better. His slow, surly reserve, supercilious silence and
solemn self-importance are wo