ed by circumstances. Ormond is one of those
persons in whom native intuition takes the place of instruction, and who
of their proper strength are equal to all emergencies. The complications
of the story arise from these inward propensities of his nature and the
contending influences from without with which he has to grapple. He was
an orphan who had been adopted by Sir Ulick O'Shane, but had not been
educated, because Sir Ulick deemed that there was no use giving him the
education of a landed gentleman when he was not likely to have an
estate. An unfortunate difference with Sir Ulick's wife obliged Ormond
to leave his guardian's roof and avail himself of the hospitality of a
cousin, Cornelius O'Shane, who called himself King of the Black Islands,
after his estate. More familiarly this original is spoken of as King
Corny. Besides being one of the most delightful creations in romantic
literature, he is an instructive study towards the comprehension of the
Irish character. Macaulay pointed out, in speaking of the aboriginal
aristocracy of Ireland, that Miss Edgeworth's King Corny belonged to a
later and much more civilized generation, but added that "whoever has
studied that admirable portrait can form some notion of what King
Corny's great-grandfather must have been like." King Corny is a most
genuine character; there is no nonsense, no false reticence about him;
he is hasty and violent at times, but he is not ashamed to show it,
neither does he hide his warm, kind heart. His frank and unsuspecting
nature makes him adored by all his tenantry, none of whom would wrong
their king. There is not a page in which he figures that does not
furnish charming reading, and there is not a reader but will resent that
King Corny is made to die so early in the book. It is all the more
vexatious to have the most original and attractive figure thus removed,
because it was needless for the due development of the story. That the
interest, which certainly flags after his demise, is sustained at all is
a proof that the story, as a story, is above Miss Edgeworth's average.
And indeed, attention is well maintained to the end, notwithstanding a
few most marvelously unnatural incidents that occur in the latter
portion and stagger belief. They once more reveal Miss Edgeworth's
curious clumsiness in getting her brain-children out of the difficulties
in which she has involved them. The quick alternation of laughter and
tears that is a marked feature of