which is still to be quoted, appeared in the
'Quarterly Review' in 1814. What he says of her works applies no less to
Miss Edgeworth's own life than to the principles which she inculcates.

The old rule was for heroes and heroines to fall suddenly and
irretrievably in love. If they fell in love with the right person
so much the better; if not, it could not be helped, and the novel
ended unhappily. And, above all, it was held quite irregular for
the most reasonable people to make any use whatever of their
reason on the most important occasion of their lives. Miss
Edgeworth has presumed to treat this mighty power with far less
reverence. She has analysed it and found it does not consist of
one simple element, but that several common ingredients enter into
its composition--habit, esteem, a belief of some corresponding
sentiment and of suitableness in the character and circumstances
of the party. She has pronounced that reason, timely and vigorously
applied, is almost a specific, and, following up this bold empirical
line of practice, she has actually produced cases of the entire
cure of persons who had laboured under its operation. Her favourite
qualities are prudence, firmness, temper, and that active, vigilant
good sense which, without checking the course of our kind
affections, exercises its influence at every moment and surveys
deliberately the motives and consequences of every action. Utility
is her object, reason and experience her means.

XII.

This review of Lord Dudley's must have come out after a visit from the
Edgeworth family to London in 1813, which seems to have been a most
brilliant and amusing campaign. 'I know the homage that was paid you,'
wrote Mrs. Barbauld, speaking of the event, 'and I exulted in it for
your sake and for my sex's sake.' Miss Edgeworth was at the height of
her popularity, in good spirits and good health. Mr. Edgeworth was
seventy, but he looked years younger, and was still in undiminished
health and vigour. The party was welcomed, feted, sought after
everywhere. Except that they miss seeing Madame d'Arblay and leave
London before the arrival of Madame de Stael, they seem to have come in
for everything that was brilliant, fashionable, and entertaining. They
breakfast with poets, they sup with marquises, they call upon duchesses
and scientific men. Maria's old friend the Duchess of Wellington is not
les