Part II

. of the first edition, was withdrawn, and afterwards included in another series, while the stories entitled respectively "Little Dog Trusty" and "The Orange Man" have disappeared from the collection, probably for the reason given in one of the first prefaces, namely, that they "were written for a much earlier age than any of the others, and with such a perfect simplicity of expression as, to many, may appear insipid and ridiculous." The six volumes of the third edition came out successively on the first day of the first six months of 1800. The Monthly Reviewer of the first edition, it may be added, was highly laudatory; and his commendations show that the early critics of the author were fully alive to her distinctive qualities, "The moral and prudential lessons of these volumes," says the writer, "are judiciously chosen; and the stories are invented with great ingenuity, and are happily contrived to excite curiosity and awaken feeling without the aid of improbable fiction or extravagant adventure. The language is varied in its degree of simplicity, to suit the pieces to different ages, but is throughout neat and correct; and, without the least approach towards vulgarity or meanness, it is adapted with peculiar felicity to the understandings of children. The author's taste, in this class of writing, appears to have been formed on the best models; and the work will not discredit a place on the same shelf with Berquin's _Child's Friend_, Mrs. Barbauld's _Lessons for Children_, and Dr. Aikin's _Evenings at Home_. The story of 'Lazy Lawrence'"--the notice goes on--"is one of the best lectures on industry which we have ever read. "The _Critical Review_, which also gave a short account of the _Parent's Assistant_ in its number for January 1797, does not rehearse the contents. But it confirms the title, etc., adding that the price, in boards, was 4s. 6d.; and its praise, though brief, is very much to the point. "The present production is particularly sensible and judicious; the stories are well written, simple, and affecting; calculated, not only for moral improvement, but to exercise the best affections of the human heart."

With one of the books mentioned by the _Monthly Review_--_Evenings at Home_--Miss Edgeworth was fully prepared, at all events as regards format, to associate herself. "The stories," she says in a letter to her cousin, Miss Sophy Ruxton, "are printed and bound the same size as _Evenings at Home_, and I am afraid you will dislike the title." Her father had sent the book to press as the _Parent's Friend_, a name no doubt suggested by the _Ami des Enfants_ of Berquin; but "Mr. Johnson [the publisher]," continues Miss Edgeworth, "has degraded it into _The Parent's Assistant_, which I dislike particularly, from association with an old book of arithmetic called The _Tutor's Assistant_." The ground of objection is not very formidable; but the _Parent's Assistant_ is certainly an infelicitous name. From some other of the author's letters we are able to trace the gradual growth of the work. Mr. Edgeworth, her father, an utilitarian of much restless energy, and many projects, was greatly interested in education,--or, as he would have termed it, practical education,--and long before this date, as early, indeed, as May 1780, he had desired his daughter, while she was still a girl at a London school, to write him a tale about the length of a _Spectator_; upon the topic of "Generosity," to be taken from history or romance. This was her first essay in fiction; and it was pronounced by the judge to whom it was submitted,--in competition with a rival production by a young gentleman from Oxford,--to be an excellent story, and extremely well written, although with this commendation was coupled the somewhat damaging inquiry,--"But where's the Generosity?" The question cannot be answered now, as the manuscript has not been preserved, though the inconvenient query, we are told, became a kind of personal proverb with the young author, who was wont to add that this first effort contained "a sentence of inextricable confusion between a saddle, a man, and his horse." This was a defect from which she must have speedily freed herself, since her style, as her first reviewer allowed, is conspicuously direct and clear. Accuracy in speaking and writing had, indeed, been early impressed upon her. Her father's doctrinaire ally and co-disciplinarian, Mr. Thomas Day, later the author of _Sandford and Merton_, and apparently the first person of whom it is affirmed that "he talked like a book," had been indefatigable in bringing this home to his young friend, when she visited him in her London school-days. Not content alone to dose her copiously with Bishop Berkeley's Tar Water--the chosen beverage of Young and Richardson--he was unwearied in ministering to her understanding. "His severe reasoning and uncompromising love of truth awakened her powers, and the questions he put to her, the necessity of perfect accuracy in her answers, suited the bent of her mind. Though such strictness was not always agreeable, she even then perceived its advantages, and in after life was deeply grateful to Mr. Day."[22]

Note:

[22] _Maria Edgeworth_, by Helen Zimmern, 1888, p. 13.

The training she underwent from the inexorable Mr, Day was continued by her father when she quitted school, and moved with her family to the parental seat at Edgeworthstown in Ireland. Mr. Edgeworth, whose principles were as rigorous as those of his friend, devoted himself early to initiating her into business habits. He taught her to copy letters, to keep accounts, to receive rents, and, in short, to act as his agent and factotum. She frequently accompanied him in the many disputes and difficulties which arose with his Irish tenantry; and, apart from the insight which this must have afforded her into the character and idiosyncrasies of the people, she no doubt very early acquired that exact knowledge of leases and legacies and dishonest factors which is a noticeable feature even of her children's books.[23] It is some time, however, before we hear of any successor to "Generosity"; but, in 1782, her father, with a view to provide her with an occupation for her leisure, proposed to her to prepare a translation of the _Adele et Theodore_ of Madame de Genlis, those letters upon education by which that gentle and multifarious moralist acquired--to use her own words--at once "the suffrages of the public, and the irreconcilable hatred of all the so-called philosophers and their

## partisans." At first there had been no definite thought of print in Mr,

Edgeworth's mind. But as the work progressed, the idea gathered strength; and he began to prepare his daughter's manuscript for the press. Then, unhappily, when the first volume was finished, Holcroft's complete translation appeared, and made the labour needless. Yet it was not without profit. It had been excellent practice in aiding Miss Edgeworth's faculty of expression, and increasing her vocabulary--to say nothing of the influence which the portraiture of individuals and the satire of reigning follies which are the secondary characteristics of Madame de Genlis's most well-known work, may have had on her own subsequent efforts as a novelist. Meanwhile her mentor, Mr. Day, was delighted at the interruption of her task. He possessed, to the full, that rooted antipathy to feminine authorship of which we find so many traces in Miss Burney's novels and elsewhere; and he wrote to congratulate Mr. Edgeworth on having escaped the disgrace of having a translating daughter. At this time, as already stated, he himself had not become the author of _Sandford and Merton_, which, as a matter of fact, owed its inception to the Edgeworths, being at first simply intended as a short story to be inserted in the _Harry and Lucy_ Mr. Edgeworth wrote in conjunction with his second wife, Honora Sneyd. As regards the question of publication, both Maria and her father, although sensible of Mr. Day's prejudices, appear to have deferred to his arguments. Nor were these even lost to the public, for we are informed that, in Miss Edgeworth's first book, ten years later, the _Letters to Literary Ladies,_ she employed and embodied much that he had advanced. But for the present, she continued to write--though solely for her private amusement--essays, little stories, and dramatic sketches. One of these last must have been "Old Poz," a pleasant study of a country justice and a _gazza ladra_, which appeared in