between the Edgeworth system and that of
Froebel's Kindergarten method, which is now gaining more and more ground
in people's estimation, the object of both being not so much to cram
instruction into early youth as to draw out each child's powers of
observation and attention.

The first series of tales of fashionable life came out in 1809, and
contained among other stories 'Ennui,' one of the most remarkable of
Miss Edgeworth's works. The second series included the 'Absentee,' that
delightful story of which the lesson should be impressed upon us even
more than in the year 1812. The 'Absentee' was at first only an episode
in the longer novel of 'Patronage;' but the public was impatient, so
were the publishers, and fortunately for every one the 'Absentee' was
printed as a separate tale.

'Patronage' had been begun by Mr. Edgeworth to amuse his wife, who was
recovering from illness; it was originally called the 'Fortunes of the
Freeman Family,' and it is a history with a moral. Morals were more
in fashion then than they are now, but this one is obvious without
any commentary upon it. It is tolerably certain that clever, industrious,
well-conducted people will succeed, where idle, scheming, and untrustworthy
persons will eventually fail to get on, even with powerful friends to
back them. But the novel has yet to be written that will prove that,
where merits are more equal, a little patronage is not of a great deal
of use, or that people's positions in life are exactly proportioned to
their merit. Mrs. Barbauld's pretty essay on the 'Inconsistency of Human
Expectations' contains the best possible answer to the problem of what
people's deserts should be. Let us hope that personal advancement is
only one of the many things people try for in life, and that there are
other prizes as well worth having. Miss Edgeworth herself somewhere
speaks with warm admiration of this very essay. Of the novel itself she
says (writing to Mrs. Barbauld), 'It is so vast a subject that it
flounders about in my hands and quite overpowers me.'

It is in this same letter that Miss Edgeworth mentions another
circumstance which interested her at this time, and which was one of
those events occurring now and again which do equal credit to all
concerned.

I have written a preface and notes [she says]--for I too would be
an editor--for a little book which a very worthy countrywoman of
mine is going to publish: Mrs. Leadbeater, granddaughter