Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 59

To MRS. BANNATYNE.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Feb. 26, 1827.

By some strange chance I was taken away from home just after the time when Colonel Stewart's pamphlet on India, which you were so kind as to send me, arrived; in short, I never read it till a few days ago. I am in admiration of it; it is beautifully written, with such clearness, lucid order, simplicity, dignity, strength, and eloquence&mdash;eloquence resulting from strong feeling. The views of its vast subject are comprehensive and masterly; the policy sound, both theoretically and practically considered; the morality as sound as the policy, indeed no policy can be sound unless joined with morality. The sensibility and philanthropy that not only breathe but live and act in this book are of the true, manly, enduring sort&mdash;not the affected, sickly, spurious kind, which is displayed only for the trick of the poet or orator. It is a book which a good and wise man must ever rejoice in having written, and which will be satisfactory to him even to the last moment of his life.

Have you seen the Tales of the O'Hara Family&mdash;the second series? They are of unequal value; one called the "Nowlans" is a work of great genius. Another book has much amused us, Captain Head's Rough Sketches, most animated and masterly sketches of his journey across the Pampas. There is much information and much good political economy condensed in his three chapters on speculators.