Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/132

120 stay his descent down the path of corruption. But they permit us to feel for him, to pity him; he is no cut-and-dried mechanical knave.

A hook that contains so many fine conceptions cannot he called a failure even to-day, and since Miss Edgeworth's contemporaries admitted her premises, it is no wonder that on its appearance Patronage achieved a great success. In those days, when novel-writing had not become so much of an art as now, the rapid downfall of the whole Falconer family within the space of a few weeks presented nothing ludicrous. Such incidents were familiar in romance, and held allowable there, even if known to be untrue to life. We now judge from the latter standard only, and reject, even in fiction, the improbable. In Patronage, Miss Edgeworth's fondness for poetical justice has certainly carried her very far. Here, as in other of her stories, difficulties are not allowed to develop and be overcome gradually, but the knot is cut in the most ludicrously childish and awkward manner, a summary catastrophe is imagined, so that the modern reader cannot forbear a smile. Still, Patronage remains a remarkable book, replete with sound sense, acute observation, and rapid graphic illustrations of character.

Scarcely so Harrington. Here, as in Patronage, Miss Edgeworth had set herself to work out a moral, this time an apology for the Jews. It was written to suggestion, and was on a theme that lay entirely outside the domain of her experience. She had to evolve a Jew out of her moral consciousness, and her delineation is as little successful as that of other writers who have set themselves the same task. Her zeal outran her judgment; her elaborate apology is feeble; and if the Jews needed vindication they could hardly