Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/62

50 1800 was published anonymously a small book called Castle Rackrent. It professed to be a Hibernian tale, taken from facts and from the manners of the Irish squires before the year 1782. It proved to be a most entertaining, witty history of the fortunes of an Irish estate, told professedly by an illiterate, partial old steward, who recounted the story of the Rackrent family in his vernacular with the full confidence that the affairs of Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy were as interesting to all the world as they were to himself. Honest Thady, as this curious but characteristic specimen of Irish good-humour, fidelity and wrong-headedness was pleased to call himself, having no conception of the true application of this epithet, had certainly shown literary perception, or rather his creator for him. For this was no other than Maria Edgeworth, who stood confessed upon the title-page of the second edition that was clamorously demanded within a few mouths of issue. The confession was wrung from her because some one had not only asserted that he was the author, but had