1 Law, and The Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock'--are printed ahe collected edition of her works. The unity of action anting in her novels is equally neglected in these dramas; he trimatis persone are mostly Irish of the lower class, and menf the dialogue is pure brogue. The utmost that can be for these productions is that, if compressed into one-act mes with Irish Johnson and Power to take parts, they ΟΙ In have had a run; and her name must be added to the ist of novelists, headed by Fielding and Le Sage, who ralei. or fallen lamentably short of the expected degree ence, in the kindred walk of fiction. The dramatic the author of Tom Jones' rests on the mock tragedy Thumb;' and so long as the author of Gil Blas' was the merit exhib. There as we as a playwright, no one saw any incongruity in seaced by Piron in the mouth of Punchinello:le fol de temps en temps ne diroit-il pas de bonnes que Le Sage de temps en temps dit de si avoided the apex of the pyramid that men calculate its he altitude of genius must be taken where it has iminating point. Let those who wish to appreeworth, and derive the greatest amount of evating enjoyment from her works, pass over short as they are never think of the moral, may be be not over-critical touching the the story, but give themselves up to the charm The scene-painting, the delineation and developr. the happy blending of pathos and humour of truth. Let them do this, and they will the proud position conceded to her by the nt of her most eminent contemporaries. most am e without expressing an earnest wish in curious matter, and so well calculated ther reputation, will not long be conIn this age of monuments and testif she wanted one, would be the Jurable. ART. VI.-First Report of the Commissioners appointed to in- THE HE first Report of the Ritual Commissioners-long promised and long delayed-is at last in everybody's hands, and has been received with very general though not universal satisfaction. A still longer delay would have been amply compensated by such completeness in the investigations pursued, and such unanimity in the decision arrived at. We are much struck with the value of the Evidence contained in these Minutes. It is of the greatest importance to have brought out the facts, and drawn forth the declarations, here placed on record; leading, as we think they do, quite irresistibly to the conclusions which the Commissioners have come to. That the vestments are not deemed essential by any who have adopted them, however important in the eyes of some; that they give such grave offence to many as to be fatal in most places to the maintenance of the parochial system; that the ers have the vaguest notions of their origin, their meannd the authority by which they are to be regulated, vowing the startling principle that clergymen are endo anything not absolutely forbidden by the Rubric, hey follow that supposed practice of the Catholic or of rn Church which really resolves itself into the pracChurch of Rome, not without a fanciful reference to sages and the Church of the Apocalypse '-facts mpel the conclusion that it is necessary to restrain h may run to lengths still more indefensible. Rubric itself has lost authority with all parties ious unfitness to meet existing circumstances. y no means the only offenders against it. stances of its infringement are brought rations to clergymen of the opposite er, the latter plead in their excuse ge, or episcopal sanction, professing in all cases to submit to direcstent and imperative, the Ritualists gular phenomenon of an alleged mpelling them to carry out to the 1 1 T gaining the castle on the Danube. This was his mirage in the desert, his château en Espagne, for years; and a good story might be made out of the shifts to which he was frequently put to raise the money, and his feverish agitation when the time for drawing was at hand. In stories where Miss Edgeworth clogs herself with a moral, she recalls the runner in the German legend who ties his legs together to moderate his pace; and when she keeps pressing considerations of utility on the reader, she may be compared to a host who, when you are admiring the undulating variety of his grounds or enjoying a fine prospect, requests your attention to his mode of draining and fencing, or drags you away to inspect the plan of a projected almshouse or school-room. To a totally different category belong novels like the 'Absentee,' in which the struggles and mortifications of an Irish family of rank in the fine world of London are held up as a warning; or those which, like Joanna Baillie's Plays on the Passions, are composed for the development of character or the exposure of any given mental malady with its cure. In 'Ennui,' Lord Glenthorn, the prototype of L'Homme Blasé (Used Up'), is a dramatic conception of a high order; and the scenes through which he is led, independently of their merit as representations of manners, are admirably adapted to exhibit the peculiar state of feeling contracted by satiety. There are passages in which the young English peer recalls Alfieri in phases of mind described in his autobiography; but, as we learn from the letters, Miss Edgeworth cautiously avoided confounding fact with fiction; and it is only in the most ambitious of her portraits that she can be accused of transgressing sound principles of art. Lord Dudley, who reviewed Patronage' in the Quarterly Review,' objected that a modern Premier is out of place in a novel. A drawing from the life is of course not permissible, and there are not modern Premiers enough to supply materials for an artistic creation. To conceive one without individual traits would be as difficult as Martinus found it to form an abstract idea of a Lord Mayor without any of the ensigns of his dignity. Miss Edgeworth's Lord Oldborough, excepting two or three slight points of resemblance to Lord Chatham and Lord Grenville, is unlike any Premier in esse or posse; and we agree with Lord Dudley that, powerfully as he is drawn, a great part of our interest is destroyed by constantly recollecting, not only that he did not exist, but that he could not have existed. The same objection does not hold good against her Chief Justice; for there have been a great many chief justices. We once heard her say that she had Chief Justice Bushe up permost in her thoughts during the delineation; which has been questioned on the ground that he did not become Chief Justice till after the publication of the book. The difficulty is cleared up by a letter dated January 14, 1822, in which she says: I am rejoiced at Mr. Bushe's promotion. Mrs. Bushe sent to me, through Anne Nangle, a most kind message, alluding to our "Patronage" Chief Justice by Second Sight.' Lord Dudley also hints a doubt whether her English sketches do not suggest that she had taken only an occasional and cursory view of English society. This is not our impression, although she treads more firmly and freely on Irish ground, and the stories of which the scenes are laid in Ireland are most redolent of humour and pathos, more deeply and broadly marked with the stamp of her peculiar genius, than the rest. Lord Jeffrey has reprinted in the corrected edition of his works the opinion which he delivered forty-five years since in this Journal, that, if she had never written anything but the epistle of Larry Brady, the post-boy, to his brother, which forms the conclusion of the Absentee,' this one letter 'must have placed her at the very top of our scale, as an observer of character, and a mistress in the simple pathetic.' Without disputing this opinion, we would undertake to produce half-a-dozen passages of equal merit from the same novel, from Ormond,' or from Ennui.' Lord Jeffrey had already said that she need not be afraid of being excelled by any of her contemporaries in that faithful but flattering representation of the spoken language of persons of wit and politeness-in that light and graceful tone of raillery and argument—and in that gift ' of sportive but cutting médisance, which is sure of success in 'those circles where success is supposed to be most difficult and 'desirable.' He appeals to the conversation of Lady Delacour, Lady Dashfort, and Lady Geraldine. If required to specify a complete sketch of an English gentlewoman, he might confidently have pointed to Lady Jane Granville, Mrs. Hungerford, or Mrs. Mortimer. Speaking of Lord Wellesley in 1825, Moore notes down in his Diary: Gave me some very pretty verses of his own to Miss Edgeworth. Showed me some verses of hers to him, strongly laudatory, but very bad.' Moore would have thought any verses bad that had not his own exquisite finish; but versemaking was not her vocation, and poetry was not her forte. 6 Sheridan, struck by the spirit and point of the dialogue in 'Belinda,' recommended her to try her hand at dramatic composition; and two comic dramas,' three acts each- Love and utmost the obsolete and impracticable order respecting ornaments in use in the second year of Edward VI., while they show themselves singularly indifferent to the open violation of other rubrics, and the palpable evasion of many more. It is of course to their practices solely that the Report itself refers. We may be thought to lay too much stress on the unanimity of the opinion expressed by the Commissioners, seeing how vague after all are the remedies which they have practically adopted. But absolute unanimity (and with regard to the main issue it is absolute) was more than anyone expected; and it strengthens our confidence in the utility of such Commissions as the present for dealing with delicate and difficult matters. In the present instance the most sinister forebodings were entertained. The composition of the Commission was sharply criticised, not only by the general press, but by public men of the highest character and station, while justifying their refusal to act on it; nor could it be denied that there was justice in the remarks then made, and ground for the fears then so widely felt. Yet here we have from this very body a verdict as remarkable for its decisiveness as for its freedom from party-spirit; and this has evidently resulted from the free interchange of conflicting views after careful examination of facts. We could hardly have a better proof, we repeat, of the efficacy of the method just resorted to the reference, namely, of questions of high importance to a body of distinguished men of diverse tendencies, acting under a sense of their responsibility to their Church and country, and feeling that it is incumbent on them above all things to think and to decide with impartiality and justice. In such cases it matters little which way the majority may incline, if only all opinions are effectually represented. One-sidedness disappears before the broader and larger views which a quasi-judicial position tends so powerfully to develope. We have spoken of the Report of the Commissioners as a decisive verdict. This, indeed, it virtually is, with respect at least to the practices which provoked the inquiry. It expresses no opinion, it is true, on the legality of the disputed vestments; nor was this to be expected or wished. Such an opinion would evidently have no judicial force, nor would it even carry with it any weight of legal authority. Its conclusions rest on grounds of morality and expediency, and as such they are decisive. And if the public will see in this Report the expression of their own unalterable convictions, we also trust that the Ritualists will feel that it is a judgment to which they are bound to defer. They cannot but feel that they have been |