successor, "Belinda," is, on the contrary, distinctly a woman's book, mainly dealing with graphic scenes from fashionable life. It says much for Maria Edgeworth's versatility that she could have wrtten in a short time two works of imagination, each excellent in its way, and totally different the one from the other. The "Essay on Irish Bulls" came out in 1803, and was announced as by "R. L. Edgeworth and Maria Edgeworth, author of 'Castle Rackrent.'" A gentleman who was much interested in improving the breed of Irish cattle, sent for this work on Irish Bulls, but threw it away in disgust when he saw what it was, for he had purchased it as Secretary to the Irish Agricultural Society!
"The first design of this book," wrote Miss Edgeworth, "was my father's. He wished to show the English public the eloquence, wit, and talents of the lower classes of people in Ireland. In the chapter on Wit and Eloquence in Irish Bulls there is a speech of a poor freeholder to a candidate who asked for his vote; this speech was made to my father when he was canvassing the County of Longford. It was repeated to me a few hours afterwards, and I wrote it down instantly, without, I believe, the variation of a word."
A bull is defined to be "a confusion of ideas, ending in a contradiction of meaning." Imagina-
