Joshua Reynolds professed actual fear of such keen wit and relentless observation. Dr. Johnson vowed that Richardson had written nothing finer, and Fielding nothing so fine as "Evelina;" and playfully protested he was too proud to eat cold mutton for dinner when he sat by Miss Burney's side. Posterity, it is true, while preserving "Evelina" with great pride, has declined to place it by the side of "Tom Jones" or "Clarissa Harlowe;" but if we had our choice between the praise of posterity which was Miss Austen's portion, and the praise of contemporaries which was Miss Burney's lot, I doubt not we should be wise enough to take our applause off-hand,—"dashed in our faces, sounded in our ears," as Johnson said of Garrick, and leave the future to look after itself.
It is pleasant, however, to think that the first good woman novelist had her work over rather than under estimated. It is pleasant also to contemplate the really bewildering career of Maria Edgeworth. Miss Edgeworth's books are agreeable reading, and her children's stories are among the very best ever written; but it is not altogether easy to under-
