EDGEWORTH, Maria, an eminent English novelist, and daughter of the preceding by his first wife, was born in Berkshire, Jan. 1, 1767. She removed to Ireland when her father succeeded to the family estate in 1782, and there she spent the greater part of her life. Her literary career began with the publication of Castle Rackrent in 1801; and this was soon followed by the Moral Tales, Belinda, Leonora, Tales of Fashionable Life, Patronage, Harring-
Edinburgh, ton and Ormond, and other works. It was the humour, tenderness, and tact displayed in her admirable delineations of Irish character that first suggested to Sir Walter Scott the design afterwards carried into effect in the Waverley Novels. Parallel with this series of works of fiction, Miss Edgeworth directed her literary efforts to the cause of education. Her essays on Practical Education were published so early as 1798, and her latest work was the child's story of Orlandino, which appeared in 1834. The Parent's Assistant, and numerous other educational works, fill up the intervening period. Among the works to which her father's name is attached along with her own, the most famous is the Essay on Irish Bulls, published in 1803. The latter part of Miss Edgeworth's life was spent in peaceful retire-
ment at Edgeworth's Town, whence, with the exception of a trip to the Continent and a short residence at Clifton, she had scarcely ever removed, and where she died in May 1849.