STAGE IRISHMEN AND OTHERS 251 



Carlcton and Griffin — over the road that was, for 

 the aristoeracy, a pavement of impossibly pohshed 

 marble and, for the baser sort, an equally impossible 

 hohireen. Even the sober and Saxon Anthony 

 Trollope was lured from the Close of Barchester to 

 batter over the bohireens of " Ballycloran " with 

 the MaeDermots, and to deepen the convietion in the 

 mind of the public that Ireland was peopled with 

 Phelim O'Tooles and Lucius O'Triggers. 



It is wondrously refreshing to turn to the cool 

 and temperate humour of Maria Edgeworth, and to 

 her style, in which the polish of the eighteenth century 

 gives brilliance to the presentation of a people who, 

 as Sir Walter Raleigh is quoted in the introduction 

 as saying, " had never before Miss Edge worth's time 

 ventured to claim serious treatment at the hands of 

 writers of fiction." Selections from the works of an 

 author are possibly instructive, and are often beneficent 

 as a labour-saving device for the use of the unscrupu- 

 lous biographer or essayist. But if ever there were a 

 method of damning with faint praise, it is surely this. 

 \Vlio, even in this twentieth century, would be satisfied 

 to take their knowledge of Sir Walter Scott's novels 

 from " selections " ? Miss Edgeworth, in her own 

 period and subject, stands alone, even as does Sir 

 Walter, in her determination to describe her fellow- 

 countrymen, " not," as Scott himself says, "by a 

 caricatured and exaggerated use of the national 

 dialect, but by their habits, manners, and feelings." 

 Miss Edgeworth's good breeding preserves her from 

 extravagance, her sense of humour saves her from the 

 ponderous sentimentalism of her day. The fact that 

 " Every Irishman's Library " is satisfied to offer to its 

 adherents an unabridged copy of The Collegians, 

 while it " selects " from Maria Edgeworth, seems 

 a matter for which Sir Malcolm Seton's apologetic 



