Thank you for the honour you have done us, [Footnote: Walter Scott, in his "Postscript," said that it had been his desire in Waverley "in some distant degree to emulate the admirable Irish portraits drawn by Miss Edgeworth.">[ and for the pleasure you have given us, great in proportion to the opinion we had formed of the work we had just perused—and believe me, every opinion I have in this letter expressed, was formed before any individual in the family had peeped to the end of the book, or knew how much we owed you.—Your obliged and grateful
MARIA EDGEWORTH.
To MISS RUXTON.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 26, 1814.
"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year" to you, my dear Sophy, and to my aunt, and uncle, and Margaret. I have just risen from my bed, where I had been a day and a half with a violent headache and pains, or as John Langan calls them, pins in my bones. We have been much entertained with Mansfield Park. Pray read Eugène et Guillaume, a modern Gil Blas; too much of opera intrigues, but on the whole it is a work of admirable ability. Guillaume's character beautiful, and the gradual deterioration of Eugène's character finely drawn; but the following it out becomes at last as disgusting and horrible as it would be to see the corruption of the body after the spirit had fled.
January 1815.
I send you some beautiful lines to Lord Byron, by Miss Macpherson, daughter of Sir James Macpherson. As soon as my father hears from the Dublin Society we shall go to Dublin.
To MISS RUXTON.
15 BAGGOT STREET, DUBLIN,
Feb 1815.