Lord Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_, said: "The writings of Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular an union of sober sense and inexhaustible invention, so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune, and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment, and of the illusions by which they are so often obstructed, that we should separate her from the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and speak of her Tales as works of more serious importance than much of the true history and solemn philosophy that comes daily under our inspection.... It is impossible, I think, to read ten pages in any of her writings without feeling, not only that the whole, but that every part of them, was intended to do good." * * * * * MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _June 1809._ A copy of _Tales of Fashionable Life_ [Footnote: The first set containing "Ennui," "Madame de Fleury," "Almeria," "The Dun," and "Manoeuvring," in three volumes.] reached us yesterday in a Foster frank: they looked well enough,--not very good paper, but better than _Popular Tales._ I am going to write a story called "To-day," [Footnote: Never written.] as a match for "To-morrow," in which I mean to show that Impatience is as bad as Procrastination, and the desire to do too much to-day, and to enjoy too much at present, is as bad as putting off everything till to-morrow. What do you think of this plan? Write next post, as, while my father is away, I am going to write a story for his birthday. My other plan was to write a story in which young men of all the different professions should act a part, like the "Contrast" in higher life, [Footnote: "Patronage."] or the "Freeman Family," only without princes, and without any possible allusion to our own family. I have another sub-plan of writing "Coelebina in search of a Husband," without my father's knowing it, and without reading _Coelebs_, that I may neither imitate nor abuse it. I daresay you can borrow Powell's _Sermons_ from Ardbraccan or Dr. Beaufort; the Primate lent them to my father. There is a charge on the connection between merit and preferment, and one discourse on the influence of academical studies and a recluse life, which I particularly admire, and wish it had been quoted in _Professional Education._ Mr. Holland, a grand-nephew of Mr. Wedgwood's, and son to a surgeon at Knutsford, Cheshire, and intended for a physician, came here in the course of a pedestrian tour--spent two days--very well informed. Ask my mother when she goes to you to tell you all that Mr. Holland told us about Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Marcet, who is the author of _Conversations on Chemistry_--a charming woman, by his account. _To_ MISS RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Aug. 22, 1809._