It is scarcely worth while to attempt to help those who do not know by means of paraphrases.
The "Irish brigade" of the work--_Castle Rackrent_ (1800), _Ormond_, and _The Absentee_, with the non-narrative but closely-connected _Essay on Irish Bulls_--have perhaps commanded the most unchequered applause.

They are not quite free from the sentimentality and the didacticism which were both rampant in the novel of Miss Edgeworth's earlier time: but these are atoned for by a quite new use of the "national" element.

Even Smollett and, following Smollett, Moore had chiefly availed themselves of this for its farcical or semi-farcical opportunities.

Miss Edgeworth did not neglect these, but she did not confine herself to them: and such characters as Corny the "King of the Black Isles" in _Ormond_ actually add a new province and a new pleasure to fiction.
Her importance is thus very great: and it only wanted the proverbial or anecdotic "That!" to make it much greater.

"That!" as it generally is, was in her case the last fusing touch of genius to accomplish the _grand oeuvre_--the perfect projection.