SOURCE: Review of Temper; or Domestic Scenes by Amelia Opie, in Monthly Review, Vol. LXVIII, 1812, p. 217.

In the following review, the critic counterbalances praise of Opie's Temper; or Domestic Scenes with mention of such defects as excessive didacticism and the use of unlikely circumstances.

We estimate so highly this lady's literary talents, and we so cordially approve the tendency of the present work, that we reluctantly qualify our opinion of its merits by first noticing its defects. Mrs. Opie has delineated some traits of uncontrolled temper with a refined as well as a powerful pencil, but she might have excited greater interest if she had treated the subject less didactically; and a few additional scenes, of which a violent or a corrected temper formed the outline, would perhaps have been more amusing and useful than Mr. Egerton's Dissertations on self-control. The fair author rather mistakes her powers in...