wife. It is the same idea in a more disguised form which forms the subject of the story in Miss Burney's 'Evelina,' or the 'History of a young Lady's Introduction to the World.' There Miss Anville comes up to town from the country on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Mirvan, in Queen Anne Street, and she is immediately beset by admirers, one of whom, Lord Orville, is a gentleman not only by birth, but in character and conduct; while another, Sir Clement Willoughby, pursues her with no other object than that of "lawless gallantry." She has a narrow escape when she trusts herself with him in his carriage to take her home from the theatre. She is insulted at Ranelagh, and "Marybone," and the Hotwells, by libertine addresses.

In Mrs. Inchbald's Simple Story' we have the tale of a young lady, Miss Milner, left to the care of a Roman Catholic priest, Dorriforth, with whom she falls in love; and, as he becomes the Earl of Elmwood, and is released from his ordination vows, she marries him; but afterward becomes unfaithful, and dies in great misery. The latter part of the novel is occupied with the story of her daughter, an only child, whom the father allows to live at one of his country residences; but, in bitter resentment at her mother's misconduct, obstinately refuses to see or allow her name to be mentioned in his presence, until he

hears that she has been carried off by a libertine nobleman, when he rushes to her rescue, and then opens his heart to her with parental fondness, and sanctions her marriage with his nephew, who has long been her secret adorer.

A favorite form in which many of these novels are written is a series of letters, which seems to me the most uninteresting mode in which a story can be told. It is difficult not to compassionate the persons who sit down day after day, and night after night, to pen their long-winded epistles, and fill them with the most trivial and egotistical details. Perhaps in these days of the penny-post one is more impatient of the length of a letter; but no mortal men nor women could have spun out in real life such a correspondence as is carried on in Clarissa Harlowe,' 'Sir Charles Grandison,' and 'Evelina.' *

Another class of novels consists of comic stories of low life, in which the hero or heroine is engaged in ludicrous adventures, where the scenes are often laid in a country inn, and the interior of a prison, and where such events as are likely to happen there are

*These letters were supposed to be sent by private hands, not the post. "Letters from Northamptonshire, by Farmer Jenkins; I kiss the seals." "Sir Charles Grandison:' Letter XIV.

described with all the fidelity, and, I will add, all the coarseness of a Dutch picture. Such are 'Roderick Random,' and 'Peregrine Pickle,' 'Tom Jones,' and 'Joseph Andrews.' The men riot in every kind of dissipation, and the women indulge in every species of intrigue. But there is always some virtuous figure who is generally the heroine-like Sophia Western, or Fanny Goodwin, or Emilia-who resists all libertine advances, and whose constancy is at last rewarded by marriage. It is with reference to this class of novels that an accomplished French critic, M. Taine, speaking of Tom Jones,' says: "One becomes tired of your fisticuffs and your ale-house adventures. You dirty your feet too much in the stables among the ecclesiastical pigs of Trulliber. One would like to see more regard for the modesty of your heroines; the roadside accidents disturb their dresses too often, and it is in vain that Fanny, Sophy, and Mistress Heartfree preserve their purity; one can't help remembering the assaults which have lifted their petticoats. You are so rude yourself that you are insensible to what is atrocious. Man, such as you conceive him, is a good buffalo, and perhaps he is the kind of hero required by a people which is itself called John Bull." It is curious to contrast with this the opinion

*Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,' vol. iii. pp. 317,318.

of Coleridge. "How charming, how wholesome, Fielding always is! To take him up after Richardson, is like emerging from a sick-room heated by stoves, into an open lawn on a breezy day in May." * In so far as Fielding is opposed to Richardson, we should all agree in this; but I cannot think that the pure breeze of a May morning is a proper metaphor to describe such scenes as occur in 'Tom Jones' and 'Joseph Andrews.'

* Table Talk,' p. 332.

CHAPTER VI.

MRS. BEHN AND HER NOVELS.-'OROONOKO.'-'THE WANDERING BEAUTY. THE UNFORTUNATE HAPPY LADY.'-MRS. MANLEY AND THE NEW ATALANTIS.'-"THE POWER OF LOVE IN SEVEN NOVELS. THE FAIR HYPOCRITE.'-MRS. HEYWOOD.-HER NOVEL-MISS BETSY THOUGHTLESS.'

Ir is remarkable that some of the most immoral novels in the English language should have been written by women. This bad distinction belongs to Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood;-Corruptio optimi est pessima, and that such corrupt stories as they gave to the world were the offspring of female pens is an unmistakable proof of the loose manners of the age. Mrs. Behn, indeed, belongs to an earlier period. She wrote in the reign of Charles II., when vice was triumphant, and modesty, like 'Astræa,' had left her last footsteps upon earth.* Strictly, therefore, she does not come within the scope

* Mrs. Behn called herself 'Astræa,' and as such is alluded to by Pope in the lines—

"The stage how loosely does Astræa tread,

Who fairly puts all characters to bed!"