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DRAMATISTS.

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ENGLISH LITERATURE.

The doctor looked wise; 'A slow fever,' he said:
Prescribed sudorifics and going to bed.
'Sudorifics in bed,' exclaimed Will, are humbugs!
I've enough of them there without paying for drugs!'
Will kicked out the doctor; but when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed;
So, calling his host, he said, 'Sir, do you know,
I'm the fat single gentleman six months ago?
Look'e, landlord, I think,' argued Will with a grin,
'That with honest intentions you first took me in:
But from the first night-and to say it I'm bold-
I've been so hanged hot, that I'm sure I caught cold.'
I ne'er had a dispute;
Quoth the landlord, Till now,
I've let lodgings ten years; I'm a baker to boot;
In airing your sheets, sir, my wife is no sloven;
And your bed is immediately over my oven.'
'The oven!' says Will. Says the host, 'Why this

passion?

In that excellent bed died three people of fashion. Why so crusty, good sir?' 'Zounds!' cries Will, in a taking,

'Who wouldn't be crusty with half a year's baking? Will paid for his rooms; cried the host, with a sneer, 'Well, I see you've been going away half a year.' Friend, we can't well agree; yet no quarrel,' Will said;

'But I'd rather not perish while you make your bread.'

MRS ELIZABETH INCHBALD.

footmen waited at my door to take me an airing.'
She allowed a sister who was in ill health £100 a-
year. 'Many a time this winter,' she records in her
diary, when I cried for cold, I said to myself, “but,
thank God! my sister has not to stir from her room;
she has her fire lighted every morning; all her pro-
visions bought and brought ready cooked; she is
now the less able to bear what I bear; and how
much more should I suffer but for this reflection."
This was noble and generous self-denial. The in-
come of Mrs Inchbald was now £172 per annum,
and, after the death of her sister, she went to reside
in a boarding house, where she enjoyed more of the
comforts of life. Traces of female weakness break
out in her private memoranda amidst the sterner
Re-
records of her struggle for independence. The fol-
lowing entry is amusing: 1798. London.
picion, amounting to a certainty, of a rapid appear-
hearsing "Lovers' Vows;" happy, but for a sus-
ance of age in my face.' Her last literary labour
was writing biographical and critical prefaces to a
collection of plays, in twenty-five volumes; a col-
Theatre, in ten volumes. Phillips, the publisher,
lection of farces, in seven volumes; and the Modern
offered her a thousand pounds for her memoirs, but
she declined the tempting offer. This autobiography
was, by her own orders, destroyed after her decease;
but in 1833, her Memoirs were published by Mr
Boaden, compiled from an autograph journal which
she kept for above fifty years, and from her letters
written to her friends. Mrs Inchbald died in a
boarding-house at Kensington on the 1st of August
1821. By her will, dated four months before her
decease, she left about £6000, judiciously divided
amongst her relatives. One of her legacies marks
the eccentricity of thought and conduct which was
mingled with the talents and virtues of this original-
minded woman: she left £20 each to her late laun-
dress and hair-dresser, provided they should inquire
of her executors concerning her decease.

THOMAS HOLCROFT.

MRS ELIZABETH INCHBALD, an actress, dramatist, and novelist, produced a number of popular plays. Her two tales, The Simple Story, and Nature and Art, are the principal sources of her fame; but her light dramatic pieces are marked by various talent. Her first production was a farce entitled The Mogul Tale, brought out in 1784, and from this time, down to 1805, she wrote nine other plays and farces. By some of these pieces (as appears from her memoirs) she received considerable sums of money. Her first production realised £100; her comedy of Such Things Are (her greatest dramatic performance) brought her THOMAS HOLCROFT, author of the admired comedy, in £410, 128.; The Married Man, £100; The Wedding Day, £200; The Midnight Hour, £130; Every The Road to Ruin, and the first to introduce the One Has His Fault, £700; Wives as they Were, and melo-drama into England, was born in London on Maids as they Are, £427, 10s.; Lovers' Vows, £150; the 10th of December 1745. Till I was six years &c. The personal history of this lady is as singular old,' says Holcroft, my father kept a shoemaker's as any of her dramatic plots. She was born of shop in Orange Court; and I have a faint recolRoman Catholic parents residing at Standy field, lection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters.' near Bury St Edmunds, in the year 1753. At the Humble as this condition was, it seems to have been age of sixteen, full of giddy romance, she ran off to succeeded by greater poverty, and the future dramatist London, having with her a small sum of money, and and comedian was employed in the country by his some wearing apparel in a bandbox. After various parents to hawk goods as a pedlar. He was afterwards engaged as a stable-boy at Newmarket, and adventures, she obtained an engagement for a country theatre, but suffering some personal indig- was proud of his new livery. A charitable person, nities in her unprotected state, she applied to Mr who kept a school at Newmarket, taught him to Inchbald, an actor whom she had previously known. read. He was afterwards a rider on the turf; and But who when sixteen years of age, he worked for some time The gentleman counselled marriage. with his father as a shoemaker. A passion for would marry me?' cried the lady. I would,' replied her friend, if you would have me.' 'Yes, sir, books was at this time predominant, and the conand would for ever be grateful'—and married they finement of the shoemaker's stall not agreeing with were in a few days. The union thus singularly him, he attempted to raise a school in the country. brought about seems to have been happy enough; He afterwards became a provincial actor, and spent seven years in strolling about England, in every but Mr Inchbald died a few years afterwards. Mrs Inchbald performed the first parts in the Edinburgh variety of wretchedness, with different companies. theatre for four years, and continued on the stage, In 1780 Holcroft appeared as an author, his first In the following year his comedy of acting in London, Dublin, &c. till 1789, when she work being a novel, entitled Alwyn, or the Gentleman quitted it for ever. Her exemplary prudence, and Comedian. the profits of her works, enabled her not only to live, Duplicity was acted with great success at Covent but to save money. The applause and distinction Garden. Another comedy, The Deserted Daughter, with which she was greeted never led her to deviate experienced a very favourable reception; but The from her simple and somewhat parsimonious habits. Road to Ruin is universally acknowledged to be the Last Thursday,' she writes, "I finished scouring my best of his dramatic works. This comedy,' says bed-room, while a coach with a coronet and two Mrs Inchbald, ranks among the most successful of

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modern plays. There is merit in the writing, but much more in that dramatic science which disposes character, scenes, and dialogue with minute attention to theatric exhibition.' Holcroft wrote a great number of dramatic pieces-more than thirty between the years 1778 and 1806; three other novels (Anna St Ives, Hugh Trevor, and Bryan Perdue); besides a Tour in Germany and France, and numerous translations from the German, and French, and Italian. During the period of the French Revolution he was a zealous reformer, and on hearing that his name was included in the same bill of indictment with Tooke and Hardy, he surrendered himself in open court, but no proof of guilt was ever adduced against him. His busy and remarkable life was terminated on the 23d of March 1809.

JOHN TOBIN.

JOHN TOBIN was a sad example, as Mrs Inchbald has remarked, of the fallacious hopes by which half mankind are allured to vexatious enterprise. He passed many years in the anxious labour of writing plays, which were rejected by the managers; and no sooner had they accepted The Honey-Moon, than he died, and never enjoyed the recompense of seeing it performed.' Tobin was born at Salisbury in the year 1770, and educated for the law. In 1785 he was articled to an eminent solicitor of Lincoln's Inn, and afterwards entered into business himself.

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Duke. No, love-the white. Thus modestly attired,
A half-blown rose stuck in thy braided hair,
With no more diamonds than those eyes are made of,¦
No deeper rubies than compose thy lips,
Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them;
With the pure red and white, which that same hand
Which blends the rainbow mingles in thy cheeks;
This well-proportioned form (think not I flatter)
In graceful motion to harmonious sounds,
And thy free tresses dancing in the wind;
Thou'lt fix as much observance, as chaste dames
Can meet, without a blush.

JOHN O'KEEFE-FREDERICK REYNOLDS—THOMAS

MORTON.

JOHN O'KEEFE, a prolific farce writer, was born

Such, however, was his devotion to the drama, that in Dublin in 1746. While studying the art of before the age of twenty-four he had written several drawing to fit him for an artist, he imbibed a pasplays. His attachment to literary composition did sion for the stage, and commenced the career of an not withdraw him from his legal engagements; but actor in his native city. He produced generally his time was incessantly occupied, and symptoms of some dramatic piece every year for his benefit, and consumption began to appear. A change of climate one of these, entitled Tony Lumpkin, was played was recommended, and Tobin went first to Cornwall, with success at the Haymarket theatre, London, in and thence to Bristol, where he embarked for the 1778. He continued supplying the theatres with West Indies. The vessel arriving at Cork, was new pieces, and up to the year 1809, had written, in detained there for some days; but on the 7th of all, about fifty plays and farces. Most of these December 1804, it sailed from that port, on which were denominated comic operas or musical farces, day-without any apparent change in his disorder and some of them enjoyed great success. The Agree to indicate the approach of death-the invalid ex-bleau, The Highland Reel, Love in a Camp, The Poor able Surprise, Wild Oats, Modern Antiques, Fontainpired. Before quitting London, Tobin had left the Soldier, and Sprigs of Laurel, are still favourites, Honey-Moon' with his brother, the manager having given a promise that it should be performed. Its especially the first, in which the character of Lingo, success was instant and decisive, and it is still a humour. O'Keefe's writings, it is said, were merely the schoolmaster, is a laughable piece of broad favourite acting play. Two other pieces by the same intended to make people laugh, and they have fully author (The Curfew, and The School for Authors) were answered that intent. The lively dramatist was in subsequently brought forward, but they are of infe- his latter years afflicted with blindness, and in 1800 rior merit. The Honey-Moon' is a romantic drama, partly in blank verse, and written somewhat in the he obtained a benefit at Covent Garden theatre, on style of Beaumont and Fletcher. The scene is laid which occasion he was led forward by Mr Lewis, in Spain, and the plot taken from Catherine and the actor, and delivered a poetical address. He Petruchio, though the reform of the haughty lady is died at Southampton on the 4th of February 1883, accomplished less roughly. The Duke of Aranza having reached the advanced age of 86. conducts his bride to a cottage in the country, pretending that he is a peasant, and that he has obtained her hand by deception. The proud Juliana, after a struggle, submits, and the duke having accomplished his purpose of rebuking the domineering spirit of her sex,' asserts his true rank, and places Juliana in his palace

This truth to manifest-A gentle wife
Is still the sterling comfort of man's life;
To fools a torment, but a lasting boon
To those who-wisely keep their honey-moon.

The following passage, where the duke gives his directions to Juliana respecting her attire, is pointed out by Mrs Inchbald as peculiarly worthy of admiration, from the truths which it contains. The fair critic, like the hero of the play, was not ambitious of dress:

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the most voluminous of dramatists, author of seven-
FREDERICK REYNOLDS (1765-1841) was one of
teen popular comedies, and, altogether, of about a
hundred dramatic pieces. He served Covent Garden
for forty years in the capacity of what he called
thinker'-that is, performer of every kind of lite-
rary labour required in the establishment. Among his
best productions are, The Dramatist, Laugh when you
Can, The Delinquent, The Will, Folly as it Flies, Life,
Management, Notoriety, How to Grow Rich, The Rage,
Speculation, The Blind Bargain, Fortune's Fool, &c.
&c. Of these, the 'Dramatist' is the best.
hero Vapid, the dramatic author, who goes to Bath
'to pick up characters,' is a laughable caricature,
in which it is said the author drew a likeness of
himself; for, like Vapid, he had 'the ardor scribendi
upon him so strong, that he would rather you'd ask
him to write an epilogue or a scene than offer him
your whole estate-the theatre was his world, in

The

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

which were included all his hopes and wishes.' Out
of the theatre, however, as in it, Reynolds was much
esteemed.

Another veteran comic writer for the stage is
THOMAS MORTON, whose Speed the Plough, Way to
Get Married, Cure for the Heartache, and The School
of Reform, may be considered standard comedies on
the stage. Besides these, Mr Morton produced
Zorinski, Secrets Worth Knowing, and various other
plays, most of which were performed with great
applause. The acting of Lewis, Munden, and Emery,
was greatly in favour of Mr Morton's productions
on their first appearance; but they contain the
elements of theatrical success.
strongly contrasted, and the scenes and situations
The characters are
well arranged for effect, with occasionally a mixture
of pathos and tragic or romantic incident. In the
closet, these works fail to arrest attention; for their
merits are more artistic than literary, and the im-
probability of many of the incidents appears glaring
when submitted to sober inspection.

Various new pieces have since been produced in the London theatres by Messrs Poole, Theodore Hook, Planche, Jerrold, Buckstone, &c. The novels of Sir Walter Scott and Mr Dickens have been dramatised with considerable success; but most of these recent productions require the aids of good acting, music, and scenery, to render them tolerable. There is no want of novelties; but the wit, the sprightly dialogue, and genuine life of the true English comedy, may be said to be extinct.

NOVELISTS.

NOVELISTS.

and, fed upon such garbage as we have described, it was scarcely less injurious; for it dwarfed the intelthe study or relish of sound literature, and for the lectual faculties, and unfitted its votaries equally for proper performance and enjoyment of the actual duties of the world. The enthusiastic novel reader got bewildered and entangled among love-plots and high-flown adventures, in which success was often awarded to profligacy, and, among scenes of pretended existence, exhibited in the masquerade attire of a distempered fancy. Instead, therefore, of

Truth severe by fairy Fiction dressed,

sense, and courting applause from its very extravawe had Falsehood decked out in frippery and nongance.

mass of absurdity was made by Charlotte Smith, The first successful inroad on this accumulating whose works may be said to hold a middle station between the true and the sentimental in fictitious political tales of Holcroft and Godwin, the latter animated by the fire of genius, and possessing great composition. Shortly afterwards succeeded the intellectual power and energy. The romantic fables of Mrs Radcliffe were also, as literary productions, a vast improvement on the old novels; and in their moral effects they were less mischievous, for the extraordinary machinery employed by the authoress was so far removed from the common course of human affairs and experience, that no one could think of drawing it into a precedent in ordinary circumstances. At no distant interval Miss Edgeworth came forward with her moral lessons and satirical portraits, daily advancing in her powers as in her stantial happiness of life; Mrs Opie told her pathetic desire to increase the virtues, prudence, and suband graceful domestic tales; and Miss Austen exhibited her exquisite delineations of every-day English society and character. To crown all, Sir Walter Scott commenced, in 1814, his brilliant gallery of portraits of all classes, living and historical, which completely exterminated the monstrosities of the Minerva press, and inconceivably extended the circle again in the ascendant, and never, in its palmiest of novel readers. Fictitious composition was now days of chivalrous romance or modern fashion, did it command more devoted admiration, or shine with greater lustre. The public taste underwent a rapid and important change; and as curiosity was stimulated and supplied in such unexampled profusion from this master-source, the most exorbitant devourers of novels soon learned to look with aversion and disgust on the painted and unreal mockeries which had formerly deluded them. It appears to be

In prose fiction, the last forty years have been rich and prolific. It was natural that the genius and the success of the great masters of the modern English novel should have led to imitation. Mediocrity is seldom deterred from attempting to rival excellence, especially in any department that is popular, and may be profitable; and there is, besides, in romance, as in the drama, a wide and legitimate field for native talent and exertion. tenderness and pathos of Richardson, and the models The highly-wrought of real life, wit, and humour in Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, produced a few excellent imitations. The fictions of Mackenzie, Dr Moore, Miss Burney, and Cumberland, are all greatly superior to the ordinary run of novels, and stand at the head of the second class. These writers, however, exercised but little influence on the national taste: they supported the dignity and respectability of the novel, but did not extend its dominion; and accordingly we find that there was a long dull period in which this de-a law of our nature, that recreation and amusement lightful species of composition had sunk into general are as necessary to the mind as exercise is to the contempt. There was no lack of novels, but they body, and in this light Sir Walter Scott must be were of a very inferior and even debased description. viewed as one of the greatest benefactors of his In place of natural incident, character, and dialogue, species. He has supplied a copious and almost exwe had affected and ridiculous sentimentalism-plots haustless source of amusement, as innocent as it is utterly absurd or pernicious-and stories of love and delightful. He revived the glories of past ages; honour so maudlin in conception and drivelling in illustrated the landscape and the history of his execution, that it is surprising they could ever have native country; painted the triumphs of patriotism been tolerated even by the most defective moral and virtue, and the meanness and misery of vice; sense or taste. The circulating libraries in town and awakened our best and kindliest feelings in favour country swarmed with these worthless productions of suffering and erring humanity-of the low-born (known from their place of publication by the mis- and the persecuted, the peasant, the beggar, and the nomer of the Minerva Press' novels); but their Jew; he has furnished an intellectual banquet, as perusal was in a great measure confined to young rich as it is various and picturesque, from his curipeople of both sexes of imperfect education, or to ous learning, extensive observation, forgotten manhalf-idle inquisitive persons, whose avidity for ex- ners, and decaying superstitions-the whole embelcitement was not restrained by delicacy or judgment. lished with the lights of a vivid imagination, and a In many cases, even in the humblest walks of life, correct and gracefully regulated taste. In the numthis love of novel-reading amounted to a passion as ber and variety of his conceptions and characters, strong and uncontrollable as that of dram-drinking; | Scott is entitled to take his seat beside the greatest

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masters of fiction, British or foreign. Some have excelled him in particular qualities of the novelist, but none in their harmonious and rich combination.

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We had now a new race of imitators, aiming at a high standard of excellence, both as respects the design and the execution of their works. The peculiarities of Scottish manners in humble life, which Scott had illustrated in his early novels, were successfully developed by Galt, and in a more tender and imaginative light by Wilson. Galt, indeed, has high merit as a minute painter: his delineations, like those of Allan Ramsay, bring home to his countrymen traits of undefinable expression, which had escaped every eye but that of familiar affection.' His pathos is the simple grief of nature. In this painting of national manners, Scott's example was allpotent. From Scotland it spread to Ireland. Miss Edgeworth, indeed, had previously portrayed the lights and shades of the Irish character, and in this respect was the preceptress of Scott. But with all her talent and penetration, this excellent authoress can scarcely be said to have reached the heart of her subject, and she stirred up no enthusiasm among her countrymen. Miss Edgeworth pursued her high vocation as a moral teacher. Miss Owenson, who had, as early as 1807, published her Wild Irish Girl, continued (as Lady Morgan) her striking and humorous pictures of Irish society, and they were afterwards greatly surpassed by Banim, Griffin, Lover, Carleton, and others. The whole soil of Ireland, and its races of people, have been laid open, like a new world, to the general reader. English history was in like manner ransacked for materials for fiction. Scott had shown how much could be done in this department by gathering up the scattered fragments of antiquarian research, or entering with the spirit and skill of genius into the manners and events of a bygone age. He had vivified and embodied—not described the past. Many authors have followed in his train-Mr Horace Smith, Mr James, Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, Ainsworth, and other men of talent and genius. Classic and foreign manners were also depicted. The Valerius of Lockhart is an exquisite Roman story; Morier and Fraser have familiarised us with the domestic life of Persia; Mr Hope, in his Anastasius, has drawn the scenery and manners of Italy, Greece, and Turkey, with the fidelity and minuteness of a native artist, and the impassioned beauty of a poet; while the character and magnificent natural features of America-its trackless forests, lakes, wild Indian tribes, and antique settlers have been depicted by its gifted sons, Irving and Cooper. All these may be said to have been prompted by the national and historical romances of Scott. The current of imagination and description had been turned from verse to prose. The stage also caught the enthusiasm; and the tales which had charmed in the closet were reproduced, with scenic effect, in our theatres.

The fashionable novels of Theodore Hook formed a new feature in modern fiction. His first series of Sayings and Doings appeared in 1824, and attracted considerable attention. The principal object of these clever tales was to describe manners in high-life, and the ridiculous and awkward assumption of them by citizens and persons in the middle ranks. As the author advanced in his career, he extended his canvass, and sketched a greater variety of scenes and figures. Their general character, however, remained the same: too much importance was, in all of them, attached to the mere externals of social intercourse, as if the use of the 'silver fork,' or the etiquette of the drawing-room, were the be-all and the end-all' of English society. The life of the accomplished

author gives a sad and moral interest to his tales. He obtained the distinction he coveted, in the notice and favour of the great and the fashionable world; for this he sacrificed the fruits of his industry and the independence of genius; he lived in a round of distraction and gaiety, illuminated by his wit and talents, and he died a premature death, the victim of disappointment, debt, and misery. This personal example is the true handwriting on the wall,' to warn genius and integrity in the middle classes against hunting after or copying the vices of fashionable dissipation and splendour! Mr Ward, Lord Normanby, Mrs Trollope, Lady Blessington, and others, followed up these tales of high-life with perfect knowledge of the subject, wit, refinement, and sarcasm, but certainly with less vigour and less real knowledge of mankind than Theodore Hook. Bulwer imparted to it the novelty and attraction of strong contrast, by conducting his fashionable characters into the purlieus of vice and slang society, which also in its turn became the rage, and provoked imitation. 'Dandies' and highwaymen were painted en beau, and the Newgate Calendar was rifled for heroes to figure in the novel and on the stage. This unnatural absurdity soon palled upon the public taste, and Bulwer did justice to his high and undoubted talents by his historical and more legitimate romances. Among the most original of our living novelists should be included Captain Marryat, the parent, in his own person and in that of others, of a long progeny of nautical tales and sketches.

The last and, next to Scott, the greatest of modern writers of fiction, is Mr Charles Dickens, who also deals with low-life and national peculiarities, espe cially such as spring up in the streets and resorts of crowded cities. The varied surface of English society, in the ordinary and middle ranks, has afforded this close observer and humorist a rich harvest of characters, scenes, and adventures-of follies, oddities, vices, and frailties, of which he has made a copious and happy use. In comic humour, blended with tenderness and pathos, and united to unrivalled powers of observation and description, Dickens has no equal among his contemporaries; and as a painter of actual life, he seems to be the most genuine English novelist we have had since Fielding. His faults lie upon the surface. Like Bulwer, he delights in strong colouring and contrasts-the melodrame of fiction-and is too prone to caricature. The artist, delighting in the exhibition of his skill, is apparent in many of his scenes, where probability and nature are sacrificed for effect. But there is a spirit of goodness' at the heart of all Dickens's stories, and a felicitous humour and fancy, which are unknown to Bulwer and his other rivals. His vivid pictures of those poor in-door sufferers in populous city pent' have directed sympathy to the obscure dwellers in lanes and alleys, and may prove the precursor of practical amelioration. He has made fietion the handmaid of humanity and benevolence, without losing its companionship with wit and laughter. The hearty cordiality of his mirth, his warm and kindly feelings, alive to whatever interests or amuses others, and the undisguised pleasure, ‘brimming o'er,' with which he enters upon every scene of humble city-life and family affection, make us in love with human nature in situations and under circumstances rarely penetrated by the light of imagination. He is a sort of discoverer in the moral world, and has found an El Dorado in the outskirts and byways of humanity where previous explorers saw little but dirt and ashes, and could not gather a single flower. This is the triumph of genius, as beneficial as it is brilliant and irresistible.

It will be remarked that a large proportion of the

admiral; the second son, Charles. Burney, became a celebrated Greek scholar; both the daughters were novelists.* Fanny was long held to be a sort of prodigy. At eight years of age she did not even know her letters, but she was shrewd and observant. At fifteen she had written several tales, was a great reader, and even a critic. Her authorship was continued in secret, her sister only being aware

novelists of this period are ladies. There are some things,' says a periodical critic, which women do better than men, and of these, perhaps, novel-writing is one. Naturally endowed with greater delicacy of taste and feeling, with a moral sense not blunted and debased by those contaminations to which men are exposed, leading lives rather of observation than of action, with leisure to attend to the minutiae of conduct and more subtle developments of character, they are peculiarly qualified for the task of exhibiting faithfully and pleasingly the various phases of domestic life, and those varieties which chequer the surface of society. Accordingly, their delineations, though perhaps less vigorous than those afforded by the other sex, are distinguished, for the most part, by greater fidelity and consistency, a more refined and happy discrimination, and, we must also add, a more correct estimate of right and wrong. In works which come from a female pen, we are seldom offended by those moral monstrosities, those fantastic perversions of principle, which are too often to be met with in the fictions which have been written by men. Women are less stilted in their style; they are more content to describe naturally what they have observed, without attempting the introduction of those extraneous ornaments which are sometimes sought at the expense of truth. They are less ambitious, and are therefore more just; they are far more exempt from that prevailing literary vice of the present day, exaggeration, and have not taken their stand among the feverish followers of what may be called the intense style of writing; a style much praised by those who inquire only if a work is calculated to make a strong impression, and omit entirely the more important question, whether that impression be founded on truth or on delusion. Hence the agonies and convulsions, and dreamy rhapsodies, and heated exhibitions of stormy passions, in which several of our writers have lately of the circumstance. In this way, it is said, she indulged. Imagination has been flattered into a self- had composed Evelina' when she was only sevensufficient abandonment of its alliance with judgment, teen. The novel, however, was not published till to which disunion it is ever least prone where it has January 1778, when little Fanny' was in her most real power; and "fine creations" (well so called, twenty-sixth year; and the wonderful precocity of as being unlike anything previously existing in na-Miss in her teens' may be dismissed as at least ture) have been lauded, in spite of their internal doubtful. The work was offered to Dodsley the falsity, as if they were of more value than the most publisher, but rejected, as the worthy bibliopole accurate delineations of that world which we see declined looking at anything anonymous." Anaround us."* other bookseller, named Lowndes, agreed to publish it, and gave £20 for the manuscript. Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, soon became the talk of the town. Dr Burney, in the fulness of his heart, told Mrs Thrale that our Fanny' was the author, and Dr Johnson protested to Mrs Thrale that there were passages in it which might do honour to Richardson! Miss Burney was invited to Streatham, the country residence of the Thrales, and there she met Johnson and his illustrious band of friends, of whom we have ample notices in the Diary. Wherever she went, to London, Bath, or Tunbridge, 'Evelina' was the theme of praise, and Miss Burney the happiest of authors. In 1782 appeared her second work, Cecilia,' which is more highly finished than 'Evelina,' but less rich in comic characters and dialogue.. Miss Burney having gone to reside for a short time with Mrs Delany, a venerable lady, the friend of Swift, once connected with

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FRANCES BURNEY (MADAME D'ARBLAY). FRANCES BURNEY, authoress of Evelina and Cecilia, was the wonder and delight of the generation of novel readers succeeding that of Fielding and Smollett, and she has maintained her popularity better than most secondary writers of fiction. Her name has been lately revived by the publication of her Diary and Letters, containing some clever sketches of society and manners, notices of the court of George III., and anecdotes of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, &c. Miss Burney was the second daughter of Dr Burney, author of the History of Music. She was born at Lynn-Regis, in the county of Norfolk, on the 13th of June 1752. Her father was organist in Lynn, but in 1760 he removed to London (where he had previously resided), and numbered among his familiar friends and visitors David Garrick, Sir Robert Strange the engraver, the poets Mason and Armstrong, Barry the painter, and other persons distinguished in art and literature. Such society must have had a highly beneficial effect on his family, and accordingly we find they all made themselves distinguished: one son rose to be an Edinburgh Review for 1830.

Frances Burney.

*Rear-Admiral James Burney accompanied Captain Cook in two of his voyages, and was author of a History of Voyages of Discovery, 5 vols. quarto, and an Account of the Russian Eastern Voyages. He died in 1820. Dr Charles Burney wrote several critical works on the Greek classics, was a prebendary of Lincoln, and one of the king's chaplains. After his death, in 1817, the valuable library of this great scholar was purchased by government for the British Museum.

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