Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina, were such as no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could without confusion own that she had read.  The very name of novel was held in horror among religious people.  In decent families which did not profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all such works.  Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and husbands, when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.  This feeling, on the part of the grave and reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung.  The novelist, having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem almost incredible.

Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the English drama; and she did it in a better way.  She first showed that a tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy.  She took away the reproach which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition.  She vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble province of letters.  Several accomplished women have followed in her track.  At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country.  No class of works is more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.  Several among the successors of Madame D’Arblay have equalled her; two, we think, have surpassed her.  But the fact that she has been surpassed, gives her an additional claim to our respect and gratitude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee.

ANONYMOUS ON WORDSWORTH

[From The Edinburgh Review, October, 1807]

Poems, in Two Volumes.  By W. WORDSWORTH.  London, 1807.

This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who have haunted for some years about the lakes of Cumberland; and is generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been labouring to establish.  Of the general merits of that school, we have had occasion to express our opinion pretty fully, in more places than one, and even to make some allusion to the former publications of the writer now before us.  We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions.