It is no small triumph for Miss Burney, who has had so many and so deserving competitors in the department of literature to which she contributed, that her novels should have remained in active circulation for more than a century after their publication.  “Cecilia” has much the same merits which distinguished “Evelina,” and the two novels bid fair to hold their own as long as English fiction retains its popularity.  Johnson considered Miss Burney equal to Fielding.  But although she possessed qualities similar to his—­constructive power and picturesqueness—­she possessed them in a lesser degree.  In the management of the difficulties of the epistolary form of novel-writing, she surpassed Richardson in verisimilitude and concentration.

Some readers of the present day object to Miss Burney’s novels that they contain so many references to “delicacy” and “propriety” that an air of affectation is produced.  But at the time when “Evelina” was written, a perpetual discretion in actions and words was absolutely necessary to a young woman who did not wish to be subjected to libertine advances.  Society is now so much more generally refined that there is far less danger of such misconstruction, and far less need for a young girl to be always on her guard.  A sound objection, on the ground of taste, may be made against the excessively prolonged account of Captain Mirvan’s brutalities.  The effect might have been as well produced in a much shorter space, and the reader spared the uninteresting scenes which now fill so many repulsive pages.  For this defect, however, we must blame the times more than the author.

Charlotte Lennox was the daughter of Sir James Ramsay, Lieutenant governor of New York, where she was born in 1720.  When fifteen years of age she was sent to London, and there supported herself by her pen.  Johnson said that he had “dined at Mrs. Garrick’s with Mrs. Carter, Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney:  three such women are not to be found.  I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who is superior to them all.”  Such high praise was not called forth by Mrs. Lennox’s novels, which have little originality or power.  “The Female Quixote” is an entertaining satire on the old French romances, but “Sophia,” and “Euphemia” are without any special interest.

A writer of more ability, whose name is still remembered by novel-readers, is Mrs. Inchbald.  She was overcome in early life by an enthusiasm for the stage; ran away from home to find theatrical employment, and remained for many years a popular London actress.  Although possessed of great and durable beauty, and the object of constant attention from aristocratic admirers, it is believed that her reputation continued unsullied.  Her poverty, largely caused by a worthless husband, obliged her to perform the most menial labors.  She rejoiced on one occasion that the approach of warmer weather released her from the duty of making fires, scouring the grate, sifting the cinders, and of going up and down three pair of long stairs with water or dirt.  All this Mrs. Inchbald thought that she could cheerfully bear, but the labor of being a fine lady the remainder of the day was almost too much for her.  “Last Thursday,” she wrote to a friend, “I finished scouring my bed-chamber, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen waited at the door to take me an airing.”