good luck and fashion had placed her.  We believe, on the contrary, that her early popularity was no more than the just reward of distinguished merit, and would never have undergone an eclipse if she had only been content to go on writing in her mother tongue.  If she failed when she quitted her own province and attempted to occupy one in which she had neither part nor lot, this reproach is common to her with a crowd of distinguished men.  Newton failed when he turned from the courses of the stars and the ebb and flow of the ocean to apocalyptic seals and vials.  Bentley failed when he turned from Homer and Aristophanes to edit the “Paradise Lost.”  Enigo failed when he attempted to rival the Gothic churches of the fourteenth century.  Wilkie failed when he took it into his head that the “Blind Fiddler” and the “Rent Day” were unworthy of his powers, and challenged competition with Lawrence as a portrait painter.  Such failures should be noted for the instruction of posterity, but they detract little from the permanent reputation of those who have really done great things.

Yet one word more.  It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of Madame D’Arblay’s early works that she is entitled to honourable mention.  Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history.  “Evelina” was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live.  “The Female Quixote” is no exception.  That work has undoubtedly great merit, when considered as a wild, satirical harlequinade; but if we consider it as a picture of life and manners, we must pronounce it more absurd than any of the romances which it was designed to ridicule.(29)

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 Page lvii

Anthony Absolute, two or three years before “Evelina” appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of 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(30) 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.