164 Romances and Novels. 



titles of Memoirs, Lives, Histories, Adventures, 

 &c. would fill a volume. Since the time of Field- 

 ing the Epic form of novels has been more in 

 vogue than before. Plot has become more fashion- 

 able, and is considered more essential to the ex- 

 cellence of their structure. During the last thirty 

 years of the century under consideration, the coun- 

 tries most productive of respectable works in this 

 species of composition were Great-Britain, France, 

 and Germany. 



Among the later British novelists, Dr. Gold- 

 smith, Miss Burney (now Madame D'Arblay), 

 Mrs. Radcliffe, Mr. Mackenzie, Miss C, 

 Smith, and Dr. Moore, undoubtedly rank highest. 

 The Vicar of Wakefield will ever be read with new 

 pleasure, as one of the finest, most natural, and 

 most happily imagined moral pictures that was ever 

 drawn. The author of Evelina, Cecilia, and Ca- 

 milla, has marked out for herself a manner of writing 

 in some respects new. If the reader do not find 

 in her pages those bold and daring strokes which 

 indicate the hand of a great and original genius; 

 yet, in giving pictures of characters and manners^ 

 simple, natural, just, lively, and perfectly moral 

 in their tendency, she has no equal among her co- 

 temporaries. The performances of Mrs. Rad- 

 cliffe will be presently mentioned as belonging 

 to a new and singular class of fictitious writings. 

 The publications of Mr. Mackenzie, which be- 

 long to this department of literature, have been 

 jnuch read, and have received high praise. Miss 

 Charlotte Smith holds an honourable place 

 among the ingenious and moral novelists of the 

 a^e. Dr. Moore, in describing English manners, 

 has acquitted himself with high credit. But the 

 works of the three last will probably never be 

 mentioned as forming an era in the history of Bri- 



