170 Romances and Novels. 



other works of fiction. That system of opinions 

 usually styled the New Philosophy? has been ex- 

 hibited with great zeal, with a view to its defence, 

 in the fictitious writings of Diderot, and many 

 other French novelists; and in those of Holcroft, 

 Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary 

 Hays, of Great-Britain. The same delusive and 

 mischievous system has been successfully attacked 

 and exposed in The Highlander, by Dr. Bissett ; 

 in the Modem Philosophers, by Miss Hamilton; 

 in the Memoirs of St. Godwin, in The Vagabond, 

 in Plain Sense, and in various anonymous publica- 

 tions of the novel kind. 



A number of other novelists, both in Great- 

 Britain and on the continent of Europe, deserve 

 to be mentioned, in recounting the conspicuous 

 writers of this class, which belong to the eigh- 

 teenth century. In Great-Britain female novelists 

 have been numerous and respectable. Among 

 these Airs. Brooke, Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Sheri- 

 dan, Mrs. Yearsley, MIssSew^ard, Miss West, 

 and Miss Williams have attracted most attention, 

 and been the objects of most applause. In France, 

 out of a long list which might be enumerated, the 

 fictitious writings of M. de St. Pierre 3 Madame 

 Genlis, and M. Florian, are worthy of particu- 

 lar distinction, especially on account of their pure 

 moral tendency. In Germany the writers of ro- 

 mances and novels, during the age under review, 

 were extremely numerous. Of these Wieland 

 is entitled to the first place. The appearance of 

 his Agathon is represented as a grand epoch in the 



b By the Neiv Philosophy is meant, that system of doctrines concerning 

 the constitution of man, and concerning morals and religion, taught by 

 the author of the Systeme de la Nature, by Helvetius, and Condorcet, 

 and afterwards by several other celebrated writers, both of France and 

 Great-Britain. . 



