Romances and Novels . 175 



dency than to mislead, corrupt and destroy those 

 who habitually peruse them, and especially those 

 who give them a favourable reception. 



But this is not the worst of the evil. A portion 

 of this latter class of novels may be charged with 

 being seductive and immoral on a more refined 

 plan. They are systematic, and, in some instances, 

 ingenious and plausible apologists for the most 

 attrocious crimes. In many modern productions of 

 this kind the intelligent reader will recognize the 

 following process of representation. Corrupt opi- 

 nions are put into the mouth of some favourite hero, 

 the splendour of whose character, in other respects, 

 is made to embellish the principles which he holds, 

 and the force of whose eloquence is used to recom- 

 mend the most unreasonable dogmas. When this 

 hero commits a crime, and when by this crime, ac- 

 cording to the fixed law of the Divine government, 

 he is involved in serious difficulty, if not lasting 

 misery, the fashionable novelist endeavours to 

 throw the blame on the religious and moral insti- 

 tutions of the world, as narrow, illiberal and un- 

 just. When a woman has surrendered her chas- 

 tity, and prostituted herself to a vile seducer; and 

 when she suffers in her reputation and her com- 

 fort by such base conduct, all this is ascribed to 

 the " wretched state of civilization," to the " de- 

 plorable condition of society!" Every opportunity 

 is taken to attack some principle of morality under 

 the title of a" prejudice;" to ridicule the duties of 

 domestic life, as flowing from " contracted" and 

 c< slavish" views; to deny the sober pursuits of 

 upright industry as " dull" and " spiritless;" and, 

 in a word, to frame an apology for suicide, adultery, 

 prostitution, and the indulgence of every propen- 

 sity for which a corrupt heart can plead an incli- 

 nation. 



