176 Romances and Novels. 



It only remains to speak of the one thousandth part 

 not included in the classes already characterized. 

 Of the greater portion of these the most favourable 

 account that can be given is, that they are innocent 

 and amusing compositions. But even with regard 

 to a considerable number which have been com- 

 monly placed among the good and useful novels, 

 a correct judge would scarcely be willing to pro- 

 nounce them innocent without some qualification. 

 After all these deductions, how small is the num- 

 ber of those which can be said to merit a perusal* 

 or which can be considered as tending, in any to- 

 lerable degree, to enlighten the mind, or to pro- 

 mote the interests of virtue and happiness ! So small, 

 indeed, that out of the numerous volumes which a 

 simple catalogue of the novels produced in the 

 eighteenth century would fill, a single page would 

 embrace all that could be with propriety recom- 

 mended to the attention of the youthful mind. 



Many novels which contain no licentious prin- 

 ciples or indelicate descriptions, are still defective, 

 inasmuch as they are not pictures of nature. When 

 this is the case, though they be not chargeable 

 with making a direct attack on the fortress of vir- 

 tue, yet they are only fitted to mislead. To fill 

 the mind with unreal and delusive pictures of life, 

 is, in the end, to beguile it from sober duty, and to 

 cheat it of substantial enjoyment. Were all the 

 mischief presented to our view which has been 

 done to thoughtless, unsuspecting minds, by ficti- 

 tious writings of this character, it would be found 

 to form a mass of crime and misery too great for the 

 ordinary powers of calculation. 



But it is not enough that the fiction be true to 

 nature. It may in no case depart from the proba- 

 ble and natural; every line may be drawn with a 

 strict regard to the original character designed to 

 be represented; the most transient beholder may 



