390 Romances and Novels* [Chap. XIX^ 



work of this nature deserving respectful notice 

 had appeared in the United States jirior to the 

 year 1798, when Mr. Charles B. Brown, of Phila- 

 delphia, puhiished his fVieland, which has been 

 since followed by Ormonde Arthur Mercyny Edgar 

 Himtly, and Jane Talbot^ from the pen of the same 

 author. Mr. Brown discovers, in these several 

 productions, a vigorous imagination, a creative 

 fancy, strong powers of description, and great 

 command, and, in general, great felicity of lan- 

 guage. He has the honour of being the first 

 American who presented his countrymen with a 

 respectable specimen of fictitious history ; and is 

 certainly the first who succeeded in gaining much 

 attention to his labours in this branch of literature. 

 It was before observed that the eighteenth cen- 

 tury was the Age of Novels. Never was the lite- 

 rary world so deluged with the frivolous effusions 

 of ignorance and vanity, in this form, as within the 

 last thirty years. Every contemptible scribbler 

 has become an adventurer in this boundless field of 

 enterprise. Every votary of singular, and especi- 

 ally of licentious opinions, has thought this a conve- 

 nient mode of disguising and serving up his errours. 

 The thirst for this species of composition is incon- 

 ceivably ardent and extensive. All classes of per- 

 sons in society, from the dignified professional cha- 

 racter to the lowest ranks of labouring indigence, 

 seek and devour novels. These ephemeral produc- 

 tions are daily composed, translated, revamped, 

 and reprinted, to indulge the growing demand. 

 What will be the effect and the end of this morbid 

 appetite; whether, like many other diseases, it will 

 work its own cui'e, or whether it will go on to in- 



