396 Romances and Novels, [Chap. XIX. 



tious writings 6f this character, it would be found 

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

 ordinary powers of calculation. 



Hut it is not etiough 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 4^ 

 strict regard to the original character designed to 

 be represented ; the most transient beholder may 

 pronounce tiie Hkeness to be perfect; and yet the 

 Tiew may be fitted to corrupt the mind of every- 

 one who looks upon it. The truth is, there are 

 nianv characters which ou<j[ht never to be drawn 

 in fiction, as there are many which ought never to 

 be contemplated in fact. And he who regards the 

 welfare of a child will be as anxious to withhold 

 from him the view of inany natural and lively de- 

 scriptions of vice, as to keep him from the com- 

 pany of those who are really vicious. ^' Many 

 writers/' says a celebrated critic and moralist*, 

 " for the sake, as they tell us, of following nature^ 

 so mingle good and bad qualities in their principal 

 personages, that they arc both equally conspicuous; 

 and as we accompany them through their adven- 

 tures with delight, and are led by degrees to in- 

 terest ourselves in their favour, we lose the abhor- 

 tence of their faults because they do not hinder our 

 pleasure, or perhaps regard them with kindness 

 for being united with so much merit. There hav^ 

 been men, indeed, splendidly wicked, whose en- 

 dowments threw a briohtness on their crimes, and 

 \vhom scarce any villany made perfectly detej^t- 

 able, because they iiever could be wholly divested 



* Dr, Johnson. Rarnlfkr, vol. 1» 



