NOV 
that the “Terence of England,” as Cumberland has been 
ffyled, delights, in his novels, in painting fcenes of vo¬ 
luptuous profligacy, equally reprehenfible with thofe of 
Fielding, and much more dangerous, becaule lefs grofs 
and vulgar. In the novels of Dr. Moore, great know¬ 
ledge of the world, and of national charafter, are dif- 
played ; and the more difficult talk of depicting the 
wronger paflions is performed with confiderable fkill 
and effect. His humour is rather dry and cauftic than 
rich and fportive; his flyle is at once ea-fy, natural, and 
animated. Perhaps his diltinguiflfing excellence confifts 
in the almofl: total abfence of exafperation and carica¬ 
ture in his perfonages; the real features of human life 
are drawn with fo much defcrimination and diftinftnefs, 
that, in order to be interfering or recognifed, they did not 
require to be heightened by caricature: on this account, 
the novels of Dr. Moore will fupply the place of experi¬ 
ence more effectually, and with lefs danger of difappoint- 
ment, or being led allray, in aClual intercourfe with the 
world, than the novels of any other author. Praife of a 
fimilar nature cannot be bellowed on the novels of Mifs 
Burney; caricature pervades almofl every feature of all 
her perfonages; and occafionaily, a fpecies of buffoonery 
is indulged in, by no means conlillent with that purity of 
mind, and elegance of tafte, which (he generally exhibits. 
But, with all thefe deductions from the merits of her no¬ 
vels, they ftill mull rank high : Evelina, certainly in the 
firfl clafs; Cecilia, (except in the ferious and pathetic 
parts,) below Evelina; and Camilla, very far below both. 
The general charaCler of t he German novels has been al¬ 
ready fketched ; but there are fome exceptions to this cha¬ 
racter among the novel-writers of Germany: and Auguflus 
la Fontaine deferves, inan efpecial manner, to be excepted. 
His Clara Dupleffis, and his Family of Halden, deferve 
great commendation : they difplay confiderable talents of 
obfervation. and an intimate acquaintance with the feel¬ 
ings and workings of the human heart. In his Family of 
Halden, he feems to have let before him as his models, 
Sterne and Goldfmith, and he has certainly imitated them 
with no fmall degree of fuccefs; his imitation, perhaps, 
is in fome refpeCls improperly clofe, as the Englifh call of 
manners is too viflble. Many of his fubl'equent novels 
are of very inferior merit. 
About the middle of the lad century, a new fpecies of 
fictitious writing took its rife, called the Jentimental; it 
confided, principally, in the expofure and delineation of 
certain minute and delicate fenfations, which either have 
no exifience, or pafs unnoticed, in aClive and bufy life. 
The-mod celebrated writers of this fpecies of novel, are 
Sterne and Goethe. Sterne poffeffes wit and humour, in¬ 
termingled with no fmall lhare of indelicacy: the fen- 
timental parts of his writings are of very different merit ; 
wherever he is entirely filled with his fubjeCf, fo that he 
forgets his affectation of feeling and fentiment, he is mod 
touchingly pathetic, and exhibits a proof of a literary 
maxim which he too often negleCted, that fimple and 
natural incidents, if told in correfpondent language, 
have more command over the feelings and fympathy of the 
reader, than fcenes of extraordinary and accumulated 
didrefs, pourtrayed in figurative and drained language. 
Perhaps few novels were ever more popular, for a time, 
than the Sorrows of Werter; but their popularity has 
been long on the wane: It is a fentimentai novel of a 
very different clafs from the writings of Sterne; being 
didin.guifhed rather by drong and boiderous paffion,tlian 
by delicate and fhrinking fenfibility; and, while an indo¬ 
lent languor of feeling is produced by the latter author, 
the perulal of the novel of Goethe is calculated to ftimu- 
late an ungovernable temper, impatience of redraint, and 
contempt for all the lober and rational maxims of life. 
The fenfibility pourtrayed and recommended by Sterne 
is juflly cenfurable, as indulging too much in what may 
be termed the luxury of grief; as direCfed to, and ex¬ 
pended upon, improper and unworthy objeCts, and as to¬ 
tally incompatible with that enlightened and vigorous 
E L. 271 
benevolence, which alone can exercife and improve the 
mind and heart, and confer a real bleffing on mankind : 
but the (elfifhnefs which lurks in it, is by no means fo 
grofs as the felfifhnefs of the hero of the Sorrows of Wer¬ 
ter. He is indeed feelingly alive to every incident and im- 
preflion, but only fo far as they are conneCfed either with 
his own happinefs or with the happinefs of that being 
iu whom he has centred his own. While, however, the 
Sorrow's of Werter muff be condemned on this account, 
they deferve high praife for the difplay of genius which 
they exhibit; genius indeed, not regulated by fober judg¬ 
ment or a refined tafte, but partaking, in a high degree, of 
that impetuofity and extravagance which always dillin- 
guiffi it in a barbarous age. 
It is obferved by M. Breton (Nouveaux Elemens de 
Litterature, 1813) that we have no' longer any eminent 
male novel-writers, but that this clafs of literature is 
transferred to the fair lex, many of whom he enumerates. 
This gentleman’s remark is juft; and at the prefent day 
we can produce but one folitary exception, we mean the 
author of Waverly, See. 
The employment of novel-writing, fays the bifltop of 
Avranches, may be defended not only by the authoritative 
praife of the patriarch Photius, hut by the number of 
great examples in thofe who have pradlifed it. It has 
been cultivated by philofophers of antiquity, as Apuleius 
and Athenagoras; by Roman prastors, as Sifenna; by 
confuls, as Petronius; by candidates for the empire, as 
Claudius Albinus; by pnells, as Theodorus Prodromns ; 
by bifliops, as Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius ; by popes, 
as Pius II. who compofed the loves of Euryalus and Lu- 
cretia ; and by faints, as Clement, who wrote the Re¬ 
cognitions, and John of Damafcus, who wrote Balaam 
and Jofaphat. 
It is well obferved by Johnfon, that the talk of the 
novel-writer “ requires, together with the learning which 
is to be gained from books, that experience which can 
never be attained by folitary diligence, but mull arife 
from general converle and accurate obfervation of the li¬ 
ving world. Their performances have, as Horace ex- 
prelfes it, plus oneris quantum vavia minus, little indul¬ 
gence, and therefore more difficulty. They are engaged 
in portraits of which every one knows the original, and 
can detedl any deviation from exaftnefs of relemblance. 
Other writings are fafe, except from the malice of learn¬ 
ing, but theie are in danger from every common reader; 
as the flipper, ill-executed, was cenfured by a ffioemaker 
who happened to flop in his way at the Venus of Apelles. 
But the fear of not being approved as a juft copier of hu¬ 
man manners, is not the moft important concern that an 
author of this clafs ought to have before him. Novels 
are written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the 
idle, to whom they ferve as ledlures of condu£l and intro- 
duffion into life. In every fuch work, it fhould therefore 
be carefully inculcated, that virtue is the higheft proof 
of underftanding, and the only folid bails of greatnefs ; 
and that vice is the natural confequence of narrow 
thoughts; that it begins in miftake, and ends in ignominy: 
and, iince love mufl be introduced, it fhould be reprefent- 
ed as leading to wretchednefs wheneveritis feparated from 
duty or from prudence.” 
From a view, however, of fome of the beft authors in 
the higheft clafs of novel-writing, it will be abundantly 
evident, that the perulal of thefe works is more calculated 
to be prejudicial than advantageous, unlefs the mind is 
previotifly fortified with found principles, and the paflions 
and feelings are completely under the maflery of the judg¬ 
ment. Even then, their claim mull reft rather on the 
intereft which they excite than on the inftruftion which 
they afford. Whoever draws his opinions of the world, 
of the manners, charadlers^ and purfuits, of mankind, 
from novels, will enter on real life to great difadvantage ; 
forthe perfonages of novels, efpecially of thofewhich teem 
from the modern prefs, either bear no refembTance to 
mankind, or that relemblance confifts in fuch a narrow 
* peculiarity 
