that hypothesis; the novelist, on the contrary, makes no
demand of extraordinary machinery, but professes to describe what may
actually take place, according to the existing laws of human affairs: if
he therefore present us with a series of events quite unlike any which
ever do take place, we have reason to complain that he has not made good
his professions.

When, therefore, the generality, even of the most approved novels, were
of this character (to say nothing of the heavier charges brought, of
inflaming the passions of young persons by warm descriptions, weakening
their abhorrence of profligacy by exhibiting it in combination with the
most engaging qualities, and presenting vice in all its allurements,
while setting forth the triumphs of "virtue rewarded") it is not to be
wondered that the grave guardians of youth should have generally
stigmatized the whole class, as "serving only to fill young people's
heads with romantic love-stories, and rendering them unfit to mind
anything else." That this censure and caution should in many instances
be indiscriminate, can surprize no one, who recollects how rare a
quality discrimination is; and how much better it suits indolence, as
well as ignorance, to lay down a rule, than to ascertain the exceptions
to it: we are acquainted with a careful mother whose daughters while
they never in their lives read a _novel_ of any kind, are permitted to
peruse, without reserve, any _plays_ that happen to fall in their way;
and with another, from whom no lessons, however excellent, of wisdom and
piety, contained in a _prose-fiction,_ can obtain quarter; but who, on
the other hand, is no less indiscriminately indulgent to her children in
the article of tales in _verse_, of whatever character.

The change, however, which we have already noticed, as having taken
place in the character of several modern novels, has operated in a
considerable degree to do away this prejudice; and has elevated this
species of composition, in some respects at least, into a much higher
class. For most of that instruction which used to be presented to the
world in the shape of formal dissertations, or shorter and more
desultory moral essays, such as those of the _Spectator_ and _Rambler_,
we may now resort to the pages of the acute and judicious, but not less
amusing, novelists who have lately appeared. If their views of men and
manners are no less just than those of the essayists who preceded them,
are they to be