e age of worsted wonders, though, by a happy art, they saved the
fair artists all the trouble of drawing and design. We are still under a
Gothic invasion of trimmings and tapestry, of needlework nondescripts,
moonlight minstrels in canvass, playing under cross-bar balconies; and
all the signs of the zodiac brought down to the level of the ivory
fingers of womankind.

To this, we must acknowledge, that the incipient taste of the ladies for
historical publications, for diving into the trunks of family memorials,
and giving us those private correspondences which are to be found only
by the desperate determination to find something and every thing, is a
fortunate turn of the wheel.

It is true, that England boasts of many distinguished female writers;
that the works of Mrs Radcliffe opened a new vein of rich description
and solemn mystery; that the comedies of Inchbald netted her innocent
and persevering spirit some thousand pounds; and that Joanna Baillie's
tragedies entitle her to an enduring fame. We also acknowledge, with
equal sincerity and gratification, the merits of many of our female
novelists in the past half century; their keen insight into character,
their close anatomy of the general impulses of the human heart, and the
mingled delicacy and force with which they seize on personal
peculiarities, belong to woman alone. But their day, too, has gone down.
They were first rivalled by the "high-life novel," the most vulgar of
all earthly caricatures. They are now extinguished by the low-life
novel; the most intolerable of all earthly realities. The true novel,
true in its fidelity to nature, polished without affectation, and
vigorous without rudeness, now sleeps in the grave, and must sleep,
until posterity shall, with one voice, demand its revival.

Yet, until another race of genius shall arise, and the laurel of
Fielding or of Shakspeare shall descend on our female authors, we must
be grateful for their gentle labours in the rather rugged field of
history.

It must be owned, that gallantry has a good deal to do in giving these
works the name of history. They want all the vigour, all the philosophy,
and all the eloquence of history. Of course, no human being will ever
apply to them as authorities. Still, they have the merit of giving
general statements to general readers, of supplying facts in their
regular order, and probably, of inducing the multitude, who would shrink
from the formalities of Hume or Gibbon in