r Evelina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the author.
Then came a favorable notice in the London Review; then another still
more favorable in the Monthly. And now the book found its way to tables
which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes. Scholars and
statesmen, who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss
Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they
could not tear themselves away from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich
liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the
publisher's shop in Fleet Street. Lowndes was daily questioned about the
author, but was himself as much in the dark as any of the questioners.
The mystery, however, could not remain a mystery long. It was known to
brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins; and they were far too proud and
too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept over the book in rapture.
Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate anger at not
having been admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered to Mrs.
Thrale; and then it began to spread fast.

The book had been admired while it was ascribed to men of letters long
conversant with the world, and accustomed to composition. But when it
was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work
of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett, the
acclamations were redoubled. What she had done was, indeed,
extraordinary. But, as usual, various reports improved the story till it
became miraculous. Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of
seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down
to our own time. Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she was
too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her
detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there was no want of
low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first
appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp
George Steevens, and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however,
occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they
might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly
chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose
spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a
worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our
readers have doubtless seen round