ristophanes, to edit the Paradise Lost. Inigo failed when he
attempted to rival the Gothic churches of the fourteenth century.
Wilkie failed when he took it into his head that the Blind Fiddler and
the Rent Day were unworthy of his powers, and challenged competition
with Lawrence as a portrait painter. Such failures should be noted for
the instruction of posterity; but they detract little from the permanent
reputation of those who have really done great things.

Yet one word more. It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of
Madame D'Arblay's early works that she is entitled to honorable mention.
Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. Evelina
was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a picture of
life and manners, that lived or deserved to live. The Female Quixote is
no exception. That work has undoubtedly great merit, when considered as
a wild satirical harlequinade; but, if we consider it as a picture of
life and manners, we must pronounce it more absurd than any of the
romances which it was designed to ridicule.

Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina were such as
no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could
without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held
in horror among religious people. In decent families, which did not
profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all
such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina
appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and
husbands when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree of
diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the grave and
reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung. The novelist
having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious
people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem
almost incredible.

Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the
English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a
tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life
of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic
humor, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with
rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach
which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She
vindicated the right of her sex