ABSTRACT
The most excellent, but at the same time the most difficult, species of novel-writing consists in an accurate and interesting representation of such manners and characters as society presents; not, indeed, every-day characters, for the interest excited by them would be feeble; yet so far they ought to be common characters, as to enable the reader to judge whether the copy be a free, faithful, and even improved sketch from Nature. Such is the Clarissa of Richardson, and such is the Tom Jones of Fielding. Miss Burney’s Cecilia is also a striking instance of the higher novel; the more remarkable, indeed, as it displays a knowledge of the world which the forms of society rarely allow to women an opportunity of attaining.
