ABSTRACT

The Characters of Prevot, Le Sage, Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau. From the French of La Jolie Femme; or, La Femme du Jour: An entertaining Novel, published at Lyons, 1769. pp. 366. in 12mo.1

The Memoirs of a Man of Quality,2 Cleveland, and the Dean of Coleraine, [by the Abbé Prevot,] present us with a number of strong and interesting situations. If the artifice is not so profound as to deprive us of every idea of fiction, the Author is so ingenious as to oblige us to be accessary to it. All the sentiments which he conveys spring from a heart so fertile, so sensible, so honest, that we listen to him as to a friend who relates to us misfortunes which he has suffered. It is a beautiful river, vast and majestic, which sometimes overflows, but which carries you away with it, and makes you go much farther than you intended. Add, that the charm of good manners breathes through his writings, and that the gloom which prevails there, causes a pleasing melancholy, and not a heart-rending grief. He who has not bathed with tears Manon Lescaut3 ought to forswear every sentimental work.