ABSTRACT
The Child of Woe having no marked features to characterize it, we can only term it a truly feminine novel. Indeed, the generality of them, in which improper descriptions are not introduced, are so near akin to each other, that with a few very trifling alterations, the same review would serve for almost all of them. More or less emphasis might be laid on the particular ingredients which compose the following receipt for a novel. Unnatural characters, improbable incidents, sad tales of woe rehearsed in an affected, half-prose, half-poetical style, exquisite double-refined sensibility, dazzling beauty, and elegant drapery, to adorn the celestial body, (these descriptions cannot be too minute) should never be forgotten in a book intended to amuse the fair.
