and that every man who
reads them is obliged to confess to himself, that in similar
circumstances with the personages of Le Sage and Fielding, he would
probably have acted in the way in which they are described to have done.

From this species the transition to a third was natural. The first class
was theory--it was improved into a _generic_ description, and that again
led the way to a more particular classification--a copying not of man in
general, but of men of a peculiar nation, profession, or temper, or, to
go a step further--of _individuals_.

Thus Alcander and Cyrus could never have existed in human society--they
are neither French, nor English, nor Italian, because it is only
allegorically that they are _men_. Tom Jones might have been a
Frenchman, and Gil Blas an Englishman, because the essence of their
characters is human nature, and the personal situation of the individual
is almost indifferent to the success of the object which the author
proposed to himself: while, on the other hand, the characters of the
most popular novels of later times are Irish, or Scotch, or French, and
not in the abstract, _men_.--The general operations of nature are
circumscribed to her effects on an individual character, and the modern
novels of this class, compared with the broad and noble style of the
earlier writers, may be considered as Dutch pictures, delightful in
their vivid and minute details of common life, wonderfully entertaining
to the close observer of peculiarities, and highly creditable to the
accuracy, observation and humour of the painter, but exciting none of
those more exalted feelings, giving none of those higher views of the
human soul which delight and exalt the mind of the spectator of Raphael,
Correggio, or Murillo.

But as in a gallery we are glad to see every style of excellence, and
are ready to amuse ourselves with Teniers and Gerard Dow, so we derive
great pleasure from the congenial delineations of Castle Rack-rent and
Waverley; and we are well assured that any reader who is qualified to
judge of the illustration we have borrowed from a sister art, will not
accuse us of undervaluing, by this comparison, either Miss Edgeworth or
the ingenious author of the work now under consideration. We mean only
to say, that the line of writing which they have adopted is less
comprehensive and less sublime, but not that it is less entertaining or
less useful than that of their predecessors. On the contrary, so far a