ttempts as those of the Duchess of Newcastle to
the writings of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn. These two novelists, if such
they may still be called, represent, in narrative fiction, the period
which extends from the Restoration to the opening of the eighteenth
century. They have left us little, and that of very indifferent merit.
But their stories have a certain importance, inasmuch as with them
begins the tendency, in English fiction, to deal with the actual,
instead of the imaginary, to describe characters and scenes meant to
represent real life.

The daughter of Sir Roger Manley, at one time Governor of Guernsey,
Mrs. Manley was seduced, when quite a young woman, and passed the
remainder of her life in a licentiousness which has evidently inspired
her literary productions. Having picked up a few stories from current
report, she worked them into what she called "The Power of Love, in
Seven Novels."[88] The "love" here described is an unregulated animal
passion, and its "power" is the natural effect of such a passion upon
men and women who have no idea of self-restraint or refinement. The
result is a series of licentious scenes, unredeemed by any literary
merit. Mrs. Manley's most prominent work was the "Secret Memoirs and
Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes. From the New
Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean." This book is a scandalous
chronicle of crimes reputed to have been committed by persons of high
rank, and the names are so thinly disguised as to be easily identified.
Mrs. Manley was arrested and prosecuted for the publication, but
escaped without serious punishment. The work itself had a wide
circulation, and Pope adopted the endurance of its fame as a measure of
time in his shortsighted line, "As long as Atalantis shall be read."

In the beginning of this book a female personage named Astraea resolves
to revisit the earth, which she had long before abandoned in disgust.
She alights upon an island in the Mediterranean, named Atalantis, which
is meant to signify England, and a female form immediately rises up
before her.

Her habit _obsolete_ and _torn_, almost degenerated into tatters;
But her Native Charms, that needed not the Help of Art, gave to
Astraea's returning Remembrance that it could be no other than her
beautiful Mother Vertue. But oh! how despicable her Garments! how
neglected her flowing Hair! How languid her formally animated Eyes!
How pale, how withere