]

[Footnote 195: Charles Kingsley, preface to the "Fool of Quality."]

[Footnote 196: Kingsley's preface to "Fool of Quality."]

[Footnote 197: "Alwyn," "Anna St. Ives," "Hugh Trevor," "Bryan
Perdue."]

[Footnote 198: Published in 1817, when the author was far advanced in
years.]

III.

The publication of "Evelina," in 1778, made a sensation which the
merits of the work fully justified. The story of Miss Burney's[199]
early life, her furtive attempts at fictitious composition, the great
variety of artistic and political characters who passed in review
before her observant eyes at Dr. Burney's house have been made familiar
by her own diary and letters. Petted and admired by Johnson, Mrs.
Thrale, and the brilliant literary society of which they formed the
centre, she lived sufficiently far into the present century to see the
works of her early friends enrolled among the classics or consigned to
oblivion, and to recognize that the approval of posterity had been
added to the early fame of her own writings. As a very young girl,
unnoticed by the distinguished persons who frequented her father's
house, she had studied with careful attention the characters and
manners of those who talked and moved about her. A strong desire to
reproduce the impressions which filled her mind induced Miss Burney in
her sixteenth year to devote her stolen hours of seclusion to
fictitious composition. Discouraged in her early efforts by her
stepmother, her habits of observation remained active, and took form,
when the authoress was twenty five years old, in the famous novel of
"Evelina." The book was issued secretly and anonymously, the publisher
even being ignorant of the writer's true name. But the immediate
popularity and admiration which greeted the work soon led to its open
acknowledgment by the happy young authoress.

And "Evelina" fully deserved the praise and interest which it obtained
and still excites. The aim was to describe the difficulties and
sensations of a young girl just entering life. The heroine chosen by
Miss Burney was one whose circumstances particularly well suited her to
form the centre of a varied collection of characters and of a
comprehensive picture of contemporary society. Well connected on her
father's side, Evelina moved in fashionable circles with the Mirvan
family. On account of the origin of her mother she was brought into
close contact with humbler personages, with Madame Duval and the
Brangtons. H