ence this novel presents to the reader a variety of social
scenes which gives it a value possessed by no other work of fiction of
the eighteenth century. No novelist has described so well or so fully
the aspect of the theatres, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, of Bath in the
season, of the ridottos and assemblies of the London fashionable world.
The shops, the amusements and the manners of the middle classes are
made familiar to Evelina by her association with the Brangtons, and add
greatly to the breadth of this valuable picture of metropolitan life.
With a feminine attention to detail, and a quick perception of salient
characteristics, Miss Burney described the world about her so
faithfully and picturesquely as to deserve the thanks of every student
of social history. The novel of "Evelina," the letters of Horace
Walpole and Mrs. Delany corroborate each other, and may be
appropriately placed on the same shelf in a well-ordered library.

In the painting of manners Miss Burney was eminently successful. But
she was hardly less so in a point in which excellence could not have
been expected in so youthful a writer. The plot of "Evelina" is
constructed with a skill worthy of a veteran. Fielding alone, of the
eighteenth century novelists, can be said to surpass Miss Burney in
this respect. The whole story of the mischances and misunderstanding of
Evelina's intercourse with Lord Orville, the skill with which the
various personages are brought into contact with each other and made to
contribute to the final _denoument_, compose a truly artistic success.
The introduction of Macartney and his marriage to the supposed daughter
of Sir John Belmont form a very happy and effective invention.

In regard to her sketches of character, it may be objected that Miss
Burney lacked breadth of treatment, that she dwelt on one distinctive
characteristic at the expense of the others. But still, Lord Orville,
though somewhat too much of a model, and Mrs. Selwyn, though somewhat
too habitually a wit, are vivid and life-like characters. The Brangtons
and Sir Clement Willougby are nature itself, and the girlish nature of
Evelina is betrayed in her letters with great felicity.

It is no small triumph for Miss Burney, who has had so many and so
deserving competitors in the department of literature to which she
contributed, that her novels should have remained in active
circulation for more than a century after their publication. "Cecilia"
has much the sa