e
from a literary and from a historical point of view, it includes also a
great quantity of worthless and injurious writing. By far the larger
number of novels published were of a kind likely to exert an evil
influence on their readers. Their coarseness and licentiousness had a
strong tendency to disseminate the morbid thoughts and unregulated
passions which dictated their production. So general was the feeling
that a work of fiction would probably contain immoral and debasing
views of life, that the novel and the novelist, were both looked upon
askance. "In the republic of letters," said Miss Burney, "there is no
member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his
brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less
hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers
perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous
but less respectable." Miss Edgeworth, in the beginning of the present
century, felt it necessary to call her first novel "a moral tale,"
because so much folly, error, and vice are disseminated in books
classed "under the denomination of novels." A great part of the fiction
of the last century, as indeed of our own time, possesses neither the
value of a work of art nor that belonging to the description and
preservation of contemporary manners. Nor could the excuse of the
amusement they afforded be called up in their favor. No amusement is
worth having which is not healthy and innocent. The general prejudice
which formerly existed against novels very much lessened their
circulation, and lessened the evil done by licentious productions.
Careful parents did not allow a novel in their children's hands which
had not passed an examination--a precaution now too generally
neglected.

But notwithstanding all the trash, and worse than trash, which has gone
into circulation under the broad and attractive term of novel, it is
evident that the English speaking public on both sides of the Atlantic
demand purity in the works of fiction which are submitted to its
judgment. While no literary work can present a greater claim to
permanent favor than a really good novel, none is more certain to be
quite ephemeral than a bad one, whether its badness consist in the
manner or the matter. For more than a hundred years "The Vicar of
Wakefield" has held its own, while hundreds of novels which created
more sensation at the time of their appearance have fallen into
everl