A History of English Literature

permanent literature, but they were historically important, largely because
they prepared the way for the novels of Walter Scott, which would hardly
have come into being without them, and which show clear signs of the
influence of even their most exaggerated features.
NOVELS OF PURPOSE. Still another sort of novel was that which began to be
written in the latter part of the century with the object of exposing some
particular abuse in society. The first representatives of the class aimed,
imitating the French sentimentalist Rousseau, to improve education, and in
accordance with the sentimental Revolutionary misconception which held that
all sin and sorrow result from the corruptions of civilization, often held
up the primitive savage as a model of all the kindly virtues. The most
important of the novels of purpose, however, were more thorough-going
attacks on society composed by radical revolutionists, and the least
forgotten is the 'Caleb Williams' of William Godwin (1794), which is
intended to demonstrate that class-distinctions result in hopeless moral
confusion and disaster.
MISS BURNEY AND THE FEMININE NOVEL OF MANNERS. The most permanent results
of the latter part of the century in fiction were attained by three women
who introduced and successively continued the novel which depicts, from the
woman's point of view, with delicate satire, and at first in the hope of
accomplishing some reform, or at least of showing the beauty of virtue and
morality, the contemporary manners of well-to-do 'society.' The first of
these authoresses was Miss Frances Burney, who later became Madame
D'Arblay, but is generally referred to familiarly as Fanny Burney.
The unassuming daughter of a talented and much-esteemed musician,
acquainted in her own home with many persons of distinction, such as
Garrick and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and given from girlhood to the private
writing of stories and of a since famous Diary, Miss Burney composed her
'Evelina' in leisure intervals during a number of years, and published it
when she was twenty-five, in 1778. It recounts, in the Richardsonian letter
form, the experiences of a country girl of good breeding and ideally fine
character who is introduced into the life of London high society, is
incidentally brought into contact with disagreeable people of various
types, and soon achieves a great triumph by being acknowledged as the
daughter of a repentant and wealthy man of fashion and by marrying an
impossibly perfect young gentleman, also of great wealth. Structure and
substance in 'Evelina' are alike somewhat amateurish in comparison with the
novels of the next century; but it does manifest, together with some lack
of knowledge of the real world, genuine understanding of the core, at
least, of many sorts of character; it presents artificial society life with
a light and pleasing touch; and it brought into the novel a welcome
atmosphere of womanly purity and delicacy. 'Evelina' was received with
great applause and Miss Burney wrote other books, but they are without
importance. Her success won her the friendship of Dr. Johnson and the
position of one of the Queen's waiting women, a sort of gilded slavery
which she endured for five years. She was married in middle-age to a French
emigrant officer, Monsieur D'Arblay, and lived in France and England until
the age of nearly ninety, latterly an inactive but much respected figure
among the writers of a younger generation.
MISS EDGEWORTH. Much more voluminous and varied was the work of Miss
Burney's successor, Maria Edgeworth, who devoted a great part of her long
life (1767-1849) to active benevolence and to attendance on her father, an
eccentric and pedantic English gentleman who lived mostly on his estate in
Ireland and who exercised the privilege of revising or otherwise meddling
with most of her books. In the majority of her works Miss Edgeworth