"Perhaps this may seem rather a bold attempt and title for a female whose knowledge of the world is very confined, and whose inclinations, as well as situation, incline her to a private and domestic life. All I can urge is, that I have only presumed to trace the accidents and adventures to which a 'young woman' is liable: I have not pretended to show the world what it generally is, but what it appears to a girl of seventeen; and so far as that, surely any girl who is past seventeen may safely do. The motto of my excuse shall be taken from Pope's Essay on Criticism':

"In every work regard the writer's end;

Since none can compass more than they intend.""

Miss Burney was not exempt from the uneasy and anxious feelings which always attend the neophyte's first appearance before the public. She dreaded the slings and arrows of criticism; and when her success on this point reassured her, she shrank nervously from the publicity in which her literary enterprise had involved her. "I have an exceeding odd sensation," she writes, "when I consider that it is now in the power of any and every body to read what I so carefully hoarded even from my best friends, till this last month or two; and that a work which was so lately lodged, in all privacy, in my bureau, may now be seen by every butcher and baker, cobbler and tinker, throughout the three kingdoms, for the small tribute of threepence."

At first the reception given to "Evelina" was languid.

The publisher was not a man of much influence; the book was not recommended by any well-known name; to the veteran novel-reader the subject promised little of interest or excitement; while by large sections of the public all works of fiction were condemned as injurious or, at the best, unprofitable. But by slow degrees its merits attracted the discerning few, who hastened to make known their opinion to a wider circle. And at last it began to be rumoured that something altogether new and fresh awaited the perusal of the judicious reader. Mrs. Thrale, then at the zenith of her social influence, read it with delight, and pronounced it far superior (Heaven save the mark!) to Madame Riccoborie's tales. She recommended it to Dr. Johnson, and when the literary Rhadamanthus had read it, he too declared warmly in its favour. "Why, madam," he exclaimed, "what a charming book you lent me!" and he added that passages in it would do honour to Richardson, and that Fielding never drew such a character as "Mr. Smith." The demand at the circulating libraries—which no Mudie as yet had arisen to reform-was incessant. The publisher's shop was crowded with purchasers, all eager to know the name of the author. The London Review, and afterwards the Monthly, confirmed the success of "Evelina" by their solemn critical approval.

The secret of the authorship was well preserved. Some persons ascribed it to Christopher Anstey, the author of "The New Bath Guide"; others whispered. that Horace Walpole could tell all about it. Sir Joshua

Reynolds, who had put aside his palette and easel to read this wonderful new novel, protested he would give fifty pounds to know the author. Not less curious was Edmund Burke, who having begun to read it one evening at seven, sat up all night to finish it. Amid this gentle flutter of enthusiasm, Dr. Burney went to call upon Mrs. Thrale at Streatham. A record of the conversation is preserved by Miss Burney:

"He took the opportunity, when they were together, of saying that upon her recommendation he had himself, as well as my mother, been reading 'Evelina.'

"Well,' cried she, and is it not a very pretty book, and a very clever book, and a very comical book?'

"Why,' answered he, ''tis well enough; but I have something to tell you about it.'

"Well? what?' cried she; has Mrs. Cholmondely found out the author?'

"No,' returned he, 'not that I know of; but I believe that I have, though but very lately.'

"Well, pray let's hear!' cried she, eagerly; 'I want to know him of all things.'

"How my father must have laughed at the him! He then, however, undeceived her in regard to that particular by telling her it was our Fanny!' for she knows all about our family; as my father talks to her of his domestic concerns without any reserve.

"A hundred handsome things, of course, followed; and she afterwards read some of the comic parts to Dr. Johnson, Mr. Thrale, and whoever came near her. How

I should have quivered had I been there! but they tell me that Dr. Johnson laughed as heartily as my father himself did."

What Mrs. Thrale knew was soon known to all the world; and great was the surprise when it was found that the novel which had won

so great and such deserved applause for its vivid sketches of character and its keen analysis of human follies, was the work of Dr. Burney's demure and silent young daughter. The sensation produced has been almost equalled in our own times by that which arose on the discovery of the authorship of "Jane Eyre." Only now-a-days the world has so much to talk about. The daily papers supply it with a succession of fresh topics, and this week engages its interest in revolutions in Madagascar, next week in cometary disturbances and magnetic storms. To-day's wonder treads on the heels of yesterday's, and in its turn will be pushed aside by to-morrow's. A century ago the case was different. It took a week—a fortnight—a month, for a piece of news to obtain general diffusion. People had time to discuss it in every shape; to take it up again and again; to gather the opinion of their neighbours upon it; to make it the subject of the coffee-house chat or the drawing-room conversation. Thus it came to pass that "Evelina" and its author for a long time remained the curiosity and admiration of the town; and that Fanny Burney had leisure not only to taste of the delights of fame, but thoroughly to enjoy them. There was no risk of her speedy supercession by a new favourite.

And now what are we to say of the book that in the days when George the Third was king so flurried and fevered the little great men and women and the great little men and women of London society? Primarily, that it is exactly the book in tone and style which one might have expected from Fanny Burney with her peculiar girlhood experiences. It is a vulgar book, and she was bred in a vulgar atmosphere; and an ungenial book, and there was nothing to develop any geniality in her. It is crowded with commonplace characters, such as she had known and studied; and reflects the low, dull, dreary life of mean aims and small objects which she saw lived around her. It makes no appeal to our higher thoughts or better feelings; says nothing which can strike a single passionate chord in our hearts. If it had contained a single flash of insight into the mysteries of life-a single recognition of all that is inscrutable and unintelligible in human fortune and human destiny-a single touch of deep and true emotion —it would have been to this day a living book, instead of a "standard fiction " which men criticize but do not read.

At the time the story opens, Evelina, the heroine, is seventeen, beautiful exceedingly, not less amiable than beautiful, and, as might be expected of a young lady in her "teens," thoughtless and imprudent. She has been educated by a Mr. Villars, the clergyman who had officiated at her mother's marriage; this mother being a girl of low birth whose beauty had fascinated a man of