Note (return) — Chapter IV · THE MINOR AND LATER EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL7

The following of that ingenious and now too much under-valued writer stood her in better stead in the Moral Tales (1801) (which she deliberately called after his16), the Popular Tales of the same kind, and (though Marmontel did not intentionally write for children) the delightful Parent's Assistant (1801) and Frank. In the two first-named divisions, the narrative faculty just mentioned appears admirably, together with another and still greater gift, that of character-painting, and even a grasp of literary and social satire, which might not be anticipated from some of her other books. The French governess (Mlle. Panache) and the satire on romantic young-ladyism (Angelina) are excellent examples of this. As for the pure child's stories, generation after generation of competent criticism, childish and adult, has voted them by acclamation into almost the highest place possible: and the gain-sayers have for the most part been idle paradoxers, ill-conditioned snarlers at things clean and sweet, or fools pure and simple.