he admits, is rather to the middle and lower classes than to “the highest Life,” which he considers to present “very little Humour or Entertainment.” His characters (as before) are based upon actual experience; or, as he terms it, “Conversation.” He does not propose to present his reader with “Models of Perfection;” he has never happened to meet with those “faultless Monsters.” He holds that mankind is constitutionally defective, and that a single bad act does not, of necessity, imply a bad nature. He has also observed, without surprise, that virtue in this world is not always “the certain Road to Happiness,” nor “Vice to Misery.” In short, having been admitted “behind the Scenes of this Great Theatre of Nature,” he paints humanity as he has found it, extenuating nothing, nor setting down aught in malice, but reserving the full force of his satire and irony for affectation and hypocrisy. His sincere endeavour, he says moreover in his dedication to Lyttelton, has been “to recommend Goodness and Innocence,” and promote the cause of religion and virtue. And he has all the consciousness that what he is engaged upon is no ordinary enterprise. He is certain that his pages will outlive both “their own infirm Author” and his enemies; and he appeals to Fame to solace and reassure him—
“Come, bright Love of Fame,”—says the beautiful “Invocation” which begins the thirteenth Book,—“inspire my glowing Breast: Not thee I call, who over swelling Tides of Blood and Tears, dost bear the Heroe on to Glory, while Sighs of Millions waft his spreading Sails; but thee, fair, gentle Maid, whom Mnesis, happy Nymph, first on the Banks of Hebrus didst produce. Thee, whom Maeonia educated, whom Mantua charm’d, and who, on that fair Hill which overlooks the proud Metropolis of Britain, sat, with thy Milton, sweetly
