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Art. 23. The Natural Daughter; with Portraits of the Leaden-Head Family. A Novel. By Mrs. Robinson. In Two Volumes. 12mo. 8s. Longman and Rees. 1800.
It is frequently the task of the modern critic to labour through volumes, of which the best report that can be made is, that they contain no harm, and may be read with no other ill consequence than a waste of time. But even this 'sad civility' must be refused 'The Natural Daughter.' The heroine, a decided flippant female, apparently of the Woolstonecraft [sic] school, is the daughter of a rich citizen, who, during a visit to Bath, attracts a gentleman of the name of Morley, and becomes his wife. Soon after this marriage, Morley has occasion to quit his home; and Mrs Morley, in his absence, adopts an infant, whom chance has thrown in her way, and from this adoption the whole embarrassment of the story arises. Many circumstances contribute to excite a suspicion that this child is her own; instead of explaining them, she departs with the supposed father of the child, and after a variety of adventures becomes a widow, and is united to the object of her attachment. This is all in the usual course of novel reading; but it is the tendency of these volumes which we find ourselves obliged to disapprove. A heroine, whose 'impenetrable safeguard' is pride; who is said to be 'invulnerable' from pride only; who quits her home with a man of gallantry, lives at a lodging, and receives his visits; who, under circumstances of great pecuniary distress, goes to a masquerade with a libertine avowedly endeavouring to seduce her; and, after she has given her hand to one man, her heart to another, debates seriously whether she shall bestow her person on a third; ought not, in our opinion, to be held up as one 'who had never in the smallest instance violated the proprieties of wedded life; who had never been guilty of any action that might, even by the most fastidious, be deemed [321] derogatory to the delicacy of the female character, or the honour of her husband.' Vol. ii, p 233.
Through the whole work, during all the vicissitudes of its heroine, we meet with no sentiment of religion, nor any moral derived from it; and the char of Morley appears to have been conceived purposely to show that an attention to religious duties, a regard for the subordinations of society, and a regular and decent conduct, are to be considered only as a mask for consummate vice. In a novel of this description, we are not sorry to find the style without those attractions which may give it currency. It is inflated, and abounding in phrases which might be called the technicals of literary discontent: 'the petrifying head of avaritious* pride' - 'pre-judging world' - 'unfeeling world' - 'unpitying world' - 'ill-judging.' 'Illiberal world'; with divers other words of like qualifications. Then the inhabitants of these worlds are as unmercifully epitheted as the worlds themselves; 'vulgar minds' - 'unenlightened minds' - 'bosoms unenlightened by the finely organizing hand of Nature' - 'recreant ignorance' - 'vulgar arrogance of less ennobled beings' - 'aristocracy of wealth,' &c. &c. &c. It is needless to add to such examples; we will only observe, that the appellation of 'daring' cannot be applied to Robespierre; and that it is of little use to lament or censure the French revolution, if the morals and manners which tended to produce it, are inculcated and held up for imitation.
*This is the orthography of the book.
[complete] Provided by Julie Shaffer, September 1999.
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