Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

The Younger Brother: a Novel

London

Printed for the Author

1793

"Her mind was a kind of circulating library in little, and I sincerely wish romances were always attended with the same good effects they produced in her; for there is scarcely a good moral inculcated by them that she did not act up to."

What made her company so particularly desirable, was the astonishing fund of information she had treasured up, by sitting in her father's shop. Her mind was a kind of circulating library in little, and I sincerely wish romances were always attended with the same good effects they produced in her; for there is scarcely a good moral inculcated by them that she did not act up to. Not that she had not formed a decided opinion of writings as well as writers; but she rarely broached that opinion, thinking with Madam DACIER that silence was the best ornament of the female sex. It was evident, however, that it was wisely and judiciously chosen, for at the head of her favourite authors she placed Dr. JOHNSON; though I rather think her great admiration of him must have been as a critic, for the Doctor is known to have entertained a rooted dislike to mythology, and indeed every figurative writing which does not square with what he calls truth and morality; whereas Emma maintained that morality being the noblest drift of literature, those writings were the most perfect which brought virtue into danger, that she might rise the more triumphant; and that such productions received an additional force and beauty from allegory and mythological allusion.
(X, p. 84)

Writing::Library Animals::Library

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3 entries in ESTC (1793).

The Younger Brother: a Novel, in Three Volumes, Written by Mr. Dibdin. (London: Printed for the Author, and Sold at his Warehouse, 1793). <Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP>

11/10/2013