Published at twenty years' distance (1785 and 1804) they show the rapid growth of the novel, even during a time when nothing of the first class appeared.

_Anna, or the Memoirs of a Welsh Heiress, interspersed with Anecdotes of a Nabob_, is a kind of bad imitation of Miss Burney, with a catchpenny "interspersion" to suit the day.

_Adeline Mowbray_, written with more talent, chimes in by infusing one of the tones of _its_ day--Godwinian theories of life.

The space between was the palmy time of that now almost legendary "Minerva Press" which, as has been said, flooded the ever-absorbent market with stuff of which _The Libertine_, masterpiece of Mrs.Byrne, _alias_ Charlotte Dacre, _alias_ "Rosa Matilda," is perhaps best worth singling out from its companions, _Hours of Solitude, The Nun of St.Omers, Zofloya_, etc., because it specially shocked the censor of the style who will be mentioned presently.

It is pure (or not-pure) rubbish.