"They contain a large assemblage of manly and sagacious remarks on human life and manners,"[201] wrote the _Quarterly_ reviewer.
The writers considered were all British, with the exception of LeSage.
The choice, or at least the arrangement, seems more or less haphazard.
Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett naturally began the group, and Sterne followed after an interval.

Johnson and Goldsmith were treated briefly, for the prefaces were to be proportioned to the amount of work by each author included in the text.

Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve, and Mrs.
Radcliffe represented the Gothic romance.

Charles Johnstone, Robert Bage, and Richard Cumberland were among the inferior writers included.
Henry Mackenzie, who was still living and was a personal friend of Scott, completes the list so far as it went before the series was terminated by the publisher's death.

When Scott's _Miscellaneous Prose Works_ were collected he added the lives of Charlotte Smith and Defoe, but in each of these cases the biographical portion was by another hand, the criticism being his own.[202] The study of the novel as a _genre_ was naturally undeveloped at that time.