THE OLD MANOR HOUSE

Charlotte Smith's novels indicate the direction in which literary tendencies were turning at the close of the 18th century. Romantic incidents and sentimentalism were products of a revolt from coarse realism or an exclusive appeal to the senses. By their extravagance and exaggeration they in turn produced a reaction; but this time the reaction took the shape, not of a recoil into some contrary extreme, but of a compromise.

The new masters of fiction did not fly off at a tangent in some diff...