Excerpt from A Popular Manual of English Literature, Vol. 2 of 2: Containing Outlines of the Literature of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States of America With Historical, Scientific, and Art Notes Laurence Sterne's celebrated Tristram Shan dy, in nine volumes (1759 attained the height of public favor and made its author a social hero in London circles. Sterne excelled in the delineation of character - ih psychological observation, which had something of the Shake spearian spirit in it. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766) is best known at the present day of the novels of the Johnsonian Age, and will always be read for its simplicity and del icate humor. The first of the so-called Society novels was Frances Burney's Evelina and it was followed in 1782 by Cecilia. Her novels were exceedingly moral, and afford inter esting pictures of life and manners in that age. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.