_Pamela_ in 1740 and _Clarissa Harlowe_ in 1748. Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
had given his immortal _Tom Jones_ to the world in 1749.

Mrs. Morton's _Power of Sympathy_, a novel written with a moral purpose, is
a poorly constructed story of characters whom we fortunately do not meet
outside of books. One of these characters, looking at some flowers
embroidered by the absent object of his affections, says, "It shall yield
more fragrance to my soul than all the bouquets in the universe."

The majority of the early novels, in aiming to teach some lesson, show
the influence of Samuel Richardson, the father of English fiction. This
didactic spirit appears in sober statement of the most self-evident
truths. "Death, my dear Maria, is a serious event," says the heroine of
one of these novels. Another characteristic is tepid or exaggerated
sentimentality. The heroine of _The Power of Sympathy_ dies of a broken
heart "in a lingering graceful manner."

At least twenty-two American novels had been published between 1789 and the
appearance of Charles Brockden Brown's _Wieland_ 1798. Only an antiquary
need linger over these. We must next study the causes that led to a
pronounced change in fiction.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CLASSIC AND THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL.--The next step in
fiction will show a breaking away from the classic or didactic school of
Samuel Richardson and a turning toward the new Gothic or romantic school.
To understand these terms, we must know something of the English influences
that led to this change.

For the first two thirds of the eighteenth century, English literature
shows the dominating influence of the classic school. Alexander Pope