I doubt whether very many now living have read _Camilla_.

Even _Cecilia_ requires an effort, and does not repay that effort very well.

Only _Evelina_ itself is legible and relegible--for reasons which will be given presently.

Yet _Cecilia_ was written shortly after _Evelina_, under the same stimulus of abundant and genial society, with no pressure except that of friendly encouragement and perhaps assistance, and long before the supposed blight of royal favour and royal exigences came upon its author.

When _Camilla_ was published she had been relieved from these exigences, though not from that favour, for five years: and was a thoroughly happy woman, rejoicing in husband and child.