Henry is Joseph; Susan May is a much more elaborate and attractive Betty; the doctor's wife a vulgarised and repulsive Lady Booby; Ezekiel Daw, whom Scott admired, a _dissenting_ Adams--the full force of the outrage of which variation Sir Walter perhaps did not feel.

There are some good things in the story, but, as a whole, it is chiefly valuable as an early example of that great danger of modern literature--the influence of the "printed book" itself: and in a less degree of that forging ahead of the novel generally in public favour which we are chronicling.

If the kind had not been popular, and if Fielding had not been its great prophet, one may be pretty sure that _Henry_ would never have existed.

The causes are important: the effect not quite so.
There was, however, at this time a novel-school, and not such a very small one, which had more legitimate reasons for existence, inasmuch as it really served as mouthpiece to the thoughts and opinions of the time, whether these thoughts and opinions were good or bad.

This may be called the "revolutionary school," and its three most distinguished scholars were Bage, Holcroft, and Godwin, with Mrs.Inchbald perhaps to be added.
The first began considerably before the outbreak of the actual French Revolution and shows the influence of its causes: the others were directly influenced by itself.
One of the most remarkable of English novel-writers who are not absolute successes, and one who, though less completely obscured by Fortune than some, has never had quite his due, is Robert Bage.