SCOTT AND MISS AUSTEN In 1816 Sir Thomas Bernard, baronet, barrister, and philanthropist, published, having it is said written it three years previously, an agreeable dialogue on _Old Age_, which was very popular, and reached its fifth edition in 1820.

The interlocutors are Bishops Hough and Gibson and Mr.Lyttleton, the supposed time 1740--the year, by accident or design, of _Pamela_.

In this the aged and revered "martyr of Magdalen" is mildly reproached by his brother prelate for liking novels.

Hough puts off the reproach as mildly, and in a most academic manner, by saying that he only admits them _speciali gratia_.

This was in fact the general attitude to the whole kind, not merely in 1740, but after all the work of nearly another life-time as long as Hough's--almost in 1816 itself.