"'The deity of soft desires,' said he, 'flies the confused glare of pomp and public shews;--'tis in the shady bowers, or on the banks of a sweet purling stream, he spreads his downy wings, and wafts his thousand nameless pleasures on the fond--the innocent and the happy pair.' "He was going on, but she interrupted him with a loud laugh. 'Hold, hold,' cried she; 'was there ever such a romantick description? I wonder how such silly ideas come into your head--"shady bowers! and purling streams!"--Heavens, how insipid! Well' (continued she), 'you may be the Strephon of the woods, if you think fit; but I shall never envy the happiness of the Chloe that accompanies you in these fine recesses. What! to be cooped up like a tame dove, only to coo, and bill, and breed? O, it would be a delicious life, indeed!'"[8] Thus completely metamorphosed were the heroines of Mrs. Haywood's maturest fiction. Betsy Thoughtless is not even the innocent, lovely, and pliable girl typified in Fielding's Sophia Western. She is eminently hard-headed, inquisitive, and practical, and is justly described by Sir Walter Raleigh as "own cousin to Roderick Random."[9] Whether she may be considered also the ancestor of Evelina must briefly be considered. Dunlop, who apparently originated the idea that "Betsy Thoughtless" might have suggested the plan of Miss Burney's novel, worked out an elaborate parallel between the plots and some of the chief characters of the two compositions.[10] Both, as he pointed out, begin with the launching of a young girl on the great and busy stage of life in London. Each heroine has much to endure from the vulgar manners of a Lady Mellasin or a Madam Duval, and each is annoyed by the malice and impertinence of a Miss Flora or the Misses Branghton. Through their inexperience in the manners of the world and their heedlessness or ignorance of ceremony both young ladies are mortified by falling into embarrassing and awkward predicaments. Both in the same way alarm the delicacy and almost alienate the affections of their chosen lovers. "The chief perplexity of Mr. Trueworth, the admirer of Miss Thoughtless, arose from meeting her in company with Miss Forward, who had been her companion at a boarding-school, and of whose infamous character she was ignorant. In like manner the delicacy of Lord Orville is wounded, and his attachment shaken, by meeting his Evelina in similar society at Vauxhall. The subsequent visit and counsel of the lovers to their mistresses is seen, however, in a very different point of view by the heroines." The likeness between the plots of the two novels is indeed sufficiently striking to attract the attention of an experienced hunter for literary parallels, but unfortunately there is no external evidence to show that Miss Burney ever read her predecessor's work. One need only compare any two parallel characters, the common profligate, Lady