From the many references to her in the letters and journals of the period, she seems to have been popular with the writers of both political parties. Swift writes to Stella that she is a very generous person "for one of that sort," which many little incidents prove. She dedicated her play _Lucius_ to Steele, with whom she was on alternate terms of enmity and friendship, as a public retribution for her ridicule of him in the _New Atalantis_, saying that "scandal between Whig and Tory goes for not." Steele, equally generous, wrote a prologue for the play, perhaps in retribution for some of the harsh criticisms of her in the _Tatler_. All readers of Pope remember the reference to her in the _Rape of the Lock_, where Lord Petre exclaims that his honour, name and praise shall live As long as Atalantis shall be read. Although Mrs. Manley's pen was constantly and effectively employed in the interest of the Tory party, she being at one time the editor of the _Examiner_, the Tory organ, none of her writings had the popularity of the _New Atalantis_. It went through seven editions and was translated into the French. The book has no intrinsic merit; its language is scurrilous and obscene; but it appealed to the eager curiosity of the public concerning the private immoralities of men and women who were prominent at court. Human nature in its pages furnishes a contemptible spectacle. The _New Atalantis_ has now, however, assumed a permanent place in the history of fiction. This species of writing had been common, in France, but it was the first English novel in which political and personal scandal formed the groundwork of a romance. Swift followed its general plan in _Gulliver's Travels_, placing his political enemies in public office in Lilliput and Brobdingnag, only he so wrought upon them with his imagination that he gave to the world a finished work of art, while Mrs. Manley has left only the raw material with which the artist works. Smollett's political satire, _Adventures of an Atom_, was also suggested by the _New Atalantis_, but here the earlier writer has surpassed the later. All three of these writers took a low and cynical view of humanity. The women novelists who directly followed Mrs. Manley did not have her strength, but they had a delicacy that has given to their writings a subtle charm. From the time of Sarah Fielding to the present threatened reaction the writings of women have been marked by chastity of thought and purity of expression. CHAPTER II Sarah Fielding. Mrs. Lennox. Mrs. Haywood. Mrs. Sheridan