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CHAPTER X.
LITERARY WORK.
1793–1796.
The first volume of An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, and the Effect it has produced in Europe, which Mary wrote during the months she lived in France, was published by Johnson in 1794. It was favourably received and criticised, especially by that portion of the public who had sympathised with the Revolutionists in the controversy with Burke. One admirer, in 1803, declared it was not second even to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It went very quickly through two editions, surest proof of its success.
Mary had apparently spent in idleness the years which had elapsed since the Rights of Women had taken England by storm, but, in reality, she must have made good use of them. This new book marks an enormous advance in her mental development. It is but little disfigured by the faults of style, and is never weakened by the lack of method, which detract from the strength and power of the work by which she is best known. In the French Revolution her
