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1. The word "romance is here used in a sense which implies, that, in works so called, some preternatural or supernatural agency is instrumental in working out the plot. We have not many serious romances in English; The "Grand Cyprus," and other delectable productions of Scudéry and Calprenède, were read, admired, and translated amongst us in their day, but do not appear to have been imitated, at least in prose. "St. Leon," by Godwin," Frankenstein, or the Ghost-seer," by his daughter Mrs. Shelley, and "The Old English Baron," by Clara Reeve, are among the principal performances in this kind. "The Phantom Ship," by Capt. Marryatt, is a remarkable and beautiful story, founded on the grand old legend of "The Flying Dutchman." One of the Waverley novels, "The Monastery, in which the apparitions of the White Lady of Avenel have an important influence on the development of the story, falls accordingly within the scope of our definition. The most notable examples of the mock romance are "The Travels of Lemuel Gulliver." The comic variety is exemplified in the Voyages of Brobdingnag and Lilliput, the satirical in the Voyages to the Houynhnms and Laputa.

2. The distinction of novels into artistic and didactic is founded on the different aims which entered into their composition. The artistic novel aims at the beautiful representation of things and persons, such as they really appear in nature, or may be conceived capable of becoming; its purpose is æsthetic, and not moral. Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister" is a celebrated instance. The didactic novel has some special moral lesson in view, which the progress and issue of the story are intended to enforce. Godwin's "Caleb Williams," Bulwer's "Paul Clifford" and "Eugene Aram," and the whole class of religious novels, are instances in point.

3. Among tales of adventure, Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" bears the palm. Among the many imitations, more or less close, to which that celebrated production has given rise, may be particularized Miss Porter's "Narrative of Sir Edward Seaward," and Capt. Marryatt's delightful story of " Masterman Ready." "The "Travels of Anastasius," by Hope, enjoyed a great reputation fifty years ago.

4. Novels of the past are not all necessarily historical novels, since they may relate to supposed events in the private life of former ages, whereas by the historical novel is commonly understood a work of which the interest principally turns on the introduction of some personages or events of historic fame. Thus Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii," in which none of the characters are historical, can only, if at all, claim the title of an historical novel in virtue of the historic catastrophe,, -the great eruption of Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii in ashes in the reign of Vespasian.

In the historical novel, Sir Walter Scott, the inventor of the style, remains unapproached. Out of twenty-seven novels (omitting short tales) which compose the Waverley series, twenty are historical. The most remote period to which the author has ascended is the eleventh century, the events described in "Count Robert of Paris" being supposed to occur during the first crusade. This, however, is one of the latest and least interesting of the series. "The Betrothed," "The Talisman,” and “Ivanhoe,” refer to the twelfth century; the grand, romantic personage of Richard Cœur de Lion figuring prominently in both the novels last named. The thirteenth century seems to have had no attractions for our author; and even in the fourteenth, a period so memorable both in English and Scottish history, he has given us only "The Fair Maid of

Perth" and "Castle Dangerous," the striking story of "Rienzi" was left for Bulwer to appropriate, and work up into an historical fiction of the highest order. In the fifteenth century, the reign of Louis XI. is admirably illustrated in "Quentin Durward;" in which the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, is presented to us in the plenitude of his power and prosperity; while in "Anne of Geierstein" we see that power humbled to the dust by the arms of the sturdy Switzers. "The Monastery," with its sequel "The Abbot," exhibits the distracted state of Scotland during the religious wars of the sixteenth century. In "Kenilworth,” which belongs to the same period, the scene is laid in England, and the interest centres in Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and the unfortunate Amy Robsart. The seventeenth century must have possessed a peculiar interest for Scott; for the plots of no less than five of his novels are laid in it, and some of these are among the most successful efforts of his genius. The learned fool James I. is introduced in "The Fortunes of Nigel;" "The Legend of Montrose " brings before us the exploits of that gallant but ill-starred chief, and creates for us the admirable portrait of the veteran soldier trained in the Thirty Years' War under Gustavus Adolphus, the incomparable Major Dalgetty; Cromwell appears in "Woodstock; ""Peveril of the Peak" illustrates the startling contrasts which existed between the gay immoral society gathered round the court of Charles II., and the terrible Puritan element beneath the surface, crushed down but still formidable; lastly, in "Old Mortality," deemed by many to be the author's most perfect production, the plot is connected with the insurrection of the Scottish Covenanters in 1679, and brings before us the haughty form of Claverhouse. Four novels belong to the eighteenth century, — "Rob

Roy," "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," "Waverley," and "Redgauntlet." In the first, named by the happy thought of Constable, Scott's publisher, after a noted Highland freebooter, who flourished in the early part of the century, the chief historic interest lies in the admirable art with which the story brings out the contrast then existing between the civilized, law-respecting Lowlands, and the confused, turbulent state of things a few miles off across the Highland border, where blackmail was levied, and clannish custom was nearly supreme. In "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," the incidents of the Porteous riots at Edinburgh in 1736 are interwoven with the plot; and Caroline, the generous and strongminded queen of George II., is associated with her humble petitioner, Jeanie Deans. Waverley" is a tale of the rising of the clans under the young Pretender in 1745; and “Redgauntlet" refers to a contemplated rising of the English Jacobites a few years later, which the unmanageable obstinacy of the Chevalier stifled in the birth.

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5. In the novel of high life, the chief actors belong to the "upper ten thousand" of society. Richardson, who was himself the son of a joiner, delighted to paint the manners of this class, to which in all his novels the principal personages belong. As we read them, we asso ciate with Sir Charles Grandisons and Lady Grandisons, with Harriet Byrons, Lovelaces, and Count Geronimos; an English squire or a foreign nobleman is the meanest company we frequent. Yet Richardson has high excellences; his characters are firmly yet delicately drawn; there is vigorous original outline, filled in and bodied out by a number of fine, almost imperceptible touches; the diction, though often copious to a fault, never sinks to mere verbiage; the story is always naturally and probably evolved, lastly, the author never obtrudes his

own personality, but leaves his work before you, to impress you or not, according to its and your own intrinsic qualities. The clever novels of Mrs. Gore have a yet more limited range than those of Richardson; they paint the present generation, and therein only the inhabitants of May Fair, and frequenters of Rotten Row,

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6. The immense majority of English novels portray the manners and characters which are common in the middle ranks of society. Not to speak of works by living authors, — of the "Pickwick Papers " or " Vanity Fair," all Fielding's novels, "Joseph Andrews, — "Tom Jones," and "Amelia," and those of Miss Austen and Miss Edgeworth, belong to this class. "Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austen, is the perfect type of a novel of common life; the story so concisely and dramatically told, the language so simple, the shades and half-shades of human character so clearly presented, and the operation of various motives so delicately traced, — attest this gifted woman to have been the perfect mistress of her art. Under this head are also included such of Scott's novels as have no historical element, e. g., "Guy Mannering,' "The Antiquary," "The Bride of Lammermoor," &c.

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7. The best specimens in our literature of the novel of low life are by living authors. Which of us has not turned vagrant with Little Nell, and dived into the recesses of the Seven Dials with Fagin and the Artful Dodger ?? "Paul Clifford" also, by Bulwer, belongs to this class; and, in the last century, Smollett's "Roderick Random" and several of Defoe's novels, which treat principally of uproarious scenes and rough characters, from which the sentimental Richardson would have recoiled in disgust.

1 For an admirable account of them and their author, see Thackeray's Lectures on the English Humorists.

2 Characters in the Old Curiosity Shop and Oliver Twist.