LECTURE IV. BRITISH NOVELISTS SINCE SCOTT. ENUMERATION OF BRITISH NOVELISTS OF THE LAST FORTY-FIVE YEARS-STATISTICS OF NOVEL-WRITING DURING THIS PERIODCLASSIFICATION OF RECENT NOVELS INTO THIRTEEN KINDSSIR LYTTON BULWER'S PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF NOVELS, AND HIS OWN VERSATILITY-FASHIONABLE NOVELISTS-DICKENS AND THACKERAY, AS REPRESENTATIVES OF A NEW ERA IN THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH NOVEL-THE TWO COMPARED AS ARTISTS-COMPARED AS ETHICAL TEACHERS-REALISTIC ART AND ROMANTIC ART IN NOVELS-IMITATIONS OF DICKENS AND THACKERAY- THE YEAR 1848 AN IMPORTANT YEAR TO DATE FROM, IN LITERARY AS WELL AS IN POLITICAL HISTORY-PERSEVERING SPIRIT OF REALISM IN RECENT PROSE FICTIONS, AND APPLICATION OF THIS SPIRIT TO THE REPRESENTATION OF FACTS PECULIARLY CONTEMPORARY; MISS BRONTE, ETC.GREAT DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE, AS SHOWN IN SECTARIAN NOVELS, NOVELS OF THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER, NOVELS CURATIVE OR SATIRICAL OF SKEPTICISM, ETC.— MR. KINGSLEY AND THE AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN "— INCREASE OF THE POETICAL SPIRIT IN NOVELS-SPECULATIONS AS TO THE NOVEL OF THE FUTURE, AND DESIDERATA IN NOVEL-WRITING. THE British Novelists since Scott are a very numerous body. Among them may be reckoned some of those mentioned in my last Lecture as having preceded Scott in the field of Prose Fiction - particularly Mrs. Opie, Godwin, the two Miss Porters, Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, and Mr. Maturin. Though these had all preceded Scott as writers of prose fiction, they continued to write novels after the author of Waverley had become the acknowledged king of that species of literature; and some of them were not less affected than their juniors by his surpassing influence. Then, in the list of British novelists who made their appearance during the eighteen years in which the Waverley novels were in progress, some very shortly after the series had been begun, and others just as it was closing, and Scott was retiring from the scene, I count no fewer than thirty-five names of some past or present note-to wit, in Scotland, or of Scottish birth, and under the immediate shadow of the author of Waverley, John Galt, Mrs. Johnstone, Miss Ferrier, the Ettrick Shepherd, Allan Cunningham, Scott's son-in-law Lockhart, Professor Wilson, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Andrew Picken, and David M. Moir; in Ireland, or of Irish birth, Mr. Thomas Colley Grattan, Banim, Crofton Croker, Gerald Griffin, and William Carleton; and in England, and chiefly of English birth, Godwin's daughter Mrs. Shelley, Lady Caroline Lamb, Mr. Peacock, Thomas Hope, Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook and his brother Dr. James Hook, James Morier, Mr. Lister, Mr. Plumer Ward, Mr. Gleig, Mr. Horace Smith, Miss Mitford, Miss Landon, Mr. Disraeli, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Mrs. Gore, Captain Marryat, Mr. James, and Mrs. Trollope. The majority of these, it will be observed, survived Scott; and not a few of them, though they had taken their places as novel-writers while Scott was alive, attained their full celebrity in that capacity after Scott was gone. In the group of some ten or twelve active novel-writers upon whom the future hopes of the British novel were supposed to rest in 1832, the year of Scott's death, were Theodore Hook, Miss Mitford, Mr. Disraeli, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Mrs. Gore, Mr. James, and Mrs. Trollope. Several of these are still with us, and have certainly done more for the novel, in the matter of quantity at least, than could have been expected from them,- Sir Bulwer Lytton having produced in all some five-and-twenty novels; Mrs. Gore and Mrs. Trollope I know not how many; Mr. James I know not how many; and Mr. Disraeli having escaped similar productiveness only by that series of events which diverted his attention to politics, and has made him a British minister. To this group of novelists left in the field at Scott's death, there have been added, in the course of the quarter of a century which has elapsed since then, a little legion of new recruits. I will not venture on a complete list of their names; but when I mention those of Lady Blessington, Miss Martineau, Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, Mr. Leitch Ritchie, the Howitts, Mr. Folkestone Williams, Charles Dickens, Mr. Lever, Mr. Samuel Warren, Douglas Jerrold, Elliot Warburton, Mr. James Grant, Mrs. Crowe, Miss Jewsbury, William Makepeace Thackeray, Mr. Lewes, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Whyte Melville, Mr. Wilkie Collins, the brothers Mayhew, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. James Hannay, Mr. Whitty, Mr. Anthony Trollope, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Oliphant, Miss Kavanagh, Miss Mulock, Miss Sewell, Miss Yonge, Miss Craik, Miss Brontë, Mrs. Gaskell, Charles Kingsley, and the author of Tom Brown, they will suffice to suggest the others. All in all, were we to include in the catalogue of "British Novelists since Scott," all who have written novels with some degree of popular success from the date of the first Waverley novels to the present time, the catalogue, I believe, would include over a hundred names. You will understand that I do not suppose included in this catalogue the contemporary American writers of prose 1 The names cited by me are those of the writers with whose works my own acquaintance, direct or indirect, chances to be greatest; but, in the list prefixed to the second volume of Mr. Jeaffreson's Novels and Novelists (1858), I count thirty-five additional names, and every season is adding fresh ones. fiction. These also have been numerous, and there have been among them, as you know, writers whose works have interested as powerfully on this side of the Atlantic as on the other; but, except by implication, I do not take them into account. If a list of the British novelists since Scott seems formidable, how much more formidable would be the sight of the novels produced by them gathered into one heap! On this point allow me to present you with some statistics. The British Museum authorities cannot be sure that they receive copie's of all the novels published in the British Islands; but it is likely that their collection is more complete, for the period with which we are now concerned, than any other that exists. Now, I have been informed that the number of novels standing on the shelves of the British Museum Library as having been published in Britain in the year 1820, - i. e., when the Waverley novels were at the height of their popularity, -is 26 in all, counting 76 volumes; that, ten years later, or in 1830, when the Waverley series was nearly finished, the yield to the library in this department had increased to 101 books, or 205 volumes within the year; that, twenty years later, or in 1850, the yield was 98 books, or 210 volumes; and that for the year 1856, the yield was 88 books, or 201 volumes. Taking these data as approximately accurate, they give us |