PREFATORY NOTE. THE substance of the following pages was delivered, in the form of Lectures, to the members of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, in the months of March and April, 1858. Passages necessarily omitted in the delivery, are here restored; a few passages spoken from notes, are here expanded from recollection; and there are also some additions, especially towards the end. By these changes the Discourses are made to exceed by much the ordinary limits of Lectures. I have, however, retained the name of "Lectures" by way of title, - partly because nearly all the matter, as it stands, was actually prepared to be spoken; and partly because the name may serve to account for anything in the manner of treatment, or in the style, that might not be considered so fitting in other forms of composition. With respect to one of the Lectures the third- it might even be obliging if the reader were to remember specially that it was prepared for an Edinburgh audience. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, JUNE, 1859. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. ON THE NOVEL AS A FORM OF LITERATURE, AND ON (1.) NATURE OF THE NOVEL. THE NOVEL A FORM OF PO- PROSE - ' FICTIONS- EARLY BRITISH ROMANCES THE MORT NOVELS - BOYLE'S "PARTHENISSA," AND CLASSIC-HEROIC NOVELS — BUN- 11 PREPONDERANCE OF PROSE IN BRITISH LITERATURE DURING THIS CENTURY - THE FICTIONS OF SWIFT AND DEFOE NEW PROSE FORMS-SWIFT'S CHARACTERISTICS- DEFOE'S CHARACTERISTICS-RICHARDSON, FIELDING, SMOLLETT, AND STERNE THEIR BIOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS SKETCHED- RICHARDSON'S METHOD IN HIS NOVELS HIS MORALITY - HU- MOR AND HUMORISTS - FIELDING'S THEORY OF THE NOVEL WHICH HE PRACTISED - THE COMIC NOVEL -FIELDING AND SMOLLETT COMPARED AND CONTRASTED - BRITISH LIFE A CEN- TURY AGO, AS REPRESENTED IN THEIR NOVELS-STERNE'S PE- CULIARITIES, MORAL AND LITERARY- - JOHNSON'S "RASSELAS," GOLDSMITH'S "VICAR OF WAKEFIELD," AND WALPOLE'S CAS- 87 |