ovelist, and this particular one is one that cannot be
exercised very frequently, and is very difficult to exercise at all
without errors and extravagances.

The child-literature of this school and period was very large, and, had
we space, would be worth dealing with at length--as in the instances of
the famous _Sandford and Merton_ (1783-1789) by Thomas Day, Richard
Edgeworth's friend, of Mrs. Trimmer's _Story of the Robins_, and others.
It led up to the definitely religious school of children's books, first
evangelical, then tractarian, with which we shall deal later: but was
itself as a rule utilitarian--or sentimental--moral rather than directly
religious. It is, however, like other things--indeed almost all
things--in this chapter--a document of the fashion in which the novel
was "filling all numbers" and being used for all purposes. It was, of
course, in this case, nearest to the world-old "fable"--especially to
the moral apologues of which the mediaeval sermon-writers and others had
been so fond. But its popularity, especially when taken in connection
with the still surviving distrust of fiction, is valuable. It involves
not merely the principle that "the devil shall not have all the best
tunes," but the admission that this tune is good.

This point, and that other also frequently mentioned and closely
connected with it, that the novel at this time overflows into almost
every conceivable department of subject and object, are the main facts
of a general historical kind, which should be in the reader's mind as
the upshot of this chapter. But there is a third, almost as important as
either, and that is the almost universal coming short of complete
success--the lack of consummateness, the sense that if the Novel Israel
is not exactly still in the wilderness, it has not yet crossed the
Jordan. Even if we take in the last chapter, and its comparative giants,
with the present and its heroes, ordinary folk, and pygmies, we shall
scarcely find more than one great master, Fielding, and one little
masterpiece, _Vathek_, deserving the adjective "consummate." No doubt
the obvious explanation--that the hour was not because the man had not
come except in this single case--is a good one: but it need not be left
in the bare isolation of its fatalism. There are at least several
subsidiary considerations which it is well to advance. The transition
state of manners and language cannot be too often insisted upon: for
this affected t