he process at both ends, giving the artist in fictitious
life an uncertain model to copy and unstable materials to work in. The
deficiency of classical patterns--at a time which still firmly believed,
for the most part, that all good work in literature had been so done by
the ancients that it could at best be emulated--should count for
something: the scanty respect in which the kind was held for something
more. As to one of the most important species, frequent allusions have
been made, and in the next chapter full treatment will be given, to the
causes which made the _historical_ novel impossible until very late in
the century, and decidedly unlikely to be good even then. Perhaps,
without attempting further detail, we may conclude by saying that the
productions of this time present, and present inevitably, the nonage and
novitiate of a branch of art which hardly possessed any genuine
representatives when the century was born and which numbered them, bad
and good, by thousands and almost tens of thousands at its death. In the
interval there had been continuous and progressive exercise; there had
been some great triumphs; there had been not a little good and pleasant
work; and of even the work that was less good and less pleasant one may
say that it at least represented experiment, and might save others from
failure.

CHAPTER V

SCOTT AND MISS AUSTEN

In 1816 Sir Thomas Bernard, baronet, barrister, and philanthropist,
published, having it is said written it three years previously, an
agreeable dialogue on _Old Age_, which was very popular, and reached its
fifth edition in 1820. The interlocutors are Bishops Hough and Gibson
and Mr. Lyttleton, the supposed time 1740--the year, by accident or
design, of _Pamela_. In this the aged and revered "martyr of Magdalen"
is mildly reproached by his brother prelate for liking novels. Hough
puts off the reproach as mildly, and in a most academic manner, by
saying that he only admits them _speciali gratia_. This was in fact the
general attitude to the whole kind, not merely in 1740, but after all
the work of nearly another life-time as long as Hough's--almost in 1816
itself. Yet when Sir Thomas published his little book, notice to quit,
of a double kind, had been served on this fallacy. Miss Austen's life
was nearly done, and some of her best work had not been published: but
the greater part had. Scott was in his actual hey-day. Between them,
they had dealt and were dealing-