in a certain sense it may
even be said that they don't know what they are doing. In the worst
examples surveyed in the last chapter, such as _A Peep at Our
Ancestors_, this ignorance plumbs the abyss--blocks of dull serious
narrative, almost or quite without action, and occasional insertions of
flat, insipid, and (to any one with a little knowledge) impossible
conversation, forming their staple. Of the better class of books, from
the _Female Quixote_ to _Discipline_, this cannot fairly be said: but
there is always something wanting. Frequently, as in both the books just
mentioned, the writer is too serious and too desirous to instruct.
Hardly ever is there a real _projection_ of character, in the round and
living--only pale, sketchy "academies" that neither live, nor move, nor
have any but a fitful and partial being. The conversation is, perhaps,
the worst feature of all--for it follows the contemporary stage in
adopting a conventional lingo which, as we know from private letters as
early as Gray's and Walpole's, if not even as Chesterfield's and those
of men and women older still, was _not_ the language of well-bred,
well-educated, and intelligent persons at any time during the century.
As for the Fourth Estate of the novel--description--it had rarely been
attempted even by the great masters. In fact it has been pointed out as
perhaps the one unquestionable merit of Mrs. Radcliffe that--following
the taste for the picturesque which, starting from Gray and popularised
by Gilpin, was spreading over the country--she did attempt to introduce
this important feature, and did partly, in a rococo way, succeed in
introducing it. As for plot, that has never been our strong point--we
seem to have been contented with _Tom Jones_ as payment in full of that
demand.[17]

[17] The frankness of the ingenious creator of Mr. Jorrocks
should be imitated by 99 per cent. of English novelists. "The
following story," says he of _Ask Mamma_, "does not involve the
complication of a plot. It is a mere continuous narrative."

Now, this was all changed. It is doubtful whether if _Northanger Abbey_
had actually appeared in 1796 it would have been appreciated--Miss
Austen, like other writers of genius, had, not exactly as the common but
incorrect phrase goes, to create the taste for her own work, but to
arouse the long dormant appetite which she was born to satisfy. Yet,
looking back a hundred years, it seems impossible that anybody