raving for prose fiction, and kept at least a simulacrum of that
fiction before the public. How far there may be any real, though
metaphysical, connection between the great dramatic output of this
seventeenth century in England and its small production in novel is a
question not to be discussed here. But undoubtedly the fact of the
contrast is a "document in the case," and one of the most important in
its own direction; completing the testimony of the mediaeval period in
the other (that as romance dwindled, drama grew) and leading up to that
of the eighteenth century when drama dwindled and the novel grew. The
practice of Afra Behn in both, and the fact that Congreve, the greatest
English dramatist of the close of the century, began with a novel and
deserted the style for drama, are also interesting, and combine
themselves very apparently with the considerations just glanced at. But
Congreve and Afra must be postponed for a moment.

The two last discussed books, with _Eromena_ and some others, are
posterior to the Restoration in date, but somewhat earlier in type. The
reign of Charles II., besides the "heroic" romances and Bunyan, and one
most curious little production to be noticed presently, is properly
represented in fiction by two writers, to whom, by those who like to
make discoveries, considerable importance has sometimes been assigned in
the history of the English Novel. These are Richard Head and Afra Behn,
otherwise "the divine Astraea." It is, however, something of an injustice
to class them together: for Afra was a woman of very great ability, with
a suspicion of genius, while Head was at the very best a bookmaker of
not quite the lowest order, though pretty near it. Of _The English
Rogue_ (1665-1680), which earns him his place here, only the first part,
and a certain section of the fourth, are even attributed to him by
Francis Kirkman, the Curll of his generation, who published the thing at
intervals and admittedly wrote parts of it himself. It is quite openly a
picaresque novel: and imitated not merely from the Spanish originals but
from Sorel's _Francion_, which had appeared in France some forty years
before. Yet, if we compare this latter curious book with Head's we shall
see how very far behind, even with forty years' advantage in time, was
the country which, in the next century, was practically to create the
modern novel. _Francion_ is not a work of genius: and it does not
pretend to much more than the u