forts made in England to imitate this style and to lead, by means of
the romance itself, a reaction against the false heroism that the
romance had introduced, proved sadly abortive. These attempts have
fallen into a still more profound oblivion than those of the
story-tellers of Shakespeare's time. The English were not yet masters of
the supple, crisp and animated language which suited that kind of tale,
and which the French possessed from the thirteenth century. A few
original minds like Sidney in his "Apologie" had employed it; but they
formed rare exceptions, and in the seventeenth century most men
continued to like either the pompous prose with its Latin periods, held
in highest honour by Bacon, or the various kinds of flowery prose used
by Lodge, Greene, Shakespeare and Sidney. So the romance writers who
attempted to bring about a reaction received no encouragement and were
forgotten less from want of merit than because even their
contemporaries paid no attention to them. Thinking to open up a new
path, they got entangled in a blind alley where they were left. The
ground was to be broken anew by more robust hands than theirs, the hands
of Defoe.

Some of these attempts however are worthy of attention, notably one in
which imitation of Scarron and Furetiere is to be found, entitled "The
Adventures of Covent Garden."[360] The scene is laid in London among the
cultivated upper middle class: life is so realistically represented,
that this work, now entirely unknown, is one of those that best aid us
to re-constitute that society in which Dryden, Wycherley and Otway
lived.

Peregrine, the hero of the tale, spends his evenings at the "Rose" or at
"Will's," Dryden's favourite coffee-house, or at the theatre, where the
"Indian Emperor," one of Dryden's heroic dramas, was being played. With
the Lady Selinda, in whose box he sits, he discusses the merits of the
play, the value of the French rules and the license of Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson. Many interesting remarks occur in these conversations which
seem put in writing after nature, and are very curious in the history of
literature. If they do not exactly recall the Moliere of the "Critique
de l'Ecole des Femmes," they will recall Furetiere, no insignificant
praise. It is, besides, a compliment difficult to apply to any other
English novelist of the period. Here is a specimen of literary criticism
if not deep, at least lively, such as was going on at the play, or in
the d