votaries had
begun to assume the proportions which have since made novelists by far
the most numerous literary body. Some writers, perhaps, have been
omitted who deserved mention as much as some who have been commented
upon. But all have been spoken of, it is believed, who contributed any
new ideas or methods to the art of fictitious composition.

The novel had, indeed, taken the place of the stage to a very great
extent. If we compare the productions of the dramatist with those of
the novelist, as regards both quantity and merit, during the last
hundred and fifty years, we shall perceive a great preponderance in
favor of the writer of fiction. Although there are some respects in
which the novel cannot compete with the drama, there are obvious
reasons why the former should be much better adapted than the latter to
modern requirements. Great changes have come over the audience. With
the progress of civilization, life has become less and less dramatic,
and affords fewer striking scenes and violent ebullitions of passion.
It not only furnishes far less material for stage effects, but also
supplies little of that sympathy which the dramatist must find in the
minds of his audience. While life has become less dramatic, it has
become far more complex, and requires a broader treatment in its
delineation than the restrictions of the stage can allow.

As we look back upon the fiction of the eighteenth century it is
evident that the novel, like the play, is capable of great uses and of
great abuses, according to the spirit in which it is written. In the
hands of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Miss Burney, it
reached a high position as a work of art. It retained, indeed, much of
the manner of the story of adventure, inasmuch as the interest was more
commonly made to depend on the fortunes of a chosen hero than on the
development of a well constructed plot. But "Robinson Crusoe," "Tom
Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Evelina," are works which
deserve and possess the interest of the present time. Such books as
these are to be cherished as precious legacies from the years that have
gone before. They have given, in the course of their long active
circulation, an incalculable amount of pleasure. They have supplied
posterity with a picturesque view of the life and manners of their
ancestors which could not be acquired from any other source. But while
the fiction of the eighteenth century includes much that is valuabl