CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. THE ROMANCE AND THE NOVEL.

;

Late Greek and Latin romances; early medieval
romance; the Chanson de Roland; English metrical
romances Chaucer's attitude to them; his prose
and verse; his narrative genius; the novella; the
influence of Boccaccio on English literature; the
Gesta Romanorum; its mediævalism; the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance; prose romance, Sir
Thomas Malory; Caxton's preface to the Morte
Darthur; Malory's style; popularity of his book;
Caxton's versions of romances; Wynkyn de Worde;
Lord Berners; the revival of learning and the
romance; continued popularity of the romances;
their diminished influence; the romance and the
novel

...

II. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE: EUPHUES.

...

...

The Italian influence; Roger Ascham; contempt of
scholars for the romances; English translations of
Italian novels; Painter's Pallace of Pleasure; John
Lyly; his Euphues; its story; its style; structure of
the sentences; classical allusions; natural history;
Lyly's literary fanaticism ; his Puritanism; his satire;
sources of his style; place of his style in literary
history; a compromise between verse and prose

III. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE: SIDNEY AND NASH.

Imitators of Lyly; Elizabethan emphasis and vigour ;
Sir Philip Sidney; his life; the sincerity of his

PAGE

I-24

25-48

CHAPTER

sonnets; position of the novel in Elizabethan times;

the Arcadia; its sources; its merits and influence;

Sidney's style; court and town compared; Robert

Greene; his life, writings, and death; his confessional

prose and verse; his advances towards realism;

Thomas Lodge; his romances and pamphlets;

Thomas Nash; his life and controversies; his style;

his power and versatility; The Unfortunate Travel-

ler; description of a German University, of an

Italian vendetta; Nash's enthusiasm for Italy and

poetry; his metaphors; his realism; Nash and

Defoe

...

PAGE

49-86

IV. THE ROMANCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Decline of the novel; rivalry of the drama; the

Civil War; French heroic romances; vitality of

romance; structure of the heroic romances; their

influence; English imitations of them; Parthenissa ;

Aretina; characteristics and style; Pandion and

Amphigenia; its debt to the Arcadia; Congreve's

novel, Incognita; the drama and the novel; the

extravagant romanticism of the "heroic " movement;

the "heroic" doctrine; courtly cliques; Mrs. Behn;

The Fair Jilt; decline of the heroic romance 87-109

V. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MODERN NOVEL.

The work of the seventeenth century; preparation

for the modern novel; character-writings; autobio-

graphies, diaries, letters; French parodies on

romance; Bunyan's realism; Bentivolio and Urania;

the Duchess of Newcastle ; the new prose; the

Tatler and Spectator; idea of a club; the portraitu: e

of individuals; Sir Roger de Coverley compared

with Overbury's country gentleman; the temper of

the Spectator; its detached sketches; its education

of the public; Daniel Defoe; his Shortest Way with

the Dissenters; turning-point of his career; The

Apparition of one Mrs. Veal; Defoe's realistic

method; Robinson Crusoe; its practical bias ; its

CHAPTER

origin; Defoe's treatment of the supernatural ;

imaginary voyages; Swift's Gulliver; its literalism;

Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood

VI. RICHARDSON AND FIELDING.

PAGE

110-139

The modern French novel; decline of the drama,

rise of the novel in its place; the origin of Pamela;

Samuel Richardson; his life and character; ways of

telling a story; Richardson's choice of the epistolary

way; his sentimental analysis; his leisurely narra-

tion; his morality; Pamela; Sir Charles Grandison;

Clarissa Harlowe; the atmosphere of Richardson's

stories; the influence of his sentiment on later

writers Henry Fielding; his connection with the

stage; Joseph Andrews; Fielding's humour; Jona

than Wild; Tom Jones; Fielding's morality; com-

pared with Richardson's; Amelia; the advances in

the art of novel-writing made by Fielding

VII. THE NOVELS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

140-179

Miss Sarah Fielding's David Simple; multitude of

novels; Tobias Smollett; his models; his definition

of a novel; Roderick Random; autobiographic

method; Ferdinand, Count Fathom; Humphrey

Clinker; Smollett's zest in life; his spirit of adven-

ture; his imitators; satirical "adventure" novels;

Moore's Zeluco; Lawrence Sterne; his method;

character, sentiment, humour ; his originals;

Thackeray's criticism on Sterne ; influence of

Cervantes; Henry Mackenzie ; sentiment and

theory; Johnson's Rasselas ; its style and solemnity;

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield; his inconsequence,

drollery, style; later writers; characteristics of the

eighteenth-century novel; Mrs. Sheridan; Henry

Brooke; the limitations of the school; its strength

and variety

VIII. THE REVIVAL OF ROMANCE.

.

180-215

The Romantic movement; "The Renaissance of

Wonder"; School of Terror and School of Theory;

CHAPTER

supernaturalism before the revival; Gulliver, Peter

Wilkins; Johnson's attitude towards the marvel-

lous; Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto; its use

of the supernatural; the true use in Wordsworth

and Coleridge; Miss Reeve's Old English Baron;

Mrs. Radcliffe; her timidity; her characters and

machinery; her command of suggestion; her

scenery; "Monk" Lewis; his violence and vul-

garity; Tales of Wonder; Maturin's Family of

Montorio; his Melmoth the Wanderer; subtlety of

his effects; influence of Rousseau on English fiction

precursors of Rousseau, Mrs. Behn, Dr. Shebbeare;

Thomas Holcroft; William Godwin; his doctrines;

Caleb Williams; St. Leon and Fleetwood; Mrs.

Inchbald; stories for children; Beckford's Vathek;

Shelley's prose romances

...

...

PAGE

216-252

IX. THE NOVEL OF DOMESTIC SATIRE: MISS BURNEY,

MISS AUSTEN, MISS EDGEWORTH.

Women and the novel; change of social tone during

the eighteenth century; domestic life; domestic

satire; Miss Burney; Evelina; Cecilia; Jane

Austen; comparison of her with Shakespeare; the

perfection of her art; her impersonality; her style;

her satire; Miss Edgeworth; her tales of Ireland

and of fashionable life; her didactic bias ;

Mrs. Brunton; worthless romances; parodies on

romances; Angelina; Northanger Abbey; Romance

Readers and Romance Writers; The Heroine, or

Adventures of Cherubina

253-275

X. SIR WALTER SCOTT.

...

Union of romance and novel; victory of prose over
verse; Scott's early ambitions and attempts in prose;
the predecessors of Scott in the historical romance ;
The Recess; worthlessness of this and other historical
romances; Queen-hoo Hall; Scott's theory and
practice in the use of archaic diction; his compro-
mise; greatness of Sir Walter Scott
276-283

THE ENGLISH NOVEL.

CHAPTER I.

THE ROMANCE AND THE NOVEL.

TIME and again, in the world's history, where East meets West, the spirit of romance has been born. Herodotus on his travels, Heliodorus carrying Ethiopian traditions to his bishopric, Apuleius the Carthaginian sojourning at Rome, are all parents of prose romance; and in mediæval legend, Alexander in correspondence with the Brahmins, Charlemagne in conflict with the Moors, furnish the same unfailing inspiration. But the late Greek and Latin writers of prose fiction have little enough to do with the beginnings of story-telling in English. There exists an Anglo-Saxon version of the story of Apollonius of Tyre; for the rest, it was the noble army of Elizabethan translators who first brought these early prose romances within the domain of English literature. The earlier English romances, like the word Romance itself, are mediæval and French in origin.

The Celtic races of Europe are almost singular in