kinds--lies in the direction of mould and mechanism--of the production,
by the thousand, of things of no individual quality and character. This
danger has been and is being amply exemplified. But the Peacocks (would
the plural were more justified!) save us from it by their own
unconquerable individuality in the first place and, in the second, by
the fact that even the best in this kind is "caviare to the general,"
while anything that is not the best has no attraction either for the
general or the elect. They are, as it were, the salt of the novel-feast,
in more senses than one: and it is cause for thankfulness that, in this
respect as in the physical, England has been well off for salt-pits.

Besides these individual names--which in most literatures would be
great, and even in English literature are not small--the second quarter
of the century added to the history of the novel an infinity of others
who can hardly appear here even on the representative or selective
system. All the suns of the novel hitherto mentioned had moons and stars
around them; all the _cadres_ of the various kinds were filled with
privates and non-commissioned officers to follow the leaders. Gait and
Moir carried out the "Scotch novel" with something of Scott, but more of
Smollett (Gait at least certainly, in part of his work, preceded Scott).
Lady Morgan, who has been mentioned already, Banim, Crofton Croker, and
others played a similar part to Miss Edgeworth. Glascock, Chamier, and
Howard were, as it were, lieutenants (the last directly so) to Marryat.
The didactic side of Miss Edgeworth was taken up by Harriet Martineau.
Mrs. Shelley's _Frankenstein_ (1818) is among the latest good examples
of the "Terror" class, to which her husband had contributed two of its
worst, and two of the feeblest books ever written by a man of the
greatest genius, in _Zastrozzi_ and _St. Irvyne_, some seven years
earlier. Many women, not unnaturally, encouraged by the great examples
of Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, and Miss Ferrier, attempted