summary by sample, betokened a stirring of the waters, a rattling among
the bones, such as is not common in literature. Death removed Thackeray
early and Dickens somewhat less prematurely, but after a period rather
barren in direct novel work. The others continued and were constantly
reinforced: nor was it till well on in the seventies that any distinct
drop from first- to second-growth quality could be observed in the
general vintage of English fiction.

One is not quite driven, on this occasion, to the pusillanimous
explanation that this remarkable variety and number of good novels was
simply due to the simultaneous existence of an equally remarkable number
of good novelists. The fact is that, by this time, the great example of
Scott and Miss Austen--the great wave of progress which exemplified
itself first and most eminently in these two writers--had had time to
work upon and permeate another generation of practitioners. The
novelists who have just been cited were as a rule born in the second
decade of the century, just before, about, or after the time at which
Scott and Miss Austen began to publish. They had therefore--as their
elders, even though they may have had time to read the pair, had
not--time to assimilate thoroughly and early the results which that pair
had produced or which they had first expressed. And they had even
greater advantages than this. They had had time to assimilate, likewise,
the results of all the rest of that great literary generation of which
Scott and Miss Austen were themselves but members. They profited by
thirty years more of constant historical exploration and realising of
former days. One need not say, for it is question-begging, that they
also _profited_ by, but they could at least avail themselves of, the
immense change of manners and society which made 1850 differ more from
1800 than 1800 had differed, not merely from 1750 but from 1700. They
had, even though all of them may not have been sufficiently grateful for