several good stories--of a rather more feminine type, but graceful,
sound enough in a general way, and combining the manners of Spenser and
Bunyan with no despicable skill. If, however, the Tractarian
fiction-writers had confined themselves to allegory there would be no
necessity to do more than glance at them, for allegory, on the obvious
Biblical suggestion, has been a constant instrument of combined
religious instruction and pastime. But they went much further afield.
Sometimes the excursions were half satirical, as in the really amusing
_Owlet of Owlstone Edge_ and _The Curate of Cumberworth and the Vicar of
Roost_ of Francis Paget, attacking, the slovenly neglect and supineness
which, quite as much as unsound doctrine, was the _bête noire_ of the
early Anglo-Catholics. William Gresley and others wrote stories mostly
for the young. But the distinguishing feature of the school, and that
which gives it an honourable and more than an honorary place here, was
the shape which, before the middle of the century, it took in the hands
of two ladies, Elizabeth Sewell and Charlotte Mary Yonge.

The first, who was the elder but survived Miss Yonge and died at a very
great age quite recently, had much less talent than her junior: but
undoubtedly deserves the credit of setting the style. In her novels
(_Gertrude, Katharine Ashton_, etc.) she carried, even farther than Miss
Austen, the principle of confining herself rigidly to the events of
ordinary life. Not that she eschews the higher middle or even the higher
classes: though, on the other hand, Katharine Ashton, evidently one of
her favourite heroines, is the daughter of a shopkeeper. But the law of
average and ordinary character, incident, atmosphere, is observed almost
invariably. Unfortunately Miss Sewell (she was actually a
schoolmistress) let the didactic part of her novels get rather too much
the upper hand: and though she wrote good English, possessed no special
grace of style, and little faculty of illustration or ornament from