of fiction, of anecdotal recollection, or of personal narrative--
is the one that invariably commends itself to by far the largest
class of readers.

There is no room for doubt that the surpassing interest which
fiction, whether in poetry or prose, possesses for most minds,
arises mainly from the biographic element which it contains.
Homer's 'Iliad' owes its marvellous popularity to the genius which
its author displayed in the portrayal of heroic character. Yet he
does not so much describe his personages in detail as make them
develope themselves by their actions. "There are in Homer," said
Dr. Johnson, "such characters of heroes and combination of
qualities of heroes, that the united powers of mankind ever since
have not produced any but what are to be found there."

The genius of Shakspeare also was displayed in the powerful
delineation of character, and the dramatic evolution of human
passions. His personages seem to be real--living and breathing
before us. So too with Cervantes, whose Sancho Panza, though
homely and vulgar, is intensely human. The characters in Le
Sage's 'Gil Blas,' in Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' and in
Scott's marvellous muster-roll, seem to us almost as real as
persons whom we have actually known; and De Foe's greatest works
are but so many biographies, painted in minute detail, with
reality so apparently stamped upon every page, that it is
difficult to believe his Robinson Crusoe and Colonel Jack to have
been fictitious instead of real persons.

Though the richest romance lies enclosed in actual human life, and
though biography, because it describes beings who have actually