am much
mistaken if another great author, more recently deceased, will not in a
few years be added to the ranks of those who are more praised than read
from the same cause.

The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in any matter is most
mischievous, for it strikes at the root of independence of thought; and
in literature it tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very
seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity (absurdly enough,
for are not _we_ posterity?) is ever reversed; but it has chanced to
happen in a certain case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron
Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into fashion 'Caleb
Williams.' Now that is a work, though by no means belonging to the same
rank as those to which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted
reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world of readers (who have
never read it) used to echo the remark of Bias and Company, that this
and that modern work of fiction reminded them--though at an immense
distance, of course--of Godwin's masterpiece. I remember Le Fanu's
'Uncle Silas,' for example (from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps
than real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared with it.
Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very fine conception--one that
could only have occurred, perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part of
it is well worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, and it
ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle Silas' is good and strong
from first to last. Le Fanu has never been so popular as, in my humble
judgment, he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were better
acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet nine out of ten were always
heard repeating this cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, until
the 'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to read Godwin for
themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion.

I remember, in my own case, that, from that reverence for authority
which I hope I share with my neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong
Hall' and 'Crotchet Castle'--both great favourites of our
fore-fathers--with much respect, until one wet day in the country I
found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered; better
judges of literature than myself admire them still, I know. I will only
remark that _I_ don't admire them. I don't say they are the dullest
novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, and might do wrong
to w