it exists at the
present day.

The novels with which our fortunate generation is so abundantly
supplied may be divided broadly into two classes, overlapping and
interlaced with each other, yet on the whole distinguishable as
separate species--the Novel of Adventure and the Novel of Manners. The
former class has a very long pedigree. The early romance writer drew
his incidents from the field of heroic action and marvellous
enterprise; he revelled in noble sentiments, astonishing feats, and
the exhibition of all the cardinal virtues in tragic situations; his
mission was to preserve and hand down to us magnified figures of
mighty men, or the pictures of great events, as they had impressed
themselves upon the popular imagination. For such material he was
obliged to travel abroad into remote countries, or backward to bygone
ages; but if his images of gallant knights and fair damsels were well
modelled, if the language was superb, and the deeds or sufferings
sufficiently astonishing, no one cared about anachronisms,
incongruities, or improbabilities.

But as the heroic romance dwindled and withered under the dry light of
precise knowledge and extending erudition, the purveyors of fiction,
accommodating themselves to a more exacting taste, applied themselves
seriously to the reproduction of famous scenes and portraits by the
aid and guidance of historic documents and antiquarian research. The
modern romantic school, of whom the master, if not the founder, is
Scott, represented a clear step forward to what is now called Realism,
and a proportionate abandonment of the classic convention, or the
method of drawing from traditional or imaginary models. To Scott may
be ascribed the authoritative introduction of descriptions of
landscape, of storms, sunsets, and picturesque effects; not the
artificial scene-painting of Mrs. Radcliffe, but artistic delineations
of the aspects of earth, sea, and sky which gave depth and atmosphere
to his dramatic situations. From this period, also, may be dated the
practice, so entirely contrary to the spirit of true romance, of
verifying by documentary evidence the details of a story. It was Scott
who, in the first years of this century, set prominently the example
of appending copious notes to his stories in verse or prose, wherein
he displayed his archaeologic lore and produced his authorities for any
striking illustration of manners or characteristic incident. This
practice, which was largely a