Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! If drunk with sight of power, we loose Or lesser breeds without the Law- For heathen heart that puts her trust And guarding calls not thee to guard— Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord! Amen. It is impossible to compare a man whose work is not yet done with those who have finished their careers. Time alone can award Mr. Kipling's ultimate position. He undoubtedly gives more promise than any living English writer. This matter, however, falls beyond our present field, as does the very interesting subject of his practical work for the British Empire. His literary methods are revolutionary. Probably the permanent worth of his poetry and prose will be their thoroughly artistic interpretation of certain conditions peculiar to the world of to-day. It may be pointed out that no poet has made so adequate an embodiment of the forces which obtained during his lifetime. Mr. Kipling interprets the later nineteenth century—or at least an impor tant section of it--in terms of high poetry. For this alone his name ought to survive. In closing our brief survey of English poetry during the past hundred years it may be said that at present there seem few indications of a near revival in that great art to the standard of the mid-century. Tennyson's death seemed to close an epoch, and poets of the first rank are now far to seek. Perhaps we have among us some veiled prophet, but that will be for our children to tell. CHAPTER VIII. THE NOVEL: SCOTT. THE NOVEL.-"MONK" LEWIS.-MRS. RADCLIFFE AND THE TERROR NOVELISTS. THE THREE "NOVELISTS."— THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.—THE KINGSHIP OF SCOTT. THE novel first took shape in England during the eighteenth century. The earliest true example was Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, published in 1740 by Samuel Richardson. The success of this proved how strong a demand existed for such a species of entertainment, and called forth a great many other works of a like nature. After Richardson came Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and Goldsmith, who firmly established the novel in the hearts of English readers. Goldsmith died in 1774, and from then on to the time of Scott there was a period when much was written, but little of any value. Prose fiction reaches its height in Scott, than whom none can be greater though there is room for difference. The best novels of the eighteenth century were all written before 1766. In 1764 Horace Walpole struck a new vein with The Castle of Otranto. This was a mediæval romance-the first in English. It pointed the way to Scott. From about that time on to the publication of Waverley there was a transition period, when we find many books, but something less than excellence. The traits of the first masters were copied ad nauseam. The Castle of Otranto was followed by a host of imitators. "Wooden as it was it served as a decoy for the multitude of ghosts that squeaked and gibbered in the highways of literature for half a century and more." A School of Terror arose, trusting for effect entirely to the unseen. MRS. RADCLIFFE (1764-1823) née Anne Ward-was in her day a most famous exponent of the school. She wrote a great deal, then retired into private life. The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), is typical of the story of the period. She created the "heavy villain" whom Byron afterwards appropriated for the mysterious hero of his longer poems. He (the heavy villain) figured so prominently in the literature of the early century that we may allow his maker to describe him: "There was something terrible in his air, something almost superhuman. His cowl, too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face, increased its severe character, and gave an effect to his large, melancholy eyes which approached to horror.. An habitual gloom and austerity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance, and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men and to read their most secret thoughts." Chief among the followers of Mrs. Radcliffe, and indeed, "going her one better" were "MONK" LEWIS (1775-1818) and CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN (1782– 1824). Matthew Gregory Lewis received the above sobriquet by reason of a singularly unrestrained romance, Ambrosio, or The Monk, written when he was twenty. Influenced by German models of the "Sturm und Drang" type, he infused their most extravagant features into his novels. He has no compunction and the horrors come thick and fast. Lewis possessed a certain degree of cleverness, but his taste was utterly depraved. Maturin excelled him on the whole in his sincerity and in the way he handled his horrors. "I have presumed," he explains, "to found the interest of a romance upon the passion of supernatural fear, and on that alone." His first novel was The Fatal Revenge; or, the Family of Montorio (1807), "a spectre-haunted, corpseridden story." His best appeared in 1820, Melmoth the Wanderer. Its hero is a lurid and paralyzing sort of person who has gained immortality on earth at a terrible price. Maturin depends upon suggestion for the desirable thrill, rather than upon the flat-footed explanation of Lewis. His descriptive passages are sometimes powerful. It was reserved for MRS. SHELLEY, however, then a slim and graceful girl (she was born 1798 and died 1851), to write the best of the Terror novels. Her contribution was called Frankenstein, and came out in 1817. It possesses a clearness of plot which was not general |