We conceive that
the obvious division of modern romance is into two kinds; first, the
novels _of costume_ or _of circumstance_, which is the old style, and
vastly the most numerous. In this class, the hero, without any
particular character, is in a very particular circumstance; he is
greatly in want of a fortune or of a wife, and usually of both, and
the business of the piece is to provide him suitably. This is the
problem to be solved in thousands of English romances, including the
Porter novels and the more splendid examples of the Edgeworth and
Scott romances.
It is curious how sleepy and foolish we are, that these tales
will so take us. Again and again we have been caught in that old
foolish trap; -- then, as before, to feel indignant to have been
duped and dragged after a foolish boy and girl, to see them at last
married and portioned, and the reader instantly turned out of doors,
like a beggar that has followed a gay procession into a castle. Had
one noble thought opening the chambers of the intellect, one
sentiment from the heart of God been spoken by them, the reader had
been made a participator of their triumph; he too had been an invited
and eternal guest; but this reward granted them is property,
all-excluding property, a little cake baked for them to eat and for
none other, nay, a preference and cosseting which is rude and
insulting to all but the minion.
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