called the passive fancy, and might almost be described in Portia's
song, --

'It is engendered in the eyes,
By READING fed - and there it dies,'--

that faculty, I say, has learnt to feed upon character and
incident, and to require that the latter should be effective and
exciting. Is it not reasonable to seek for this in the days when
such things were not infrequent, and did not imply exceptional
wickedness or misfortune in those engaged in them? This seems to
me one plea for historical novel, to which I would add the
opportunity that it gives for study of the times and delineation of
characters. Shakespeare's Henry IV. and Henry V., Scott's Louis
XI., Manzoni's Federigo Borromeo, Bulwer's Harold, James's Philip
Augustus, are all real contributions to our comprehension of the
men themselves, by calling the chronicles and memoirs into action.
True, the picture cannot be exact, and is sometimes distorted--nay,
sometimes praiseworthy efforts at correctness in the detail take
away whatever might have been lifelike in the outline. Yet,
acknowledging all this, I must still plead for the tales that
presumptuously deal with days gone by, as enabling the young to
realize history vividly--and, what is still more desirable,
requiring an effort of the mind which to read of modern days does
not. The details of Millais' Inquisition or of his Huguenot may be
in error in spite of all his study and diligence, but they have
brought before us for ever the horrors of the _auto-da-fe_, and the
patient, steadfast heroism of the man who can smile aside his
wife's endeavour to make him tacitly betray his faith to save his
life. Surely it is well, by pen as by picture, to go back to the