Another type that came into favor was the heroic romance. This was based on the similar French romances of Mademoiselle Scudéri (1607–1701) and others. This class of fiction was the elegant variety of the grosser picaresque novel, and it was much duller. The hero of a heroic romance was usually of high degree, and he underwent a long series of romantic adventures, many of them supernatural. There was much love-making, involving long speeches containing “noble sentiments, elegantly expressed.” The length of these romances was enormous; the _Grand Cyrus_ of Mademoiselle Scudéri ran to ten large volumes. Popular English specimens were Ford’s _Parismus, Prince of Bohemia_ (1598) and _Parthenissa_ (1654), by Roger Boyle. It is worth noting that the artificial heroic romance collapsed about the end of the seventeenth century, whereas the picaresque class, which in spite of its grave faults was a human and interesting type of fiction, survived and influenced the novel in later centuries. By the end of the seventeenth century the novel is dimly taking shape. =Aphra Behn (1640–89)= wrote stories that had some claims to plot, character-drawing, and dialogue. Her _Orinooko, or The Royal Slave_ shows some power in describing the persecution of a noble negro, a kind of Othello, at the hands of brutal white men. The work of Bunyan (1628–88) was forced to be allegorical, for the Puritans, of whom he was one, abhorred the idea of writing fiction, which they regarded as gilded lies. Yet _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ abounds in qualities that go to make a first-rate novel: a strong and smoothly working plot, troops of human and diverse characters, impressive descriptive passages, and simple dialogue dramatically sound. His other works, notably _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_, are also very close to the novel proper. In the eighteenth century we see another development in the Coverley papers (1711) of Steele and Addison. There is little plot in this essay-series, and only a rudimentary love-theme; but the allegorical fabric is gone, there is much entertaining character-sketching, and the spice of delicate humor. We should note also that we have here the beginnings of the society and domestic novel, for the papers deal with ordinary people and incidents. The genuine novel is very near indeed in the works of Defoe (1659–1731). His novels are of the picaresque type in the case of _Captain Singleton_ (1720), _Moll Flanders_ (1722), and _Colonel Jack_ (1722). They have many of the faults of their kind: the characters are weakly drawn, the plots are shaky and sprawling, and much of the incident is indecorous; yet they have a virile and sustaining interest that is most apparent in the best parts of _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719).