_Esther Waters_, compared and contrasted with Hardy's _Tess_, is pronounced in 1894 to be _not_ "_virginibus puerisque_," and a once famous "emancipation novel," _The Yellow Aster_, by "Iota," long since hopelessly out-distanced in the reaction against reticence, becomes _The Yellow Plaster_, by "Iõpna," whose "She-notes" wild are amusingly travestied in the same year. _The Yellow Aster_ and _Key-Notes_ were pioneer efforts in the domain of the psychological novel, and the new jargon is ridiculed in such burlesque phrases as "the woman's voice came through the envelope of Margerine's subconsciousness, steely clear as a cheese-cutter." The vogue of _The Green Carnation_, a _roman à clef_ which created some stir at the same time, is attested in Du Maurier's picture "How Opinion is Formed":-- HE: "Have you read that beastly book _The Mauve Peony_ by Lady Middlesex?" SHE: "Yes, I rather liked it." HE: "So did I." [Sidenote: _Unchristian Criticism of Hall Caine_] Du Maurier's _Trilby_ was naturally treated with benevolence, though _Punch_ regretted the theological interludes, but _The Sorrows of Satan_ is rudely dismissed as "a farrago of balderdash and vanity"; the egotism of the author and of Mr. Robert Buchanan in belabouring their detractors is severely rebuked; and Mr. Hall Caine's _The Christian_ is recommended only as an absolute _pis aller_ if you hadn't even a Bradshaw to read. This great work is also parodied as "The Heathen," with Alleluia Grouse and Luke Blizzard in the _rôles_ of Glory Quayle and John Storm. There was still a spice of Bludyer in _Punch_, and on occasion he could act on the advice of a famous editor, "Be kind, be merciful, be gentle, but when you come across a silly fool, string him up." In later years, as the literary quality of his reviews improved, his clemency to the new-comers approached an uncritical tolerance. The passing of the three-volume novel in 1894 is noted in a Ballade not untinged with regret, to judge from the "Envoi":-- Prince, writers' rights--forgive the pun-- And readers' too forbid the blow; Of triple pleasure there'll be none, Three-volume novels are to go! [Illustration: "The _Trilby_ mania grows apace. It has reached Peckham. Aunt Maria went to the Fancy Dress Ball of the Peckham season as _Trilby_ in her first costume."--_Extract from letter of Miss M. Br-wn to Miss N. Sm-th_.] The later manner of Henry James is rather infelicitously described in 1896 as "indifferent Trollopian and second-class Meredithian"; but _Punch_ made no mistake in the following year over Mr. W. W. Jacobs, in whose _Many Cargoes_--studies of those "who go down to the sea in ships of moderate tonnage"--he found a new fount of joy.