There is nothing subtle about the old-time novels. They are excellent amusing stories, and that is all. Originally no more than tavern yarns, they have lived because they give us real men and women, and tell the truth about human nature. They are not very refined, and there is nothing aristocratic about them. They come from the people, and have something of the vulgarity of the people about them. But time has softened away the objectionable points. While we may be offended by present-day vulgarity, we probably will not even recognize that of a former age. CHAPTER IX. _THE ROMANTIC NOVELISTS--SCOTT, HUGO, DUMAS._ After the publication of the Vicar of Wakefield in 1766, for nearly fifty years no great novel appeared. True, Frances Burney’s Evalina appeared, but it is dry reading to-day. It is also true that some of Jane Austen’s best novels were written, but they were not published. The long silence was broken by the anonymous publication of Waverley in 1814. Scott had got into the printing business with James Ballantyne, and then into the publishing business. His Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and Lady of the Lake--story poems as they were--were read like novels, and had brought him thousands of pounds. But his popularity was waning, and he needed some book to make good the losses of bad business investments. Waverley had been begun several years before, but as Ballantyne did not like what had been written, it was thrown into a drawer and forgotten. Scott now pulled it out and finished it. It was published, and made an instant success. The name of the author was withheld at first, because Scott was somewhat ashamed of being known as a novelist--he who was famous as a poet; and afterwards because of Scott’s humour, as he called it. Perhaps the mystery of the “Great Unknown” added some commercial value to the publications. Waverley is not one of Scott’s best. The hero is rather a disagreeable fellow, and the scenes are neither great nor memorable. But the book is noteworthy because it is the first of one of the most successful series of novels ever produced. The best of the Waverley novels is usually considered to be Ivanhoe, though many like Kenilworth, Old Mortality, or Quentin Durward better. Ivanhoe is a tale of the time of Richard I, called the Lion-hearted. Richard has been imprisoned on the continent of Europe, whither he had gone to take part in the Crusades. His brother is on the throne in his absence, and now is preparing to make himself king.