It can, all things considered, be stated with truth that, between the age of Elizabeth, and the age of Anne and the Georges, there is in the history of the novel a long period of semi-stagnation. The seventeenth century, which furnishes hardly any important name, added very little, apart from an exaggerated heroism, to the art of the novel. Defoe, Richardson and Fielding are, as novelists, more nearly related to the men of the time of Shakespeare than to the men of the time of Dryden. They have been thus so completely separated from their literary ancestors that the connection has been usually forgotten. It cannot, however, be doubted. Now that we have carried so far this sketch of the history of the early English novel, as far indeed as the time of writers whose works are still our daily reading, we have to take leave of our heroes, picaroons, and monsters, of Arthur and Lancelot, Euphues and Menaphon, Pyrocles and Rosalind, Jack Wilton and Peregrine, Oroontades and Parthenissa; nor let us forget to include in this farewell our Lamias, Mantichoras, dragons, and all the menagerie of Topsell and of Lyly. Mummified, buried and forgotten as most of these romances have long been, they managed somehow not to die childless, but left behind them the seed of better things. "No, those days are gone away," says Keats, thinking of the legends of early times, "And their hours are old and grey, And their minutes buried all Under the down trodden pall Of the leaves of many years.... Gone, the merry morris din; Gone, the song of Gamelyn; Gone, the tough-belted outlaw; All are gone away and past." With them many reputations are gone. White fingers circled with gold no longer turn over the pages of "Euphues" or "Arcadia." But the writings of the descendants of Greene and Nash and Sidney afford endless delight to-day. And that is why these old authors deserve not the lip-tribute of cold respect, but the heart's offering of warmest gratitude; for they have had the most numerous and the most brilliant posterity, perhaps the most loved, that literary initiators have ever had in any time or country. [Illustration: AQUARIUS.] FOOTNOTES: [312] London, 1619, fol., translated by Anthony Munday (first edition of first part, 1590, 4to). Another translation of the same romance was made by F. Kirkman, and published in 1652, 4to. [313] Advertised by Ch. Bates at the end of "the history of Guy earl of Warwick," London, 1680 (?), 4to (illustrated). [314] From a chap-book of the eighteenth century: "History of Guy earl of Warwick," 1750(?). [315] "De la Lecture des vieux romans," by Jean Chapelain, ed. Feillet, Paris, 1870, 8vo. [316] Edition of the "Grands Ecrivains de la France," vol. ii. pp. 529 and 535.