Sir Walter Scott did not write historical novels because he wished to teach history in an easy way or to get at a moral indirectly, but because his mind was full of the past, just as the mind of a musician is full of tunes; he made for himself a world out of the past, and lived in it much; and he painted that world for his readers, and turned it into a tale. Whatever connection the historical novel may have with the history that men write and build up out of their conscious studies, or with History, the past as it really happened, the thing that is the object of study and research, it certainly has something to do with that world, that mental picture which each of us makes of the past; it helps our imagination to build up its idea of the past. After all the history we have ever learned our first thought of Mediaeval England is quite likely to be a picture of England as the setting for Ivanhoe and Robin Hood, even if our second thought is that this is all wrong; and though we may not seek to gather our historical facts from the novel, there are more subtle things, unconscious prejudices and unformulated sentiments that we take in unawares, there are pictures that haunt us, there is an atmosphere that compels us, and if we find nothing else we find the sentiment of history, the feeling for the past, in the historical novel. On one side, therefore, the historical novel is a “form” of history. It is a way of treating the past. In this it is linked up with legend, and the traditions of localities, and popular ballads; like these it goes beyond the authenticated data of history-books, the definitely recoverable things of the past, in order to paint its picture and tell its story; and like these it often subordinates fidelity to the recovered facts of history, and strict accuracy of detail, to some other kind of effectiveness. And these legends and popular stories are related to the historical novel in a way similar to that in which a snatch of folk-song is related to the music of a cultured genius, or an anecdote or a piece of gossip is related to some work of structure as well as of fiction, like the novel. The one is a work of apparently popular, or at least anonymous origin, the other is a deliberately artistic and organised production. When we hear those legends we feel that it is Earth itself that throws them out; it is this old World of ours telling a tale that she seems to remember. These things ask to be believed; a local tradition claims to be true, or it has no currency; but the historical novel is conscious in its purpose and in its inventions. We do not say that we enjoy it “although” it is not quite true to facts; the element of fiction in it is avowed, and is part of the intention of the work; for the historical novel is a “form” of fiction as well as of history. It is a tale, a piece of invention; only, it claims to be true to the life of the past.