If Richardson has no style, a question of which we foreigners are unable to judge, he will not live, because one lives only by style. It is vain to rebel against this truth: the best-composed work, adorned with life-like portraits, filled with a thousand other perfections, is still-born if the style be wanting. Style, and there are a thousand kinds, is not learnt; it is the gift of Heaven, it is talent. But, if Richardson has only been forsaken because of certain homely turns of expression, insufferable to an elegant society, he may revive: the revolution which is being worked, in lowering the aristocracy and raising the middle classes, will render less apparent, or cause entirely to disappear, the traces of homespun habits and of an inferior language. From _Clarissa_ and _Tom Jones_ sprang the two principal branches of the family of modern English novels: the novels of family pictures and domestic dramas, and the novels of adventure and pictures of general society. After Richardson, the manners of the West End invaded the domain of fiction: the novels became filled with country-houses, lords and ladies, scenes at the waters, adventures at the races, the ball, the opera, Ranelagh, with a never-ending chit-chat and tittle-tattle. The scene was rapidly changed to Italy; the lovers crossed the Alps amid terrible dangers and sorrows of the soul calculated to move lions: "the lion shed tears!" A jargon of good company was adopted. Of the thousands of novels which have flooded England since the last fifty years, two have kept their places: _Caleb Williams_[281] and the _Monk._ I did not see Godwin during my stay in London; but I twice met Lewis[282]. He was a young member of the House of Commons, very pleasant, with the air and manners of a Frenchman. The works of Ann Radcliffe[283] are of a class apart Those of Mrs. Barbauld[284], Miss Edgeworth[285], Miss Burney[286], etc., have a chance of living. * "There should," says Montaigne, "be some correction appointed by the laws against foolish and unprofitable writers, as there is against vagabonds and loiterers; so should both my selfe and a hundred others of our people be banished.... Scribbling seemeth to be a symptome or passion of an irregular and licentious age[287]." * [Sidenote: Sir Walter Scott.]