Defoe, it is proper also in this place to notice, fixed the peculiar form of the historical novel.

In his _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, the narrative of an imaginary person's adventures in a historical setting is interspersed with the entrance of actual historical personages, exactly the method of historical romancing which was brought to perfection by Sir Walter Scott.
(2) In the eighteenth century came the decline of the drama for which the novel had been waiting.

By 1660 the romantic drama of Elizabeth's time was dead; the comedy of the Restoration which followed, witty and brilliant though it was, reflected a society too licentious and artificial to secure it permanence; by the time of Addison play-writing had fallen to journey-work, and the theatre to openly expressed contempt.

When Richardson and Fielding published their novels there was nothing to compete with fiction in the popular taste.

It would seem as though the novel had been waiting for this favourable circumstance.