The smaller tales in the _Tatler_ and its followers undoubtedly did something to remove the reproach from prose fiction, and more to sharpen the appetite for it.

But they were nothing new: the short tale being of unknown antiquity.

The "Coverley Papers" _were_ new and did much more.

This new kind of treatment may not have suggested beforehand (it is not certain that it did not) the extensive novel of character and manners--the play lengthened, bodied more strongly, and turned into narrative form.

But the process was _there_; the instances of it were highly reputed and widely known.