Maturin is stronger in his terror-scenes, and affected his own generation very powerfully: his influence being so great in France that Balzac attempted a variation and continuation, and that there are constant references to the book in the early French Romantics.

In fact for this kind of "sensation" Maturin is, putting _Vathek_ aside, quite the chief of the whole school.

But it is doubtful whether he had many other gifts as a novelist, and this particular one is one that cannot be exercised very frequently, and is very difficult to exercise at all without errors and extravagances.
The child-literature of this school and period was very large, and, had we space, would be worth dealing with at length--as in the instances of the famous _Sandford and Merton_ (1783-1789) by Thomas Day, Richard Edgeworth's friend, of Mrs.Trimmer's _Story of the Robins_, and others.
It led up to the definitely religious school of children's books, first evangelical, then tractarian, with which we shall deal later: but was itself as a rule utilitarian--or sentimental--moral rather than directly religious.

It is, however, like other things--indeed almost all things--in this chapter--a document of the fashion in which the novel was "filling all numbers" and being used for all purposes.

It was, of course, in this case, nearest to the world-old "fable"-- especially to the moral apologues of which the mediaeval sermon-writers and others had been so fond.