Fielding, Scott, Miss Austen, and Thackeray are the Four Masters of the whole subject, giving the lady the same degree as the others by courtesy of letters.

But in the first (as for the matter of that in the last) of the four the success was rather a matter of individual and inimitable genius than of systematic discovery of method practicable by others.

Nobody, except Thackeray himself, has ever followed Fielding successfully, and that only in parts and touches; as Fielding had (unfortunately) no opportunity of following Thackeray, no one has ever followed Thackeray satisfactorily at all.

Such reasons as presented themselves have been given for the fact that nearly half of the whole period passed before the two systems--of the pure novel and the novel-romance--were discovered: and even then they were not at once put to work.

But the present writer would be the very first to confess that these explanations leave a great deal unexplained.
Yet whatever faults there might be in the supply there could be no doubt about the demand when it was once started.