philosophy the mind of man advanced
from the abstractions of Plato into the
realisms of Aristotle, so in time these
public reciters preferred the familiar themes
of ordinary life, delivered in rhythmical
prose, to the epic sublimities which had
required the gorgeous apparel of verse. In
this manner the prose-romance came, by a
chain of natural causes, into existence, and
finally substituted the stricter form of
composition. When Athens ceased to be the
capital and mistress of the literary world
the forms of literature underwent considerable
change, and its subject-matter became
more miscellaneous in its character; both
were more popular and adapted themselves
to meaner capacities, alike in relation to
author and reader. Such is the natural
current of thought; like a great river it
has its source in elevated places, but in its
flow it seeks the valleys and lower regions
of created development. Thus for the lofty
apologues of classical writers were substituted
such parables as we find in the New
Testament, consisting of simple elements
and dealing with familiar transactions,
addressing the humble-minded and finding
a ready reception with erring but contrite
natures.

The new developments of mind thus
induced have been extraordinary in their
character and influence. They have
initiated a tendency by which the human
intellect has been unspeakably elevated and
the interests of science and literature
immeasurably advanced. It promoted and
finally accomplished a mighty mental
revolution, opening wider and more extensive
channels of thought, imparting keener
sensibility to the feelings of the heart, and
giving ample scope to all the nobler
energies of man.

The history of modern literature has
followed much the same course. The
Roman mind, as compared with the
Grecian, represented a tendency to the useful
rather than to the beautiful, and
contained the latter as far as possible within
the limits of the former. It was
decidedly sensuous, and in its descent from
the intellectual to the practical, preferred
a style and a language less difficult than
belonged to the more ancient models. Out
of this grew a new tongue and a new
literature. Latin was transformed into Italian,
and the poet into a romancer. The
popular dialect became that of literature,
and a new race of writers commenced a
new era.

Even in the earlier period, as we may
easily perceive by reference to Xenophon's
Cyropædia, what they named history we
should now call historical romance. When
at length history proper was confined within
stricter limits, when memory was substituted
for imagination, and facts, however scanty,
were regarded as of more value than fancies,
however profuse and ornamental, a newer
form of the old romance became needful to fill
a waste place in the mind which had been
accustomed to be entertained with epic
narrative in verse or inventive episode in historical
prose, but was now left to seek for amusement
of a like kind in less difficult forms of
composition. Passing, then, from the
incidents of the Peloponnesian war, the
adventures of Cyrus, and the retreat of the Ten
Thousand, the general mind required a
culture suitable to less heroical conditions,
which at length was fully satisfied under the
form of the modern novel.

This downward tendency of all the forms
of literature has been sometimes stigmatised
as a degradation, and many an author,
as was the case with Euripides,
undervalued in consequence. Assuredly there is
some mistake in these rash judgments.
The sun at first shines on the hill-tops, but
as he advances towards noonday his light
penetrates the slopes and the valleys and
illuminates the lowest levels of creation.
Modern fiction, by adapting its tales to the
meanest capacities, shows that it has
attained a loftier station of command and a
larger comprehension of possible results.
At the same time it is proved equal to the
most subtle varieties of human intellect in
the course of its development, whether
social or individual; and the metaphysical
novel is nearly as frequent as the
sensational, in the present age of innovation,
when small regard is paid to convention,
and a latitude allowed to thought beyond
that of any previous age.

The progress of the human mind, therefore,
renders necessary those modern forms
of fiction in which daring speculation and
familiar occurrences mingle together so as
to suit every phase of mental and moral
growth, and thereby reflect the ever
changing states of an advanced period of
society, possessing more knowledge and
enjoying more freedom than any preceding
time could boast of. Poetry even has to do
this, albeit addressing those higher-class
minds that live as much in the past as in
the present, and has to venture into regions
of description and thought where criticism
follows it unwillingly and frequently
reproachfully, amazed at its audacity and