In Bacon’s The New Atlantis (1627) we have the story of the discovery by mariners of an unknown country, inhabited by a superior race of men, more civilized than ourselves,—­an idea which had been used by More in his Utopia in 1516.  These two books are neither romances nor novels, in the strict sense, but studies of social institutions.  They use the connected story as a means of teaching moral lessons, and of bringing about needed reforms; and this valuable suggestion has been adopted by many of our modern writers in the so-called problem novels and novels of purpose.

Nearer to the true novel is Lodge’s romantic story of Rosalynde, which was used by Shakespeare in As You Like It.  This was modeled upon the Italian novella, or short story, which became very popular in England during the Elizabethan Age.  In the same age we have introduced into England the Spanish picaresque novel (from picaro, a knave or rascal), which at first was a kind of burlesque on the mediaeval romance, and which took for its hero some low scoundrel or outcast, instead of a knight, and followed him through a long career of scandals and villainies.  One of the earliest types of this picaresque novel in English is Nash’s The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton (1594), which is also a forerunner of the historical novel, since its action takes place during that gorgeous interview between Henry VIII and the king of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.  In all these short stories and picaresque novels the emphasis was laid not so much on life and character as on the adventures of the hero; and the interest consisted largely in wondering what would happen next, and how the plot would end.  The same method is employed in all trashy novels and it is especially the bane of many modern story-writers.  This excessive interest in adventures or incidents for their own sake, and not for their effect on character, is what distinguishes the modern adventure story from the true novel.

In the Puritan Age we approach still nearer to the modern novel, especially in the work of Bunyan; and as the Puritan always laid emphasis on character, stories appeared having a definite moral purpose.  Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) differs from the Faery Queen, and from all other mediaeval allegories, in this important respect,—­that the characters, far from being bloodless abstractions, are but thinly disguised men and women.  Indeed, many a modern man, reading the story of the Christian;—­has found in it the reflection of his own life and experience.  In The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1682) we have another and even more realistic study of a man as he was in Bunyan’s day.  These two striking figures, Christian and Mr. Badman, belong among the great characters of English fiction.  Bunyan’s good work,—­his keen insight, his delineation of character, and his emphasis upon the moral effects of individual action,—­was