Other novels followed.  ‘The Maid of Sker,’ ‘Alice Lorraine,’ ’Cripps the Carrier,’ ‘Erema,’ ‘Mary Anerley,’ ‘Christowell,’ ‘Sir Thomas Upton,’ came in rapid succession.  The paternity of no novel of Mr. Blackmore’s is doubtful.  All have marked characteristics.  They are long and exceedingly minute in detail.  With all his finish, he tells his story almost with a child’s elaborateness of incident.  Every change of the seasons, the history of every walk is set down.  He is in love with every feature of the landscape, be it the wild doons of Exmoor or the wilder Yorkshire coast, or, across the seas, the plains of the Sierras.  He is a story-teller of the days in which it was quite unimportant whether tales should come to an end or not.  He would have saved Scheherazade all her trouble and enjoyed the task.  He cannot pass carelessly by the slightest incident; it is his nature to approfondir all his surroundings:  if the hero breaks his stirrup and stops at the blacksmith’s to have it mended, the blacksmith will appear at the end of the story united to the rider, from the third and fourth generation, by a subtle thread of connection.  But all these details, while they encumber the tale, contribute to a harmonious whole; for he has in a peculiar degree an instinct for the judicious introduction of telling human characters that are as much a part of the detail of the scene as the trees and stones.  Upon these characters he expends a wealth of humor, and his humor is characteristic of Blackmore alone.  It is full of unexpected turns and twists of fancy, quiet fun when we expect grave comment.  Friendly old people appear, full of innumerable quips of individuality, and breezy fields and wealthy orchards and a general mellow fruitfulness form the background of the play.

Especially in his prodigality is Blackmore characteristic of Blackmore.  Other writers keep their quaint reflections for their dialogue, and confer immortality on their principal characters.  But Blackmore has no sense of economy.  As Mr. Saintsbury says of Thackeray, he could not introduce a personage, however subordinate, without making him a living creature.  He does little with a character he has described in such powerful lines as Stephen Anerley.  The fisher village folks, wild and hardy, with their slow speech and sly sagacity, the men at sea and the women at home; the maimed and broken-down yet jolly old tars; the anxious little merchants, and the heavy coast-guardsmen, we learn to know as we know the rocks and caves, the fishing cobbles in their bright colors, the slow-tongued gossips pouring out their long-voweled speech.  All these characters, although they have a general resemblance to each other, have also a peculiar, quaint simplicity and wisdom that is Blackmoreish, as Thackeray’s characters are Thackeraian.  The author steps in and gives his puppets his little twist, the characteristic obliquity each possesses, his quips and cranks.  If he would but confine the abundant tide of his flowing