and Kenelm Chillingly (1873).  We have a suggestion of Dickens in at least two of Lytton’s novels, Paul Clifford and Eugene Aram, the heroes of which are criminals, pictured as the victims rather than as the oppressors of society.  Lytton essayed also, with considerable popular success, the romantic novel in The Pilgrims of the Rhine and Zanoni, and tried the ghost story in The Haunted and the Haunters.  His fame at the present day rests largely upon his historical novels, in imitation of Walter Scott, The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Riettza (1835), and Harold (1848), the last being his most ambitious attempt to make the novel the supplement of history.  In all his novels Lytton is inclined to sentimentalism and sensationalism, and his works, though generally interesting, seem hardly worthy of a high place in the history of fiction.

KINGSLEY.  Entirely different in spirit are the novels of the scholarly clergyman, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875).  His works naturally divide themselves into three classes.  In the first are his social studies and problem novels, such as Alton Locke (1850), having for its hero a London tailor and poet, and Yeast (1848), which deals with the problem of the agricultural laborer.  In the second class are his historical novels, Hereward the Wake, Hypatia, and Westward Ho!  Hypatia is a dramatic story of Christianity in contact with paganism, having its scene laid in Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century. Westward Ho! (1855), his best known work, is a stirring tale of English conquest by land and sea in the days of Elizabeth.  In the third class are his various miscellaneous works, not the least of which is Water-Babies, a fascinating story of a chimney sweep, which mothers read to their children at bedtime,—­to the great delight of the round-eyed little listeners under the counterpane.

MRS. GASKELL.  Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) began, like Kingsley, with the idea of making the novel the instrument of social reform.  As the wife of a clergyman in Manchester, she had come in close contact with the struggles and ideals of the industrial poor of a great city, and she reflected her sympathy as well as her observation in Mary Barton (1848) and in North and South (1855).  Between these two problem novels she published her masterpiece, Cranford, in 1853.  The original of this country village, which is given over to spinsters, is undoubtedly Knutsford, in Cheshire, where Mrs. Gaskell had spent her childhood.  The sympathy, the keen observation, and the gentle humor with which the small affairs of a country village are described make Cranford one of the most delightful stories in the English language.  We are indebted to Mrs. Gaskell also for the Life of Charlotte Bronte, which is one of our best biographies.