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compelled to class myself, can see in it no merit of any kind.” 
If I might venture a modest opinion between these two great 
authorities, I would say that “Caleb Williams,” after the lapse of 
one hundred years, will still repay the reading ; which, if true, is 
surely no small praise of any novel. 
I have now brought to a close my very imperfect review of our 
novelists of the last century. If it fell within the scope of an 
address, one might be tempted to compare them with those of our 
own generation. It is enough for the present, to say that the 
differences are obvious, and they are emphasized by the fact that 
many books which were the daily delight of our great grandfathers 
and great grandmothers, have now become mere literary curiosities. 
One is tempted to ask, How has this been brought about? Are 
such changes in literary taste wrought by some author who sets 
the fashion, or are they the effect upon authors of a gradual change 
in the public taste? Is it the quality supplied which creates the 
demand for such a quality, or does the demand govern the quality 
supplied? It is the same problem in literature which Thomas 
Carlyle set himself to solve in history: Is the world governed and 
guided by its men of genius, or are they only the brilliant expo- 
nents and workers out of the world’s ideas? We know that he 
believed in the autocracy of genius rather than in the creative and 
progressive power of a democracy, and certainly he is a brilliant 
example of independent and original literary genius. But if I were 
to attempt to give a short answer to my own question, I should be 
disposed to say that both causes have always been at work acting 
and re-acting one upon the other. 
That great authors have certainly had an effect upon the style 
and mode of thought of their successors, no one can doubt. On 
the other hand, I believe that every writer is influenced mainly, 
not by another writer, but by the spirit of the time in which he 
lives, by that ever changing atmosphere, made up, in ever-varying 
proportions, of the material comfort, the religious faith, the educa- 
tion, the political aspirations, and the manners of a nation. If, 
like a chemist, we could analyse the spirit of the Eighteenth 
Century, we could find out perhaps why what pleased our ancestors 
