Moreover, though there really is a plot, and a sufficient amount of incident, this reader undoubtedly, and to no small extent justly, demands that both incident and plot shall be more disengaged from their framework--that they should be brought into higher relief, should stand out more than is the case.

Yet further, the pure character-interest is small--is almost nonexistent: and the rococo-mosaic of manners and sentiment which was to prove the curse of the heroic romance generally prevents much interest being felt in that direction.[1] It would also be impossible to devise a style less suited to prose narrative, except of a very peculiar kind and on a small scale, than that either of _Euphues_ or of the _Arcadia_, which, though an uncritical tradition credits it with driving out Lyly's, is practically only a whelp of the same litter.

Embarrassed, heavy, rhetorical, it has its place in the general evolution of English prose, and a proper and valuable place too.

But it is bad even for pure romance purposes: and nearly hopeless for the panoramic and kaleidoscopic variety which should characterise the novel.

To the actual successors of the _Arcadia_ in English we shall come presently.
[1] As a work of general literature, the attraction of the _Arcadia_ is of course much enhanced by, if it does not chiefly depend upon, its abundant, varied, and sometimes charming verse-insets.